Surface Pro vs Android tablet, for avoiding mousing

I am a happy iPad Pro owner, but sometimes I wish I had a touch-screen machine for playing Windows games, as my hands tire quickly with mouse/keyboard but not with a touch screen. Is the Microsoft Surface Pro the answer? Can one play a turn-based Windows game on it using mostly finger gestures? E.g., could one play Planetfall or Civ or OOTP Baseball on it without a mouse? How does one do a right-click, in particular?

I have the same question about the Android tablets.

I do like having a keyboard, as it’s the next-best option for me to mousing – and of course I do need to type now and then. I guess both the Surface and Android have physical keyboards, so maybe that’s a wash, but preferable to the virtual iPad keyboard.

FYI, I use autothotkeys routinely with my gaming PC. I also use a touch pad affixed to my keyboard for mousing with my index finger. It’s okay, but somehow my hands do better with a touchscreen. I think a touchscreen involves fewer small-muscle movements or something.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any advice!

Does this help?

The surface pro stylus has a bottom to activate right click mode.

Civ, Xcom, and Unity of command are fully playable in this mode. Source: I played them this way. Other games probably are too.

I don’t quite get what you’re going for with the Android tablets. They won’t run your Windows games natively, so you’re left with mobile games or streaming, which you could also do on your existing iPad (apart from Xbox cloud games for the time being, I guess).

As for Surface, I put some discussion here:

Bottom line is that some games work flawlessly, some games kind of work or require the stylus, and some games ignore touch altogether.

The biggest issue is the lack of ability to hover over something and show the tooltip, which is all-but-necessary in a lot of strategy games that would otherwise be perfect for touchscreen. Right-clicks are also tricky.

There’s an autohotkey program posted in that thread that helps, but is kind of clunky. It gives you some little floating buttons to change between mouse modes, or for particular keyboard keys. But it turns everything into a multi-tap process.

What I really want would be a translation layer compatibility mode for playing with finger on touchscreen that treats a tap as hover, two-finger tap as click, long press as right-click, and pinch as mousewheel. But that doesn’t seem to exist.

Get an Apple Trackpad for use in Windows?

Windows 10 has an on-screen touchpad built-in. Which may or may not be useful?

@legowarrior Thanks for the video link; I watched the whole thing and learned from it, though I wish he had shown more of the touchscreen in action. Is the Surface laptop a better bet than the Surface Pro? Not sure which I’d want, but I do like a screen behind held up by something – I often use my iPad propped up by its case.

@CraigM Glad to hear those games are playable! That’s my favorite genre – turn-based strategy.

@Thraeg I’m sorry I didn’t look in your thread first (though, in my defense, I did do a quick forum search on “Surface Pro” and somehow missed your thread). It’s very helpful! Even if only some games are perfect, that would be an improvement over what I have now.

I mentioned Android because I think of it as a more Windows-y iPad, lol. I’ve never used an Android in any form, so I don’t really understand its capabilities. It sounds like it’s not what I need.

I’m not sure a stylus is the answer for me. Writing with a pen or pencil bothers me a lot – but painting with the end of a paintbrush doesn’t bother me at all. The Apple stylus is somewhere in between; better if I hold it like a paintbrush with an overhand grip, not so great if I claw-grip it. Again, using larger muscles seems key for me. Can the Windows stylus be held overhand, the way you hold a fishing pole or tennis racket, or do you have to grip it tightly like a person doing calligraphy?

Thanks for all the suggestions about autohotkeys and touchpads and such. I actually used to use a voice-activated mouse-controlling program, but I got tired of wearing a headset.

It sucks to have hands that hurt after gaming (not to mention typing or drawing). Take care of your hands!

I guess I should slightly take back my earlier dismissal. Android does have a more open policy than iOS, so there are working versions of things like DosBox, ScummVM, and one-off emulator wrappers for a few older PC strategy games like HoMM. So if you wanted to play retro PC games on a tablet it does open some more options compared to the iPad.

An issue totally resolved if you’re playing with an MS stylus, incidentally, since it’s detected when near the screen. But yes, if you want to play with your finger, this is a major sticking point.

I play Planetfall on my Surface Pro with the stylus all the time, but haven’t ever tried it with my finger.

But I do recommend using said stylus, it is very functional and usable.

I adore the stupid overpriced thing. I use it for everything. It’s also about a million times more precise than a finger, which matters a lot in most games.

Oh yeah, the stylus is great, and solves most of the mouse/touchscreen compatibility issues. But it’s another thing to keep track of and avoid losing, and limits the positions you can comfortably use it in more than using a finger does.

Yeah, I love my Apple pencil, but I use it only for drawing. And as I mentioned, a stylus can bother my hands as much as a mouse and more than my little Ergo touchpad.

I looked at the autohotkey program and the screenshot of Stellaris. It looked promising but yes, multiple taps for simple tasks. If I go with a Surface, I’ll try it.

It’s a tough situation and I hope it works out for you.

Thanks. I appreciate the support!

In most games the Surface pen does this. You can hover and a press and hold gesture is a right click. I find that the pen is terrific. I hold it like a pen and find that natural for running turn based or strategy games. Using a finger to do touch feels awkward and imprecise.

Basically I agree with @vinraith