Tag Archives: 2

Gadget Review: Surface Pro 2

Posted by Steve on October 30, 2013 2 comments

Ok so one of the benefits of finding a job again is that I have income again! Which means I can afford to get some of the things that have been needing a refresh. My laptop, for instance, is my main system that I do most of my photo processing and ….pretty much everything else on. It’s an Asus republic of gamers behemoth laptop that I bought back in 2009. (hey, in computer years, that’s ancient!) It’s served me very well and I still use it for all sorts of home use. The problem with it is that it’s giant. Yeah I know it’s a laptop, but it’s big. Way too big to actually take places and be mobile. I have been planning to replace it as a home system with a full desktop that I can update as needed for gaming and general home use, but that means I still needed a laptop.

Today’s tech trends seem to be leaning towards the tablet types, and I love my iPad for it’s portability and ease of use…but I can’t run Lightroom on it. Yes, I know I can process pictures on it, to an extent, but I can’t really do all of the things LightRoom allows me to do. So running native Windows apps was very important to me, but I liked the idea of a portable tablet.

Enter the Surface Pro 2

I wish Microsoft knew how to market this device. It really is an amazing piece of tech, but it’s just not getting the market share it deserves. For starters, it’s not an iPad replacement. I still use my iPad all the time for general browsing at the couch or in bed. The iPad is lighter and much simpler to navigate. (Not to say that Windows 8 is complex, it’s just different, and I bet it would be easy to adjust). No, the Surface is a laptop replacement. Plain and simple. You can use it with or without the keyboard, but with is much easier, which just makes it a small laptop anyways.

I have had it for a week now and here is what I have been doing with it. For starters, I have left my iPad at home, to force myself to use the Surface for everything on the road. It fits nicely in my camera bag. I bought the 256gb version with 8gb ram and the i5-4200 “Haswell” CPU. I have installed LightRoom, Photoshop, Steam, and a few other “new computer essentials”. Most of my latest P365 shots were processed on the Surface, as well as the latest RnR Comics assembled there. So, that being said, here are the Pros and Cons I have found in the week of use.

Pros:

Windows 8 in touch screen format = Easy to use
Nice bright screen with good color
Stylus makes everything better
Small and Light enough to carry in the bag
Powerful enough to run everything I have thrown at it (it’s only been a week)
Battery life = Amazeballs for a laptop

Cons:

A little heavy for extended handheld use
Windows App library limited
Screen is still small for serious LightRoom use, but good for Portable
One more USB port would be good
Slight screen edge drift with the stylus.

Overall I am really happy with it. It does exactly what I bought it for and I hope to get a lot more use out of it. I am thinking of doing a future project (after P365 is done) where I sit in a coffee shop and do on the spot portraits, processing and all. More on that later though.

if you have any questions or want to know something specific about the Surface pro 2 that I didn’t cover here, please ask away in comments or via facebook or twitter!

Iron Man 2

Posted by Steve on May 12, 2010 1 comment

So it’s about time I finally got around to writing up my thoughts on the new Iron Man movie. Seeing as how it was back on Saturday that I went to see it. Honestly there is not a lot to say since I am a big comic book nerd (cue Ogre screaming NERDS!!!) I am a little biased when it comes to comic book based movies. Even the abomination that is Spider-man 3 holds a special place in my heart…a cold dark place in my heart where hopefully no one will ever have to watch it ever again. The thing about the Iron Man movies is that, wait for it,…….. I am not that big of an Iron Man comic fan!. I know I know, but I never really got that into him. If I wanted an eccentric millionaire that net his money on super hero toys I would just read Batman. Of course Tony Stark had a one up on Bruce Wayne in that he actually got drunk and didn’t just fake it. But I digress.

Sarah and I met up with some friends to catch a 5pm show in Fairfax. It was originally going to be the 4:30 show but the directors hall (fancy theater where you get to pick your seats) was nearly sold out. This caused a minor panic and had me getting to the theater for the 5pm show at like 3:30 to be in the non-existent line. Go me. Needless to say there was a lot of sitting and waiting. During this time Sarah discovered Plants Vs Zombies on the iPad and came to the realization that this new gadget of mine can stay…. Of course she renamed it the iPvZ device. Anyways, movie time rolled around and we took our seats. I used the best possible time to escape for a pre-movie bio run during the new twilight trailer, oh noes, did I miss anything important?. Yeah I didn’t think so.

——–Spoilers!!! Skip Ahead if you don’t want to be spoiled————

For this movie it’s established that Mr. Stark is the Iron Man and now big brother wants to get his hands on the tech, but Tony isn’t selling. While the Govt. is claiming that others are creating suits to match Tony proves otherwise with his super transparent phone and everyone is happy. Well, except this Russian guy who is really into whips and has the stalker wall of Tony. Oh by the way turns out that the gizmo in Tony’s chest that’s keeping him alive is also killing him, so he goes a little bananas. Whip dude invents a suit and comes after Tony and bam the Govt. says “I told you so”.

So Tony works on getting hammered to finish himself off and Tony’s competitor enlists the help of whip dude to build some new suits, like we don’t see that backfiring in the future. Now Tony’s friend Rhody comes in to snag a suit and tell Tony off and Shield. Swoops in to clean up the mess that is left over, mostly Tony. They tell Tony that he doesn’t have to die, he just needs a good hardware based montage to find the answer. Bam just like that Tony invents a new element and he is healed!! (although the healing tastes like coconut).

Now Tony feels better, Rhody has a new and improved suit thanks to some new guns strapped to it, and whip dude has created an army of robot drones that are controlled from an orbiting space station that gets taken out by a kid and a droid….wait wrong movie. But the robot army is real. Tony receives a plot device, er, I mean phone call from whip dude boasting that he is going to blow up some of Tony’s stuff, Tony swoops in and saves the day and realizes that even he needs friends. Then everyone hugs and they fly off into the night.

———End Spoilers————–

Ok so maybe there was a little more to it than that, but you get the picture. Now, things I loved about the movie were:

Playful banter, somehow Robert Downy Jr just knows how to do the banter shtick. It worked great in IM1 and in Sherlock Holmes, and it works great here. The playful banter between him and Pepper Potts was great.

Simple plot, there was not a lot to the story here and that’s a good thing. A lot of time the superhero movies get mired down in story after story all piled on top of each other, and it just gets messy. One villain (unless you count Tony’s demise as a villain) and one main plot. Simple and great.

Great action, all of the action sequences where very comic book. Nothing overly Hollywood about them.

As for the things I didn’t like….there were very few. They could have explained a little more about the random cameos, the cap shield, Black Widow, etc. But it wasn’t that bad without it. Really I just liked the movie. If Marvel keeps with this recipe then they will do well with the rest of the Avenger cast movies!!

Wow, I thought when I started this that I wouldn’t have that much to say, I guess I was wrong. I am giving Iron Man 2 a good 8 arc reactors out of 10.

Quick Aside, this post written entirely on the iPad, and my hand kind of hurts now.

Training week…

Posted by Steve on January 25, 2010 No comments

So I am in training all week for . The training class is located in the Ballston Common Mall in Arlington VA, and is right across from the Gamestop. The Gamestop of course has a metric F^%$ton of posters for Mass Effect 2 that are taunting me. I have managed to avoid all the various advertisements and trailers (with the exception of print posters and the like). I would very much like the experience I have in game to be un-spoiled. With some of the big name games I have been trying to do that more and more. It seems that lately some of the games are approaching “Avatar” levels of advertising and showing so many in-game videos and screen shots that it boggles me why I should even play the game any more! I probably would have seen all the important parts. (I know I haven’t, but still) So with Mass Effect 2 and the upcoming Bioshock 2 (another sequel!) I have avoided it all. I pick up ME2 tomorrow and will dive in tomorrow evening.