Category
🤖
TechTranscript
00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So I like the Surface Pro products. I've always liked them.
00:08I think they're one of the most versatile computers you can get on the market right now.
00:11Like that whole 2-in-1 form factor is super cool.
00:14But there's a couple things that have kind of bugged me about the Surface Pro.
00:17First is its price point. Even at the base model, it's not particularly cheap.
00:21And the second thing is that over the years, and we're on our fifth generation of Surface Pro products right now,
00:27and they have not improved that much.
00:29I mean, incremental improvements every year, but it's still the same kind of product that it has been since day one.
00:35And there's nothing wrong with it, but it's a pretty conservative approach to the whole 2-in-1 tablet thing.
00:40This is the Eve V, and to explain what this product is, I think we have to go a little bit into story time.
00:46About a year ago, so like July 2016, I was approached by this company and said,
00:51Hey Dave, you know, you do laptops. We want to send you this product that's going to be like this laptop killer.
00:57It's going to be an industry-changing product.
00:59And at the time, I was like, really? You know?
01:01This like unknown startup company thinks that they can make a product that's going to be an industry changer?
01:07I mean, I'd love to believe it, but send me the product when it's done, and I will gladly take a look at it.
01:12But I really didn't think anything would come from it.
01:14Now fast forward one year later, and they actually sent me a fully working prototype.
01:18Now keep in mind, this is a prototype, so I'm not going to do like a full review on it.
01:22But I just wanted to go through some of my first impressions of it.
01:24First, the device is very similar to a Microsoft Surface.
01:27It has a kickstand, and even the keyboard looks and feels like a Surface.
01:31And I think a lot of people could mistake this for some kind of special edition Microsoft Surface Pro.
01:35It's very similar.
01:36The material is aluminum. It's not magnesium like the Surface lineup.
01:40But it's still a very solid feeling, and it's very well made.
01:43Now one of the coolest things about this product is that the whole concept of it was crowdsourced.
01:48So they asked a ton of people, I think like a thousand people, what they would want in a laptop, and this thing was born.
01:53And one of the things that people really wanted was good I.O.
01:55Because the Surface lineup doesn't have a great port selection.
01:58So we have two USB A's, two USB C's, one of them actually being Thunderbolt 3.
02:02There's an audio jack that has a good quality amp in there.
02:05The power switch also has a fingerprint sensor for logging in with Windows Hello.
02:09There's four speakers. They sound pretty clean, a lot better than I thought they would.
02:12And the display panel looks really nice.
02:14It's high res, individually calibrated at the factory, so it's color accurate right out of the box.
02:19And it comes with a stylus for pen input and stuff.
02:21And it's compatible with Microsoft Surface pens if you want.
02:24They have a few configurations. They're all running Y processors.
02:27But these guys have done an amazing job cooling it passively.
02:30So it's fanless. This one's running a Core M3.
02:32And the temperatures stay low even when the boost kicks in.
02:35I could actually play Overwatch at the lowest possible settings.
02:37It wasn't amazing. I was hovering around 35, 40 frames per second.
02:40But totally playable.
02:42And remember, this has a Thunderbolt 3 port.
02:44So if you want to go nuts, you can connect an external GPU for games.
02:47The keyboard is also really nice.
02:49And this is actually the first 2-in-1 keyboard that I've used that has RGB backlit.
02:52And you can switch between a few colors.
02:54Typing is super comfortable. The trackpad is good.
02:56It's a glass surface with Windows Precision drivers.
02:59The inputs on this device are really good.
03:01But the best part is you can remove it, and this RGB backlit keyboard suddenly becomes a wireless keyboard.
03:06It's got Bluetooth 4.2 in it, and it's got a small battery in it.
03:09So you can control this thing remotely.
03:11So if you have it connected to a projector, or for like presentations or whatever, that's a pretty cool feature.
03:16Now, the battery in the main device, 48 Wh, it's bigger than the Surface Pro 4 from last year.
03:22It's similar in size to the new Surface Pro from 2017.
03:25The Eve V is heavier by around 100 grams or so.
03:28And I think a lot of the weight comes from the beefier heatsink.
03:31And I'm not going to lie, I think the extra weight is noticeable.
03:33But even if you hold it one-handed, it's an extremely comfortable tablet to hold.
03:37Now, the cameras on this thing aren't as good as the Surface Pro.
03:40So if image quality on your tablet is important to you, then this is probably not the best product for you.
03:46Another thing, the stylus has less pressure levels.
03:48But for me, these are things I don't care too much about in a tablet.
03:51There's all these features about the Eve V that are pretty cool.
03:54So like the fingerprint sensor, the RGB keyboard, Thunderbolt 3.
03:57The average guy that walks into the Microsoft store, like the business guy or whatever that goes in there looking for a 2-in-1 tablet,
04:03they don't care about these features.
04:04So Microsoft isn't going to put these features into their tablets anytime soon.
04:07But these are the type of features that you guys, and myself included, like the enthusiast level guys, we like this stuff.
04:13And this is the type of stuff that makes this product special.
04:15Now, the pricing of it is very fair.
04:18It starts at $800, which is the same price as the base price of the new Surface Pro.
04:22But the Eve product includes a keyboard, and you're getting 8 gigs of RAM instead of 4.
04:26So I think you're getting a solid device for the money.
04:28Now, just to be clear, I'm not saying that the Surface Pro is garbage in comparison to this.
04:32Not at all.
04:33I think the Surface Pro is a fantastic product, and it's a good fit, a better fit for some people than this.
04:39But if you're in the market for a 2-in-1, I would say hold off on the purchase of the Surface Pro, if that's what you're going to get.
04:45Let this thing come out in the market.
04:46Let it kind of proliferate.
04:48Let the reviews come out, because I think that for a lot of people, this is a better fit than the Surface Pro.
04:53You're getting better value for the money, and it's just a more kind of enthusiast level product than the Surface Pro is.
04:59Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video.
05:00Thumbs if you liked it.
05:01Subs if you loved it.
05:02I'll see you guys next time.