Surface Pro 2

Been looking for a small netbook for ages, nearly a year, every time I think I've found a nice 10" one it's no longer available or doesn't meet my requirements.

I'm pretty set on getting a Surface Pro 2 now, it's very expensive but quite small and the best of a laptop and a tablet. I'm a little concerned about how long the battery will last, my laptop's battery became unable to hold a charge after a few years but was useless for a long time before that. The Pro 2's battery is I believe hard to get to and also glued into place, I've heard it's expensive too.

I shouldn't really be getting something as powerful just for my misguided attempt at taking up writing, the point was to get something for £150-£250 that couldn't handle much more than text entering. £900+ (With the type cover) is a little hard to justify, my laptop has all but died now (Graphics card gave up) so that makes it a little easier.

I thought about getting the Surface 2, it is nearly half the price but while everything on the screen looks the same it isn't a full Windows 8 desktop computer, it's still a tablet, does come with a full version of Windows Office which is a real kick in the nuts because the Pro 2 doesn't, it only comes with free Skype for a year and 2 years of 200gb online storage, neither of which I care about.

It is a little frustrating that it doesn't have a dvd drive I would have liked to have put some of my older games on their, I could always buy them on Steam though in a sale or maybe GOG.com I have the old Fallout games on my GOG account and they work with touchscreens I've read. Shouldn't be gaming on it anyway though.

Ok never mind didn't get the Surface Pro 2 in the end, everything was perfect except the price and the battery. You can't take it out, to replace it when it finally gives out you need to send the tablet back to Microsoft and have them do it. They also wipe the machine clean when they do a service on it, though I have no doubts I would also reset to factory default it.

It's possible that I will still get it but at the moment I am looking into laptops again, I don't think I'll worry too much about battery life this time, I can always buy a second battery and just change it over if one dies while I'm out. I may get a Surface 2 instead and just use it for web browsing and typing etc, rather than gaming as well.

Looks like I'm back to getting the Surface Pro 2... I've looked at other small laptops but they all have internal batteries. It's a heavy thing as well, holding it in one hand is pretty tough. I think I'll go into town and look at some reconditioned laptops but if I find nothing there I will for sure buy the Pro 2.

Ok well I'm writing this from my Surface Pro 2, it is pretty cool. Steam does not work well with a touch screen, scrolling up and down the screen is a bit of a pain. One of the games I was most looking forward to using has issues with the Surface Pro 2 as well. I didn't buy it for gaming though so it's not big deal.

The battery is pretty decent, at full charge in power saving mode it has about 9 hours, but doing stuff greatly reduces that. Doing basic stuff though should give a good 6 or7 hours.

Firefox doesn't work as nicely with the touch screen as Internet Explorer does sadly. YouTube can be a bit of a pain as well, a few times now I've missed the full screen button and clicked on a link to another video, I need to remember to use the zoom in gesture.

I don't really like Windows 8 but I'm getting used to it, I can navigate it well enough now, I put off setting up my Surface Pro 2 for a few hours because I didn't want to deal with it.