Microsoft Surface Dial Review - Another $100 gimmick or a real game changer?

AlTech · January 6, 2017

Surface Dial. No doubt, the most interesting PC accessory I have ever seen. One that I could never have seen coming from anyone, let alone Microsoft. But as much as the Surface Dial looks cool in marketing, should people actually buy one? Is this accessory worthy of the Surface name? And is this a bunch of marketing fluff or is this thing damn cool?

Functionality

With the surface dial, functionality depends entirely upon apps and programs. There’s a list of supported apps and programs which will support the Surface Dial out of the box. Which means that at least for now, if the apps you use aren’t supported, that it’s more for a select and niche group of people.

Here’s the list of official apps supported:

Revu
Drawboard PDF (UWP Windows Store)
Sketchable
Mental Canvas Player
Moho 12
Spotify
Staffpad (UWP Windows Store)
Word, PowerPoint, Excel (Office Win32 apps)
OneNote (UWP Windows Store)
Windows Maps (UWP)
Plumbago (UWP Windows Store)
Sketchpad (UWP Windows Store)
Groove Music (UWP)
PewPew Shooter
Microsoft Photos (UWP)
Paint
Adobe Photoshop (Win32)

Although some apps aren’t officially on the list, they may support some functionality anyways. Such is true with Microsoft Edge. Surface dial can be used to scroll through web pages and boy let me you tell you, it’s great! Changing the volume in Spotify with the Surface Dial is surprising easily once you’ve paired your Surface Dial to your PC. To connect the Surface Dial, you’ll need to use the 2x AAA batteries included to power a Bluetooth connection by holding down the small circular button.

Getting to know it

The pairing is relatively easy but takes a few minutes and requires a PC with Bluetooth 4.0 or newer. This means that older laptops from 2011/2012 and most desktops may not be able to power the accessory. For desktops, this is an easy fix requiring the purchase of a Wi-Fi card (which typically include Bluetooth) or a Bluetooth module in the form of a PCI/PCI-E card.

Actually using it

So what is it like to actually use this thing? In short, it’s a great piece of CNC machined Aluminium which just happens to be a Surface Accessory. That’s it. If you were looking for something ground breaking and industry leading product then you were a little mistaken. Someday it will be a household name and Surface Dial will be an amazing and awesome product. Today it is just a cool accessory for the hardcore fans.

One of the real problems with this accessory is true of any acessory that comes to market, it has limited support and needs more time. For the Surface Dial, the support needed is in the form of Apps. Microsoft has started to remedy this by releasing the tools needed to take advantage of Surface Dial in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update SDK but this causes further issues for app developers such as “What about everybody running my app on Windows 10 Build 10240 and 10586?” and “Should I bother to support it if it’s probably gonna be a niche product?”. These are some really difficult questions developers will need to answer at some point. Over three quarters of the Windows Store apps and Win32 programs I use on a daily basis do not support this. Thus, it makes it a difficult recommendation to buy, even for the most loyal Surface and Microsoft Enthusiasts.

The feedback from the Surface Dial is almost silent, this really pisses me off since I want it to be slightly more audible considering I can barely hear it.

The way to interact with Surface Dial is never truly described or explained to the customer and you have to figure out how to use it as you go along. This is a very trivial issue, especially when showing it off to someone who doesn’t know what it is. I’m fine with this since I’m a techie and power user. But I wouldn’t exactly be happy giving this to a nontechie.

And here are some photos and screenshots of using the Surface Dial...

(sorry for potato images. It's cos the bad lighting makes it hard to focus)

And yet despite all my criticisms, this product is great. But there are still quite a few flaws for a new $100 accessory. So in no particular order here are some disadvantages I’ve found with my time using it.

1. Bluetooth support on Desktops is poor

The fact that many desktops don’t feature Bluetooth (let alone Bluetooth 4.0) is a definite show stopper and ensures that you’ll probably be using this with a laptop, 2 in 1 or a Surface Studio (if you’re baller enough to swallow the price tag of that). That’s a real shame because there have been times when I wanted to use the Surface Dial with my Desktop PC on my desk. Unfortunately, my Desktop PC doesn’t have Bluetooth 4.0 and thus I would need to further need to buy a PCI-E Wi-Fi or Bluetooth module. This kind of annoyance is just one of a few.

2. Just a huge spinning dial with a button?

Sometime I get the impression that Microsoft was skimping out on the gen 1 of this accessory. There are some features which I think are no brainer stuff which they should have added in such as pressure sensitivity, DPI options in Settings and Strong Haptic Feedback. These are just a few features that I’m hoping for in Surface Dial 2. Thankfully, Microsoft decided to use AAA bateries instead of a built in Lithium Ion batteries. This is a great thing since if it contained Lithium Ion batteries and they died over time, people would need to buy a new unit just to continue using it.

Developers, Developers, Developers

At first glance, you may be worried by the short list of apps officially supported but there’s actually not much to worry about. Microsoft’s Software Development Kit for the latest update (as of this review) of Windows 10, the Anniversary Update, has full support for accessories like Surface Dial. Over time, I expect the number of apps which support surface dial to increase. As a hobbyist developer myself, I’ve been thinking of adding Surface Dial support to some of my own UWP apps such as Linus Forum Tips. Unfortunately it’s not quite so easy to implement since developers have to wonder what kind of controls a dial would be optimal for and if Surface Dial support is necessary or just a gimmick. For changing color or changing the volume of a song, it makes total sense. In other applications such as Twitter or Facebook, it makes less sense.

The type of apps I generally see this kind of thing being useful in is either in content creation apps (think of After Effects or Premiere) or apps for consuming content (think of Netflix or Hulu). Developer support for this style of accessory is going to be pretty hit or miss in the future although I definitely think more developers will adopt it at some point. But then again, the real issue here is the catch 22, the chicken and egg problem. The way to get more developers to support this in their apps is to have more customers use one and yet by the same token, the way to get more customers using the product is by having many apps which support Surface Dial.

Pricing and availability

Let’s get the elephant out of the room here. Pricing for this is astronomical if you don’t live in the US. It’s so astronomical that I paid a whopping 80% more than the MSRP. But that’s because Microsoft is not selling this worldwide (at least for now) and thus I was forced to resort to Amazon where many sellers listed it for well over MSRP. If you really want one then the premium Amazon Seller Tax is gonna be a little bit of a hard pill to swallow. If you’re on the fence as to whether to buy one or not and you’re only choice is Amazon, I’d say wait until it’s available in your region’s Microsoft Store website. I asked a local tech store chain which is quite large about whether or not they stocked the Surface Dial and the employees I dealt with had never heard of it. This being despite the fact that they had practically every 1^st party Surface accessory there is (minus the Surface Mouse and Surface Keyboard). Microsoft definitely has been quiet about this release but I think that’s because they want app support to be better before they release it worldwide.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, the Surface Dial in an interesting piece of hardware and technology which is designed to push manufacturers to release new types of accessories and devices as well as to create a new input device. The Surface Dial does this in a premium enclosure at a premium price point. I would recommend this to anybody who owns or plans on buying either a Surface Studio, Surface Book or Surface Pro 4. if you don't own any of these then I wouldn't recommend rushing out and buying one since I think that a lot of the potential for this comes from using it with a digital stylus alongside this. Is it worth the $100 USD official retail price? Yes, it is. Is it worth what I paid for it? No, it's not worth $170 USD. I bought it nonetheless because I really wanted to try out this cool new accessory and so I can use it to help make my apps optimized for it.

That's it for my review of the Microsoft Surface Dial.

It's available on Microsoft Store at www.microsoftstore.com for $100 USD. You can also buy it on Amazon for a range of prices from $100-190.

Thanks for reading .

EDIT:

Notes - Testing was conducted using a production Surface Pro 4, Intel core i7 model with 16GB RAM and 256GB Storage. Speed and performance may vary by model or configuration.