I admit, I was one of the very excited people to see the convertible notebook emerge into the marketplace after netbooks turned into tablets. I’d owned a wonderful netbook and had no desire for a tablet. After impatiently waiting through the tablet era for a convertible notebook to arrive, I was thrilled. Even more so when I saw what I thought was the perfect combination of laptop and tablet. What could be more perfect than the Surface Pro?
Granted, it took until 2019 for me to actually hop on the bandwagon because I only buy a laptop when mine completely dies. But I finally killed my old Asus and purchased the Surface Pro 6, the creme de la creme of convertible notebooks as it’s marketed. Boy was I fooled.
Clearly, if I read the myriad of reviews online both by professional publications and alternative sources such as Reddit, I must be in the minority. But how can my experience really be so different?
The Surface is not intended for multiple surface use. The very first night I owned one, I found my first problem. The surface isn’t meant to be used anywhere other than a desk or table. I’m a multi-surface user: I lie on the floor to type, sit up in bed, lie down in bed, lie sideways on the floor and bed, sit in the lounge chair by the pool, lie on my stomach, all various positions and locations. This laptop works in none of them successfully. The balance of the kickstand is precarious, understandably, when it’s only on one leg or tilted sideways. The tablet is also quite top heavy, so when I would prefer to have the angle straight up and down, the weight of the Surface would cause the screen to collapse on my hands. Should I wish to move the Surface just a few inches to reach my coffee, it requires physically holding both the screen and keyboard (two-handed process) or completely closing it since the keyboard is not affixed to the screen and the balance is not stable. So if you’re quite happy and comfortable sitting or standing all day at a desk, then there should be no issues with the Surface stability.
The battery cord length is clearly intended for hotel desk or office work space use instead of personal home use. Technically, the entirety of the battery cord is quite long. However, the part that connects to the wall and battery box is quite short. It is so short, I cannot plug in the Surface while using it on a table. Most homes don’t have power outlets halfway up the walls. Since the length of the power cord to battery box is so short, plugging in the Surface on the table results in the Surface being either dragged off the table by the weight of the battery box or the cord unplugging itself. Either way, there’s a problem. The plus side is since I have to plug it in on the floor in the corner behind the couch, I step away from the computer more frequently. No, seriously, how is this not a problem for home users?
A lesser annoyance, but consistently bothering aspect, is the screen doesn’t wake up like a laptop or even an iPad with a cover. I’m no Apple fan, but if they can configure the Ipad to wake when the cover is removed, why is that not a possibility for the Surface Pro 6? I find myself opening the tablet and wondering why it’s dark nearly every time before I realize, this isn’t actually a laptop. It’s not set up to waken with the swipe of a finger on the touchpad nor a push of the spacebar. This is a tablet with a keyboard half attached. It’s a small thing to have to press the power button every time you move the Surface a foot in bed and it closes on you, but it’s that annoying little thing that eventually drives you further into the hatred of this device as a full time laptop.
The keyboard is extra sensitive with a key travel of 1.3mm (normal for ultra slim keyboards with no ports) and a seeming light depth to bottoming out, making typing accurately quite difficult. At first I thought it was a software issue. After investigating further, I realized by my hand just resting in its natural position on the keyboard while typing regularly gently touches the control key and the touchpad, causing the cursor position to randomly shift constantly. The touchpad setting is at the default medium. I’d actually prefer it to be more sensitive for clicking purposes, but then if the slightest hair of my hand touches it, the cursor jumps so it has to remain at medium and I have to tap harder for mouse clicks. For my control key issue, I had to adapt the way I type to an uncomfortable hovering style. Neither the control key nor the touchpad make typing on the Surface Pro 6 a pleasure for any length of time. And I also have to mention that after using the HP Spectre Folio with the leather, the keyboard texture on the Surface Pro can’t hold a candle. It just feels sticky, hot, and abrasive compared to the Folio’s leather.
The glare on the screen is abysmal. I’ve had one matte screen computer in the array of glossy screens so I’ve used my fair share of glossy. The normal outdoor sunshine, in front of a bright window, is understandably impossible. However, I find this computer reflects the glare from the window on the refrigerator. It reflects the glare from the bubble ceiling lights. It reflects the glare of the sunlight off the sealed wooden kitchen table. Seriously, this Surface Pro 6 reflects glare everywhere I go. I can’t work without glare except at night in the dark. Yes, I can buy a matte screen cover for it, but should I have to in order to use it indoors at the kitchen table in the middle of the day? The screen looks fantastic in all the television marketing ads, as it should. And the locations it’s showcased being used are soft light rooms or enclosed shops for instance, so a highly glaring screen is much less, if at all, noticeable.
The lack of ports just makes it unusable in a travel-by-hour scenario. Because I move from table to floor, to bed, to lounge chair every hour or so, dragging along a port hub is begging for trouble. I’ve lost more data and pictures than I can cry over from cords being disconnected and drives being dropped. Trying to learn my lesson means having a computer that has an SD card slot, a couple of USB 3 ports (my phone may no longer charges on them, but my external mouse still uses it as does all the portable external hard drives on the market the last ten years), and preferably an hdmi port. Realistically, the Surface Pro 6 is just for the people they market to: artists who want to draw with a pen on a glass surface in an interior office space at desks with no real need for lots of ports because they just upload everything to the cloud.
So at the beginning of the day, all I want to do is return the Surface Pro 6 and go back to using my outdated, slow, heavy, and extra large Asus laptop. At least it has ports. At least it can sit up wherever and however I choose to type. At least it keeps typing in the same place where I start writing. At least I can plug it in and keep using it on the kitchen table. And at least I can see the bloody screen! If you care more about a stylus on glass in a cute office environment where you computer can charge while you go home at night, and everything you work on is in the cloud so the Type C port charges your cell phone wonderfully, then enjoy your Surface Pro 6.
