I decided it was about time I spent some alone time with the Surface Pro 3, so this morning I stepped away from the office intent on sitting and working on the device to see how it held up.
I didn`t do any intense work, not at this stage, this was us both getting to know each other in a relaxed setting as I worked in a few applications to see, not only how well they worked but also how comfortable it would be to work with.
Firstly the lighter Surface Pro 3 is much better to hold than its predecessor, and the larger screen feels more natural to work on, meaning you don`t have to resort to tiny text and icons to fit everything on screen.
I`m not going to get into the specifics just yet, like the stylus and how I have it setup etc. I`ll save that for the full review, but I began with the keyboard detached, working on it much like you would any other tablet device.
The first application I wanted to work in was Mischief. I need to work up a few concepts so I thought I would give it a go and see how it felt compared to working with it on my desktop.
All I can say is it was a joy to use, with the reduced pressure sensitivity, (256 rather than the Surface Pro 2`s 1024 levels) not noticeable, not unless you were really looking. The pencil strokes were as light or heavy as I needed, and the ink pens felt fluid. I have heard people complain about the performance of apps like this on the i5 version of the Surface, but on the i7 I didn`t see any lag.
Granted, all I did was doodle, so nothing too stressful on the processor, but it gave me the confidence that I could go back and perhaps create a full illustration on the device, which is something I intend to do in the future.
After over an hour of doodling I switched over to ZBrush, and unfortunately I did find some issues with it while working. As you may know, while working in ZBrush you do need access to the Control, Alt and Shift keys, so to help me I used RadialMenu which overlays a series of custom keys onto the screen.
The problem I had was while I held down Alt to create a recess in the model, the key would suddenly stop working if another part of my hand touched the screen. So in the middle of sculpting ocular cavities for example, it would suddenly fill them in.
It’s just a small thing, and probably something I could work around with more practice and investigation. RadialMenu allows you to hold keys rather than you physically pressing and holding them, so this might be a solution.
ZBrush itself held up well to a basic Dynamesh sculpt, the only issue being my rusty ZBrushing skills.
Finally I delved into Maya, which again seemed to work nicely on the device. I do think however that this is one app where using the mouse and keyboard might be more productive, especially if, like me, you use it full screen and work with Marking Menus a lot. Something which needs access to lots of keys. Yes, you could configure the RadialMenu to work with it, but when tested I felt like I was working at a quarter speed.
After three solid hours of working on the Surface Pro 3 I actually felt for the first time that this was a device I could create on. With the Surface Pro 2 there were limitations, and the screen size and weight did get in the way occasionally, as did the limited stand.
None of these were an issue with the new, improved model.