We use the Surface Pro's to do our pricing. They connect to a bluetooth printer and spit out a small little price tag. We have created a database and web portal for the Surfaces to connect through using FileMaker. They work excellent, 10x better than the iPads we where using. The iPads had issues connecting to bluetooth printers while the Surface Pro's have not had those issues. We did however need to add an external wireless card because the internal one either had an issue with the wireless access points in our building or the webportal itself (I'm assuming it was the FileMaker webportal because the rest of the web was fine but I didn't do a whole ton of testing on this).
I have not noticed any over heating, but I do dislike the weight of the unit. It is a bit on the bulky side. I understand that it's running a lot more stuff than the iPads and is more powerful but it is still a bit heavy IMO. The only other issue I have with it is the camera they put on it is absolutly the worse thing I have ever used. They shouldn't of even put it on there as its only 1megapixel.
Overall I love it, I can overlook the camera and the weight for the benifits of the speed, full functioning OS and the speed of the unit itself. I highly recommend it (unless you would need to use the camera a lot. I'm just using my phone ATM for that.)
Quoting "Charlot, Firmin" <[log in to unmask]>:
> Thanks for your thoughts, really appreciate your taking the time to
> share. We have a couple of Surface Pros that get really hot while in
> use. Did you experience that at all?
>
> Firmin Charlot, ITIL, MCSE, A+
> Technology Manager
> Michigan State University - Student Affairs & Services
> 556 East Circle Drive, Room 171 - Student Services Building
> East Lansing, MI 48824
> [log in to unmask]<blocked::mailto:[log in to unmask]> (517) 432-7541
> Linked-in:
> www.linkedin.com/in/firmincharlot/<http://www.linkedin.com/in/firmincharlot/>
>
> Submit technical requests at
> https://help.ess.msu.edu/<blocked::http://help.ess.msu.edu/>
>
> From: Troy Murray [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 10:37 AM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [MSUNAG] FW: tablets
>
> Great review and I especially like how you mentioned how you or your
> department use it. I really would like to hear more from people on
> campus how they use their iOS / Android / Windows mobile devices,
> such as what apps work well for this or that. After talking to
> colleague at lunch and his desire to know what apps and use cases
> that do or don't work well with these devices and we thought a
> "unconference" or "bar camp" environment for something like this
> might be successful sometime.
>
> Thanks for sharing and Lee for forwarding.
>
> Troy Murray
> Information Technologist II
> Michigan State University, Department of Medicine
> 1355 Bogue St, Life Science B-136D
> East Lansing, MI 48824
> (e) [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> (p) 517-432-2760 (f) 517-355-7254
>
> On Jun 19, 2013, at 10:20 AM, l duynslager
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
>
> Forwarded as requested by Chris Doer.
>
> LD
>
> From: "Doerr, Chris" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Date: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 10:10 AM
> To: l duynslager <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>,
> "[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>"
> <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>>
> Subject: RE: tablets
>
> I am testing out the 64GB Surface Pro with the keyboard and the wedge
> mouse. It seems to run well with good responsiveness. I loaded
> Office 2013 and it works as expected. The tiled interface is a
> little weird to get used to, but it works well on a touch screen.
> Miscellaneous software was loaded via a USB cd drive and worked well.
> We loaded up an elevator control application for one of our
> maintenance crews and they were able to use it in the field with a
> USB to Serial convertor. I have streamed Pandora and outputted it to
> a large P.A. system and it sounded fine. I watched some Netflix and
> it works good. We are running a Juniper VPN and the Junos Pulse
> client does the job. With the wedge mouse, RDP works like a dream as
> long as you set the native resolution lower. Since the screen is a
> 10" widescreen, the desktop on the other end is really small when it
> emulates the 1680 x 1050 (or 1080) on the tablet screen. If you
> notch it down to 1440 x 900, it is great and the mouse gives it a
> huge advantage over doing RDP work on an iPad.
>
> The biggest con I have found so far is that the wireless doesn't
> auto-connect reliably when returning from sleep. It connects every
> time on a fresh boot, but when waking it up, I have to manually
> re-connect. I have read on the internets that this is fixed in the
> 8.1 release though. Battery life is better than a typical laptop,
> but not as good as the iPad.
>
> My sales pitch to a user would be:
>
> If this is a laptop replacement, it will do almost everything that
> you can currently do and probably a little better. It supports Java
> and Flash etc., can run most typical Windows software, has a USB
> port, and boots up quick. Storage space is limited compared to a
> full laptop though, and the screen is small compared to the laptop is
> probably replacing. Case options a bit limited due to the built in
> kickstand, but the skin I found looks and works good.
>
> If this is a comparison to the iPad for an undecided user, it would
> depend a bit more on the intended usage. If the user is really only
> looking for the 5 or 6 things most folks do on a portable device
> (email, calendar, contacts, web browsing, reading .pdf files and
> Office docs), then the iPad is a better choice due to its limited
> nature, ease of support, great battery life, etc. If the user has
> special software and hardware needs like so many of our groups do,
> then having a real Windows Desktop and a USB port are key to having a
> portable device that really works.
>
> Sorry I am not very good at keeping it short.
>
> Chris Doerr
> Support Services
> Infrastructure Planning and Facilities
> Michigan State University
> Phone: 517.432.0225 | Fax: 517.353.5001
> [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> |
> ipf.msu.edu<http://www.ipf.msu.edu/>
>
>
>
