As I spin the Microsoft Surface Dial under my fingers and my art zooms in and out at speed and menus toggle almost intuitively, color is selected and blended by a floating dial, it’s hard not to love Microsoft’s clever little helper.
$99 / £90 add-on for Microsoft Surface Studio and Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio (and any Windows 10 device), the powerful 2-in-1 laptop and tablet streamlines my workflow and speeds up regular tasks, especially in Laptop Studio’s tablet mode. It can either be placed directly on the screen or used on your desk, and you simply click and navigate through the predefined menus or custom tools at will. But is it necessary?
I will try to answer this question in this Microsoft Surface Dial review. I’ve been using the device for two weeks now, both as a creative tool for some digital art and as an everyday optional gadget when watching movies and browsing the web. Read our How We Test and Review Creative Bloq guide for more details on our process. Read on for my thoughts on the Microsoft Surface Dial.
Setting up Microsoft Surface Dial
The Surface Dial has some basic features that let you zoom instantly, adjust sound, scroll, and manage screen brightness settings. This means you can get a feel for the tiny gadget with little fuss, but to really see what it can do you’ll need to go into the settings menu and assign functions to each dial position. Comfortable? Sort of, until you come across an app that doesn’t fully support the Surface Dial, and this is where it can get a bit woolly.
Microsoft Surface Dial apps
Revu
Drawboard PDF
Mental canvas player
Sketchable
Moho 12
Spotify
StaffPad
Word, PowerPoint, Excel (Office Win32)
OneNote (UWP version)
Windows Maps
Graphite
Sketchpad
Groove Music
PewPew Shooter
Microsoft Photos
Colour
Adobe Photoshop (zoom support)
Rebelle 6 (zoom support)
The list of apps with full Microsoft Surface call integration is a bit limited, especially if you plan to use this device for digital or creative tasks. For example, it wouldn’t work fully with Rebelle 6 in my testing – zooming into the canvas worked (the same goes for Adobe Photoshop). It fully works with MS Paint, Sketchable and Sketchpad, and here the promise of the Microsoft Surface Dial is impressive as more software-specific features are accessible.
In Sketchable, for example, you can access a color wheel to cycle through shades and choose ones that match and blend, saving a lot of time taking your hand off the screen to access the color menu. This works especially well for color mixing, as you can gradually circle and select tones of a color and blend without having to use a color picker.
Other apps that offer full feature mapping include the Word and PowerPoint work apps, music software Spotify and Groove Music, and interesting uses in Microsoft Photos and Windows Maps.
Smart and elegant design
While it may not have widespread app support for full integration, there’s no denying that the Microsoft Surface Dial is a smart and smartly designed device. This is a small silver metal cylinder that can be placed on a computer monitor or used on the side of a laptop or desktop computer on a table top.
As you spin the gadget, there’s a subtle vibration under your fingers from the haptics to give you a satisfying sense that your choices are having an impact. There is a gentle ‘click’ when you select functions.
The beauty of the Microsoft Surface Dial design comes from its ease of use. you can literally drop it on the screen of a Surface Laptop Studio and a radial menu appears to highlight functions. It’s almost sci-fi in its approach to UX design and breaks down the barriers to accessing the features of the apps you use.
Microsoft Surface Dial can be used with any Windows 10 device, but if you want the detailed radial menu, you need to use it with a Surface Studio. I’m testing it using a Surface Laptop Studio and the menu is limited when attached to the screen.
The only downside is the base, which needs to be kept clean, as any dust or debris under the Microsoft Surface Dial will destroy its ability to adhere to the screen. It’s a shame there’s no hub or stand to keep the device in place when not in use.
The Microsoft Surface Dial is designed to be used with a stylus (I’m using the Microsoft Surface Slim Pen 2 for this review) with the idea of drawing with your dominant hand and rotating the Surface Dial with your other hand.
It works very nicely and the act of cycling and zooming presets in the dial while scribbling with a stylus feels very natural. While I’m testing it from a digital arts perspective, it’s just as useful as a setup for creating project presentations and photo editing.
What’s the verdict on the Surface Dial?
Having used the Microsoft Surface Dial for two weeks, I’ve found it a nice addition to my workflow, but also one I can live without for some tasks. I liked having the functions of an app at my fingertips, but it’s a shame that not all apps are compatible.
This is a nice little gadget that’s wonderfully tactile and just feels good to use, when combined with a touch screen and stylus you’ll never go back to a mouse or trackpad again. But at $99 / £90 and without a huge list of apps that are fully compatible, the Microsoft Surface Dial might feel like a fun experiment rather than a meaningful addition to your workflow.
Keep an eye on software integration and app support, because when this becomes more universal, it will be worth the investment. If you’ve already bought Microsoft’s Surface Studio brand, then the Dial is a worthwhile innovative addition.
Read more: