hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr3592.txt

Episode: 3592
Title: HPR3592: A quick look at the Surface pro X
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr3592/hpr3592.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-25 01:53:43

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This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3592 for Tuesday 10 May 2022.
Today's show is entitled, A Quick Look at the Surface Pro X.
It is hosted by Nightwise and is about 23 minutes long.
It carries a clean flag.
The summary is, Nightwise gives a quick overview of three months on the Surface Pro X.
Hey there, Hacker Public Radio. This is Nightwise from the Nightwise.com podcast
checking in with a little review of the Surface Pro X.
Well, for those of you who don't know, the Microsoft Surface Pro is one of the, well,
one of you say, laptop slash tablets slash transformables or however you want to call them in the Microsoft line.
And it's been around for a while.
I mean, Microsoft started making Surface laptops or tablets a long time ago.
In the beginning, those were still preloaded with Windows RT on some kind of ARM processor.
But ever since the Surface Pro 2 came out, they switched to an Intel processor and went with regular windows on those machines.
I've been a Surface user for a couple of years now.
I think that at first I experimented with a Surface Pro 1 with an Intel.
There's also an Intel version that I got many years ago that I played around with and put Linux on.
And then I got a Surface Pro 2 and a 3 and a 4.
And then it went quite for a while because quite frankly, this Surface line wasn't really keeping up with things as they are today.
The latest Surface that I got was a Surface Go, which was their first kind of low end approach to a Surface convertible laptop.
So for those of you who don't know the Surface, it's the glass late, it runs Windows, you snap on a keyboard.
If you want to, it's a flap, there's a stylus involved, you can run Windows, but you can also draw with the stylus.
And the last Surface that I got is the Surface Go.
This was a 10-inch, fairly cheap Surface laptop or Surface tablet.
And it was so popular that I especially liked it because it kind of kept up with the times.
The latest Surface that was out at that time, I'm not wrong with the Surface Pro 6.
But it didn't support any USB-C connectors.
Now I was working as a consultant in a bank in Brussels and I had to use their systems every day.
But you could bring your own machine.
So a lot of my colleagues brought their Macs and plugged it into the USB-C dock over there and then just fired up the Citrix connection.
And I was thinking about something to take with me on the train so I got the Surface Go.
Which was pretty cheap at the time. It had a USB-C port and I wasn't like, it only has to run Citrix.
It has to be small so I can use it on the train.
It doesn't have to be very fast or very powerful.
And then I just arrived at the client, pop it in, turn it into something client and it's good.
I had that machine for a while and I had a lot of hate relation with it because it had a Pentium Gold processor.
No I-3, no I-5, Pentium Gold.
The foreign factor was fantastic.
Ten inches is the biggest 9-pad, 1920x1080 display, great battery life, super foreign factor, great for whatever you want to do with it.
But at some times it would be really, really, really slow.
And it would heat up when it was docked to the USB-C dock.
At the client it would get really slow, it would throttle down.
And I would, you know, have this fairly unreliable machine.
So I kind of got rid of it and I said, like, no, never again, I'm not going to go for a Surface.
At the end of last year I had to make some investments for my company and I went like, okay, maybe it's time for something with a tablet of the foreign factor again
that is also a desktop.
And I've always been in love with the Surface line of things.
But the current Surface Pro that was available in Belgium also didn't have a USB-C port.
It was the Surface Pro 7, the 8 wasn't out yet.
And it was still the old foreign factor, you know.
Might have had a USB-C port but I thought it kind of looked old.
Big bezels around it and not really a device I wanted to buy.
But it had a cousin.
And that cousin was the Surface Pro X, which featured an on-processor.
Now I had seen the first iteration of that Surface Pro X and it was like, you know, it looked good.
It looked modern where the Surface Pro 7 basically didn't really upgrade any of its ports, bezels, or look and feel as opposed to the many models.
At the head of time, the Surface Pro X actually really looked good.
It was a lot thinner, the bezels were a lot thinner.
It has a real sleek rounded setup.
It was a futuristic device.
And it went like, that's interesting, but it sported a non-processor.
Now I read up on it and on and windows didn't really go that well together.
You had some emulation, but the ARM Processor Windows 10 on the ARM Processor couldn't emulate 64-bit apps.
This was a good thing because a lot of people bought this machine, installed 64-bit app and got the error, you know, this app doesn't run on your device.
Basically, rendering it useless for those people who wanted to use it as some kind of desktop.
Great for a geek like me who's an early adopter and likes to, you know, jump in at the fray at the cutting edge and experiment with it.
So after some back and forth, a lot of editing, some YouTube videos, I went like, you know what?
This thing isn't really done yet, but as you might know from the contributions that I've done before to the HPR, I don't mind really done.
I kind of like the believing edge. So I went for the Surface Pro X and I bought a new one.
It's 128GB SSD, which is interchangeable.
16GB model, I've got the black one.
I went with the Surface Pro keyboard with the integrated new stylus that auto charges and I got it.
First impressions were, wow, this is the future.
Great keyboard as Surface keyboards come because if you put them on the little kickstands, you know,
where they're at a slight angle and you type away, you hear this very classic clocky, clocky, clocky, clocky, clocky, clock that you always hear when you're working with a Surface laptop.
I've gotten used to it.
If I really want to do some serious typing, I just, you know, put it in a non wedge shape and just put the keyboard flat, the keyboard lid flat on the table.
And then it doesn't sound so hollow, but the keys are nice, it types fine.
The display is absolutely gorgeous, the battery life is fantastic.
It comes with built-in 3G, I absolutely love that.
And it was a fairly fast device, you know, even though a lot of the non-native apps, non-arm apps are emulated.
I've already played around with emulation and using a different architecture on your computer than his mainstream with the MacBook Air M1 that I got and it was very pleased with that.
So it went like, this X1 is going to give me kind of the same experience.
So pretty soon, as I was getting into installing it and putting my apps on there, I ran into the, this app doesn't run on your system.
So I have the option, you know, either stick with 32-bit on Windows 10 with a native, mature, on-based Windows 10 install and native apps or 32-bit emulated apps or go to Windows 11.
Windows 11 isn't cooked yet for this architecture.
So I went with the development channel and I did the beta pre-release.
Upgraded the machine, took some tingering and it's now on Windows 11.
The first impressions that I got was this machine is kind of wonky.
Things were a little unstable. They didn't really crash but the operating system would sometimes not respond to clicks and stuff like that and it really felt immature.
Now it's a beta release, I know, but it went like, this is really immature.
So I took some faffing about and I thought, you know, maybe this is not the way to go because I've got this pretty new, fairly expensive device that is not really reliable.
So I nuked it and instead of going to the development channel, I went to the beta channel where you get a more stable non-bleeding edge version of the operating system presented to you and I did find out that that was a lot more stable.
I also kind of changed my approach to the machine where I started using edge, which ran native and one drive, which ran native and stuff, more like an enhanced version of a Chromebook, where I thought like, let's do browser-based applications first.
You can, you know, just run them in a browser or you can right click on engine, make an app out of them a web app, let's just like you can do a gnome and stuff like that or a Chrome.
And use web apps that way and then to supplements those web-based first applications, I would go with native applications that came from the store and run on ARM architecture.
And then go with emulated applications should I still need them.
The result is a fairly stable, well, highly stable and fairly fast machine. It is light, it is incredibly well built as our most Microsoft Surface devices.
And the software that I have on it right now by not trying to emulate everything and going for the bleeding leading edge has given me a very stable and usable environment.
The great thing about the Surface Pro X is of course the built-in LTE and the fantastic battery life, which beats having an Intel-based machine with the same specs.
So because I mostly use my Surface on the road, it became a mobile, effective and hyper-connected place to work from.
Having web apps as my primary architecture selection was actually very good because I did have that constant connectivity either through LTE or through wireless.
And combining that with the fact that this device offered me an incredibly long battery life and the ability to connect via a USB-C to whatever docking station I want,
also made it this great portable Chromebook-like thing client-like device that I could take to consult with ZGigs where I have to work on foreign systems or foreign networks.
Added value there is that the stylus is now integrated into the keyboard. It used to snap onto the side of the Surface, which was great until you put your Surface away in a bag and then the stylus would fall off and you would be looking around faffin about for the Stylus.
Now it's connected in this little gap, this little wedge, this little hole or indentation should I call it into the keyboard where you snap it in.
That way the stylus gets automatically uploaded. The new stylus also comes with a fairly better form factor, so it's easier to hold.
And I have been doing quite a bit of no taking on it because I love to use this device for studying because it ticks one box.
That is so incredibly important for me and that is child windows in portrait mode.
If you use your iPad in multiple application mode, you can run applications side by side.
If you then put your iPad in portrait mode, you can also run those applications side by side, but you cannot stack the applications on top of each other.
And this is where the device actually Windows 11 on this device shines.
I put the device in portrait mode, snap off the keyboard, put it in portrait mode, take out the stylus, and I can stack the windows on top of each other.
So I have a YouTube video running on the top of the screen, either 50% of the screen or 20%, 30% of the screen, and one note on the bottom half of the screen.
And this gives me a fantastic way to take notes to study because I look at the top half of the screen and I start writing at the bottom half of the screen.
And that way it becomes a great device for annotating stuff and doing stuff.
I love to write, so one note is a big friend of my workflow, I do a lot of things in one note, I do a lot of writing.
I watch a lot of YouTube videos and try to study watching them so the 50-50 or 80-20 vertical split of the screen is really nice.
The stylus is really nice to work with.
I recently got me a matte screen display screen protection, which has a paperly feel, so writing on it feels a lot more paperly as it does, so I'm really pleased with that.
And of course if I still want to work in landscape mode with the keyboard attached, that's possible or if I want to take notes with the keyboard attached.
And while I'm, for example, reading an e-book on the other half of the screen, I can do the 50-50 split in landscape mode.
So, rounding up.
This device is for me very, very generous when it comes to adhering to my fairly outrageous demands.
I wanted a device that had a long battery life, so I could use it as I use an iPad where I don't really have to worry about charging all day long.
And it ticked that box.
I wanted something that gave me the ability to act as a laptop.
So, together with Bluetooth mouse and the snap-on keyboard does just that.
It's not the greatest laptop in the world, it's not the greatest keyboard in the world, especially not if you're used to a thingpad keyboard or if you really prefer a new-style non-butterfly.
Apple keyboard, like it's on the MacBook Air and One, but it's good for a pinch.
The touchpad still feels kind of plasticky when you click on it, the sound is still horrible, you get this really all cluck.
When you type and click, but aside from that, the way that you can carry it around and the way that you can work with it is nice.
It's a great convertible that's what it was looking for.
When you snap away the keyboard, you can either just, you know, attach, use it as a tablet.
And when I say use it as a tablet, I do mean using it as a tablet, for example, take notes.
Because, you know, you can say what you want, Windows 10 with the Metro interface didn't have a great tablet experience.
Windows 11 isn't really a lot better, better if I have to be completely honest.
I still think that the Windows 11 interface is not tablet and touch friendly, especially not in the way that an iPad is, but it will do in a pinch.
But the upside is, of course, the ability to run desktop applications, but still take notes on the side, which for me makes it a great device to take with me to the client, take notes, still be an outlook and get all of the things that I want to do without having to drag around two devices.
Because it offers me the connectivity that I want.
Having the onboard LTE and the long battery life, the small form factor does make it a perfect road companion to take with me to places where I want to go and have a very futuristic device with me.
Because this thing with its black casing and its flaming red background is something that you don't see a lot.
The color scheme is almost entirely reserved for the Surface Pro X line.
So, clients noticed that.
Whoa, what is that? That's my boy as a machine from the future. That is cutting-edge technology.
So, yeah, I'm really pleased with how that machine turned out.
So, yeah, if you take it all in a pinch, my first impression of the Surface Pro X, not a tablet per say, not a real laptop per say, something that is eternally in limbo,
but does offer the ability to be not one, be not the other, but kind of give you what you want in between.
A great portable thin client should you want to, a fantastic thing, fantastic Chromebook alternative if you prefer to work wet-based.
And the ability to run the occasional desktop app, be it an emulation where I seldom feel the difference, not lots, but still have the ability to run the app should I need to.
As a secret owning a Surface Pro X would be to hone your expectations and the way you deploy a new software that you run on it, don't expect it to be a pure Intel bread device, don't expect it to be a pure tablet.
Expect from it that is somewhere something in between that gives you the convenience to carry only one device that you can use both with your hands on a keyboard, docked at a docking station, and with stylus to take notes and as a tablet alternative, and it will suit you well.
Even though ARM is still new and fresh, we do see that Lenovo launched their first ARM ThinkPan.
So I think that ARM architecture is going to be on the rise, the age of Intel when it comes down to the way it consumes CPU and battery life,
and the way that we are going towards a mobile application landscape where architecture is mostly ARM-based and not Intel-based, does mean that this might be a device that erodes things to come.
Cutting-edge stuff, sometimes a little experimental, nice to play around with, wouldn't even dream of running flinics on it, but still very interesting device.
This is Nightwise signing off. If you want to know more, head over to my blog, www.nightwise.com, that's K9GHDWISE.com, or you will find the podcast where I mostly talk about Linux and cross-platform applications, and you can find me on Twitter, twitter.com slash nightwise, and give me a ping there, and we'll meet up, respond to your tweets on my Surface Pro X.
So guys, if I'm hackable with the stuff that I have already committed to in the cloud, that can be my Spotify account, that can be my Office 365 account, that can be my Netflix, that can be my whatever.
Is it compatible with that? How it looks, what color it has, is fine.
But whether it's a Mac, a Windows, a Linux machine, an Android telephone, an iOS telephone, a tablet, a smart refrigerator or television set, if it's compatible with the platforms that the users are committed to, then it has a chance of survival.
So there's a year of the Linux desktop is coming on, because all of the platforms, all of the operating systems are out there, are compatible with the platforms.
And if you have one, some kind of free, open, Libre, sandal wearing version of distro, that is completely free, but doesn't work with anything, you don't stand a chance.
It's not about freedom, it's not about open code, it's about stuff that connects with the platforms that you use.
And if those platforms are closed, if those platforms are closed, if those companies are evil, users don't care, users want something that works.
So for me, in that 22.04 distro that I've installed just worked, really happy about it.
And you might want to take a look at it, check it out, and see if Linux would work for you too.
It's just nightwise of thenightwise.com podcast, signing off, talking to anybody out there that still has a microphone, and some time, and some geeky stuff to tell us, please record a show, upload it to the queue, and make hacker public radio.
I don't know, great again, probably not.
Make it, make it interesting, yeah, yeah, do that. See you guys, bye-bye.
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