Hardware

A beautiful mashup

Even on its first try, Microsoft showed impressive aptitude for hardware design. The Surface 2 continues the trend, a beautiful, beveled rectangle made of Microsoft’s aluminum-like VaporMg material. It’s light yet sturdy, attractive yet unassuming — there’s one ugly seam across the top of the rear, where the unibody shell meets the plastic stripe containing the device’s wireless radios, but this is otherwise a flawlessly machined device.

Its new, gun-metal gray color makes the Surface 2 look like something you'd find on a spaceship. Otherwise the device is mostly unchanged: at 0.35 inches thick and just under a pound and a half, it’s a little smaller and a little lighter than the previous model, but it doesn’t feel very different.

The Surface 2: super lappable

It does feel slightly more balanced, more comfortable to hold, though like any large 16:9 tablet it’s still awkward in my hands. It’s too wide in landscape — my thumbs can only comfortably reach about 60 percent of the screen — and hilariously, comically tall in portrait mode. There’s no great way to hold it one hand, either; this is a device for your desk or your lap, not for standing on a crowded subway. I tried reading in bed with the Surface 2, and my arm gave out after about five minutes. (I also dropped it on my face once, but that's beside the point.)

As soon as I learned to prop the Surface 2 up next to me in bed instead, it worked better. It’s all in the kickstand, the flap that folds out from the bottom half of the device’s back, and all it took was adding another angle. The original angle was too upright — you couldn’t quite look at the screen properly unless you slouched down into your chair, and the tablet would perch precariously on your lap ready to fall in a gentle breeze. The second, wider angle (55 degrees instead of 22) just happens to be exactly where I instinctively open my laptop. Now you can look slightly down at the screen, and the kickstand provides a wide, sturdy base that never once toppled over on my knees. It’s still more comfortable and usable on a table than on your lap, but it’s far more versatile now.

The display is the most significant upgrade on the Surface 2, and it needed to be. Its 10.6-inch screen was once a low-end-laptop-grade 1366 x 768, but has been upgraded to the same panel as the Surface Pro and Pro 2 — a 1920 x 1080 display with beautiful colors, phenomenal viewing angles, and fantastic touch recognition. It’s still not quite as high-res as a device like the Nexus 10 or the Galaxy Note 10.1, but more pixels might be a bad idea; though most Windows 8.1 apps scale beautifully to high resolutions, some elements of Windows and the desktop are already ridiculously small on the 1080p display.

It doesn't need more pixels to be a great display, either. Deep blacks make movies look great, vibrant colors make photos pop off the display. Add in the surprisingly loud (if occasionally distorted) stereo speakers pumping sound out the sides of the device, and the Surface 2 is a solid device for all things Netflix and Hulu. And with great new high-def front and rear cameras, it's a pretty great video chat device too.

But there are plenty of great Netflix and Skype devices, plenty of better ones than the Surface 2. And Microsoft has higher ambitions than that, anyway.