Microsoft Surface Pro Surface Pro 2

6owners with an opinion

100%of verdicts positive

3/0positive/negative since 2024

0.5 yrslongest happy owner

0happy after 3+ years

Praised for performance and software; criticized for reliability.

What owners wrote

Recommends itOwned 0.5 years

>> The Surface Pro 2 can run full Windows 8 apps and services too, but it is with the Surface Pro 3 that the Surface has finally matured. I've been running a Surface Pro 2 since February and I can say that this is a very mature product. It has replaced my quad core laptop with 24GB RAM because it handles exactly what I need. I'm running PHP Storm, Photoshop, 2 x 1080p displays + the surface display, Virtual Box with 2-3 Ubuntu VMs running, all while using Skype, Spotify, Backblaze, Google Drive, etc, etc.

Likes it

Something wrong with your computer. My 11 year old XPS13 with touch screen has worked fine in Linux ever since I got it. And same with my Surface Pro 2 running Ubuntu.

Likes it

Windows 8.1 and a Surface Pro 2, touch first with the start screen completely replacing the desktop outside storing files, was fantastic. It felt new and functional in the world of ungainly non Apple tablets, could do everything a regular laptop could, and boast solid touch support and features. It was a phenomenal device for me in college for notes given I had my own wireless keyboard for long typing sessions. Given the rush for digital text books, PDF or terrible, its form factor and flexibility made sense. But I completely understand why it didn't meet market expectations and the 8/8.1 UI fell off a cliff. If you weren't willing tyo overhaul how you interacted with a Windows device and use it as designed, or needed something that was better at any given feature the surface tablet presented, it was not the right option. I would love an option for the 8.1 style start screen on Windows 11, at least for a touch screen laptop. It really worked for me and how I used a computer at that point in time. I have an 8.1 install iso hanging around in case it comes up.

Likes it

You say no support for Win 11, but my Surface 2 Pro runs Windows 11 just fine. I don't think it even asked for the license key when I installed it. I probably used Rufus to make the image and turned off some of the more problematic aspects of Win 11, but it for sure installs with little or no problems. This is also a 4GiB model with 128GiB storage. It is very usable, despite having a processor equivalent to a pre-retina MacBook Air IIRC.

Neutral

Sadly, this is more of MSFT's "we can do what Apple does too!". For a "business" oriented portable why is it so limited on ports? No wired Ethernet? As many others have pointed out, why are the 3D graphics so hobbled? People use laptops for CAD, visualizations and these days GPUs perform offload of a lot of other functions. I saw someone "crap" on Dell and Lenovo but honestly I think most of the Lattitude laptops have really good build quality, decent availbility of parts and good longevity. Lenovo X1 Carbons are far from perfect but they're pretty solid machines and still offer wired Ethernet (albiet via a breakout dongle) and a decent amount of ports. Linux works pretty decently here too. I never understood what the value add of MSFT's Surface family was/is, supposedly a "first party" portable with Windows with the same quality and engineering as an Apple product but if you look at HOW they go about it they seem to keep missing the point. If you go to Wikipedia and punch in 'Surface' you'll see some crazy big table of devices they've churned out, all with varying degrees of issues. I have a Surface Pro 2 which runs Debian Linux quite well (like another poster pointed out) so that's cool but it's has a lot of oddities that wouldn't be acceptable had the machine not been free. Lenovo made an X1 Tablet family that's fanless and is honestly pretty compelling if you need a fanless, "tablet-like" PC that runs Windows. I use mine as a car diagnostics computer and the car sof…

Likes it

Maybe they used to be better. I love my Surface Pro 2. Paired up with Linux, it's a kick ass little machine.

Likes it

My SP2 is a laptop replacement. I use it all day long (in and out of the office), and when I get home in the evening I exclusively use my desktop, which is a beast. The other two SP2 owners I know use it in the same way, but neither use a desktop at home. It amuses me when, as a Surface user, I'm pigeon-holed by people who've never used one.