@@endidjeh 1. As of Win 10, it's a PC, not a tablet. It's simply not practical without the keyboard. 2. Market share. At that price，it's simply not competitive. I know they want to be elite or posh like Apple. But at the moment, MS simply not there yet.
It seems pretty good for my purposes. I work part time as a Social Worker and the rest of my week I do artwork/creative stuff as a side hustle. I want something that I can mock up labels, marketing material and even take to my life drawing classes so I can stop buying expensive pencils and art paper. But I also need to write reports, take notes in meetings, do Zoom calls etc. The only thing I'm struggling with it whether to go with the MS Laptop Studio or the Pro 8. I am leaning towards the Pro 8 because of the portability. I also think the tablet by itself just looks so sleek and I love the idea of pulling it out of my bag in a life drawing class and using it like a pad of paper. Thanks for the review mate, it helped a lot.
I started watching your channel because of that surface pro 3 review all of those years ago. At the time the Surface Pro 3 was my dream device and you were one of the only people who reviewed it from an artist's perspective.
13 year old me watching your reviews: oh boy I can't wait to get a drawing tablet I'm going to make the coolest comic of all time! 20 year old me now going halfway through your video, burst into tears: maybe I should wait a bit longer *opens ibis paint on cracked note5*
You and I are around the same age. Hard to believe that I've been watching his reviews since the Surface Pro 3. I remember drooling over that thing I could never afford lol. Still rocking my 2017 iPad Pro!
Honestly, note 10 is affordable and good for drawing. If you're already used to the form factor, that's a cheap way to upgrade. The Samsung Galaxy tab S7 is also on sale right now for around $500, and is in my opinion a far better deal than any surface
Lenovo X12 tablet comes with keyboard cover and stylus included. $1100 during every monthly sale so you get the full package for the same price as Surface Pro's tablet portion. For 13" size, Galaxy Book Pro 360 13 costs $1049 at MSRP and comes with the Wacom EMR pen which performs better than the new Surface pen. I genuinely don't understand why a laptop that is only _"Good enough"_ and has a _"4 Hour Battery"_ is so much more expensive than the other 2 premium options on the market. I would just go with the Samsung Laptop, a much better value than Microsoft can deliver.
**ARTISTS!! PLEASE READ** I bought the $2k 16GB i7 one with the slim pen 2 and let me warn you. The pen has an insanely bad jitter problem. It is wobbly af. Before you buy this, please research about the slim pen jitter issue. I didnt search before hand and I want other people to learn from my mistake.
mine works fine? as brad said the wobble has drastically improved. almost not noticible. it only shows up with extremely slow lines, but my hand wobbles if i move that slow. turn a little bit of line smoothing on works good.
@@user-mg3dr5eb6y I never owned anything before hand, was an old school pen and paper kinda guy. I've used and drawn on a surface pro 5 but I didnt enjoy it much so never purchased. I preferred drawing on the iPad when I had the chance but I despise apples Eco System and didnt want a one off device when everything else I own is running windows, Linux or android. I purchased the SP8 because it finally ticked all my boxes. I think drawing on it is great, much improved than my experience with the SP5. There is a small wobble but its hardly noticeable in real world application. I have to look for it, and im not the most steady hand anyway. some applications handle the Slim Pen2 better than others though. If you are just wanting to draw and already own a computer I would recommend a drawing tablet as I think something like a wacom is better, being a specific tool for the job. But if you need something that does everything and also handles drawing quite well I dont think you can go wrong with the SP8. the SP9 is a negligible spec bump so I dont recommend the new one, SP8 should still be on sale too! it is insanely expensive though and if I didnt need a laptop and a replacment for my android tablet, I would've just purchased a 200$ wacom drawing tablet. Its up to what you are actually needing.
Now that you have used Blender and done some 3D modeling have you tried using the surface pro 8 to do any of the modeling? If so what was your take on that experience?
Those wireless keyboards sometimes register multiple times even though you thought you had pressed just once. Its not a huuuuge issue, but can get annoying over time.
I cannot recommend the Logitech Bluetooth keyboards highly enough. I’m using the K780 right now because I wanted the full numpad, and while it’s a bit expensive, I just think it feels so solid and the typing experience is so good that it’s worth the extra cost. Caveat: I use mine with an iPad Pro and haven’t tried it with a windows device, so it’s possible the performance wouldn’t be as great with a Surface.
I'm enjoying my surface pro 8, however, there are some issues: Battery life sucks when using it as a portable drawing tablet, expect 4-5 hours of heavy use before needing to charge up. Also, the device will randomly shut off when I'm in the middle of working on a digital painting, which sucks! I tried a few workarounds like the intel panel refresh thing, disabling power saving features etc. Still having problems with occasional random shut-downs though! It's not a dealbreaker, but since PS only supports autosave up to every 5 mins, I can still lose an entire section of a drawing/rendering with zero notice.
LATE Reply* I used to have random shutdowns/restarts on my first surface pro 8 as well. It's likely a hardware issue as multiple hard resets did nothing for me personally. If you have a warranty on it and still have it, get an RMA and have Microsoft send you a replacement! That's what I did and now I have 0 issues. Of course, if you still have yours after 6 months lol. I mostly use it for school, the 120hz refresh rate running windows on a tablet and ease of note taking with OneNote using both pen for equations and keyboard for sentence-form notes really sold me on this device. Got the i5 16gb ram 256gb ssd model and aside from battery life sucking and it getting very warm quickly, no other complaints. Has served me well in uni.
@@phenom8944 do you find that the fan gets loud or distracting enough during lectures? I’m also primarily looking to use this as a student laptop as opposed to a drawing tablet
@@adanice49 No. The fans are actually really quiet and the lecturer speaking is more than enough to drown them out. You'd only hear them in say a voiceover room or maybe a library when it's very hot and the room is completely silent
I bought a surface pro 8 (i7,16gb,256gb) with a pen/keyboard combo for just over 1800$. Still expensive af, but as someone who takes complex written notes at work and school on a surface pro 5, and who uses photoshop as a hobby, I cant wait for it to get here tomorrow. One of the worst issues I have with my surface pro 5 (the fanless i5 model) is that when Im using whiteboard, onenote, basically any drawing/writing app, and I have something more intensive running along with it, such as photoshop, I find that the pen input gets significantly worse. It spazs out, and requires me to rewrite notes/equations pretty often. I cant wait to not have to deal with that. Edit: I should note, the student discount that I got applied to my purchase took about 300$ off my purchase. It made it much easier to swallow the price for the specs.
Brad, have you tested a device like the surface pro 7 and it's pen performance in windows 10 vs windows 11? I've heard some people say that Windows 11 has improved pen performance specifically with older surfaces
Wow, that's something I would like to see. Also does the new pen improve with older devices. Definitely worth a comparison check. If I remember correctly the last gen pen only improved slightly on older devices and wasn't worth the upgrade.
Hi... My channel has a digital drawing every two days there is a Video in the channel I hope you support me with a subscription to the channel.. thank you❤️
Personal experience, I have an old yoga 920 with 4k panel and just upgraded.to Win11. Pen tip accuracy, responsiveness and everything is about the same as in Win10, but palm rejection seems to have improved a decent amount.
Wow, this machine seems to have evolved into what is needed. I think the Wacom mobile will have to wait, and the iPad. I'm looking to work with this for animation and being able to travel. I think I'm decided for this computer.
Always awesome watching your content Brad, thanks again. I went away from the surface pro line after the 4th gen and got an iPad Pro with procreate… have never looked back… the n-trig pen wobble and monthly Adobe fee meant that the iPad was the winner and even though the pen wobble looks mostly fixed, Procreate isn’t on Windows and that means I’ll probably get the iPad Pro again
Thanks for the great review Brad! Is painting on Photoshop competent on this device? I've tried older models and the performance was horrible. I really want a portable tablet that can run full Photoshop without lag or compromise. It's the one thing I hate about painting on an Ipad Pro. As much as I like Procreate it's just not Photoshop. Thanks in advance if you reply.
@@ImperiusRex74 yeah I agree it’s definitely not a great feeling working with something that feels incomplete… what about photoshop do you miss that isn’t in procreate? Photo stacking? Masking/Compositing? Camera raw? I’m looking forward to just drawing on the go. All my pro photo video work can stay on my laptop and desktop
@brad have you tried using the mini floating on-screen keyboard (new for Win 11) as a way to access keyboard shortcuts? Works for tool selection in most apps I think, but based on my limited testing it can't do modifiers like Shift, etc. while drawing simultaneously. But I wish they'd make the keyboard Bluetooth so it could be separated and still used
This review is good, but doesn't it seem overpriced for something that is only "good enough"? If I got this tablet, I'd use the hell out of it with drawing, photography, Netflix. But for this price, 8GB isn't enough.
I still own surface pro line. And their target consumer is not an artist who use it for drawing that for sure. It is an ultrabook. Its main feature is its portability. That's why with those kind of specs the price is very expensive. Drawing on those things is really frustrating.
YES! Finally!...I have been waiting MS to improve the pen for years. They are the one who promote the use of pen on Windows yet it took them so long to make the experience great. Not to mention there aren't many good choices of note-taking apps and drawing apps on Windows 10/11
Hace años compré el Surface Pro 3 y la experiencia con lápiz era genial en su minuto, pero con los años la competencia fue subiendo el listón cada vez mas. Ahora por fin Las Surface se ponen a nivel con las Galaxy tab y las iPad pro, pero con la gracia de tener full Windows.
Both the Surface Pro and iPad Pro utilize the full version of Clip Studio. The only issue is that the iPad Pro requires you to pay a monthly subscription. While on Surface Pro you can pay just a one time fee for a license. I loved using Clip Studio on my iPad Pro since it was the closest to having a full version of Photoshop for iPad. But the monthly fee had me switching to Procreate.
Hi... My channel has a digital drawing every two days there is a Video in the channel I hope you support me with a subscription to the channel.. thank you❤️
I still have my surface pro 3 which was the original device I used to do my digital art on. Sadly, both android and apple have surpassed MS. I'm now drawing on Tab S7+ and iPad Pro and don't see myself going back. I too have a soft spot for the surface pro line.
How does the this Surface Pen compared to the Apple Pencil 2? I find the Apple Pencil 2 to be excellent - and as you stated, in the past when I've bought Surfaces, I've ended up returning them because the pen was pretty bad. Comparing the new pen, to the old awful pen, is great, but I'd really like to know if, rather than buying another iPad Pro, I pickup a Surface in addition to my iPad, but I'd only want to do that if the pen experience is on-part with the Apple Pencil 2.
I love the screen and the pen so much I took it to bed and drew portraits from my cell phone for 2 hours! Lovely. My dog loves it too. Takes up less space and leaves more room for him to lay beside me. Lol.
I honestly still find the Apple Pencil Gen 2 to feel so much better than my Huion pen, so might stick to Apple iPad Pros from now on. I remember for the longest time I always wanted a Surface Tablet, but now with my iPad Pro, completely changed my view and I'm a semi-Apple Fan... still hate Apple's dodgy stuff but they do make good products.
Agreed. I switched from a Yoga to iPad Pro after also testing an early Surface Pro, and at the time I found iOS on iPad very limiting compared to Windows. However at this point I’m a convert and prefer iPadOS as a touch interface. Windows 11 seems like it could be more competitive in this area, but there is still room for improvement: E.g. I was testing the SLS and realized there was no undo gesture and the undo button up in the menu bar was tiny, so I just gave up and started using the eraser on the Slim Pen…
Almost returned the SP8 because the diagonal jitter was worse than on the 7. Turns out it was just my my screen protector. Any recommendations for screen protectors that don't cause diagonal jitter? Do you guys use protectors? I am nervous about scratching the screen with the slim pen 2, plastic on glass. Although, I know that's what it was built for. Thanks.
That slow ARM Surface thing reminds me of the industrial pattern I have been found : "some companies hastily adopt some technology -> crappy implementation, fails, companies abandon that technology -> Apple do the same thing but only better -> the technology becomes popular -> those companies who had abandoned it re-adopts it." For example, fingerprint sensors on phones. Some Android companies like Motorola introduced it first, but the implementation was crappy. Those companies removed fingerprint sensors from their next phones. Later, Apple adopted it and made it work right. Fingerprint sensor became the norm and all Android phone companies adopted it. Since Apple created ARM PC's that work so well with M1, I think Microsoft and other companies will try again with ARM.
Great review, Brad! I'm sending my refurbished HP Zbook back to HP for the repairs for the 3rd time so I may be buying something else soon. It'd be nice to get something non-Wacom simply because I'm tired of the stranglehold they've had on the industry for so long. I have the iPad Pro but I don't like the feel of the pencil much and the o/s doesn't run all the programs I need. Might go to Best Buy soon and try this one out. Since I've got my back up computer right now I'm not in a huge rush so if I like the improvements MS made, maybe I'll wait for a sale.
Hi... My channel has a digital drawing every two days there is a Video in the channel I hope you support me with a subscription to the channel.. thank you❤️
@@ahs9674 So, the first time, I don't totally remember but I know one issue was the trackpad got jammed. There was something else but I don't recall. The 2nd time was the digitizer just stopped working--not reinstall Wacom drivers stopped working like usual--but the digitizer broke. The last time was b/c the computer would go to sleep and not wake up until I did a hard reset over and over again. They "fixed" that but it started happening again. At this point, I'm just not putting it to sleep anymore. I did do all the suggestions for fixing the issue (when I assumed it was an o/s issue) but they didn't work.
Are you familiar with how the Surface Pro 2’s pen (it’s the last surface pro with Wacom technology for the pen I believe) compares to the Surface Pro 8’s surface pen 2? I have a Surface Pro 2 with 8gb of ram and there is almost no line wobble at all when drawing a slow, straight line. No performance or major lag issues either. The only downside with the pen is there is quite a bit of parallax which means constant recalibration is needed for accurate mark placement. (I’m also at the point where I might like to have a bigger screen, which is why I’m considering the Pro 8.)
I'm familiar with the surface pro 2 pen - it's the same wacom EMR tech that the samsung S-pen is based on. I have a super old lenovo laptop that used it from back in 2014. From my testing in the best buy store, the surface pro 8's pen still has wobble, whereas the wacom EMR pens have none. Use a ruler, try it out. It's essentially none. The surface still has some, and if you look for it you *will* see it. I'm currently debating on whether to upgrade to the surface laptop studio, but only because the lenovo is so old, and my ipad pro is not a full laptop. I need a new mobile solution. Sadly, a lot of the tablet/laptop manufacturers moved away from the EMR tech and to the crappier AES pens. I'm assuming due to cost. We have fewer options today, but the few we have are pretty darn good.
@@ckmoore Thanks for the reply! Make sense, I also have the Samsung Note 10.1 2014 edition, and the styluses for it and the Surface Pro 2 are compatible with each other. Are there EMR laptop solutions you're looking into in addition to the Surface Laptop Studio?
@@jeremyfrias Here's a few things I'm looking at currently... plus my thoughts lol. First, I'm looking for a tablet that can serve as a mobile all-in-one device to run my art business. So drawing/painting is top priority, but I also need to manage my website, update my blog, edit videos if needed, etc. I have a great setup at home, but I find myself on the go quite often. It stresses me out to no end when I have time to work, but I'm not in the right location. I have an ipad pro which can draw with, but I hate using it for anything else business related. I prefer a full desktop experience. It seems most manufacturers these days are using AES or n-trig, and so have jagged lines. No more hidden gems like my old lenovo or my old fujitsu. Current possibilities: 1) Keep the ipad, get a light non-pen/non-touch laptop for other work related tasks (in many ways, this is the cheapest option!). One reason I dislike this option... I like having 1 device, not 2. More importantly, I want to draw on desktop applications (i.e., clip studio without a subscription, or rebelle 5, or corel painter). Lastly, I don't like the workflow of working on an ipad and then transfering files to my windows computer. I want full file-management! 2) Latest Samsung tablet (using dex). The pen is EMR, the drawing apps (primarily clip studio) are very good, and Dex can approximate a desktop experience. I've heard the pen technology is even better on the latest samsung devices - not sure if it's just the tablet or also the 360, but it should be top notch. I wish it had better pen-calibration though. Lumafusion is coming to android as well. 3) Samsung 360. Full windows, better battery life than many other options on this list. Looks powerful enough to run art related programs, though overall not that powerful. Pen is great (wacom EMR). I wish I could test this in-store with an actual art program. Glossy screen, which is not the best drawing surface. I don't know if you can customize the pen here like you can with a regular wacom device (i.e., pressure, buttons/etc.). 4) Wacom Mobile Studio. Full windows. Very expensive for the amount of power you are purchasing. Can charge with an external battery pack. Otherwise, it has a short battery life. Older internals (last refreshed several years ago). Best pen in the business (in my opinion), both in accuracy, activation pressure, and overall pressure response. The pen also has up to 3 buttons. Powerful enough for what is needed, but expensive. Have to use an external keyboard; this is a slate. I usually find bad palm rejection on wacom devices, though it does vary program to program and seems to have gotten better over the years. Touch can easily be toggled on and off using the side buttons on the device. I find I don't use touch that much on my old cintiq companion. The screen is etched and this makes a perfect drawing surface. I like the pen customization (customize pressure, buttons) and pop-up menus you can create. 5) Surface Laptop Studio. n-trig pen, though they've done some upgrades and it may be usable (finally). It is without a doubt the best n-trig on the market, but even old EMR pens are more accurate. In my in-store testing (limited testing), it seems to have great palm rejection. The laptop can be very expensive. It can use a battery pack, so you can have a decent on-the-go battery life. Full windows, attached keyboard, but usable in a tablet configuration. All pluses. Battery life on this is better than the surface pro 8. The display can get pretty bright. Screen is not etched, so it's not as nice as options 4, 6, 7. The pen can activate under it's own weight, which is absolutely great. The pressure sensitivity seemed good under my limited testing. It looks like a 3rd party app is required to really get the most out of this as a drawing device, but the app is pretty inexpensive (this adds a customizable button menu, and ability to customize pen buttons/etc.). The default pen has 1 button, which sucks. I'm afraid any other pen will be too inaccurate to use at this point. There is visible wobble if you pay close attention, and this may vary program to program. I wish I could test a real art program on this before buying, but it's like they don't realize artists want to test the demo units out. 6) HP zbook x2 g4. Older; have to buy on ebay. Etched screen and great color accuracy for the higher end models. The pen it ships with has only one button, but it is wacom EMR and is super accurate. The activation pressure I believe will be slightly worse than the wacom mobile studio pro, but still very good and better than most pens. The laptop is a bit heavy. The keyboard is nice and can detach much like the surface pro. Battery life will be horrible, but it looks like it might be able to use a battery pack for on-the-go. Maybe 2 hours at full charge? Seems more of a workstation than an on-the-go laptop. I'm most concerned about the battery life. If I got this, I'd buy the conceptd 9 stylus to use with it. 7) Acer Conceptd 7 ezel. Full windows, extremely powerful, beautiful display and drawing screen, wacom EMR. Horrible battery life (maybe 2-3 hours?). This cannot use an external battery pack, so you must be tethered to an outlet. The default stylus is thin, but you should be able to buy a conceptd 9 stylus which has 2 buttons and is bigger. The concetpd 9 stylus has to be ordered through a special supplier. This laptop is very pricey. The design is much like the surface laptop studio, but designed better (better hinge), far more powerful, and with a better pen. I heard this laptop also has the most recent enhancements for the pen technology, similar to the samsung above. If it wasn't for the battery life, I'd order this knowing I had a computer that would last a very very long time. This is definitely in the realm of workstation replacement and not on-the-go laptop. Note that the "conceptd 3 ezel" uses AES, so it is useless for drawing. The conceptd 9 ezel is too large and hard to find now. So the conceptd 7 ezel is the sweetspot, but still heavy and must be plugged in. Overall, I hate that the best wacom EMR devices are super expensive, not as mobile (unless you get samsung), or are older devices. Wacom EMR has the best line quality. The second best line quality is the apple pencil, but even with that you can get wobble - more if you have a thick screen protector on it. The latest surface with a slim pen 2 is much better than previous iterations, but still had some wobble (more than the apple pencil). Anything else that uses n-trig or AES tech should not be considered at this point if you want a drawing device. It's wacom EMR, apple, or the latest surface and slim pen 2 for any serious work. Right now, I'm leaning to either the surface laptop studio (as a true all-in-one and taking a risk with the pen) or the mobile studio pro (for the best pen tech).
@@ckmoore Amazing, thank you for takin the time to share your findings and thought processes! This will be valuable for me when I'm looking to upgrade my digital drawing/hand drawn animation equipment. For now, my old Surface and Samsung tablet are good enough for playing with programs while I spend most of my learning/practice time on paper.
Nice design, but at those prices (once you factor in the absurd price of the pen and keyboard) you could get a ipad Air/Galaxy Tab s7 and a Macbook Air/LG Gram and have the best of both worlds.
It's the best 2 in 1 ATM. All those you mention are Not. Extemely expensive, I do agree tho. So lets wait for early 2022 to find out New and Better 2-in-1 devices (90 hZ refresh rate, Amoled Display...etc)
Personally, the iPad/MacBook combo with something like Astropad to use the iPad in desktop apps is tempting, but I think realistically that is going to wind up slightly more expensive than a Surface product in the end. Currently I’m leaning this direction because I have a lot of iPad music apps I don’t want to give up, but I still see conflicting information about just how good the drawing experience is when using the iPad to control a MacBook via Astropad (some people even argue that Sidecar is totally usable, but I know Brad doesn’t care for it). I think if gaming is a factor at all, the Surface starts looking a lot better.
@@peter_parkour when you say “real work”? Do you mean like Final Cut Pro? Or adobe Lightroom, premier pro and photoshop? Because the MacBook runs all of those better than even the surface studio. There’s a reason most people on UA-cam use apple devices to edit their content
@@mindwhacker I don’t think that’s the case - check the MS store for the Pen 2, under tech specs included in the box and charging it indicates the charging cradle is not included.
Sponsored I don't know much about computers. Looking at this for my son (for Adobe CC for graphic design, mainly designing t-shirts): Microsoft - Surface Pro 8 - 13” Touch Screen - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 128GB SSD - Device Only - Platinum Other option is 256GB but not sure if necessary??? More $ and will also need to get pen. Suggestions?
hopefully there is a review to try the architectural drawing with thin precise lines on the new surface product, I feel my drawing monitor is too big and bulky
Hey Brad, I am a Graphic Designer what would you recommend for me? I use Photoshop and Illustrator for editing and creatives. Should I purchase the Laptop Studio or Pro 8 or something else? I do want a display to draw on from time to time so haven't been considering Macbook Pro
You are amazing, i’d love to hace drawing course from you because i think you could be an amazing teacher and make the learning process so much fun:) i found your procreate courses but couldn’t see a drawng basic course, maybe i missed but i did not PLEASE DOOOO
Microsoft has officially outdone itself with the unbelievable price on this sucker. One of the biggest claims they've made over the years for the surface line is the price-to-performance value. It's absolutely unreal to me that they bumped the base line surface up $350 for this tablet. In order to make this thing a full computer and drawing device, you'll end up spending $1,400+! That money got me an M1 MacBook Pro with twice the performance, PLUS a Huion tablet to go with it and draw just as well. No matter how much I love this thing, I doubt I'll see anyone walking around with this thing over the next year since only the wealthier people could afford this surface with such low specs.
Still rocking a top spec surface pro 4 here will upgrade to this once the LTE version gets released. Thunderbolt 4 egpu has me interested. Only wish it had a OLED 120hz 10bit panel but you can't have everything in one update.
This sounds fantastic. Now I'm wondering if the 8 GB RAM Surface is enough for Photoshop stuff or if 16 is the better option... Because with 8 GB I can take the cheapest config (and upgrade SSD later) but with 16 GB I need to take the 265GB SSD immediately...
ikr if you want the 16gb ram it rises the price from ~1.100€ up to nearly 1.500€.. i hope on the upcoming black week/friday to get a decent discount bcs u still have to add ~300€ for all the accessories
Since you have Surface Pro 8 i5 version: Can you please make me a favor to double check by right click on "This PC" and properties. What do they write on the CPU row? 2.4Ghz and 2.42 GHz? Or did you get any other information instead of this one? I just need to know cause I suspect I might got scammed on the CPU part :( Thank you so much in advance!
Do you think the Surface pro 8 could be used to read articles or browse the internet similar to the iPad. I really like the iPad for consuming content, but when I have to produce I have to go to a laptop, as the iPad OS limits me a lot. So I'm wondering if with the Surface Pro 8 I could retire the iPad.
Of course, It is a full blown desktop device and you can do anything you want. Also touch has been greatly improved for windows 11 so you will have no issues in using it as a tablet.
Great Video. The necessity of still having a keybord kept me from using the surface. I can highly recommend Tablet Pro for this. Neat addon for tablet mode only 🤘and fixed almost all my problems :)
Despite that surface keyboard isn't Bluetooth active even when is not attached to screen as hpzbook X2 was. Cause it would be perfect to have and use keyboard close to the screen for shortcuts and not in front of the screen.
Much of the improvement with this pen comes from it interfacing with a chip included in the new Surface devices, so the new pen might not give the same benefits on a device from the previous generation.
thank you for this great content. I couldn't find a demonstration video about the surface pro 8 photoshop experience. Will it run photoshop 2022 and adobe Illustrator smoothly without worrying about Pro 8?
I would love to hear how this compares the the galaxy line of pens with the soft nibs. I have absolutely hated drawing on surface studio as its initial pressure gives me fatigue after an 8 hr drawing session everyday. The buttons are hard to press, gives me Carole tunnel so I never use them unlike with Wacom, of course the wavyness, the lack of a pen button rocker. Lack of pen buttom programmability. My latest galaxy notebook pro is wonderful to draw on but the screen resolution, is me and the blacks are not amoled and its just underpowered for ps. Please compare these?
Finally a decent Surface Pro for drawing! 😍 However, even in its minimum configuration (incl. Pen and Keyboard) it's almost 1500€. 😰 That's insanely expensive. And then you only have 128GB disk and 8GB RAM. Also why don't they offer a properly shaped pen as well? Sure, the flat one is nice for portability, but I'd still prefer something more similar to what Samsung or Apple offer.
Will the regular surface pen perform well on this? Or does it have those jitter issues. I bought the pen (regular surface pen not slim pen 2 ) off the Microsoft website after watching this. I fear I’ve bought the wrong pen.
How is the initial activation force? I found earlier surfaces to be awful in this respect - the iPad has always been awesome in that respect - how does it compare?
I'll respond here on the above as a picked up an i5 16GB model sort of unboxed. I'm also planning to use it for indie modeling in blender and texturing in 3DCoat, maybe some sculpting.... should arrive this week...
So I got the i5 and man the pen is lightyears away from the Surface Pro 2 pen I tried many moons back and feels really good, even on the glass. Initial activation force is fine where it was Jank on that v old version. I've not done much with it in blender or 3dcoat but both run, though coat seems to barf first time off - that's just the install I think. Have done a quick handpainted cube in blender using TabletPro soft keys and it was a good experience, fan came on and off but is very quiet, even in quiet surroundings. 3d coat also seemed fine but I need to try more because at one point I had some lag but drivers were out of date...
Hi i got the pro x was not a fan of it. Sent back. Would u get the i7 256 pro7 or pro8 if you had a choice. Going to use it to run and design stuff for a cnc router and maybe cloud base gaming when i travel. I at this time use inkscape for vector work and going to get into other art stuff
I feel like the speaker quality on the Pro 8 is a lot better compared to Pro 7, but no tech UA-camr mentioned that. I only checked the in-store display units.
Finally a Surface review by someone who actually need it's functions.
Microsoft should have a HUGE discount for the keyboard and pen when you buy the surface!
Why should they?
@@endidjeh 1. As of Win 10, it's a PC, not a tablet. It's simply not practical without the keyboard. 2. Market share. At that price，it's simply not competitive.
I know they want to be elite or posh like Apple. But at the moment, MS simply not there yet.
...as opposed to charging full price, for all those nerds going out and buying these _without a surface tablet to go with them_ ?
@@gormauslander replacements for lost or damaged parts
They do a lot of the time, I got mine today and the signature keyboard was free
It seems pretty good for my purposes. I work part time as a Social Worker and the rest of my week I do artwork/creative stuff as a side hustle. I want something that I can mock up labels, marketing material and even take to my life drawing classes so I can stop buying expensive pencils and art paper. But I also need to write reports, take notes in meetings, do Zoom calls etc.
The only thing I'm struggling with it whether to go with the MS Laptop Studio or the Pro 8. I am leaning towards the Pro 8 because of the portability. I also think the tablet by itself just looks so sleek and I love the idea of pulling it out of my bag in a life drawing class and using it like a pad of paper.
Thanks for the review mate, it helped a lot.
Did you get the surface pro 8? If so, how do you like it? Does it work fine for your tasks?
I started watching your channel because of that surface pro 3 review all of those years ago. At the time the Surface Pro 3 was my dream device and you were one of the only people who reviewed it from an artist's perspective.
13 year old me watching your reviews: oh boy I can't wait to get a drawing tablet I'm going to make the coolest comic of all time!
20 year old me now going halfway through your video, burst into tears: maybe I should wait a bit longer *opens ibis paint on cracked note5*
You and I are around the same age. Hard to believe that I've been watching his reviews since the Surface Pro 3. I remember drooling over that thing I could never afford lol.
Still rocking my 2017 iPad Pro!
Honestly, note 10 is affordable and good for drawing. If you're already used to the form factor, that's a cheap way to upgrade. The Samsung Galaxy tab S7 is also on sale right now for around $500, and is in my opinion a far better deal than any surface
I'm amazed my note 5 still works. It's my backup phone rn.
If it’s “good enough” the laptop should be cheaper. It’s the problem I have for the surface line. 8gb isn’t goodenough for $1100.
Omg the i7 is $2k? Hahahahahah
However, it would be "good enough" if the keyboard and pen were included at that price.
@@kahuna1247 I could agree to that. I always forget they aren’t included.
@@thesuperzfamilyvlog6607 They give you option to buy keyboard and pen in one bundle at least
Lenovo X12 tablet comes with keyboard cover and stylus included. $1100 during every monthly sale so you get the full package for the same price as Surface Pro's tablet portion. For 13" size, Galaxy Book Pro 360 13 costs $1049 at MSRP and comes with the Wacom EMR pen which performs better than the new Surface pen.
I genuinely don't understand why a laptop that is only _"Good enough"_ and has a _"4 Hour Battery"_ is so much more expensive than the other 2 premium options on the market. I would just go with the Samsung Laptop, a much better value than Microsoft can deliver.
**ARTISTS!! PLEASE READ** I bought the $2k 16GB i7 one with the slim pen 2 and let me warn you. The pen has an insanely bad jitter problem. It is wobbly af. Before you buy this, please research about the slim pen jitter issue. I didnt search before hand and I want other people to learn from my mistake.
Man, thank you for this
mine works fine?
as brad said the wobble has drastically improved. almost not noticible. it only shows up with extremely slow lines, but my hand wobbles if i move that slow. turn a little bit of line smoothing on works good.
@@DeusNosSalvet so do you think other should buy it or not.. and what did you have before hand?
@@user-mg3dr5eb6y I never owned anything before hand, was an old school pen and paper kinda guy. I've used and drawn on a surface pro 5 but I didnt enjoy it much so never purchased. I preferred drawing on the iPad when I had the chance but I despise apples Eco System and didnt want a one off device when everything else I own is running windows, Linux or android. I purchased the SP8 because it finally ticked all my boxes. I think drawing on it is great, much improved than my experience with the SP5. There is a small wobble but its hardly noticeable in real world application. I have to look for it, and im not the most steady hand anyway. some applications handle the Slim Pen2 better than others though. If you are just wanting to draw and already own a computer I would recommend a drawing tablet as I think something like a wacom is better, being a specific tool for the job. But if you need something that does everything and also handles drawing quite well I dont think you can go wrong with the SP8. the SP9 is a negligible spec bump so I dont recommend the new one, SP8 should still be on sale too!
it is insanely expensive though and if I didnt need a laptop and a replacment for my android tablet, I would've just purchased a 200$ wacom drawing tablet. Its up to what you are actually needing.
Bruh what it works fine
Now that you have used Blender and done some 3D modeling have you tried using the surface pro 8 to do any of the modeling? If so what was your take on that experience?
You can just get a cheap wireless keyboard tho, more comfortable when drawing too
Those wireless keyboards sometimes register multiple times even though you thought you had pressed just once.
Its not a huuuuge issue, but can get annoying over time.
@Pao Rodriguez mx keys mini is perfect now
I cannot recommend the Logitech Bluetooth keyboards highly enough. I’m using the K780 right now because I wanted the full numpad, and while it’s a bit expensive, I just think it feels so solid and the typing experience is so good that it’s worth the extra cost.
Caveat: I use mine with an iPad Pro and haven’t tried it with a windows device, so it’s possible the performance wouldn’t be as great with a Surface.
@@AnalogKensho I have the Logitech K810, love it. I switch it between Windows, IOS and Android. Its worth extra money for the ease of use.
@Pao Rodriguez do you think I should get that one? I saw it on Amazon and I want a keyboard for my iPad. Should I get it?
I'm enjoying my surface pro 8, however, there are some issues: Battery life sucks when using it as a portable drawing tablet, expect 4-5 hours of heavy use before needing to charge up. Also, the device will randomly shut off when I'm in the middle of working on a digital painting, which sucks! I tried a few workarounds like the intel panel refresh thing, disabling power saving features etc. Still having problems with occasional random shut-downs though! It's not a dealbreaker, but since PS only supports autosave up to every 5 mins, I can still lose an entire section of a drawing/rendering with zero notice.
LATE Reply* I used to have random shutdowns/restarts on my first surface pro 8 as well. It's likely a hardware issue as multiple hard resets did nothing for me personally. If you have a warranty on it and still have it, get an RMA and have Microsoft send you a replacement! That's what I did and now I have 0 issues. Of course, if you still have yours after 6 months lol. I mostly use it for school, the 120hz refresh rate running windows on a tablet and ease of note taking with OneNote using both pen for equations and keyboard for sentence-form notes really sold me on this device. Got the i5 16gb ram 256gb ssd model and aside from battery life sucking and it getting very warm quickly, no other complaints. Has served me well in uni.
@@phenom8944 do you find that the fan gets loud or distracting enough during lectures? I’m also primarily looking to use this as a student laptop as opposed to a drawing tablet
@@adanice49 No. The fans are actually really quiet and the lecturer speaking is more than enough to drown them out. You'd only hear them in say a voiceover room or maybe a library when it's very hot and the room is completely silent
I bought a surface pro 8 (i7,16gb,256gb) with a pen/keyboard combo for just over 1800$. Still expensive af, but as someone who takes complex written notes at work and school on a surface pro 5, and who uses photoshop as a hobby, I cant wait for it to get here tomorrow.
One of the worst issues I have with my surface pro 5 (the fanless i5 model) is that when Im using whiteboard, onenote, basically any drawing/writing app, and I have something more intensive running along with it, such as photoshop, I find that the pen input gets significantly worse. It spazs out, and requires me to rewrite notes/equations pretty often. I cant wait to not have to deal with that.
Edit: I should note, the student discount that I got applied to my purchase took about 300$ off my purchase. It made it much easier to swallow the price for the specs.
Who was it?? Which programs do you run for drawing and it's good?
I'm thinking on buy one.
Im really happy to find someone to review this with drawing because this is what I want to get mainly for drawing
Brad, have you tested a device like the surface pro 7 and it's pen performance in windows 10 vs windows 11? I've heard some people say that Windows 11 has improved pen performance specifically with older surfaces
Wow, that's something I would like to see. Also does the new pen improve with older devices. Definitely worth a comparison check. If I remember correctly the last gen pen only improved slightly on older devices and wasn't worth the upgrade.
Hi... My channel has a digital drawing every two days there is a Video in the channel I hope you support me with a subscription to the channel.. thank you❤️
Personally windows 11 has speed up my pro7 from what I can tell
Personal experience, I have an old yoga 920 with 4k panel and just upgraded.to Win11. Pen tip accuracy, responsiveness and everything is about the same as in Win10, but palm rejection seems to have improved a decent amount.
I literally just bought a surface pro 7 last week, updated it to windows 11, and I can't feel much pen jitter
What app were you using to draw/ what app is the best on the surface pro 8 to draw?
i would also like to know! any recommendations?
It was adobe fresco
Once again, I watch your videos to decide between devices. You never fail.
Thanks Brad, you're awesome
6:21 Those windows look a tad odd... But it's beautiful as a whole. So is that Surface, but I already bought Galaxy Tab S7 and haven't regretted 👍
Haha I noticed the two right windows straight away... Wonder if it was intended for all the OCD people out there
I bought one after watching your review . It’s an iPad with the convenience of Windows and the pen is so so much better now 🥳🥳🥳🥳
Wow, this machine seems to have evolved into what is needed. I think the Wacom mobile will have to wait, and the iPad. I'm looking to work with this for animation and being able to travel. I think I'm decided for this computer.
Always awesome watching your content Brad, thanks again. I went away from the surface pro line after the 4th gen and got an iPad Pro with procreate… have never looked back… the n-trig pen wobble and monthly Adobe fee meant that the iPad was the winner and even though the pen wobble looks mostly fixed, Procreate isn’t on Windows and that means I’ll probably get the iPad Pro again
Thanks for the great review Brad! Is painting on Photoshop competent on this device? I've tried older models and the performance was horrible. I really want a portable tablet that can run full Photoshop without lag or compromise. It's the one thing I hate about painting on an Ipad Pro. As much as I like Procreate it's just not Photoshop. Thanks in advance if you reply.
Do you know where he got the picture he painted from?
He said it's a picture he previously did for Inktober.
Photoshop is now on the iPad but it is missing some desktop features (understandably)
That's why I said full Photoshop. Photoshop on the iPad sucks. Even Artstudio Pro is better.
@@ImperiusRex74 yeah I agree it’s definitely not a great feeling working with something that feels incomplete… what about photoshop do you miss that isn’t in procreate? Photo stacking? Masking/Compositing? Camera raw? I’m looking forward to just drawing on the go. All my pro photo video work can stay on my laptop and desktop
Thinking of buying the pro 8 I was so excited when I heard about the pen and the eGPU. I was waiting on years and it is finally here!
Would buy instantly but price for the performance is insane. Especially here in Sweden were we get added taxes.
How much extra tax? Does the VAT add to it?
Out of all the reviews yours are the best
@brad have you tried using the mini floating on-screen keyboard (new for Win 11) as a way to access keyboard shortcuts? Works for tool selection in most apps I think, but based on my limited testing it can't do modifiers like Shift, etc. while drawing simultaneously. But I wish they'd make the keyboard Bluetooth so it could be separated and still used
This review is good, but doesn't it seem overpriced for something that is only "good enough"? If I got this tablet, I'd use the hell out of it with drawing, photography, Netflix. But for this price, 8GB isn't enough.
I still own surface pro line. And their target consumer is not an artist who use it for drawing that for sure. It is an ultrabook. Its main feature is its portability. That's why with those kind of specs the price is very expensive. Drawing on those things is really frustrating.
YES! Finally!...I have been waiting MS to improve the pen for years. They are the one who promote the use of pen on Windows yet it took them so long to make the experience great. Not to mention there aren't many good choices of note-taking apps and drawing apps on Windows 10/11
Yes! The one I’ve been waiting for.
Hace años compré el Surface Pro 3 y la experiencia con lápiz era genial en su minuto, pero con los años la competencia fue subiendo el listón cada vez mas. Ahora por fin Las Surface se ponen a nivel con las Galaxy tab y las iPad pro, pero con la gracia de tener full Windows.
Glad they fixed the pen!
We dont have experience of any expensive products we just enjoy them by watching their review and unboxing videos. ☺️
One Day You Will afford one.believe it 🙏
What is the app that you use in the first part of the video to draw?
Hi! May I ask, between the Surface Pro and iPad Pro 2018, which one is more worth it for artists who use Clip Studio?
Both the Surface Pro and iPad Pro utilize the full version of Clip Studio. The only issue is that the iPad Pro requires you to pay a monthly subscription. While on Surface Pro you can pay just a one time fee for a license. I loved using Clip Studio on my iPad Pro since it was the closest to having a full version of Photoshop for iPad. But the monthly fee had me switching to Procreate.
Brad where would you rank this on your websites best windows tablets? Thanks, awesome video, keep it up!
Hi... My channel has a digital drawing every two days there is a Video in the channel I hope you support me with a subscription to the channel.. thank you❤️
I still have my surface pro 3 which was the original device I used to do my digital art on. Sadly, both android and apple have surpassed MS. I'm now drawing on Tab S7+ and iPad Pro and don't see myself going back. I too have a soft spot for the surface pro line.
What app do you use for drawing on Android?
I think you can use the new pen on old hardware, you need to upgrade to win11 to see the benefits most likely.
What app are you using the whole time!?
How does the this Surface Pen compared to the Apple Pencil 2? I find the Apple Pencil 2 to be excellent - and as you stated, in the past when I've bought Surfaces, I've ended up returning them because the pen was pretty bad. Comparing the new pen, to the old awful pen, is great, but I'd really like to know if, rather than buying another iPad Pro, I pickup a Surface in addition to my iPad, but I'd only want to do that if the pen experience is on-part with the Apple Pencil 2.
the way the type cover is useless for hot key is why i think a 60% bluetooth keyboard with a pen is the best way to use it
What program are you drawing on here? Photoshop glitches for me on the base configuration.
I love the screen and the pen so much I took it to bed and drew portraits from my cell phone for 2 hours! Lovely. My dog loves it too. Takes up less space and leaves more room for him to lay beside me. Lol.
I honestly still find the Apple Pencil Gen 2 to feel so much better than my Huion pen, so might stick to Apple iPad Pros from now on.
I remember for the longest time I always wanted a Surface Tablet, but now with my iPad Pro, completely changed my view and I'm a semi-Apple Fan... still hate Apple's dodgy stuff but they do make good products.
Agreed. I switched from a Yoga to iPad Pro after also testing an early Surface Pro, and at the time I found iOS on iPad very limiting compared to Windows. However at this point I’m a convert and prefer iPadOS as a touch interface. Windows 11 seems like it could be more competitive in this area, but there is still room for improvement: E.g. I was testing the SLS and realized there was no undo gesture and the undo button up in the menu bar was tiny, so I just gave up and started using the eraser on the Slim Pen…
Almost returned the SP8 because the diagonal jitter was worse than on the 7. Turns out it was just my my screen protector. Any recommendations for screen protectors that don't cause diagonal jitter? Do you guys use protectors? I am nervous about scratching the screen with the slim pen 2, plastic on glass. Although, I know that's what it was built for. Thanks.
just wondering, are you using a matte, or gloss screen protector?
@@user-mn9wq5km4l Glass because the matte ate away at the plastic pen.
Does anyone know what software is being used for this video?
That slow ARM Surface thing reminds me of the industrial pattern I have been found : "some companies hastily adopt some technology -> crappy implementation, fails, companies abandon that technology -> Apple do the same thing but only better -> the technology becomes popular -> those companies who had abandoned it re-adopts it." For example, fingerprint sensors on phones. Some Android companies like Motorola introduced it first, but the implementation was crappy. Those companies removed fingerprint sensors from their next phones. Later, Apple adopted it and made it work right. Fingerprint sensor became the norm and all Android phone companies adopted it. Since Apple created ARM PC's that work so well with M1, I think Microsoft and other companies will try again with ARM.
Do you think it already matches the experience of drawing in the Ipad Pro?
Great videos.
Can you pleas compare (apple pencil vs surface slim pen 2 vs wacom pro pen 2)
Id be very interested in this too
Great review, Brad! I'm sending my refurbished HP Zbook back to HP for the repairs for the 3rd time so I may be buying something else soon. It'd be nice to get something non-Wacom simply because I'm tired of the stranglehold they've had on the industry for so long. I have the iPad Pro but I don't like the feel of the pencil much and the o/s doesn't run all the programs I need.
Might go to Best Buy soon and try this one out. Since I've got my back up computer right now I'm not in a huge rush so if I like the improvements MS made, maybe I'll wait for a sale.
Hi... My channel has a digital drawing every two days there is a Video in the channel I hope you support me with a subscription to the channel.. thank you❤️
Damn, I have a zbook as well, but haven't used it much yet, so hearing this has me kinda worried. What's wrong with it that it needs constant repairs?
@@ahs9674 So, the first time, I don't totally remember but I know one issue was the trackpad got jammed. There was something else but I don't recall.
The 2nd time was the digitizer just stopped working--not reinstall Wacom drivers stopped working like usual--but the digitizer broke.
The last time was b/c the computer would go to sleep and not wake up until I did a hard reset over and over again. They "fixed" that but it started happening again. At this point, I'm just not putting it to sleep anymore. I did do all the suggestions for fixing the issue (when I assumed it was an o/s issue) but they didn't work.
You cautionarily talked me into a Surface 3 years ago, and now you've cautionarily talked me into a Surface 8 in 2021.
What program did you use in this video to draw then paint in?
Are you familiar with how the Surface Pro 2’s pen (it’s the last surface pro with Wacom technology for the pen I believe) compares to the Surface Pro 8’s surface pen 2?
I have a Surface Pro 2 with 8gb of ram and there is almost no line wobble at all when drawing a slow, straight line. No performance or major lag issues either.
The only downside with the pen is there is quite a bit of parallax which means constant recalibration is needed for accurate mark placement.
(I’m also at the point where I might like to have a bigger screen, which is why I’m considering the Pro 8.)
I'm familiar with the surface pro 2 pen - it's the same wacom EMR tech that the samsung S-pen is based on. I have a super old lenovo laptop that used it from back in 2014. From my testing in the best buy store, the surface pro 8's pen still has wobble, whereas the wacom EMR pens have none. Use a ruler, try it out. It's essentially none. The surface still has some, and if you look for it you *will* see it.
I'm currently debating on whether to upgrade to the surface laptop studio, but only because the lenovo is so old, and my ipad pro is not a full laptop. I need a new mobile solution. Sadly, a lot of the tablet/laptop manufacturers moved away from the EMR tech and to the crappier AES pens. I'm assuming due to cost. We have fewer options today, but the few we have are pretty darn good.
@@ckmoore Thanks for the reply! Make sense, I also have the Samsung Note 10.1 2014 edition, and the styluses for it and the Surface Pro 2 are compatible with each other. Are there EMR laptop solutions you're looking into in addition to the Surface Laptop Studio?
@@jeremyfrias Here's a few things I'm looking at currently... plus my thoughts lol. First, I'm looking for a tablet that can serve as a mobile all-in-one device to run my art business. So drawing/painting is top priority, but I also need to manage my website, update my blog, edit videos if needed, etc. I have a great setup at home, but I find myself on the go quite often. It stresses me out to no end when I have time to work, but I'm not in the right location. I have an ipad pro which can draw with, but I hate using it for anything else business related. I prefer a full desktop experience.
It seems most manufacturers these days are using AES or n-trig, and so have jagged lines. No more hidden gems like my old lenovo or my old fujitsu.
Current possibilities:
1) Keep the ipad, get a light non-pen/non-touch laptop for other work related tasks (in many ways, this is the cheapest option!). One reason I dislike this option... I like having 1 device, not 2. More importantly, I want to draw on desktop applications (i.e., clip studio without a subscription, or rebelle 5, or corel painter). Lastly, I don't like the workflow of working on an ipad and then transfering files to my windows computer. I want full file-management!
2) Latest Samsung tablet (using dex). The pen is EMR, the drawing apps (primarily clip studio) are very good, and Dex can approximate a desktop experience. I've heard the pen technology is even better on the latest samsung devices - not sure if it's just the tablet or also the 360, but it should be top notch. I wish it had better pen-calibration though. Lumafusion is coming to android as well.
3) Samsung 360. Full windows, better battery life than many other options on this list. Looks powerful enough to run art related programs, though overall not that powerful. Pen is great (wacom EMR). I wish I could test this in-store with an actual art program. Glossy screen, which is not the best drawing surface. I don't know if you can customize the pen here like you can with a regular wacom device (i.e., pressure, buttons/etc.).
4) Wacom Mobile Studio. Full windows. Very expensive for the amount of power you are purchasing. Can charge with an external battery pack. Otherwise, it has a short battery life. Older internals (last refreshed several years ago). Best pen in the business (in my opinion), both in accuracy, activation pressure, and overall pressure response. The pen also has up to 3 buttons. Powerful enough for what is needed, but expensive. Have to use an external keyboard; this is a slate. I usually find bad palm rejection on wacom devices, though it does vary program to program and seems to have gotten better over the years. Touch can easily be toggled on and off using the side buttons on the device. I find I don't use touch that much on my old cintiq companion. The screen is etched and this makes a perfect drawing surface. I like the pen customization (customize pressure, buttons) and pop-up menus you can create.
5) Surface Laptop Studio. n-trig pen, though they've done some upgrades and it may be usable (finally). It is without a doubt the best n-trig on the market, but even old EMR pens are more accurate. In my in-store testing (limited testing), it seems to have great palm rejection. The laptop can be very expensive. It can use a battery pack, so you can have a decent on-the-go battery life. Full windows, attached keyboard, but usable in a tablet configuration. All pluses. Battery life on this is better than the surface pro 8. The display can get pretty bright. Screen is not etched, so it's not as nice as options 4, 6, 7. The pen can activate under it's own weight, which is absolutely great. The pressure sensitivity seemed good under my limited testing. It looks like a 3rd party app is required to really get the most out of this as a drawing device, but the app is pretty inexpensive (this adds a customizable button menu, and ability to customize pen buttons/etc.). The default pen has 1 button, which sucks. I'm afraid any other pen will be too inaccurate to use at this point. There is visible wobble if you pay close attention, and this may vary program to program. I wish I could test a real art program on this before buying, but it's like they don't realize artists want to test the demo units out.
6) HP zbook x2 g4. Older; have to buy on ebay. Etched screen and great color accuracy for the higher end models. The pen it ships with has only one button, but it is wacom EMR and is super accurate. The activation pressure I believe will be slightly worse than the wacom mobile studio pro, but still very good and better than most pens. The laptop is a bit heavy. The keyboard is nice and can detach much like the surface pro. Battery life will be horrible, but it looks like it might be able to use a battery pack for on-the-go. Maybe 2 hours at full charge? Seems more of a workstation than an on-the-go laptop. I'm most concerned about the battery life. If I got this, I'd buy the conceptd 9 stylus to use with it.
7) Acer Conceptd 7 ezel. Full windows, extremely powerful, beautiful display and drawing screen, wacom EMR. Horrible battery life (maybe 2-3 hours?). This cannot use an external battery pack, so you must be tethered to an outlet. The default stylus is thin, but you should be able to buy a conceptd 9 stylus which has 2 buttons and is bigger. The concetpd 9 stylus has to be ordered through a special supplier. This laptop is very pricey. The design is much like the surface laptop studio, but designed better (better hinge), far more powerful, and with a better pen. I heard this laptop also has the most recent enhancements for the pen technology, similar to the samsung above. If it wasn't for the battery life, I'd order this knowing I had a computer that would last a very very long time. This is definitely in the realm of workstation replacement and not on-the-go laptop. Note that the "conceptd 3 ezel" uses AES, so it is useless for drawing. The conceptd 9 ezel is too large and hard to find now. So the conceptd 7 ezel is the sweetspot, but still heavy and must be plugged in.
Overall, I hate that the best wacom EMR devices are super expensive, not as mobile (unless you get samsung), or are older devices. Wacom EMR has the best line quality. The second best line quality is the apple pencil, but even with that you can get wobble - more if you have a thick screen protector on it. The latest surface with a slim pen 2 is much better than previous iterations, but still had some wobble (more than the apple pencil). Anything else that uses n-trig or AES tech should not be considered at this point if you want a drawing device. It's wacom EMR, apple, or the latest surface and slim pen 2 for any serious work.
Right now, I'm leaning to either the surface laptop studio (as a true all-in-one and taking a risk with the pen) or the mobile studio pro (for the best pen tech).
@@ckmoore Amazing, thank you for takin the time to share your findings and thought processes! This will be valuable for me when I'm looking to upgrade my digital drawing/hand drawn animation equipment. For now, my old Surface and Samsung tablet are good enough for playing with programs while I spend most of my learning/practice time on paper.
Does this need a paper like screen protector to help with the drawing experience like the iPad? And if so do you know of any that are worth buying?
Nice design, but at those prices (once you factor in the absurd price of the pen and keyboard) you could get a ipad Air/Galaxy Tab s7 and a Macbook Air/LG Gram and have the best of both worlds.
All of those are ARM devices. This is geared more for people who can use it for real work because it has x86.
It's the best 2 in 1 ATM. All those you mention are Not. Extemely expensive, I do agree tho. So lets wait for early 2022 to find out New and Better 2-in-1 devices (90 hZ refresh rate, Amoled Display...etc)
@@jomsies along with Apple's own Macbook line.
There's no way Apple will go there.
Personally, the iPad/MacBook combo with something like Astropad to use the iPad in desktop apps is tempting, but I think realistically that is going to wind up slightly more expensive than a Surface product in the end. Currently I’m leaning this direction because I have a lot of iPad music apps I don’t want to give up, but I still see conflicting information about just how good the drawing experience is when using the iPad to control a MacBook via Astropad (some people even argue that Sidecar is totally usable, but I know Brad doesn’t care for it).
I think if gaming is a factor at all, the Surface starts looking a lot better.
@@peter_parkour when you say “real work”? Do you mean like Final Cut Pro? Or adobe Lightroom, premier pro and photoshop? Because the MacBook runs all of those better than even the surface studio. There’s a reason most people on UA-cam use apple devices to edit their content
What app are you drawing on in the video ?
x2
@@XxbiohazardxX223 do u know wehere he got the picture he painted from?
AS AN ARTIST THAT IMPROVMENT IS ALL I NEEDED TO HEAR;
How do charge the pen without the new keyboard, if I prefer to use a bluetooth keyboard and only buy the pen?
The pen alone kit comes with the charger
@@mindwhacker Thanks!!
@@mindwhacker I don’t think that’s the case - check the MS store for the Pen 2, under tech specs included in the box and charging it indicates the charging cradle is not included.
Apologies- the new one does not come with charger. The old one does. Very sorry.
what is that app running firts look
Sponsored
I don't know much about computers. Looking at this for my son (for Adobe CC for graphic design, mainly designing t-shirts): Microsoft - Surface Pro 8 - 13” Touch Screen - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 128GB SSD - Device Only - Platinum
Other option is 256GB but not sure if necessary??? More $ and will also need to get pen.
Suggestions?
hopefully there is a review to try the architectural drawing with thin precise lines on the new surface product, I feel my drawing monitor is too big and bulky
Hey Brad, I am a Graphic Designer what would you recommend for me? I use Photoshop and Illustrator for editing and creatives. Should I purchase the Laptop Studio or Pro 8 or something else?
I do want a display to draw on from time to time so haven't been considering Macbook Pro
You are amazing, i’d love to hace drawing course from you because i think you could be an amazing teacher and make the learning process so much fun:) i found your procreate courses but couldn’t see a drawng basic course, maybe i missed but i did not PLEASE DOOOO
What app is he using to draw?
Hello what app do you use for drawing? Is it free and is there any free ap you can recommend if the one you use isnt..
Would this be great for drawing comics as well?
Brad, I'm new to art. Tell me what to buy.
Can you please tell me which application or software is good for drawing on Surface Pro 8 whether it's a free app or not? Thank you all.
Have you tried runnning full illustrator on it? I'm curious since i read that it might not be compatible with windows 11.
Microsoft has officially outdone itself with the unbelievable price on this sucker. One of the biggest claims they've made over the years for the surface line is the price-to-performance value. It's absolutely unreal to me that they bumped the base line surface up $350 for this tablet. In order to make this thing a full computer and drawing device, you'll end up spending $1,400+! That money got me an M1 MacBook Pro with twice the performance, PLUS a Huion tablet to go with it and draw just as well. No matter how much I love this thing, I doubt I'll see anyone walking around with this thing over the next year since only the wealthier people could afford this surface with such low specs.
Still rocking a top spec surface pro 4 here will upgrade to this once the LTE version gets released. Thunderbolt 4 egpu has me interested. Only wish it had a OLED 120hz 10bit panel but you can't have everything in one update.
I got a slim pen 2 and I LOVE it compared to my older surface pen. I have a Surface book 2 and a surface pro 2 (yes! pro 2, it's 9 years old 😂)
Debating on buying this or LG Gram 16 inch 2 in 1. Appreciate your review and overall work you produce.
Hey Brad, it'd be nicer if u also show colorings of your drawings in reviews :)
This sounds fantastic. Now I'm wondering if the 8 GB RAM Surface is enough for Photoshop stuff or if 16 is the better option... Because with 8 GB I can take the cheapest config (and upgrade SSD later) but with 16 GB I need to take the 265GB SSD immediately...
ikr if you want the 16gb ram it rises the price from ~1.100€ up to nearly 1.500€.. i hope on the upcoming black week/friday to get a decent discount bcs u still have to add ~300€ for all the accessories
@@ACertainAccelerator Yeah exactly my problem... With pen & keyboard that's a whopping 1.700€ for me, big oof
Can you test Amazon fire tablets (try the ones with the biggest memory) if they usable to draw? Those are the most affordable to anyone. Thanks!
Since you have Surface Pro 8 i5 version: Can you please make me a favor to double check by right click on "This PC" and properties. What do they write on the CPU row?
2.4Ghz and 2.42 GHz? Or did you get any other information instead of this one? I just need to know cause I suspect I might got scammed on the CPU part :(
Thank you so much in advance!
Do you think the Surface pro 8 could be used to read articles or browse the internet similar to the iPad. I really like the iPad for consuming content, but when I have to produce I have to go to a laptop, as the iPad OS limits me a lot. So I'm wondering if with the Surface Pro 8 I could retire the iPad.
Of course, It is a full blown desktop device and you can do anything you want. Also touch has been greatly improved for windows 11 so you will have no issues in using it as a tablet.
Thanks Brad, exactly what I was looking for! 🔥😃
Is the surface pro the only option for drawing if you don't know how to use photoshop, Adobe Illustrator and similar drawing apps?
Great Video. The necessity of still having a keybord kept me from using the surface. I can highly recommend Tablet Pro for this. Neat addon for tablet mode only 🤘and fixed almost all my problems :)
Despite that surface keyboard isn't Bluetooth active even when is not attached to screen as hpzbook X2 was. Cause it would be perfect to have and use keyboard close to the screen for shortcuts and not in front of the screen.
Think its time to upgrade from my SP 4... Although, no regular USB slot? Just C?
I have a Surface 7 and I love it. I'm using a wacom bamboo pen with it, which is good, but is the new windows pen a better option?
Much of the improvement with this pen comes from it interfacing with a chip included in the new Surface devices, so the new pen might not give the same benefits on a device from the previous generation.
Slim pen 2 yes, however the pen that comes with the laptop, definitely no
I have a question... can we use the keyboard when its detached from the tablet?
Can I ask which app is used for drawing in this video? It seems pretty good and wanna have a try
never tried it but I think it was adobe fresco
thank you for this great content. I couldn't find a demonstration video about the surface pro 8 photoshop experience. Will it run photoshop 2022 and adobe Illustrator smoothly without worrying about Pro 8?
Also wondering what are the best drawing apps for the surface pro. Any free ones?
I would love to hear how this compares the the galaxy line of pens with the soft nibs.
I have absolutely hated drawing on surface studio as its initial pressure gives me fatigue after an 8 hr drawing session everyday. The buttons are hard to press, gives me Carole tunnel so I never use them unlike with Wacom, of course the wavyness, the lack of a pen button rocker. Lack of pen buttom programmability.
My latest galaxy notebook pro is wonderful to draw on but the screen resolution, is me and the blacks are not amoled and its just underpowered for ps. Please compare these?
what apps/ softwares do you use for drawing?
Which one is better this or galaxy book pro 360?
Is that fresco? On windows??
I was wondering, what application are using to draw?
Finally a decent Surface Pro for drawing! 😍
However, even in its minimum configuration (incl. Pen and Keyboard) it's almost 1500€. 😰
That's insanely expensive. And then you only have 128GB disk and 8GB RAM.
Also why don't they offer a properly shaped pen as well?
Sure, the flat one is nice for portability, but I'd still prefer something more similar to what Samsung or Apple offer.
I´ve heard you are better of with a raphael 520, it seems to be as good as the new surface slim pen 2 but for 100€/$ less
@Vito How is it called?
I can't find it. Only the old one, which has very bad wobble.
@@ACertainAccelerator Thx for the tip.
I will look into it.
@@uhu4677 tablet pro sells it on his site, both 520C and the bluetooth version with more functional buttons
FYI you can upgrade the storage disk for a very reasonable price, I saved hundreds when upgrading from 256GB to 1TB by myself.
Can you draw with it without that cloth thing around your palm? Kind of like an ipad?
Hi Brad will you test the ROG FLOW Z13 for drawing? The Specs are really promising. But how will the Pen perform.
Will the regular surface pen perform well on this? Or does it have those jitter issues. I bought the pen (regular surface pen not slim pen 2 ) off the Microsoft website after watching this. I fear I’ve bought the wrong pen.
Which software did you use to draw in this video?
Adobe fr
How is the initial activation force? I found earlier surfaces to be awful in this respect - the iPad has always been awesome in that respect - how does it compare?
I'll respond here on the above as a picked up an i5 16GB model sort of unboxed. I'm also planning to use it for indie modeling in blender and texturing in 3DCoat, maybe some sculpting.... should arrive this week...
So I got the i5 and man the pen is lightyears away from the Surface Pro 2 pen I tried many moons back and feels really good, even on the glass. Initial activation force is fine where it was Jank on that v old version.
I've not done much with it in blender or 3dcoat but both run, though coat seems to barf first time off - that's just the install I think.
Have done a quick handpainted cube in blender using TabletPro soft keys and it was a good experience, fan came on and off but is very quiet, even in quiet surroundings. 3d coat also seemed fine but I need to try more because at one point I had some lag but drivers were out of date...
Hi i got the pro x was not a fan of it. Sent back. Would u get the i7 256 pro7 or pro8 if you had a choice. Going to use it to run and design stuff for a cnc router and maybe cloud base gaming when i travel. I at this time use inkscape for vector work and going to get into other art stuff
I feel like the speaker quality on the Pro 8 is a lot better compared to Pro 7, but no tech UA-camr mentioned that. I only checked the in-store display units.
infinitely better, I agree. I got the 7+ at costco then replaced it with the 8 and the difference is night and day
Isn't it supposed to be released after the new year?
Hi. Can you tell me where I can find the glove you were using? 3:19