So the Microsoft Surface Pros 1 & 2 are coming down in price. Anyone have any experience using them for tuning? I know windows 8.1 is garbage blah blah. (I actually love it) But I've been keeping an eye out for them on craigslist and ebay and seems like a nice 32gb pro 2 can be found for < $400. Anyone using one to run Tunerstudio? I've also had my eye on Dell Venue's but they are still sort of pricey for the full windows versions.

 

I scored a WinXP Netbook for ~$200 sometime during the middle of the netbook era. The screen was tiny, but it did okay as a dedicated tuning laptop for a couple years. I think the surface would do great once you add the keyboard and a wireless mouse.

 

I don't like the idea of using a tablet for tuning. Too easy to mistakenly fat finger the screen and mistakenly alter a critical value. Keyboard may be 20th century but it is more robust and deliberate than a touch screen. Where I see a tablet being useful is as a cheap virtual dashboard display.

 

ASUS T100 transformer 64 gig or 64 w/ 500 in the keyboard there is also a 32 for even cheaper. Same price new from brick and mortar Best Buy as the used/unauthorized dealer stuff you're looking at.

I am not worried about fat fingering just for hitting burn the auto tune, anything more detailed and I'll use the keyboard/touchpad.

 

I agree that the tansformer or anything with a physical keyboard would be much better suited.

I owned a surface pro 1 for a while and hated it. Even with the type cover it can not be used comfortably on your lap. This would be a deal breaker while tuning. the screen is also pretty small.

 

^ This.

I've done it both ways, and a traditional folding laptop is the way to go. My favorites were the first and second-gen 9-10" ASUS EeePC netbooks, which you can score on eBay for cheap.

Examples:

Asus Eee PC 1005PEB 10 1" 250 GB Intel Atom 1 5 GHz 1GB Notebook 884840700616 | eBay

Asus Eee PC 1000 He Netbook 1000HE BLK005X 5051964375616 | eBay

Asus Eee PC Disney 8 9" Netbook Princess Pink Nice | eBay

Asus Eee PC 1005HAB 10 1" Screen 1GB 222GB Win 7 Professional SP1 WiFi 884840446088 | eBay

 

HAHAHAHAH!!!!!

That Disney Princess one is THE BUSINESS.

Someone NEEDS to buy that thing to tune a Miata.

 

I ordered a refurb Asus Transformer T100 a couple weeks ago on sale for $200 at Tigerdirect. The first one I got in was junk. I sent it back, and should get a replacement in any day now. I use an old Android OS Asus TF101 regularly, and rarely have fat finger related issues. The logic that Android uses use for touch recognition obviously isn't the same, but I think that it shouldn't be bad.

 

How are you guys tuning with android? Shadowdash doesnt support it last I checked? MSdroid always corrupts my tunes.


I'm thinking I'll like the surface form factor because I do a lot of auto-tuning and logging and the form factor makes it easier to throw in the passenger seat etc. Actual manual adjustments I'm normally outside of the car with the laptop on the hardtop referencing a log or something and I figure the stylus on the surface might be better then fat grubby fingers. I guess if I was having someone else drive wile I'm sitting passenger and trying to touch the screen at the same time, things could get a little dodgy.

I'm still relatively noobish for tuning but having a physical keyboard seems sort of irrelevant to me since I use the gui 90% of the time on tuner studio for adjustments anyways and an on-screen keyboard to use if really necessary. But I don't mind such things and I can understand other's concerns already mentioned.

 

They're not, probably...

The Transformer can be had in Windows form.

 

Yeah, quick google search proves they run windows too.

 

Now if i could just find a touch screen laptop thing that will dual boot android and windows, that'd be super.

 

If I'm not mistaken, I think the Dell Venue Tablets come with either or and there are some hacks you can do to dual boot them.

The problem you run into is cpu architecture, Android requires an arm soc processor while the venue uses x86/64bit processor.

 

Been using a Surface Pro for tuning for the past month and overall it is working as I wanted. The type-cover is absolutely useless for using on your lap but the pen that is included makes it easy to manipulate the tables. The battery life is OK for the first gen, I get about 4-6 hours depending on use.

If I had to do it again, I'd probably opt for a Asus tablet based on cost.

 

Windows 8.1 is just fine. People who don't like it have probably never used it. It's way way faster than windows 7 and better than XP in every way.

I bought a laptop that folds around into a tablet. It's awesome. I'm glad i didn't buy it sooner. Finding the keys on the keyboard at night is no longer an issue. It's a bit more portable. Plus it's way faster than my old crappy netbook.

OP: Research a lenovo yoga. You can get the lower end models right around the price of a surface pro and it will be more powerful.

 

My dad who's bad with technology seamlessly transitions from his 7 desktop to my mom's 8.1 transformer laptop, the secret is classic shell, he cant even tell the difference. I wouldnt recomend the transformer, its so top heavy and the screen to keyboard interface pops out randomly.

 

I dedicated an Asus Netbook with 11"screen, 2gb ram, 120gb SD drive with Windows 7 to Tunerstudio.

Works great and I can drive around with it for hours without worrying about battery life.

Like Joe says above, you can find them fairly cheap.

 

Sig worthy.

+1 on the eee PC's. The 7" models even have enough power to run tuning studio. I used both a 7" model upgraded with 2gb ram booting Ubuntu off an SD card and it was quite nice. The 2nd gen 10" models had gobs of battery life, 10-11 hours. These days I use my MacBook... But for tuning the eeePC's were just as good.

 

I just wish there was something with netbook hardware but a 13" screen with a larger battery to match for only a small price increase. The small netbook screen is killer when having to go to the non-native extra tall resolution just to be able to click on boxes in certain poorly programmed tuning related programs (aem and haltech I'm glaring at you).

 

Agreed if you're talking about the 7" EeePC (800x480), which is the only reason I didn't include it in my list above.

Confused if you're talking about 1024x600. Do the AEM and HalTech tuning softwarez not can has happy at this resolution?

FWIW, there are alot of 11-12" machines (including some EeePCs) in the 1366x768 resolution, which is as close to an officially recognized standard as most compact laptops these days come to supporting.