Surface Dial

I'm already enjoying my Surface Dial but find in-app support for Windows Wheel devices frustratingly limited so far. Since I use quite a few Autodesk products on a daily basis for both business and personal endeavors, and those products tend to focus on design of three-dimensional objects, having those products support the Wheel interface would make orbiting models much easier. There are also many other tasks which are less intuitive using a mouse that would benefit from supporting a Wheel device. However, at the same time, it would be nice to see Microsoft add more ability to customize by providing for application-specific custom tools. For example, I would like to add my own custom tool to the Surface Dial menu for when I'm working in a program which allows me to rotate objects, even though the program may not yet directly support the Surface Dial; if I know how to invoke the command through the keyboard or mouse, I ought to be able to add that command to a custom tool on the Surface Dial which becomes available when the associated program is active. Note that this would be a relatively easy software improvement and does not affect the overall functionality of the hardware. Still, it's a fascinating new way to interact with the computer. I hope to see additional development to support the Surface Dial across the board.

Received my Dial ahead of the published schedule from Microsoft. Great surprise! Pairs immediately with my Surface Pro. I am using my Pro with 2 external monitors and it seamlessly transitions between screens / commands for different programs open. I.E. Drawboard open to review submittals ZOOM and web browser on the other screen to SCROLL. Besides, it's fun to use and makes the Fruit Computer fanboy in the office jealous. Well worth the asking price, it's both PRODUCTIVE and FUN!!!

It's a recent purchase so I did limited testing only. Even though currently it cannot be used for many things I still like it a lot and believe it holds a great promise. I'm looking forward to native support especially from Adobe in their Creative Cloud applications.

I was hoping I could replace my Powermate with this. The actual Dial is wonderful. It has a nice feel and scrolling is buttery smooth -- when it works. Unfortunately, the way it works seems kind of hinky. I'm basically using the Dial for scrolling around pages using my left hand while my mouse is in my right. The Powermate will scroll any window the mouse hovers over. The Dial doesn't seem to work that way. Frankly, I'm not real sure how the Dial determines what window to scroll. For example, when I open a File Explorer it will sometimes allow me to scroll the active pane. Sometimes it only gives me a volume option and I end up inadvertently turning up/down my speaker volume. Not cool. In Visual Studio 2015, it will only scroll the first open text editor window no matter what window/pane is active. In Chrome/Edge it works very well and as it should. My Surface Dial wish list includes: - Being able to change the default scroll direction when turning the Dial clockwise/anti-clockwise. - Make it more obvious that adjusting the Mouse Roll options also affect the Dial behavior (took me a while to figure that one out) - Have the Dial respect the 'Scroll inactive windows when I hover over them' option If those three things worked, this Dial would be extremely helpful. Right now it's more of a toy that I wished worked then switch back to the Powermate to get any real work done.

I bought the Surface Dial to use with my Surface Pro for digital drawing and painting. For that purpose, it's fantastic. It feels great to turn and I love the way it clicks for some settings. The bottom is a very grippy rubber that works well on many surfaces including my couch. Since it's wireless and grips well, you have a lot of options for where to place it. For example, one time I drooped my arm over the side of the couch while holding the Dial in my hand, and just pressed it up against the side of the couch any time I wanted to turn it. It was great. I've tried a lot of different options for my off hand when making digital art, including a 25-key gaming keyboard. The combination of button+dial is simple, compact, and versatile and could easily replace the 25-key keyboard in the future. And that's where I have a problem. While the radial menu built in to Windows is already designed in a way that would give the Dial that versatility, the actual customization options are not. You have 7 slots that you can fill in the radial menu, but only one of them can be customized. The rest must come from a very short list of pre-made options such as zoom, volume, brightness, and mouse scrolling. At this point in time, there's almost no software that natively supports the Dial, so you're entirely reliant on that one single customization setting for anything useful that you'd like to do. It's actually pretty ridiculous that Microsoft thought this was acceptable. I can't imagine any other hardware manufacturer limiting their device this way. With actual options for customization, it wouldn't even matter that most software lacks native support. Instead, we're stuck with this really awesome tool that's extremely crippled. Looking at the built-in settings, it seems as if Microsoft wanted to sell a really expensive volume knob rather than something actually useful. Depending on your workflow, this can be worked around with a little bit of effort. I ended up changing the hotkeys in my painting program so that I could change one dropdown in the Windows wheel settings menu and it would switch to a new 'configuration.' This is obviously less than ideal, but at least it allows me to make pretty good use of the Dial despite the shortcomings of the software. This would easily be a 5-star review if the device had even the most minimally acceptable level of customization. Hopefully we get there soon.

is slow to respond to use if it's been sitting there unused, so is not a very helpful gadget unless you use it constantly without interruption (if a wireless mouse was this unresponsive you'd never use one)...the battery saving implementation is horribly conceived, and while the fit and finish seem okay (not like plastic junk) the functionality is minimal, even if you are one of the few people who could find a use for it...on top of that it is absurdly overpriced for what it is

I have wrestled with this question and determined I wasted my money. Rumor was a software update will allow the dial to work on all surface devices as it does on the studio, that proved to false thus far. I talked to agents, store personal. and supervisors but no one has the same answers. I'd say if you don't have the studio, pass. the performance on the surface book, and surface pro is horrid. too in consistent and too expensive to do so little.

good

The only thing I would add is the ability to program this to any app that is in focus. So you would link it to the .exe of the program running that you wanted to use it with i.e. Adobe Lightroom, then if I wanted to use it to rate or change the white balance. Lots of potential

I am not able to get it to work with my surface pro at all