I've been waiting for a good jitter test review and comparison video between the new and old Surface Pen with the new and old Surface Pros. Thanks for diving into this!
watching these videos are like watching porn. all you can do is watch someone enjoying such beautiful creations and drool all over your mouth. but deep down you know you cant afford a shit. *try not to cry then cry a lot* great video though.
I have an iPad Pro and I'm probably not getting a Surface at least within the next 5 years, but I watched it all because your reviews are simply amazing.
Seems to me that iPad Pro and Wacom have yet less jitter... That's the very key thing... Plus, reflective screen in Surface, grrr. That besides me am not really interested anymore in anything that forces me to illustrate in a screen smaller than 22".
The new pen on the Surface Pro makes ALL the difference for light sketchers. The Surface Pro 4 and last gen pen was extremely frustrating because it would take 2 or more seconds for the pen to actually "activate". The new Surface Pro's initial activation force completely resolves this and is a pleasure to draw on.
Blanc Noir I checked every model with a high shutter speed camera and could not detect PWM like I could with the Pro 4. Notebookcheck confirmed the absence of PWM on the core M, but detected it on the i5 (at a ridiculously high and therefore unnoticeable Hz). I'm not sure if I trust their result because they've made mistakes before (like detecting the PWM on the power supply instead of the screen). Acer Switch 5 is PWM-free, according to their tests, as is the 13" HP Spectre x360 2017 with 4k screen.
Auditioned the surface pro head to head against the ipad pro this week. I found the Surface pen experience better. The cushioned tip felt great to draw and write with. The ipad is great, but more like drawing on a single sheet of paper over a hard desk. Thanls Brad--great review!
There's still quite a bit of jitter, unfortunately. Jitter was the main reason I went with Wacom and an iPad for my drawing tools. Neither of those have any jitter at all. Of course, an iPad won't replace the Surface (unless you're fine with the limitations), but Wacom tablets or the Cintiq do. I'm glad they're improving the pen, but I'm surprised they haven't been able to fix it yet, considering they've made so many products for it, including the hella expensive Surface Studio.
Never thought, the pen could make a diffetrence, when it comes to jitter. Regarding that, could you also compare the new Surface Pro Pen to the new "WACOM Bamboo Ink" pen? This pen works on N-trig devices and is supposed to have an even lower IAF than the new Surface Pen (like 5g instead of 9g).
If this information is of use for anyone: My 2017 model arrived today and the hinge is MUCH stiffer than my on 2015 model. This might be a somewhat biased statement as I used my older Surface a lot, thus the hinge might have become worn out a bit. My 2017 model now does support my hand perfectly, it doesn’t even bend down at all. And once again: Thank you very much for your review! Many kind regards from Germany! (I still have to wait an entire MONTH for the new pen as Microsoft seems to have forgotten about Europe ... Humpf)
Brad Colbow Thank you for the great review btw. I'm frustrated with my SP4 purchase. There really is no perfect tablet on the market for graphic artists. Wacoms hardware is insufficient and unreliable. Apples IPad Pro doesn't have a full operating system. Surface Pros stylus is not well calibrated, even if the new pen being offered is an improvement. The take away is that everyone of these capable drawing tablets on the market come with a compromise in one form or another. And from a business stand point I can see why. Microsoft for example is more than capable of releasing a device for artists with a stylus that is flawless and has 100% accurate precision and calibration just like Apple has, but they won't, because they can sell more devices and accessories if they keep releasing products that are a minor improvement over the last model. Because if they did release the perfect product it would be a one time buy, and getting consumers to upgrade to the next model would be a hard sell. They know what their doing, and their releasing these flawed devices on purpose and selling us slow incremented products over time. Thats their business model. Unfortunately for us their able to get away with it, because no one has yet released the perfect device, because their competitors are adopting the same business model. The only way I see Microsoft releasing the perfect stylus and tablet is if Apple released a iMac that uses the Apple pencil. That would force their hand, because consumers would have no reason to look back at the Surface Pro.
This is a great review, and it made the samsung book 12 more attractive to me as the s pen doesnt seem to suffer from the jitter issue. Also, loved watching your workflow mate!
what's the size of your canvas (usually) and what are your DPI settings? if these were made public it may be easier for other digital artist to make a choice between the cheaper versus expensive ends. having an in-depth review of the pen and how well it works is nice, but if you work in 100 + layers on a canvas of 8k by 8k on 300 DPI you know the lowest probably isn't going to cut it, and it's going to affect the lag of the pen as well
i've been wondering how compatible the new Surface pen is with the SurfacePro 4, this video has answered a lot of my questions. Thanks for making this video! Please do a SurfacePro 4 test with the 2017 pen when the system update comes out. I'm really curious if it would make sense to buy this new pen for the older tablet.. It would be really nice to figure out wether if it's worth upgrading to the Surface Pro 2017 when you only want better sensitivity and tilt.
Nice review, Brad! Couple of things: Sketchable supports tilt now, you just need to download a couple of tilt-enabled brushes from the Silicon Benders site. Looking at your SP3 lines, I'm convinced you have been living with a broken device. I've never, ever gotten strokes that rough on the SP3.
Great review Brad, very usefull for me!! I apreciate that you brign us the illustrator point of view, with visual examples (not only technical features) Thank you very much. Adolfo
Initial activation "force" not "rate". Only rate we should be concerned about is digitizer rate, rate means change per unit time, digitizer rate is number of points the digitizer can caputre from the stroke you made on the screen, in one second. Do you also own a Cintiq pro 13 or 16? I have cracked my surface screen and the replacement is expensive, more than half the cost of surface pro 4 when i bought it 2 years back. I am planning to buy a Cintiq pro 13 because it's OS agnostic and doesn't have computer parts that will slow down in a year. I like things that are made to last. I am not an artist but I handwrite a lot, and might get into digital calligraphy, ipad pro is good but it's pencil nib might feel a bit slippery for extended periods and will feel a bit slower with time like any other tabletPC. Samsung tabS3 is perfect but runs android, and will also feel slower in a year.
I think the emphasis placed on the jitter when drawing slow lines is scaring people away, when in reality you're never going to be drawing that slow to experience them in the first place
I love your reviews but I wish you or someone like you did a indepth test of 3d apps on this or other tablets, particularly 3d modelling, rendering (if even possible), sculpting limits, polygon/ model size limits (can you squeeze a complex multi million polygon model into zbrush or Blender and not have it go to a crawl). Its a vital thing to know for someone like me before I drop the needed cash on a high end spec. Your reviews however have made me consider a Surface over a Wacom studio though (just based on price).
I need advice! I can't decide whether I should get the surface pro 2017 or iPad pro (12.9 inch)! I'm mainly concerned with doing character art, making comics, and occasionally (maybe) modelling characters and doing 2d animations! I do have a powerful laptop with a GTX 1080, so I have a workstation! And I do know about astropad ( I'm in a game design field of study) any advice would be appreciated!! ( I've found both device for really good prices on swappa - so now I just need hell to decide !!)
I'm honestly all for a battery life claim with the brightness turned all the way down and just video playback. It will never come close to your actual real world usage, but at least it's always consistent. I know my own workflow enough to know that 13.5 hours claimed equals about 8-9 hours with my usage. But having a really basic test that all manufacturers use means it's a lot easier to compare devices.
having all three surfacepro sufacebook and ipadpro I have to sadly say the MS stuff is still ok for note taking mainly. the apple pencil still defeats the surface pencil and the drawing apps for mobile devices also use gestures dramatically better. i really like krita but then again no hiDPI icons for surface products. the new apple ipadpro even further perfects drawing with 0 lag. only advantage one could say the surface has is that preview of the cursor but to be honest with the pencil drawing where you click there is no need for it. since affinity photo is out for iOS the surface products are back on the rack collecting dust.
just picked up a refurbished old surface pro 2 no pen problems there (wacom tech) :), no tilt though but that does not really matter to me.... the performance difference between pro 2 and pro 4 is extremely negligible. It all comes down to very similar Ultra Low Voltage style processors, and Integrated GPU's... I love the Surface pro2 I picked up for 260.00 its an i5 with 8 gig ram and 256 ssd. I did notice a performance difference between my pro 2 and the exact same spec'd pro 3 I purchased and gave a shot for 1200 (at the time of purchase).
Hm, I wonder if Adobe will have to accommodate for the Microsoft version of tilt. Should be interesting. Thanks for the review! I am still pretty on the fence/ not sold... Does your calibration mess up as you approach the sides/corners of the screen? The test models at my Microsoft store had that issue even more heavily than older models.
Nice review! I like your videos. Have you had a chance to test out the new iPad Pro's with the Apple pencil yet? I have the original 2015 one which I'm very happy with, but I'm going to be gifting one to my mum (designer), I'm wondering if the new ones are worth it. But I can only afford the old 12.9 or the new 10.5 so I'm wondering if the drawing improvements are significant.
Could you comment on the "parralax" effect of the pen? What annoyed me with the old sp4 pen was that the tip of the pen did not always hit where the computer thought it did. So the line would appear offset from the tip of the pen. This was especially noticeable when using the sp4 in portrait mode. Have they improved on this at all? Thanks.
Apparently according to a Microsoft store employee u can use a sp as a cintiq using the windows 10 connect app which lets you use surface as a second monitor wirelessly. I'm just wondering if it's true.
I have an iPad Pro and ipencil(neither are the newest version, I believe they’re 2017) and it works well! I don’t like the lack of control I have with the pencil but I don’t want to buy a matte protector since that’s not my only issue with it. I really like the computer programs for drawing and animation far more then I do apps like procreate and animation creator. Would this be a good tablet to try out? (I am looking for stand alone tablets, since I’m more used to carrying my iPad around)
Hi! Fellow illustrator here. I'm a fan! watching you draw is entertaining and I get a few tips too that improves my own work. I am making the jump to a screen tablet and have committed to buying my own device. Because of availability, I can only get my hands on an Asus Transformer 3 Pro, (T304ua). I would have wanted the Surface but,,, price and availability. I will get my device at the end of October this year and by that time I cannot return it anymore. Can you help me out, how does it work in an artist's perspective? Just want to know if you can enjoy using it or not. A quick note on your thoughts about the machine is enough. Thanks!
Appreciate the video. I was wondering how you get the screen to not respond to your touch when you rest your hand to draw. The screen will pick up my hand when drawing and make the cursor jump around.
Hei Brad, if you don't mind me asking, how does the new Pen compare to the Apple Pencil? In the past you said that" the Apple Pencil soundly beats the Surface Pro 4's pen", is the improvement you mentioned here enough to sway you over the Surface Pen side? Thankss 👍
How is the parallax? I like that when I draw on my iPad pro I can hold the pen at any angle and there is no parallax. When I hold the pen differently than how I held it when I calibrated on my surface pro 3 I get parallax. It's probably not technically parallax but I didn't know what to call it.
Since I am here I would like feedback. I started my third semester in college and with how my college courses are set up I have to move from building to building a lot. Currently my laptop is the MSI GT62VR that I purchased during my first semester and I only got the laptop because I was a gamer and wanted something to replace my desktop with a i5-4690 and gtx 970 in it (also used the left over scholarships I received to pay for the laptop so I wasn't out anything). But now I don't really game on it much since I did a GPU upgrade on the desktop and want something on the more portable side. Now to my question, I have always been into writing and drawing but my drawing needs massive improvements so that is why I am taken a drawing 1 this semester and plan to take drawing 2 next semester and was wondering how well this would be for my college coarse and how easy is it to get use to drawing on it? I know its not going to replace the traditional paper but I love sketching for fun here and there but its the price tag as I am looking at the i5 model with the 256gb storage. I am thinking about selling the MSI to pay for it and the rest I would just pay out of pocket. The only reason I haven't jumped on one of these yet is the fact the pen is separate on the new Surface pro and I don't need a fancy pen that cost 100 dollars and I haven't been a fan of tablets in the past but they were not windows tablets so maybe that would help as I never liked android/ipad tablets. Sorry for this very long comment and was wondering if I should not get a surface pro, should I get the surface pro 4 or buy the surface pro and get a pen? And even if I did game on it they would be older titles and I would not have issues playing them on low settings and such so the integrated graphics wont be an issue for me.
just bought a surface pro 4 i5 8gb, really hoping that the tilt feature comes to the 4! other than that, I see no need to pay more for the new surface pro. I was looking forward to this review!
About the kickstand I saw surfaceproartist reported similar, so you resting your hand on the screen curious. I use to remember that on some apps I got some unwanted pen strokes on screen by resting the hand maybe this is gone now.
Can you add a link for the exact pen you used? I'm looking around and I've found a few that look similar to yours and are surface pens. Did you use the one with the eraser end? I want to make sure I get the right one. Especially because if I get a surface pro I'm only going to use it for digital drawing.
Brad please test the new pen on Surface studio and check the jitter!!!!! I also heard the studio has all improvement from new surface that why I am asking.
Awesome review! I recently got iPad Pro 10.5 and my thoughts are the same with yours. iPad Pro definitely is a companion device. There's been many time I wished I didn't have to to import/export. At same time, comparing the price between iPad Pro & Surface, I would like 16GB model in i5 version for fan less setup
Hey Brad. Do you think the jitter might be less pronounced on the Surface book once the tilt comes to it? I'm really torn between buying a Surfacebook performance base and a Surface Pro (I can buy the Surfacebook for the price of the new surface pro where I live). I'm kind of bothered by the Surface Pro's lack of lappability (typing in a car or a bus must be a nightmare with it) but I really like the improved Pen experience.
Hi Brad! My surface pro arrived just after watching your review. My hinge does not move arround when i rest my palm on it, and I tried with a firm strength. I wonder if there are varieties in the quality of different machines.
Great review brad as always! Question: I have sp4 i7 16gb. Would it be silly to swap out to the new sp i5 8gb? I can do it within the sp4's return policy and it would be a wash cost wise. The new I7 16gb is way too expensive for me. Would it be a noticeable performance hit or would the new i5 processor make up for it? Thoughts?
Hello Brad - very much appreciate your reviews as I'm an illustor, and it helped me decide to purchase a surface and I'm generally happy with it. However I'm having a problem with drawing on my surface with the pen in photoshop elements. Everytime I try to do detailed work or press on the screen with the pen, a small circle and then a brush pop up menu appears, getting in the way, and basically preventing me drawing! I can't find anything on the forums about it, except some other poor soul who didn't have their question answered. I am NOT using a wacom - just drawing directly onto screen. Wondered if you've ever encountered this problem, and any ideas about how to disable that pop up.
Which programs do you use? I want to purchase a Surface Pro 7, but I only use Adobe Illustrator. Not much information is known about Surface Pro 7 and Illustrator, though when I Google which one is most compatible with Illustrator CC, they said Surface Pro 7 is an excellent choice.
Brad im a surface pro 4 owner with a broken pen in need of a replacement and not a big fan of tilt either, would you recommend buying the wacom pen for art or should I spend 30$ more bucks and buy the new s-pen when it comes out
I know that you made a video comparing the iPad Pro and the Surface Pro 4. But now with the improved Surface stylus, how does it feel compared to the Apple Pencil? Does the Apple Pencil still have the edge for drawing, or did that change?
Nice review as usual Brad. Looks like a good device if you don't have a Wintablet already or maybe if you need to upgrade from the SP3 but dangit not even the pen is catching me. It looks great but 100 bucks and the pressure range is only better on the newest SP but not the SP4 I got? Oh well!
At 00:57, 58, I see the jitters like crazy in the strokes. For $100.00? Come on, buddy. LOL I do believe that the last time I replaced a Wacom stylus, it was less than $100.00. The magnificent Apple Pencil costs $100.00. And the jittery Surface Pen is now $100.00? I mean, we all have our own value system but that is not making sense for me personally. It's a $30.00 product at best for me.
Brad, LOVE this review. I run a small design agency north of boston and I've been on the fence about getting an ipad pro vs surface pro. Can I get away with using IOS apps like affinity and procreate to get around the lack of no full-on adobe suite software? I feel like it might be a pain to deal with a new OS, when all my other equipment is mac based. My primary goal is to be able to make vector hand sketched illustrations on the fly. Right now I'm illustrating on paper, and using some of the adobe mobile apps to scan and vectorize it. Are you still full on surface pro 6 months later, or have you gone back to your ipad? I'm torn...
My situation is strange since I'm always getting new pen displays to test out. I havn't used the Surface Pro since I reviewed it and I had to send it back. The iPad apps are a little lacking, I really love Procreate because it's so much fun to draw in, but if you are used to Pro tools it can be a tough transition. One thing the iPad Pro has going for it is an app called Astropad, it basically turns your iPad into a Cintiq, it's not perfect, but it's pretty darn good. That might help you fill in the gaps if you go with an iPad.
Between drawing using astropad on an ipad pro on a more powerful computer, or using the new surface pro, what do you think is the best experience overall? I'm very conflicted between an iPad Pro + astropad or the new surface pro. I plan on using it on 5k files on photoshop, so I'm worried the pro may not have enough juice without going for the pricey options, whereas the ipad pro with astropad won't be doing any of the heavy lifting.
Great demo on the Surface Pro which I also got one recently. I would like to know which drawing software / App you would recommend with the Surface Pro. The Sketchable and Clip EX so far seems to work well. I also have the Photoshop but the panel icons are too small for my eyes. Cheers and thanks
I bought the surface but have a strange problem with it. When I draw in fullscreen mode and I move the pencil to the top and back into the screen, the App gets moved. I contacted MS about that problem but they only responsed with a default answer. After updates the problem still persists and I think it must be some setting but I can not find it...
I thought changing the hinge stand degree was soooo stupid. I mean, it's a tablet, if I want to get as flat as possible, I can simply not use the hinge and have it flat. It was much better before.
Hi Brad. Thank you for the review. Very informative and clear one. I would be very grateful if you helped me to solve one issue. Now I am in a position of difficult choice of buying New Surface Pro or Surface pro 4. Here is a question of price. But thing making me a big difference is a battery. I suppose you are an owner of Surface pro 4. Could you tell what is the battery difference between New Surface Pro and Surface pro 4 using the same working tasks. Is itt a difference of three hours of using? Is it worth of collecting extra money for the New Surface Pro?
It's been a while since I used the 4, but from my notes I seemed to have gotten between 4 and 5 hours from it. So I did get about 2 hours more out of the new Surface Pro.
How about new pen on existing Pro 4. Does it reduce jitter ?, tilt - they promise it will come, but obviously not available yet, but how about the activation pressure. I will I have to press kind of hard in before the line is registered, and once registered, there is not much pressure difference between thinnest line and max line. Has that improved with the new pen on existing Pro 4 ? Can you please try that. If that and the jitter has improved, and the tilt is coming, then I might just spend the money on a new pen.
Huh, I should try that. I was using Bandicam. Another thing you could try is obs studio, it's designed for live streaming but can record locally as well.
thank you, the review seems very useful to me and make sure how good the new Surface Pro after doubt to buy that and take a long to look for another review of new Surface Pro, iPad Pro, Surface Book, and MacBook Pro for the case of illustrating and mobility. Then your video convince me to buy new Surface Pro. thank you!!
Is the right click button any better? It's not at all ergonomic or comfy if you're pressing right click a lot, as I do for colour picking. An easier to press/bigger right button is the one thing that would make me consider getting the new pen
You mean the button on the pen? It's almost identical to the Surface Pro 4 pen. It takes some pressure to click and is positioned in the same spot as the old pen.
Ahhh man that sucks, oh well. Still interested in where the surface line goes and I'm glad they still seem to care about the artist demographic. Thanks a ton for the quick reply, I really enjoy your reviews, and I really appreciate you spreading the good word of the joy-con as a shortcut device
As an artist this is the kind of review that ive been waiting for, thank you brad!
At last, a real review. Everyone else just bounces their hands around the device and talks about the tech specs.
true that. lol
As a non-artist who was just looking for another review, it was super cool to watch how you work in photoshop and illustrator! Great review!!
Thanks for reviewing a model that isn't an i7 model :)
shanesthedude OMG THATS WHAT I SAID I FELT LIKE I NEEDED TO BUY THE i7 CUZ PEOPLE HAS THAT ONE
Hows the core m version tho?
I've been waiting for a good jitter test review and comparison video between the new and old Surface Pen with the new and old Surface Pros. Thanks for diving into this!
watching these videos are like watching porn. all you can do is watch someone enjoying such beautiful creations and drool all over your mouth. but deep down you know you cant afford a shit.
*try not to cry then cry a lot*
great video though.
I have an iPad Pro and I'm probably not getting a Surface at least within the next 5 years, but I watched it all because your reviews are simply amazing.
Exactly the video I was expecting for you, thanks so much!!!!
Seems to me that iPad Pro and Wacom have yet less jitter... That's the very key thing... Plus, reflective screen in Surface, grrr.
That besides me am not really interested anymore in anything that forces me to illustrate in a screen smaller than 22".
The new pen on the Surface Pro makes ALL the difference for light sketchers. The Surface Pro 4 and last gen pen was extremely frustrating because it would take 2 or more seconds for the pen to actually "activate". The new Surface Pro's initial activation force completely resolves this and is a pleasure to draw on.
Brad what's that on your head? Is it.........no it can't be. Never mind I must be seeing things
It's hair! I've been able to grow it this whole time!
I still cannot believe it
Unlike its predecessors, the new Surface Pro screen is also PWM-free, meaning no eyestrain ... for those who care.
Blanc Noir I checked every model with a high shutter speed camera and could not detect PWM like I could with the Pro 4. Notebookcheck confirmed the absence of PWM on the core M, but detected it on the i5 (at a ridiculously high and therefore unnoticeable Hz). I'm not sure if I trust their result because they've made mistakes before (like detecting the PWM on the power supply instead of the screen). Acer Switch 5 is PWM-free, according to their tests, as is the 13" HP Spectre x360 2017 with 4k screen.
Yay finally Brad's review on this!
This is two weeks in a row that I've tried to swat the fly off your avatar.
Auditioned the surface pro head to head against the ipad pro this week. I found the Surface pen experience better. The cushioned tip felt great to draw and write with. The ipad is great, but more like drawing on a single sheet of paper over a hard desk. Thanls Brad--great review!
There's still quite a bit of jitter, unfortunately. Jitter was the main reason I went with Wacom and an iPad for my drawing tools. Neither of those have any jitter at all. Of course, an iPad won't replace the Surface (unless you're fine with the limitations), but Wacom tablets or the Cintiq do. I'm glad they're improving the pen, but I'm surprised they haven't been able to fix it yet, considering they've made so many products for it, including the hella expensive Surface Studio.
Never thought, the pen could make a diffetrence, when it comes to jitter.
Regarding that, could you also compare the new Surface Pro Pen to the new "WACOM Bamboo Ink" pen?
This pen works on N-trig devices and is supposed to have an even lower IAF than the new Surface Pen (like 5g instead of 9g).
Salvatore Endboss
If this information is of use for anyone: My 2017 model arrived today and the hinge is MUCH stiffer than my on 2015 model. This might be a somewhat biased statement as I used my older Surface a lot, thus the hinge might have become worn out a bit. My 2017 model now does support my hand perfectly, it doesn’t even bend down at all.
And once again: Thank you very much for your review!
Many kind regards from Germany!
(I still have to wait an entire MONTH for the new pen as Microsoft seems to have forgotten about Europe ... Humpf)
FIRST!
Brad Colbow beat me to it
that's a first!
I did that just for you ;)
Brad Colbow Thank you for the great review btw. I'm frustrated with my SP4 purchase. There really is no perfect tablet on the market for graphic artists. Wacoms hardware is insufficient and unreliable. Apples IPad Pro doesn't have a full operating system. Surface Pros stylus is not well calibrated, even if the new pen being offered is an improvement.
The take away is that everyone of these capable drawing tablets on the market come with a compromise in one form or another.
And from a business stand point I can see why. Microsoft for example is more than capable of releasing a device for artists with a stylus that is flawless and has 100% accurate precision and calibration just like Apple has, but they won't, because they can sell more devices and accessories if they keep releasing products that are a minor improvement over the last model.
Because if they did release the perfect product it would be a one time buy, and getting consumers to upgrade to the next model would be a hard sell.
They know what their doing, and their releasing these flawed devices on purpose and selling us slow incremented products over time. Thats their business model.
Unfortunately for us their able to get away with it, because no one has yet released the perfect device, because their competitors are adopting the same business model.
The only way I see Microsoft releasing the perfect stylus and tablet is if Apple released a iMac that uses the Apple pencil. That would force their hand, because consumers would have no reason to look back at the Surface Pro.
Brad Colbow Ahhhhhhh the for gigs of ram hurts
Your editing is getting TIIIGGGHT!
Loved this review and the comments very balanced and felt like everyone understood where everyone was coming from
This is a great review, and it made the samsung book 12 more attractive to me as the s pen doesnt seem to suffer from the jitter issue. Also, loved watching your workflow mate!
Link?
what's the size of your canvas (usually) and what are your DPI settings?
if these were made public it may be easier for other digital artist to make a choice between the cheaper versus expensive ends.
having an in-depth review of the pen and how well it works is nice,
but if you work in 100 + layers on a canvas of 8k by 8k on 300 DPI you know the lowest probably isn't going to cut it, and it's going to affect the lag of the pen as well
How's the pen pressure compared to the mobile studio pro?
MaybeItsMark I believe the pen pressure is around 4000 while the mobile studio pro is up in the 8000, but it’s hard to tell
Thank you so much Brad for this review. Finally a real artists opinion on the new pen. Im definitely gonna pick up a new surface pro now :)
oh shit brad's beard is back
Thanks for your reviews for microsoft and apple products, I really enjoy them.
i've been wondering how compatible the new Surface pen is with the SurfacePro 4, this video has answered a lot of my questions. Thanks for making this video! Please do a SurfacePro 4 test with the 2017 pen when the system update comes out. I'm really curious if it would make sense to buy this new pen for the older tablet..
It would be really nice to figure out wether if it's worth upgrading to the Surface Pro 2017 when you only want better sensitivity and tilt.
Nice review, Brad! Couple of things: Sketchable supports tilt now, you just need to download a couple of tilt-enabled brushes from the Silicon Benders site. Looking at your SP3 lines, I'm convinced you have been living with a broken device. I've never, ever gotten strokes that rough on the SP3.
Great review Brad, very usefull for me!!
I apreciate that you brign us the illustrator point of view, with visual examples (not only technical features)
Thank you very much.
Adolfo
Initial activation "force" not "rate". Only rate we should be concerned about is digitizer rate, rate means change per unit time, digitizer rate is number of points the digitizer can caputre from the stroke you made on the screen, in one second.
Do you also own a Cintiq pro 13 or 16? I have cracked my surface screen and the replacement is expensive, more than half the cost of surface pro 4 when i bought it 2 years back. I am planning to buy a Cintiq pro 13 because it's OS agnostic and doesn't have computer parts that will slow down in a year. I like things that are made to last. I am not an artist but I handwrite a lot, and might get into digital calligraphy, ipad pro is good but it's pencil nib might feel a bit slippery for extended periods and will feel a bit slower with time like any other tabletPC. Samsung tabS3 is perfect but runs android, and will also feel slower in a year.
I think the emphasis placed on the jitter when drawing slow lines is scaring people away, when in reality you're never going to be drawing that slow to experience them in the first place
I love your reviews but I wish you or someone like you did a indepth test of 3d apps on this or other tablets, particularly 3d modelling, rendering (if even possible), sculpting limits, polygon/ model size limits (can you squeeze a complex multi million polygon model into zbrush or Blender and not have it go to a crawl). Its a vital thing to know for someone like me before I drop the needed cash on a high end spec. Your reviews however have made me consider a Surface over a Wacom studio though (just based on price).
I have an ipad pro 12.9 but i also have my good old trusty cintiq 13 hd so buying a surface pro for me seems overkill. Good review, though.
I'm trying to decide between the Mobilestudio Pro and the New Surface Pro. Which pen experience did you prefer?
Arjuna Coles same
I need advice! I can't decide whether I should get the surface pro 2017 or iPad pro (12.9 inch)! I'm mainly concerned with doing character art, making comics, and occasionally (maybe) modelling characters and doing 2d animations! I do have a powerful laptop with a GTX 1080, so I have a workstation! And I do know about astropad ( I'm in a game design field of study) any advice would be appreciated!! ( I've found both device for really good prices on swappa - so now I just need hell to decide !!)
I'm honestly all for a battery life claim with the brightness turned all the way down and just video playback. It will never come close to your actual real world usage, but at least it's always consistent. I know my own workflow enough to know that 13.5 hours claimed equals about 8-9 hours with my usage. But having a really basic test that all manufacturers use means it's a lot easier to compare devices.
Thanks for the pen comparison! yay!
having all three surfacepro sufacebook and ipadpro I have to sadly say the MS stuff is still ok for note taking mainly.
the apple pencil still defeats the surface pencil and the drawing apps for mobile devices also use gestures dramatically better.
i really like krita but then again no hiDPI icons for surface products.
the new apple ipadpro even further perfects drawing with 0 lag.
only advantage one could say the surface has is that preview of the cursor but to be honest with the pencil drawing where you click there is no need for it.
since affinity photo is out for iOS the surface products are back on the rack collecting dust.
just picked up a refurbished old surface pro 2 no pen problems there (wacom tech) :), no tilt though but that does not really matter to me.... the performance difference between pro 2 and pro 4 is extremely negligible. It all comes down to very similar Ultra Low Voltage style processors, and Integrated GPU's... I love the Surface pro2 I picked up for 260.00 its an i5 with 8 gig ram and 256 ssd. I did notice a performance difference between my pro 2 and the exact same spec'd pro 3 I purchased and gave a shot for 1200 (at the time of purchase).
Aha! I had a feeling lowest angle might be too low, you confirmed it!
Hm, I wonder if Adobe will have to accommodate for the Microsoft version of tilt. Should be interesting. Thanks for the review! I am still pretty on the fence/ not sold... Does your calibration mess up as you approach the sides/corners of the screen? The test models at my Microsoft store had that issue even more heavily than older models.
Nice review! I like your videos. Have you had a chance to test out the new iPad Pro's with the Apple pencil yet? I have the original 2015 one which I'm very happy with, but I'm going to be gifting one to my mum (designer), I'm wondering if the new ones are worth it. But I can only afford the old 12.9 or the new 10.5 so I'm wondering if the drawing improvements are significant.
Could you comment on the "parralax" effect of the pen? What annoyed me with the old sp4 pen was that the tip of the pen did not always hit where the computer thought it did. So the line would appear offset from the tip of the pen. This was especially noticeable when using the sp4 in portrait mode.
Have they improved on this at all? Thanks.
Apparently according to a Microsoft store employee u can use a sp as a cintiq using the windows 10 connect app which lets you use surface as a second monitor wirelessly. I'm just wondering if it's true.
Omg that drawing at 7.30. What tool were you using it looked so cool. How did it just adapt the rough drafts shape. I cant wrap my head around it!
I have an iPad Pro and ipencil(neither are the newest version, I believe they’re 2017) and it works well! I don’t like the lack of control I have with the pencil but I don’t want to buy a matte protector since that’s not my only issue with it. I really like the computer programs for drawing and animation far more then I do apps like procreate and animation creator. Would this be a good tablet to try out? (I am looking for stand alone tablets, since I’m more used to carrying my iPad around)
I really hope you purchase and review the Surface Book 2! I'm *strongly* considering getting it and I have a deep respect for your opinion.
Hope to see u review Eve V Tablet as well.
As I know, it's also can support the new surface pen right?
It can, it's using the same n-trig technology.
Hi! Fellow illustrator here. I'm a fan! watching you draw is entertaining and I get a few tips too that improves my own work. I am making the jump to a screen tablet and have committed to buying my own device. Because of availability, I can only get my hands on an Asus Transformer 3 Pro, (T304ua). I would have wanted the Surface but,,, price and availability. I will get my device at the end of October this year and by that time I cannot return it anymore. Can you help me out, how does it work in an artist's perspective? Just want to know if you can enjoy using it or not. A quick note on your thoughts about the machine is enough. Thanks!
Appreciate the video. I was wondering how you get the screen to not respond to your touch when you rest your hand to draw. The screen will pick up my hand when drawing and make the cursor jump around.
Hei Brad, if you don't mind me asking, how does the new Pen compare to the Apple Pencil? In the past you said that" the Apple Pencil soundly beats the Surface Pro 4's pen", is the improvement you mentioned here enough to sway you over the Surface Pen side? Thankss 👍
How is the parallax? I like that when I draw on my iPad pro I can hold the pen at any angle and there is no parallax. When I hold the pen differently than how I held it when I calibrated on my surface pro 3 I get parallax. It's probably not technically parallax but I didn't know what to call it.
Since I am here I would like feedback. I started my third semester in college and with how my college courses are set up I have to move from building to building a lot. Currently my laptop is the MSI GT62VR that I purchased during my first semester and I only got the laptop because I was a gamer and wanted something to replace my desktop with a i5-4690 and gtx 970 in it (also used the left over scholarships I received to pay for the laptop so I wasn't out anything). But now I don't really game on it much since I did a GPU upgrade on the desktop and want something on the more portable side. Now to my question, I have always been into writing and drawing but my drawing needs massive improvements so that is why I am taken a drawing 1 this semester and plan to take drawing 2 next semester and was wondering how well this would be for my college coarse and how easy is it to get use to drawing on it? I know its not going to replace the traditional paper but I love sketching for fun here and there but its the price tag as I am looking at the i5 model with the 256gb storage. I am thinking about selling the MSI to pay for it and the rest I would just pay out of pocket. The only reason I haven't jumped on one of these yet is the fact the pen is separate on the new Surface pro and I don't need a fancy pen that cost 100 dollars and I haven't been a fan of tablets in the past but they were not windows tablets so maybe that would help as I never liked android/ipad tablets. Sorry for this very long comment and was wondering if I should not get a surface pro, should I get the surface pro 4 or buy the surface pro and get a pen? And even if I did game on it they would be older titles and I would not have issues playing them on low settings and such so the integrated graphics wont be an issue for me.
I use a wacom tablet and seeing that jitter is CRAZY drawing slow on a pen tablet vs. a screen like that seems like such a big switch
just bought a surface pro 4 i5 8gb, really hoping that the tilt feature comes to the 4! other than that, I see no need to pay more for the new surface pro. I was looking forward to this review!
Great review! Thanks for your thoroughness.
Would be nice to see a test using the new pen on the Surface Pro 4. Would it be a better experience than with your pro 3?
About the kickstand I saw surfaceproartist reported similar, so you resting your hand on the screen curious. I use to remember that on some apps I got some unwanted pen strokes on screen by resting the hand maybe this is gone now.
Can you add a link for the exact pen you used? I'm looking around and I've found a few that look similar to yours and are surface pens. Did you use the one with the eraser end? I want to make sure I get the right one. Especially because if I get a surface pro I'm only going to use it for digital drawing.
Brad please test the new pen on Surface studio and check the jitter!!!!!
I also heard the studio has all improvement from new surface that why I am asking.
Awesome review! I recently got iPad Pro 10.5 and my thoughts are the same with yours. iPad Pro definitely is a companion device. There's been many time I wished I didn't have to to import/export. At same time, comparing the price between iPad Pro & Surface, I would like 16GB model in i5 version for fan less setup
Hey Brad. Do you think the jitter might be less pronounced on the Surface book once the tilt comes to it?
I'm really torn between buying a Surfacebook performance base and a Surface Pro (I can buy the Surfacebook for the price of the new surface pro where I live).
I'm kind of bothered by the Surface Pro's lack of lappability (typing in a car or a bus must be a nightmare with it) but I really like the improved Pen experience.
Almost all batteries tests that are quoted by manufacturers consist in showing a video at a certain luminosity level until there is no more battery.
How is the performance. You think you could do a video showing various brush performance on higher resolutions?
Hi Brad! My surface pro arrived just after watching your review. My hinge does not move arround when i rest my palm on it, and I tried with a firm strength. I wonder if there are varieties in the quality of different machines.
And i could see that u r a terrific artist...
Hi, Brad. Good review.
I'm wondering why did you purchase the i5 4GB RAM instead of 8GB.
If you have a good point, I'll buy the 4GB too.. :)
Thank you very much for the review. Much more helpful than most other reviews :)
excellent review. many thanks. you tested exactly what I wanted to know
thank you Brad!
can we somehow use this as second monitor ?
Great review brad as always! Question: I have sp4 i7 16gb. Would it be silly to swap out to the new sp i5 8gb? I can do it within the sp4's return policy and it would be a wash cost wise. The new I7 16gb is way too expensive for me. Would it be a noticeable performance hit or would the new i5 processor make up for it? Thoughts?
Hello Brad - very much appreciate your reviews as I'm an illustor, and it helped me decide to purchase a surface and I'm generally happy with it. However I'm having a problem with drawing on my surface with the pen in photoshop elements. Everytime I try to do detailed work or press on the screen with the pen, a small circle and then a brush pop up menu appears, getting in the way, and basically preventing me drawing! I can't find anything on the forums about it, except some other poor soul who didn't have their question answered. I am NOT using a wacom - just drawing directly onto screen. Wondered if you've ever encountered this problem, and any ideas about how to disable that pop up.
Which programs do you use? I want to purchase a Surface Pro 7, but I only use Adobe Illustrator. Not much information is known about Surface Pro 7 and Illustrator, though when I Google which one is most compatible with Illustrator CC, they said Surface Pro 7 is an excellent choice.
Brad im a surface pro 4 owner with a broken pen in need of a replacement and not a big fan of tilt either, would you recommend buying the wacom pen for art or should I spend 30$ more bucks and buy the new s-pen when it comes out
Is there offset between the tip of the pen and the ink when tilt the pen?
The offset made when tilt the pen annoy me when I use surface pro 3 and 4.
I know that you made a video comparing the iPad Pro and the Surface Pro 4. But now with the improved Surface stylus, how does it feel compared to the Apple Pencil? Does the Apple Pencil still have the edge for drawing, or did that change?
Great review, Brad! A+
I was going to buy the surface book and the "new" pen, would I get the 4000 levels of pressure sensitivity? or will it be the same old 1000.
Thanks.
Nice review as usual Brad.
Looks like a good device if you don't have a Wintablet already or maybe if you need to upgrade from the SP3 but dangit not even the pen is catching me. It looks great but 100 bucks and the pressure range is only better on the newest SP but not the SP4 I got? Oh well!
At 00:57, 58, I see the jitters like crazy in the strokes. For $100.00? Come on, buddy. LOL I do believe that the last time I replaced a Wacom stylus, it was less than $100.00. The magnificent Apple Pencil costs $100.00. And the jittery Surface Pen is now $100.00? I mean, we all have our own value system but that is not making sense for me personally. It's a $30.00 product at best for me.
Brad, LOVE this review. I run a small design agency north of boston and I've been on the fence about getting an ipad pro vs surface pro. Can I get away with using IOS apps like affinity and procreate to get around the lack of no full-on adobe suite software? I feel like it might be a pain to deal with a new OS, when all my other equipment is mac based. My primary goal is to be able to make vector hand sketched illustrations on the fly. Right now I'm illustrating on paper, and using some of the adobe mobile apps to scan and vectorize it. Are you still full on surface pro 6 months later, or have you gone back to your ipad? I'm torn...
My situation is strange since I'm always getting new pen displays to test out. I havn't used the Surface Pro since I reviewed it and I had to send it back. The iPad apps are a little lacking, I really love Procreate because it's so much fun to draw in, but if you are used to Pro tools it can be a tough transition. One thing the iPad Pro has going for it is an app called Astropad, it basically turns your iPad into a Cintiq, it's not perfect, but it's pretty darn good. That might help you fill in the gaps if you go with an iPad.
Between drawing using astropad on an ipad pro on a more powerful computer, or using the new surface pro, what do you think is the best experience overall? I'm very conflicted between an iPad Pro + astropad or the new surface pro. I plan on using it on 5k files on photoshop, so I'm worried the pro may not have enough juice without going for the pricey options, whereas the ipad pro with astropad won't be doing any of the heavy lifting.
Great demo on the Surface Pro which I also got one recently. I would like to know which drawing software / App you would recommend with the Surface Pro. The Sketchable and Clip EX so far seems to work well. I also have the Photoshop but the panel icons are too small for my eyes. Cheers and thanks
The pressure sensitivity seems better than the Apple Pencil. I have a 10.5" pro and the pencil and i don't like the pressure sensitivity at all.
How does this compete with the wacom mobile studio pro?
The Surface Pro is prob something ill get later down the line, as of right now its just too expensive for me so i'll get the iPad Pro first.
I bought the surface but have a strange problem with it. When I draw in fullscreen mode and I move the pencil to the top and back into the screen, the App gets moved. I contacted MS about that problem but they only responsed with a default answer. After updates the problem still persists and I think it must be some setting but I can not find it...
Is it possible to use the New Surface Pro pen on the Surface Pro 4 tablet, and get the reduced jitter?
I thought changing the hinge stand degree was soooo stupid. I mean, it's a tablet, if I want to get as flat as possible, I can simply not use the hinge and have it flat. It was much better before.
Hi Brad. Thank you for the review. Very informative and clear one. I would be very grateful if you helped me to solve one issue. Now I am in a position of difficult choice of buying New Surface Pro or Surface pro 4. Here is a question of price. But thing making me a big difference is a battery. I suppose you are an owner of Surface pro 4. Could you tell what is the battery difference between New Surface Pro and Surface pro 4 using the same working tasks.
Is itt a difference of three hours of using?
Is it worth of collecting extra money for the New Surface Pro?
It's been a while since I used the 4, but from my notes I seemed to have gotten between 4 and 5 hours from it. So I did get about 2 hours more out of the new Surface Pro.
How about new pen on existing Pro 4. Does it reduce jitter ?, tilt - they promise it will come, but obviously not available yet, but how about the activation pressure. I will I have to press kind of hard in before the line is registered, and once registered, there is not much pressure difference between thinnest line and max line. Has that improved with the new pen on existing Pro 4 ?
Can you please try that. If that and the jitter has improved, and the tilt is coming, then I might just spend the money on a new pen.
What screen recording software are you using for the surface pro?
Steve Harpster you could use the windows game bar through Xbox to record your screen.
Huh, I should try that. I was using Bandicam. Another thing you could try is obs studio, it's designed for live streaming but can record locally as well.
Can you do a comparison of the new pen and the Wacom bamboo ink?
Love the review. I'm not an artist and I have the surface pro 4 and I love it. I don't see any real reason to upgrade. Do you agree
Hi, Brad,
So the gitter issue persist on SP4, and tilt is not working also on old model.
what about the initial force on Surface Pro 4?
Thx!
Hey Brad did you ever test how long the battery last working on illustrator and photoshop running at the same time?
what's your take on vaio z canvas and the new surface pro? thinking of changing my old macbook, would you recommend wich one?
Goddang, now I want to commit crime to get a Surface Pro. Should just constraint on getting me a drawing display...
thank you, the review seems very useful to me and make sure how good the new Surface Pro after doubt to buy that and take a long to look for another review of new Surface Pro, iPad Pro, Surface Book, and MacBook Pro for the case of illustrating and mobility. Then your video convince me to buy new Surface Pro. thank you!!
Is the right click button any better? It's not at all ergonomic or comfy if you're pressing right click a lot, as I do for colour picking. An easier to press/bigger right button is the one thing that would make me consider getting the new pen
You mean the button on the pen? It's almost identical to the Surface Pro 4 pen. It takes some pressure to click and is positioned in the same spot as the old pen.
Ahhh man that sucks, oh well. Still interested in where the surface line goes and I'm glad they still seem to care about the artist demographic. Thanks a ton for the quick reply, I really enjoy your reviews, and I really appreciate you spreading the good word of the joy-con as a shortcut device