Fan Tips you don’t want to miss

Since joining the Surface team back in August I have had the opportunity to attend awesome events like PAX Prime, and most recently, GDC Next (which I just got back from). I also get to meet and interact with incredible people. One individual that really stands out, and who I’d like to introduce here is Sean Ong. What Sean does in the video below is really cool and reinforces how Surface is a different kind of tablet. Check it out.

Sean is a clean energy engineer, husband, and father of two wonderful children. Sean spent five years in Colorado working on solar energy projects, and now resides in Seattle, WA with his family, where he continues to work on energy efficiency and renewable energy projects.

I recently had the opportunity to have lunch with Sean, and as expected, his enthusiasm for all things tech is just as infectious face-to-face as it is in his videos. I think we spent half of lunch talking about geothermal heat pumps before we started talking about why he chose the Surface and what motivated him to create videos showing off its features (see Sean’s original videos on his Surface RT here and here).

Here is what Sean had to say in response to some of my questions:

Q: Why Surface?  There are a plethora of tablets on the market, what was it about the Surface 2 that made it stand out?

A: It’s hard to point to any one thing on the Surface that stands out. I would say that the industrial design of the Surface itself definitely stands out and appeals to me. When I was shopping for a new tablet, I was looking for something that I could still have fun with, but also get some work done when needed (which is often). I was tired of carrying around my tablet and laptop all the time. I wanted a tablet with all-day battery life, I needed a solid productivity/office suite, and ideally something with a USB port. The ability to use a mouse when needed was also essential. The Surface 2 appeared to fit my list quite well (and was in my budget!), and after seeing it on display at my local store I immediately fell in love with it.

Q: You recently published a video entitled Why I Love my Microsoft Surface 2: Tips and Tricks where you walk viewers through some of the cool things you’ve discovered can be done with the Surface 2. What inspired you to make the video?

A: I wasn’t expecting too much from the Surface, and I wasn’t aware of everything that it was capable of doing. But I was very surprised to find out how capable the device was. My friends and family were a bit skeptical of my purchase initially, so I actually made the video to share with them and to show off how amazing my Surface is. I wasn’t expecting that the Surface 2 video would be helpful to so many other people!

Q: Do you have any plans for future videos about the Surface 2?  If yes, can you give us a hint as to what those might include?

A: There were many more features that I wanted to share and talk about, but the video was already longer than I had intended it to be. So I’m definitely considering a follow-on video. I’ve got at least 3 mind-blowing features that I’ll make you wait for, but some of the other smaller items I wanted to demo was OneNote and stylus support, immunity to viruses, and some of my favorite web apps for the Surface.

Sean’s ability to pick up the Surface 2 and quickly discover a multitude of uses is simply amazing, as you will see when you watch Sean’s latest video, Why I Love my Microsoft Surface 2: Tips and Tricks.