Category Archives: tech

Surface 2 screen saga – do you run these apps?

7 May, 2014techmicrosoft surface, microsoft surface 2, touch screen problemsThe Musing Greg

apps list If you’ve been following my other posts you’ll know I’ve been having problems with the touchscreen on my Microsoft Surface 2 (refresh your memory). Currently I’m onto my second device and the problem has persisted. Microsoft have authorised a second replacement but I’m wanting to do some detective work of my own before I blame the device again; there’s no point replacing a device if the problem relates to something else which will only manifest itself in the third device.

As far as I can tell the only thing which has persisted across both devices (based on when the first one started failing) are the Touch Cover and my user profile. I’ve already noted that disconnecting the cover while faulting doesn’t make the fault go away on this second device; I’m yet to determine if having the touch cover disconnected on an ongoing basis prevents it occurring in the first place. So that will be an ongoing project.
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Who you gonna call?

2 May, 2014techmicrosoft surface 2, touch screen problemsThe Musing Greg

2 hours into the first use, guess what?

I can’t believe it. Exactly the same spot, top left corner, a ring the same size as though it’s being touched. By the time I started filming the touch wasn’t there anymore but the unlock curtain was still reluctant to scroll up so I had to restart the device. Pulled the screen protector off just in case it’s related to that (exit stage left TWO nice shiny screen protectors now…) so I’ll see if it comes back. But not the start I was looking for with this new baby. The device continued to have this problem over the weekend so the video is a montage of several clips I took.

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Surface 2 – Take 2

2 May, 2014reviews, techmicrosoft surface, microsoft surface 2The Musing Greg

Finally! Got the device exchanged today at City Cross Harvey Norman. Starting afresh with a brand spanking Surface 2 32Gb. I understand it’s an uber attractive device, but hopefully ghosts can keep their fingers off this one and busy themselves with, I don’t know, walking through walls or something useful.

Edit: Dang.

Surface 2 touch screen problems

1 May, 2014reviews, techmicrosoft surface, microsoft surface 2, touch screen problemsThe Musing Greg

I’m now just over three months on with my Surface 2, and the overall impression is one of satisfaction with a well-made device. It’s proving to be useful in all the areas I expected it to; it hasn’t excelled in areas I knew it wouldn’t (legacy app support) but I’ve been able to do more productive work on it than I expected.

Is there a ghost in the house? Phantom touch, Surface 2

However I’ve had one bug with it which has been with me since day one. I hinted at this back in my original review where I referred to some screen redraw issues, and with the benefit of hindsight I believe this was related to the bug I’m now discussing. I explained this more fully in the follow-up review about a month later. It’s a phantom touch registering in the top left corner of the screen.

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Surface 2 – Touch vs Type keyboards

21 March, 2014reviews, techmicrosoft surface, surface 2, touch cover, touch cover 2, type cover 2The Musing Greg

Six weeks on…

So I kinda caved in and picked up a Type 2 keyboard cover today. The Touch 2 cover has been working OK but I still felt when I was using it that I was spending a bit too much effort thinking about the typing action itself, rather than the content.

I did a few more speed tests. The Type keyboard is definitely easier to use, but I’m finding I’m getting better at the Touch keyboard. Bear in mind we’re now about six weeks into my use of the Surface 2 with the touch keyboard and I’ve only owned the Type keyboard for a few hours. Originally my typing speed was around the mid 40’s WPM on the touch keyboard. I use typingtest.com again, and for the first two tests I ran with Aesop’s fables text, as I had for all the previous tests. The third test I did the rules of Baseball text just for some variety and also took note of the order in which I did the tests (noted in table 1) to note the effect of familiarity with the text on the results. Here are today’s results:
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