Gaming
Yes, you can run your Steam games on the Surface Pro. As long as the game does not require more than 4 GB RAM and a processor better than the i5, you are golden. But, how do the PC games work with the touch interface?
That really depends on the game. I’ve only had a chance to play two of my PC games on the Surface Pro. They are Torchlight II and Civilization V.
Without a doubt, unless an RPG was developed to be optimized with a touch interface, you are going to have a miserable time playing it in that way. It is possible to use your pen as the mouse, plus the left and right-click on the Type Cover’s touchpad, but it is a truly horrible experience, requiring more patience than I am capable. Thankfully, Â because of the USB 3.0 port, I am able to plug in my gaming mouse, and away I go.
However, games like Civilization V are excellent when using the touch interface.
With both games, I had no issues with a stuttering screen or lag. I also had other programs running in the background, including TweetDeck, which is a RAM hog. Also, I kept open Windows Explorer, Outlook, Skype, VLC, and Task Manager. However, I did close Google Chrome.
Adjusting the screen resolution for the games was a little bit of a pain. Because of the automatic size with which they open, my pen was not lining up with the settings buttons correctly. So, I had to move the pen around the screen until I found the proper touch/click area that corresponded with the button in question. For some, this may be the stuff of pulling out your hair.
Obviously, The Beast will remain my primary gaming rig. After all, that is technically what it is, even if it is also a great multimedia machine. But, again, it is nice to know that when I travel, I’ll still be able to play my Steam games.
Entertainment
Aside from being able to handle media players, streaming video – directly from a network’s website and Netflix – there is a good entertainment value to the Surface Pro. Yes, the Windows Store still needs a good infusion of apps. However, I’ve been able to find a number of fun “mindless” apps from which to choose.
While I haven’t had a lot of time to use Precious as a consuming device, I am enjoying playing games such as Taptiles, Simon 8, and painting with Fresh Paint. It is also a bonus that my E-Reader apps, primarily Kindle and Kobo, are available in the Windows Store. They use less memory than their desktop counterparts, and are optimized for touch.
Connecting to my Home Network and Microsoft Account
Being able to connect the Surface Pro to my home network is a huge bonus. It means that I do not have to disconnect and reconnect my external hard drives in order to access the copious amounts of data stored within them. It means that I can access and edit all of the content within The Beast‘s hard drives without having to transfer files.
Adding Precious to the home network was extremely painless. All it required was requesting to join the HomeGroup via the HomeGroup icon in the Control Panel, and entering the password found within my laptop’s HomeGroup settings.
Now, the interesting, yet bizarre, side-effect to this is that because both my laptop and the Surface Pro are attached to the same Microsoft account, when I added Precious to the home network, my laptop took on its desktop setting. Suddenly, The Beast had a new desktop background image. When I changed the image back on the laptop, the desktop background image also changed on the Surface Pro.
There is one serious flaw in Microsoft’s attempt to keep everything unified with one ID. Some things are very difficult to unify, when they shouldn’t be.
The biggest example of this is unifying your mail and calendar attached to your account formally known as Hotmail, and getting the Microsoft Office version of Outlook 2013 to sync with that account. It took a lot of hair pulling and swearing at Precious, and digging around the Internet to finally get all of that working.
