Drawing on the Surface Pro 8 Review

And thank you Squarespace for sponsoring this video.

The Surface Pro holds a special place in my heart. My first ever review was of the Surface Pro 3. Over the my opinion of the Surface soured as the pen didn't improve but everything else did. This year, they fixed it and I loved drawing on the Surface Pro.

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[StarFury]

Finally a Surface review by someone who actually need it's functions.

[TiggerLyOne]

Microsoft should have a HUGE discount for the keyboard and pen when you buy the surface!

[radioreaction]

13 year old me watching your reviews: oh boy I can't wait to get a drawing tablet I'm going to make the coolest comic of all time!
20 year old me now going halfway through your video, burst into tears: maybe I should wait a bit longer *opens ibis paint on cracked note5*

[anthonycoster]

It seems pretty good for my purposes. I work part time as a Social Worker and the rest of my week I do artwork/creative stuff as a side hustle. I want something that I can mock up labels, marketing material and even take to my life drawing classes so I can stop buying expensive pencils and art paper. But I also need to write reports, take notes in meetings, do Zoom calls etc.

The only thing I'm struggling with it whether to go with the MS Laptop Studio or the Pro 8. I am leaning towards the Pro 8 because of the portability. I also think the tablet by itself just looks so sleek and I love the idea of pulling it out of my bag in a life drawing class and using it like a pad of paper.

Thanks for the review mate, it helped a lot.

[thesuperzfamilyvlog]

If it’s “good enough” the laptop should be cheaper. It’s the problem I have for the surface line. 8gb isn’t goodenough for $1100.

[tonyjohnson]

I started watching your channel because of that surface pro 3 review all of those years ago. At the time the Surface Pro 3 was my dream device and you were one of the only people who reviewed it from an artist's perspective.

[PlzCamDown]

**ARTISTS!! PLEASE READ** I bought the $2k 16GB i7 one with the slim pen 2 and let me warn you. The pen has an insanely bad jitter problem. It is wobbly af. Before you buy this, please research about the slim pen jitter issue. I didnt search before hand and I want other people to learn from my mistake.

[treyBEEslaying]

What app were you using to draw/ what app is the best on the surface pro 8 to draw?

[chasenash]

Now that you have used Blender and done some 3D modeling have you tried using the surface pro 8 to do any of the modeling? If so what was your take on that experience?

[sweaner]

Brad, have you tested a device like the surface pro 7 and it's pen performance in windows 10 vs windows 11? I've heard some people say that Windows 11 has improved pen performance specifically with older surfaces

[JoshMcB]

I'm enjoying my surface pro 8, however, there are some issues: Battery life sucks when using it as a portable drawing tablet, expect 4-5 hours of heavy use before needing to charge up. Also, the device will randomly shut off when I'm in the middle of working on a digital painting, which sucks! I tried a few workarounds like the intel panel refresh thing, disabling power saving features etc. Still having problems with occasional random shut-downs though! It's not a dealbreaker, but since PS only supports autosave up to every 5 mins, I can still lose an entire section of a drawing/rendering with zero notice.

[RiimukiviMusic]

6:21 Those windows look a tad odd... But it's beautiful as a whole. So is that Surface, but I already bought Galaxy Tab S7 and haven't regretted 👍

[ragecandy]

You can just get a cheap wireless keyboard tho, more comfortable when drawing too

[Solfen_]

I bought a surface pro 8 (i7, 16gb, 256gb) with a pen/keyboard combo for just over 1800$. Still expensive af, but as someone who takes complex written notes at work and school on a surface pro 5, and who uses photoshop as a hobby, I cant wait for it to get here tomorrow.

One of the worst issues I have with my surface pro 5 (the fanless i5 model) is that when Im using whiteboard, onenote, basically any drawing/writing app, and I have something more intensive running along with it, such as photoshop, I find that the pen input gets significantly worse. It spazs out, and requires me to rewrite notes/equations pretty often. I cant wait to not have to deal with that.

Edit: I should note, the student discount that I got applied to my purchase took about 300$ off my purchase. It made it much easier to swallow the price for the specs.

[ricardocampos]

Once again, I watch your videos to decide between devices. You never fail.

Thanks Brad, you're awesome

[joehodgson]

Nice design, but at those prices (once you factor in the absurd price of the pen and keyboard) you could get a ipad Air/Galaxy Tab s7 and a Macbook Air/LG Gram and have the best of both worlds.

[kashifurrehman]

Great videos.
Can you pleas compare (apple pencil vs surface slim pen 2 vs wacom pro pen 2)

[ImperiusRex]

Thanks for the great review Brad! Is painting on Photoshop competent on this device? I've tried older models and the performance was horrible. I really want a portable tablet that can run full Photoshop without lag or compromise. It's the one thing I hate about painting on an Ipad Pro. As much as I like Procreate it's just not Photoshop. Thanks in advance if you reply.

[leonardoromero]

Wow, this machine seems to have evolved into what is needed. I think the Wacom mobile will have to wait, and the iPad. I'm looking to work with this for animation and being able to travel. I think I'm decided for this computer.

[WayneRix]

Always awesome watching your content Brad, thanks again. I went away from the surface pro line after the 4th gen and got an iPad Pro with procreate… have never looked back… the n-trig pen wobble and monthly Adobe fee meant that the iPad was the winner and even though the pen wobble looks mostly fixed, Procreate isn’t on Windows and that means I’ll probably get the iPad Pro again