My Surface Journey

I wanted to take a second to share this with my Thurrott friends…mostly because I thought you’d be the only ones to really appreciate it. I had a recent hardware change this week, and it made me think about my personal journey with Surface over the past 12 years.

I’ve owned a lot of Surface devices. Back in the day, I was enamored with the original Surface table concept (fun fact: years later, I found out my company actually bought one of these and I got to play with it a bit). When Microsoft unveiled the Surface tablet line back in 2012, I immediately knew that it would be my preferred device moving forward. I got a Surface RT to use as a companion device. A year later, I replaced my HP work laptop with a Surface Pro 2, which I used as my daily driver until 2016, when I upgraded to a Surface Pro 4. That device had some serious screen and battery issues (twice), but I used it for the next seven years; in fact, it’s still sitting under my desk as my Plex server until it just outright dies.

Last year, I picked up a lightly used Surface Pro X, which I knew was probably underpowered for my needs, but I was eager to give Windows on ARM a shot. And I saw it as an opportunity to get my various Surface accessories (dock, keyboard, pen, etc.) up to a modern standard. My goal was to use it for a bit, and then eventually to upgrade to a used Surface Pro 8 or 9. Overall, I found it to have some advantages…better battery life, fanless, broad compatibility with all the software I needed to run. But of course, there were some quirks, too. While it was fine for lightweight browser-based tasks, anytime I stepped outside of that workflow to open a non-optimized desktop app, I could absolutely feel it. A handful of features that required hardware compatibility just flat out wouldn’t work.

So, I kept my eyes peeled for a better option. Like I said, I’d always hoped to find a good deal on a gently used SP8 or better, since most of my accessories would now be awkward to use with anything older. I considered the Surface Laptop but worried I’d miss the 2-in-1 convertible form factor that I’d become accustomed to over the years. Well this week, I hit the jackpot…someone on FB had listed a Surface Laptop Studio with a Core i5, 16GB RAM, 512 GB storage…for $400. It seemed too good to be true, but I met with the guy and checked it out. Folks, it was gorgeous…in perfect condition and even included a Surface Pen 2. He said he bought it for school and only used it a handful of times before switching to a MacBook, Best Buy only offered him $30 for it as a trade-in, so he decided instead to sell it himself. I jumped on the deal.

I love this Surface. It checks all the boxes for me…it can be a laptop 90% of the time at my desk with a dock and an external monitor, but it also converts to a top-notch flat tablet when I want to create. It’s larger (and heavier) than any Surface I’ve previously owned, but I’ll enjoy the extra real estate for those creative projects. It has two Thunderbolt 4 ports (I wish it had more, but that’s what hubs are for), built in keyboard and trackpad that are just a joy to use. The pen clicks under the keyboard. And it has that weird stage posture for watching movies. I think I’m set for the next couple of years.