A Fantastic Upgrade On The Surface

When I buy something noteworthy, I'll normally write two sentences on Saturday morning and move on. What I bought yesterday deserves its own turn in the spotlight.

Just before lunch I ducked into Best Buy on a whim. Although the basic Surface Pro 11 at $749.99 is a newer version of my SP7, the SP11 display model with the OLED screen blew me away. When I surfed the Internet and played with its preinstalled programs, it was like I was on my MSI laptop except it weighs only 1.9 pounds in its tablet form.

There's two higher end models and I picked the lower of the two with 512GB of internal storage. It was marked down to $1,199.99 -- a $300 savings -- but I decided that my middle aged eyes would thank me over the next four to five years. I also splurged on the Slim Pen (pictured if you look above Artoria) and Pro Flex keyboard combo ($449.99), which brought my total cost to $1,780.

But wait... there's more!

I'm a huge fan of the UAG (Urban Armor Gear) case I bought on Amazon for the SP7, so when I returned home I ordered one for the SP11. That was another $110 including tax, so we're now up to... $1,900? Ara ara!

After twenty four hours, I regret nothing about these purchases. The battery life far exceeds what my MSI and SP7 laptops deliver. Between the keyboard and UAG case it's fully protected and portable. I can literally sling this over my shoulder when I travel.

I love that it can do everything I need when I'm on the road. I can work on my novel in Scrivener. I can surf the Internet, blog and check emails. I can read manga or novels with the Kindle app or on the J-Novel Club web site. I can also stream YouTube TV, HIDIVE and Crunchyroll without any issues, which means I can officially leave my Samsung tablet in my living room where it belongs.

BONUS: The Bluetooth mouse I bought for the SP7 is compatible with the SP11. Yay!

I like that the UAG case has a slot to stash the Slim Pen, but the updated design is what really got me. The kickstand is still in the back, and in addition to the shoulder strap there's a rotating hand strap that's helpful when you're using it as a tablet.

HONRABLE MENTION: Until yesterday, I ignored the USB-C slot on my MSI laptop since I use the regular charger port and its USB-A slots for data storage or transfer. Now that I'm aware companies like SanDisk make "dual drive" memory sticks that have USB-A and USB-C connectors on each end, I've seen the light. USB-C is the way due to its far faster data transfer speed, but USB-A is there as a fallback.

One of these with 128GB of storage is less than $20, and it was a game changer when I transferred files from the SP7 to the SP11. Please get yourself one if you need it.