“It’s not because I want to make out with her.”
Hold on.” He grabbed a pencil and scrawled excitedly at the paper as if he’d just made a mathematical breakthrough and then looked back up at me. “I just did some calculations, and I’ve been able to determine that you’re full of shit”
― John Green, Looking for Alaska
As an amateur photographer and tech enthusiast, I value mobile gadgets. I have owned plenty of devices, including phones, laptops, and tablets. When it comes to laptops and tablets, it’s hard to find Apple alternatives since they offer industry’s one of the best options. I, however, am not a big fan of Apple and don’t have any intensions to live in the Apple ecosystem. Being an enthusiastic Android fanboy, it’s quite natural for me to look for Windows laptops/Tablets. Microsoft Surface Pro 7 is the answer I was looking for, and I’m not regretting getting one. Here are two reasons why I switched to Surface Pro 7 and little stories interacting with photography and numbers.
For photo editing purposes, I’ve been heavily using my Android tablet (Huawei MadiaPad M5 Pro) for a couple of years. I especially liked a photo editor, called VSCO, which is specifically designed for mobile photography.
I, however, experienced some difficulty importing photos from an SD card to the Android tablet. I used Linux as a transit point between the two. And VSCO is a great app. It offers multiple professional-look options (or presets) for photo editing. But when compared to desktop photo editors, like Lightroom, it significantly lacks some features. And as I’m interested in pursuing careers somewhat related to design and photography as well, I always felt some need to practically use professional photo-editing tools. Therefore, this was the best opportunity to jump into the world of Adobe with Surface Pro 7.
Also, in this connected world, we have plenty of options to gain new skills, such as by watching some YouTube tutorials (and they are free, yay!). Last night when I purchased Photoshop/Lightroom subscriptions, I instantly jumped into YouTube and found a great tutorial video whose duration is about fifteen minutes; and you can learn some basic stuff. And of course, if you want to deepen your knowledge and polish your skills, you can consider purchasing professional instruction courses on Udemy as well (Don’t worry, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee).
And when we talk about pursuing a career in web design, we can’t ignore photoshop and some basic HTML/CSS skills. Since I’m subscribed to Photoshop, I will learn how to use the world’s most popular graphic designing tool as well. It’s always important to keep learning new things.
And here comes the second reason why I chose the 2-in-1 hybrid computer: studying mathematics. One of the fundamental reasons why I didn’t choose a traditional clamshell laptop was the lack of a pen and a touch screen. But don’t get me wrong, I love traditional laptops. I own Windows-powered ThinkPad and Linux-powered Galago-Pro for programming purposes respectively. But still, I need a tablet that also could be working as a laptop. When it comes to the need for the aforementioned purposes, Surface Pro 7 met lots of my criteria. Its multi-functional pen and plenty of notepad options are ideal for mathematical study and make the device even more attractive. And here is my little story about my interactions with mathematics…
When I was a kid, I hated mathematics and advanced algebra. It was more of my sort of “math-phobia” than my ability to learn them. It was just not fun to play with numbers. I didn’t even feel the need to be good at them. But as I grew older, I started to learn the hard way that it’s impossible to survive this world without acquiring some basic mathematical skills and an ability to think logically because this world itself is built upon mathematics. Look at your phone in your hand for instance. The technology behind it is built on algorithms, which inspired by mathematics. What about the rocket that sent humans into the moon? What about those complicated architectures and skyscrapers you see every day in a megacity (I know it’s difficult nowadays in the age of self-quarantine)? But you get my point, right? Some say you can even explain the universe with mathematics. What is interesting about mathematics is that it directly translates what we think into logical forms. It is a language and that’s universal.
So, for those two principal reasons, I chose Surface Pro 7. It’s such a joy to play with new toys and take advantage of what the new technology can offer. By owning one of the most advanced devices, I can feel the future as well.
Thank you for having read my article. Not everyone would be willing to spend their time reading this up to this point. Lastly, Surface Pro 7 isn’t a cheap device, but it’s worth considering getting one not only because of the aforementioned reasons but for many other purposes. Hope you have enjoyed reading this one.
