New Surface Pro
microsoft.com
microsoft.com
> Support is limited to the country you purchased the device in.
Eg:
- If you buy an Apple laptop, and need a repair, they'll fix it if it's in warranty, regardless of where you are.
- If you buy a Microsoft laptop, and need a warranty repair done in a different country, Microsoft won't help you.
I purchased a Surface Book (which I love) in a Microsoft store in the US. It's been sporadically doing this since a couple of months after I unboxed it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_f85KlC5Bc
Microsoft UK won't fix it. Even when I travel to the US I'm not sure I'll be there long enough for Microsoft to do the repairs. I love the hardware, but this policy is really bad. I paid for the top of the range laptop and expect support for it.
Edit: I've raised this with Microsoft Support in the past and they've simply restated the policy and closed the case as resolved. When I attempted to escalate it, they told me to post a complaint to Microsoft's legal department (?!?).
This can be misleading. I bought my Macbook Air in Portugal, had 2y warranty there. Then moved to the UK and the brick stopped working. Went to an Apple Store and since it was after the 1y warranty offered when you buy it in the UK, they rejected replacing it for me. Eventually went to Portugal to visit my family and got a new brick from the same store in 5 minutes. On a curious note, there's no Apple Stores in Portugal yet so in this particular case it was even more interesting to realise how much better help I got from a non-official store.
I walked in to a US Apple store and explained the problem. The Genius person agreed there was a fault and then started tapping away at their computer. He umm'ed and ahh'ed and called over a manager.
At this point I was thinking they were going to reject the warranty repair for some reason, but the manager ended up apologizing that they didn't have any UK-style MacBook replacement keyboards in stock, and they couldn't work out how to order the part in on their US system.
As it happens I had moved to the US, so getting a US keyboard was actually a bonus. I told them I was happy with a US keyboard, and 10 minutes later I was leaving the store with it installed in my MacBook.
The reason I wrote that is because I've purchased multiple MacBook Airs in the US and Apple UK has always serviced them. Obviously your experiences are different.
Was traveling in UK, and laptop keyboard cracked - big hole in the side of the keyboard. Took it to Apple store in London - forget which one - replaced at no cost in about 3 hours.
EDIT: per goatforce5's comment, I had a bit of 'umm' and 'ahh' when I was in London. I thought it would be "out of warranty", but it was the same thing - "not sure we have any parts to fit the US keyboard". They did find one, but that was the potential hold up.
I've gotten 4 or 5 replacements, for free. I always have spares (instead of carrying them with me). So always claim "Dude, weird, I just bought this a few months ago."
Given the past drama, I think Apple just swaps them, to avoid any further bad PR.
And, frankly, these adapters should last forever. For comparison, I don't think I've ever replaced an HP or Dell adapter.
I don't think that's an outlier. In my experience, going to an Apple Store is always more frustrating, time-consuming, and expensive (if you are buying upgrades) than going to an authorised reseller.
IIRC, there's an authorized retailer in Lisbon (Chiado). Warranty-wise, I wonder how buying one there factors in vs. getting one from anywhere that sells them new (like FNAC).
I was so impressed at first at the technical support, they seemed very responsive. But the first support persons promise of help with-in days never materialized. And the number they gave us to get back in touch with them no longer worked. The second support person promised to exchange the surface. But the exchange location was in Shanghai not Beijing. A trip not possible for a teenager in a foreign country.
Time and time again they made promises which were never fulfilled. I swore MS off forever at one point. I finally figured out how to disable the touch screen so that the surface was at least usable as a laptop.
To give some MS credit they did promise to exchange the surface for a new one when she returned home. Even though it was technically out of warranty by a week at that point. By then there were strong yellow lines on the screen for some reason. Their exchange turned out to just be a repair for the touch screen (after waiting two weeks). But it was obviously the same machine because the lines where still there. Finally some strong but nice words with the manager of the MS store got them to exchange the surface that day.
Lets hope the new ones are better...
My employer is in New Jersey, I'm in Canada. They purchased me a Surface Pro 3 at my request, and I've never had a problem getting support directly from Microsoft, including 2 48-hour replacements.
I'm glad you had a good experience, but this does not make my poor experience or what Microsoft UK has repeatedly told me 'incorrect'.
My case number is 1378118289.
There is no warranty, but the lenses are cheaper (due to currency values and the price the companies set it can be a little cheaper, but sometimes a lot cheaper). In the old days the prices in magazines for equipment where in 2 columns, US and imp (imported by us).
In your case you bought the computer overseas an brought it in yourself.
For example Nikon doesn't want you buying gray market and set up a page to try to deter people: https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-store/gray-market.page
Some places that sell gray market lenses will cover the warranty for you in place of the manufacturer (probably a good bet, the if the items are well made and they have an in house repair)
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/would-you-buy-gray-mar...
In this case, I just hope they want to squeeze every last dollar out of their buyers, like Hollywood does with movies.
Otherwise, regional/country-locked sales/warranties make little sense.
Not true. That is only for the iPhone. The Macbook has only national warranty.
There are some country-specific restrictions- here in Mexico, they are unable to fix Apple products from other countries sometimes due to government restrictions; e.g., they were unable to replace my girlfriend's iPad screen at any price at the Apple Store since it was bought in the US.
Unless policies have changed drastically I'd say you are wrong.
> Apple reserves the right to change the method by which Apple may provide repair or replacement service to you, and your Covered Equipment’s eligibility to receive a particular method of service. Service will be limited to the options available in the country where service is requested. Service options, parts availability and response times may vary according to country.
It sounds like you can get treated differently based on where you are.
I've travelled with Mac laptops since the Powerbook days and every single time it has been fixed in the country I was in. The warranty checks done on Apple Support make no reference to the country of purchase.
You may obtain service in the European Economic Area (EEA) countries and Switzerland without paying any shipping and handling fees. Outside this region, service options may be limited. If a given service option is not available for the Apple Product in such country, Apple or its agent shall notify you about any additional shipping and handling charges which may apply before rendering service. Shipping and handling charges will not apply in countries where Apple does maintain an Apple Retail Store or Apple Authorized Service Provider (“AASP”) (a list of current service locations is provided at locate.apple.com/uk/en).
IANAL, but basically this seems to say: (1) in the EEA you can get your support no questions asked, (2) outside the EEA you may have to pay S&H charges, unless there is an Apple Store or Reseller.
As for the keyboard discussion below: when the mechanical layout is the same, or close, you can just change it from the preferences. I poured green tea into my powerbook 1400 in Tokyo; while waiting for a repair part I used it with an external Japanese keyboard set to US letter layout. I would get confused if I looked down so just typed with a blanket or jacket over my hands and it worked great. (Ironically that model was made in Japan, by Sony I believe, and was only serviceable by sending it to Japan. Since I was there I got to watch someone fix my machine while I waited).
I have gotten Applecare repair support in India where there were no Apple stores (at the time).
This is categorically not true of apple or several other brands i've gotten gear this way from.
As a pro-tip you can disable the touchscreen in device manager. Even if you do this the pencil/pen will still work on the touchscreen, but 'touch' will be disabled, so you can can still use it in a pinch but without it being a non-starter device.
Apparently, if there's a service center directly run by Apple, they'll service it regardless of the country.
For example:
Its even €60 cheaper in the UK, €50 cheaper in Germany.
My workload is probably something like 40% reading, 30% writing, 25% coding, and 5% running code, and the Surface has been a nearly ideal form factor for this.
The new "Surface Pro" ticks a lot of boxes for me:
- Supports my existing keyboard, pen, dock, and power adapter
- Improves battery life substantially
- Offers improved keyboard and pen for when I get around to it
- Fanless options
- Improved performance (not that I need much more)
Unfortunately, the configurations are weird. My ideal machine is an i5/256GB/16GB. The closest I can get is i7/512GB/16GB, which nearly doubles the cost, and requires a fan. I just don't get how they can make the floor for 16GB RAM $2200. Is there any professional workload where 8GB isn't constricting today, let alone in another 3 years? My only thought here is that maybe the RAM increases the thermal envelope enough to require the fan, but that seems unlikely, and I would still happily make that sacrifice if I didn't have to also pay for the processor and disk upgrades.
I'm going to harangue them on Twitter, and also look into clearance SP4s with 16GB.
I have storage coming out of my ears after years of collecting disks cards servers and clouds so I have no need to buy a larger SSD.
Being forced into a higher bracket would make me look around more. The clearance SP4s are a great deal right now and I'm not regretting my full-price purchase.
Enjoy your SP4!
I've recently went form 8GB to 16GB (and a processor jump) and my dev environment haven't really gotten snappier.
That said it still feels like the easiest thing they could offer in all SKUs, given the price.
Linux, a reasonably memory efficient text editor, and some chrome tab discipline is all it takes.
In end, however, Docker dependencies eventually forced my hand to upgrade.
Then there's the fact that I expect to keep it for another 3 years, and I doubt memory usage will go down.
Somewhat more concerning is the half dozen times in recent months where it has crashed and then had some kind of trouble starting up. Two such times I was convinced that it was the end for it, but leaving it for a while always allowed it to recover.
But mostly, battery life. SP3 wasn't a champ to start with, but I could get 4+ hours of work done easily without charging. At this point it's less than 2 hours before I'm hunting for a charger, which does change how I use the device.
But in spirit, yes, this. The upgrade in RAM should be $80 in hardware, but I have to pay $900 for it because of the configuration options.
Can you comfortably run some kind of linux VM on it? What kind of external keyboard does it support? How does the display hold up in moderate lighting conditions?
For a lot of work, I've got a desktop, but I use my 2013 mbp at cafes and such. I mostly do node and frontend work, so while a strict windows dev env is feasible, I prefer linux.
Keyboard? Anything USB or Bluetooth. Only one USB port, though.
Display? Pretty bright, the spec is posted if you look. Glossy, but everything is these days.
VM? Sure, it's a 2 core 4 thread processor, just order enough RAM. My i7 has Hyper-V but I don't know if that extends across all procs.
I have run VMs on this, but 8GB RAM gets tight, so it's not something I do regularly. I do use Microsofts version of Bash on Ubuntu for things where I am more comfortable with standard linux tools.
I use the type cover for almost everything, but I've got a more traditional keyboard hooked up to my dock.
The display is excellent. It's glossy, so direct sunlight is problematic, but otherwise it gets plenty bright and looks very good to me, though I suspect my tolerance for colour inaccuracy is pretty high.
1. I write in my daily journal using the surface pen and onenote.
2. I am taking notes in onenote with the surface pen at a meetup.
3. I am writing random fiction nonsense (onenote, surface pen).
4. I am taking notes in onenote w/ pen on one side of the screen, while having chrome open on the other with one of the MOOCs I am taking.
5. I am working on Chinese or Japanese exercises in onenote w/ pen with my kindle open to an exercise book.
I play around with portrait / landscape, having the flipback extended, etc, based on mood and position.
SP3.
At work it gets hauled around as a notebook for writing notes and annotating documents. If I find I need to do some more serious work, I just stand it on the table and start using the keyboard. When I get back to my desk it gets used as an ancillary laptop.
At home whether it's a laptop or tablet depends on what I'm doing. If I'm just mindlessly clicking through reddit while using it as a remote for Netflix, then I'm definitely just using it bare. If I decide I want to type out a lengthy reply to a Hacker News post or do some programming, I'll shift over to the coffee table with a keyboard.
Definitely see a lot of people that bought them with the best of intentions that don't really make full use of them. I've had my eyes on the "convertible" market for years, though, and I don't regret the purchase at all.
They keyboard cover is nice, but I find it to be an incredibly annoying add-on to what I consider a perfect form-factor.
- Reading, watching, or gaming, particularly if I'm walking around frequently
- Taking notes (principle reason I got the Surface was my attachment to handwritten notes)
*I often use the Surface with the keyboard attached, but in positions that no ordinary laptop could support. Laying on the couch with the hinge hooked between my knees and the keyboard on my thighs, or with the hinge hooked over the steering wheel and the keyboard more or less dangling (not while driving, of course).
Even though it's a small amount of my usage, having that capability available to me means I can avoid carrying other things.
Perhaps not surprisingly I think a pixel sense "screen" that could be paired to something like a NUC wirelessly would be a pretty awesome peripheral as well. Something I intend to build out of my SP4 when I upgrade it.
Mentally, whenever I hold a Surface, I don't find myself thinking of the kind of experience I expect from the iPad. I realize now there is the iPad Pro, which has more horsepower/keyboard/pen etc., but it still doesn't feel like a full laptop.
Does anyone else feel like the iPad experience is more.. I dunno, geared towards casual use and entertainment with the walled garden of apps, and Microsoft really doesn't reach/target the same market (even though they are trying)?
EDIT: I guess I am trying to say, something about this market still doesn't feel quite right.. maybe there are still options to innovate.
It is really fascinating to look at laptop and tablet and phone evolution from a distance.
Computers became "personal", and then "luggable", and then "portable", and then "laptop", and then "handheld", and then "phones." As they walked that transition computers were getting more and more powerful, but they were still shedding features as the evolved.
And then at the 'phone' endpoint of evolution they sort of 'bounced backward'. The key to that bounce was screens. First they got to be higher resolution, and then they got to be bigger (clearly testing what was more desirable). And as boundaries along size have started to settle out they have been getting back peripherals (pens, styli, and keyboards).
I feel like the current hardware has re-affirmed a couple of truths. One is that keyboards remain an accelerator for input much like bicycles accelerate walking. Very difficult to improve upon. Styli only make sense if they are at least as good as the instruments most people use and that measure of 'goodness' is sensitivity and lag. The last is that command entry is often gesture based, and while you can do it with keyboards or styli there is a certain "grace" associated with turning the page by flicking your finger rather than pressing the 'down arrow' key or the 'next' button.
The tension is that all of them, the laptop, the tablet, the phone are the "same" thing but tuned in slightly different ways.
The biggest thing that's dragging Surface down is its UI. Neither classic Windows apps, nor Metro apps are very pleasant to use on the given hardware.
I wonder what Alan Kay thinks of Surfaces compared to iPads.
> The most versatile laptop.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/23/15674254/microsoft-surfac...
> Microsoft is planning to release a dongle that will plug into the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices and provide USB-C support. It’s like any dongle you’d expect, and it simply slots into the Surface connector port on the device. “If you want to charge a device with a Type-C charger, you can. If you want to put data back and forth with a Type-C peripheral, you can,” says Panay.
And of course I would prefer to have a magnetic charging connector over USB-C all day. Makes even more sense if your USB-C is from this very same connector.
Jesus christ this is insane.
What would you even plug into it? It's not like USB-C accessories are readily stocked everywhere, I'm still carrying around dongles all day for my TouchBar MBP.
If the laptop shipped with USB-C people would be whinging they need dongles, literally can't win.
I have a 4k monitor with a USB hub and it connects via USB-C. So I can just plug in one cable for power, video, keyboard and mouse. On the surface that means three cables coming out of both sides of the thing, and one of the cables going to a USB hub since there is only one USB port. But I guess you could use the dongle, assuming it supports HDMI output.
That monitor is 2 years old now, I bought it with my 2015 macbook.
The transition to USB-C has begun. For most of the life of the device, you'll probably want USB-C.
I'm sure Microsoft will get to it in the next release.
How about multiple USB ports, say 1 USB-A and 1 USB-C?
That's what I'd plug it into.
Additionally, it has the great feature of elevating the heat source off the ground. This comes up any time I want to sit it on, for example, my couch. With my old laptop, the fan exhaust was largely getting smothered in upholstery, but with my surface pro it's sitting 6 inches above the table/couch/surface.
You can barely use it in your lap if your legs are crossed, and the keyboard can't be used if you're holding the device in mid-air. Other than that, my complaints are all about heat dispersion/generation, not the form factor.
I can see some people not digging the kickstand, but I'd say give it a try before dismissing it.
I don't have experience on a car, but I routinely use it on my lap in the public transport, on airplanes, and on "small coffe tables", as long as I accept "90% of comfort".
Of course, the SP is a hybrid, so if the laptop form factor is a requirement (or "100% comfort"), then no hybrid is an appropriate choice (except the Surface book, which is arguably overpriced).
Regardless, it's definitely wrong to state that it needs more space; it actually needs less than a laptop, as it only needs three contact points - the kickstand, the screen bottom, and the top/lower side of the keyboard.
I will agree it was awesome on plane tray tables, but that was about the only "oh cool! obvious advantage!" location.
i found myself wanting a normal laptop that could hold itself up repeatedly, and kept switching back to my macbook pro
It's common to run several types of server in production, these all need to be run on localhost for development purposes. Also virtual environments so server architecture can easily be scripted.
16GB works for me, but is far from ideal. I was hoping MS would one-up Apple here, but not yet.
Longer device life and usefulness comes come from additional ram than a beefier processor.
Apple mentioned somewhere the 32 GB laptop jump involves dealing with a battery usage hit. While 32 GB arrives, a few vendors like Lenovo seem to have the 32 GB offering available in laptops, but not their Surface Pro clone.
why does this apply here: because I can easily imagine artists using this to modify some assets and trying to run the game to see what they look like, but with 16GB of ram they won't even load the editor, much less the actual server+client combo.
Which, honestly, I might prefer right now since I still use mostly usb 2&3 devices.
This product wouldn't be appealing to me if they'd put Type-C on it instead of SurfaceConnect and Type-A.
I'd say that HDMI would be make the machine a lot more versatile than USB-C (or MiniDP, for that matter). Showing a few photos on a TV, using your client's projector for an unplanned demo, using an absent coworker's screen - I can't remember how often I've envied MacBook Pro Retina users for that port. It's magic.
TVs and projects are not going to switch from HDMI to USB-C either, so waiting won't solve that problem.
Most developers seem to assume their program is the only program running on the system.
This is why my girlfriend can't have multiple browsers open. For a "demanding" workoad (IE; IntelliJ IDE, browser, mail client) windows can easily consume 15/16G already.
Personally I use a stripped down linux machine but I'm regularly over 8G, where's the future-proof option?
1. No USB-C. 2. If I want 16 gigs of RAM, I need to opt for an i7 and half a terabyte of SSD.
I wish I could just go for an i5 with 256 gigs of storage and 16 gigs of RAM. That would be sweet (and not as expensive).
Too bad, let's see what others come up with.
This will be $1800+ after tax, why not just get a really solid laptop at that point? Hell you could buy two solid desktops
But you pay up for those things. So for you, definitely just get the solid laptop. Surface pros can be maddening, and often feel finicky enough that they can't be primary machines.
Yeah a solid desktop, plus a decent laptop, tablet, chromebook and a kindle.
Their goal is to be a more versatile version of exactly that, though? The surface isn't meant to be a tablet alternative, it's more of a laptop alternative that's also sort of a tablet.
I interact with the device in a fundamentally different way. I will sit and read a document with a pen and no keyboard (to proofread, highlight and makes notes). I'd tried this on ipad and it never fit in my workflow well.
I will use it to take notes at a meeting in OneNote. Again, the ipad workflow never worked for me for this.
The benefits definitely aren't for everyone. But it fits me perfectly, and I wouldn't go back from it now. Its probably at least a year before I upgrade (I also have a desktop for heavy lifting). I'm feeling the pinch of the older SP3 cpu a bit on some of the work I do, but not enough to warrant an upgrade yet. If I had money to throw around, I'd get the new one as a drop in upgrade without a second thought.
The problem is the software and features:
- Windows 10 is a known factor, and it constantly frustrates.
- No Thunderbolt or USB-C is ridiculous in 2017.
I'd like to see Microsoft releasing Linux drivers for the Surface Pro. If they really love Linux enough to support it on Azure, they should support it everywhere. (I know, they support it on Azure to compete with AWS and Googs)
Usecases: Web Dev in node/javascript/HTML/CSS, now using WSL. Notetaking in onenote + surface pen for general journaling, notes at meetups, notes from MOOCs, notes from self-language-study. Vague low-power gaming sometimes. Adobe Lightroom photo editing.
Issues: Onenote is absolute fucking garbage at syncing. It is absolutely unusable when offline. It will throw unskippable error dialogs about being unable to sync when offline, meaning I can't use it to write or take notes at all unless I tether. It is so useful in all the above usecases, with no competitor, that I have subjected myself to just getting my tether on my phone ready when I'm out and about and needing to use onenote. However, it is frustrating to the extreme.
Anybody here at Microsoft care to comment on this actually being addressed? Syncing and offline issues have been a "top priority" for the onenote team since 2014 according to the flares of investigating I do occasionally.
Lest we forget, the dream that was USB-C was that we wouldn’t need half a dozen different cords and adapters to connect things, we could just use one port for everything. Sure dongles are slightly worse than cords, but one cord for everything is the best solution. So Mac users need dongles now, but MS is like “fuck that, give people what they immediately want and screw the future”.
If I end up buying the new one (which I might for the built-in LTE), I won't have to buy a new type cover, pen, dock, or spare chargers. Everything is compatible. In my car I keep a Mini-DP video adapter, a portable DVD-RW drive, and an Ethernet adapter, all are USB Type-A, and all would still work with the new Surface Pro.
Consider how much loathing I hear from Mac fans about Apple taking away MagSafe. Why would Microsoft do that to their Surface customers? This is Microsoft making a pro-consumer decision.
The key difference is that these products all purchased early last were all in the early adopter or luxury category.
Surface Pro in mid-2017 should very obviously use USB-C. It fits in both luxury/pro categories. But even beyond that I could see the incentive to use it regardless, just based on it being the future interface for all devices.
I just moved to a 2016 MacBook Pro and the only "all new hardware" I've purchased is a pair of $10 adapters. I haven't replaced any of the hardware I already own, because I don't need to.
I can only really criticize Apple for not including an adapter or two, and for not including more than two USB-C ports on the base 13" MBP. The latter's really pretty regrettable.
They’re now making a stink about “People who love USB-C love dongles. so we have a dongle for you” so it seems like they’re going after the standard intentionally for short term gains.
Besides, Microsoft's products occupy only a portion of the PC hardware market, and several vendors have USB-C products out now. If it slows adoption of USB-C products, I think the effect will be fairly negligible.
The TB16 dock is great though, works seamlessly and smoothly with 4K displays, GigE, supports Power Delivery and remote 'wake' (there's a power button on the dock that if the laptop is sleeping will wake it).
Why do they compare it to the Surface Pro 3, and not the 4??
It’s hard to tell how much of that is hardware difference vs. optimization of the signal processing software though.
This statement begs an obvious question...
[1] : https://c.s-microsoft.com/en-us/CMSImages/Surface_J_Overview...
Scanning back solutions also exist (basically a scanner that you can attach to the camera) . These cost thousands of dollars each and may take a few minutes per image. You cannot use them for moving subjects. [1]
These factors make cameras like this a very rare sight indeed.
[0] http://www.dannyburk.com/drum_scanning.htm [1] http://www.betterlight.com/products4X5.html
There is a certain cachet to old technology.
I'm running Ubuntu 16.04 and Win10 on a Surface Book - no pen input, can't use dedicated GPU, wifi signal occasionally dies, can't wake up from sleep
Other then that, Linux actually runs pretty well and is very usable.
That's... a pretty big "that"
But I haven't gotten around to trying yet, as with the Linux subsystem and hyper-v - I have enough Linux for my current needs.
I do plan to try and move to Linux (again) now - for better window management and better package management (scoop.sh and chocolatey notwithstanding) - and because I strongly believe in FOSS.
Being able to adjust to any angle means you can use it just as comfortably in an airport chair vs on a lounge etc.
Typos aside, hardware looks promising, but Windows...
The only place were I'm ok with Windows is a multi monitor gaming rig.. And that's because there's no other choice.
But, look, the problem with marketing to creative people is that they take it sort of as a challenge to prove you wrong. It's like ingrained. Kind of a bad habit, but, hey, it is what it is and I will happily admit I want one of these new devices and would consider it a major upgrade from my current gear.
Sure, I'd love to have 32GB of memory and an even more powerful machine in general, but I've been damn happy with all of the Surface products I've owned.
Much better to watch people actually using the software rather than just reading reviews...
Surface Book review for music production https://youtu.be/jqPhTDM-uBg?t=1m21s
surface pro 4 https://youtu.be/NwpebBvLBSI
The "no fan" option on the Core i5 could be quite nice, one of the annoyances about the Surface Pro 3 that I've seen was the noise of the fans.
I again convinced myself that the Surface pro 3 is better so I bought it. Wow, some problems are: - The top right of backside is extremely hot when I watch youtube. - Again, the Alt btn of the surface pro 3 keyboard is broken. - batter length is not as advertised.
Therefore, I wont never buy a new surface even if it is cheaper than macbook pro. I am saving money to buy a new macbook pro.
Seriously how is Microsoft even supposed to compete when they're held to completely different standards to their rival. I do feel for them.
Not to mention Surface Pen works with REAL Photoshop and REAL Illustrator.
For the same as the 8GB i5 with 256 GB, you get a MacBook with a Core m and the built-in keyboard. It's slower than the i5, but it's an actual laptop.
16GB RAM starts at 2199 $US. That indeed quite off-putting for something that should replace my laptop.
Most of my heavy-duty work is done via SSH into a remote VM. I watch movies, but mostly browse the web. Most of my actual work is programming intensive. I like pretty screens. Larger is usually better. I want to be able to take it on a plane without hassle when I travel.
New surface? HP Elite x360 15"? Wait for Surface Book refresh? Yoga?
What's new compared to SP4?
All I really care for in a tablet is that it is:
1) Fanless (The iPad is fanless)
2) Lightweight (The iPad weights 600g)Do you ever want to use keyboard with your tablet? Can you see that advantage of a pen? Is there any windows software that you might want to run on your tablet? If no, then no.
Basically this isn't a tablet that is competing against the iPad, it's a tablet that's competing against the macbook/macbook air.
Everytime I pick up a Surface, I think to myself - this is too much for just casual use. Maybe if I wanted all that computing power and options in that form factor, but that's a different use case.
If you're fine with an iPad 2, the new Surface is probably overkill.
As someone who just retired an iPad 4 (first retina I think?), new tablets will be much faster and lighter. I'm currently using a $200 Lenovo tablet, mostly as an ereader, and it's snappier than the old iPad (though the screen is worse). Also, Opera mini is great on these old devices.
Judging by your requirements you're looking for a tablet and compared to the surface an iPad still offers a way better tablet experience.
Does this mean I'm less apt to upgrade?
The XPS 13 2-in-1 is better for me if only for this reason. The XPS also comes with a pen, USB-C, and a decent hardware configuration like 16Gb of ram because we are in 2017!!!
I just wish I could get QHD+ screen. No option on dell.com, while I see that on https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N5MV7YA so it must exist somewhere. I also have been told that it may be possible to get a trackpoint on similar models that share the chassis - but no touchscreen then.
Oh, and there is no LTE in any case. I guess I will have to wait for 2018 to at least get the QHD+ option.
I find the keyboard very good (the right menu key is a bit useless, but you can remap that using many methods) and the touchpad is the best I've used too, although it's probably not as good as the ones in Macbooks.
If the keyboard is the only thing holding you back, rethink it. You should be more worried about the price and the kickstand which is not a problem for me but might be for you, especially if your legs are short and you intend on using it on your lap a lot.
It would be nice if the top-level configuration on the SP5 had 32gb of memory - I end up swapping sometimes (which TBH isn't that bad with a SSD, compared to the old rotating rust drives)
I'm sure the Core i7 are something like the 7500U (i.e. dual core, four threads) - is your Core i5 dual core, dual threads?
In an era when even Apple is rumored (and even if false, still plausible) to be switching to USB-C for the iPhone, Microsoft still tries to force a proprietary connector. Didn't they learn anything from IE? Even if it's good for them for a while, it'll be their demise not following standars and thus locking thenselves out of everything.
USB-C just isn’t popular enough yet to have crashed and burned (though even after that it’ll still be popular for ages for want of an alternative).
I have a Surface Book (the hardware was good enough to get me to switch from Linux, without ever actually having seen one), and the Surface cable is marvellous. Magnets are awesome, and the Surface Book is probably the most carefully magnetically-designed computer hardware. At work I have a Dock and I pretty much just put the Book on the desk by the connector and it jumps into place and my external monitors connect. And removing it, really easy and it can’t go wrong. The whole thing is really, really nice.
But it does point to the fact that many of us have such a dock, and are very happy to not have to buy a new one to use with our new Surface Pros. It also won't hurt that our old power adapters should still work.
One particular gamble of the Surface line was that it relies on accessories to really meet your needs. Microsoft has done a commendable job in this area, allowing me to "upgrade" my Surface Pro 3 with a new keyboard and pen, and now allowing me to continue using all my accessories with the latest device.
I agree they have to break compatibility at some point, but I don't think there's much value yet in doing so. Maybe in a year or so, USB-C will be standardized and reliable enough to really make it advantageous to use as a power supply for all my devices. But it's not there yet.
Switching to USB-C from the bussiness perspective would be a great expense... and would involve higher price tag.
In my opinion, Intel is playing Serguéi Bubka's technique: because there is no enough competition, they go as slow as possible in the mobile market, just matching the performance of the second competitor.
Surface Pro > Surface Pro 4 > Surface Pro 3 etc...
Is it bad to have higher numbers in product titles? I don't see a problem with "Surface Pro 5" but maybe "normal" people do?
Mac Mini and MB Air and such.
When you go to sell it 5 years from now, it will be the 2017 Surface Pro.
Build quality is similar to Surfacebook, but I would have to spend another ~600 to match the stats. Is the whole touchscreen tablet combo worth that premium?
I would say it depends. I love the touch screen (I've disabled my touchpad) - and I love the real pen/digitizer.
The sp4 is basically the dynabook: high dpi screen, a pen that works.
Still some annoyances with scaling in legacy apps - and I've yet to find a great "smart" drawing/cad program that really takes advantage of the pen - I'm thinking something like Ivan Sutherland's "Sketchpad".
I haven't quite gotten around to it, but I believe it would make a great Smalltalk companion (although it's a "button" short). It does work quite well with MIT's "scratch" system.
I'm not saying the extra 600$ is worth it in this case, we'll have to wait for reviews to know that, but generally you're paying for better build quality, integration, support and form factor.
Its the combination of an over-sized tablet that you find impossible to hold and touch type on comfortably at the same time because 'TOUCH ON EVERYTHING', mixed with the idea the family photo frame sitting on your desk would make a great workstation if I just added a detachable keyboard. Lame!!!
Think I may go for an XPS 13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_aSht_ssls
I'd love to get the 256Gb SSD / i7 version and upgrade to 16Gb RAM
I have an SP4 and this would be a very hard to sell upgrade to me.
TL;DR: Unless they redesign the charger and make the touchscreen resilient to cracks, I won't be buying another Surface in the future.
Complaint #1: Am I the only one here super frustrated by the design of the SP3's (and SP4's) charger? Specifically, the magsafe-like plug. It frays right where the cord meets the plastic plug and short-circuits. You can actually see the spark inside the plastic piece that connects to the computer, and the LED indicating it's connected to power will flicker on and off. I've owned two cables now (the original and the replacement I got for this issue) and it's happened on both. There's a thread here about this: http://www.surfaceforums.net/threads/power-cable-fraying.108...
The result is I have to be very careful when it's plugged in, because if I move and shift the cable, it might short-out and the computer shuts off (and it resets my Surface's time, too). Also, annoyingly, sometimes the LED in the plastic magsafe plug indicates it's connected to power, but when I connect it to the Surface the Surface says "plugged in, NOT charging" (emphasis mine).
Microsoft recalled the power cords due to the AC power plug, but not the magsafe connector. So when I contacted Microsoft about the recall, they sent me the part that plugs to the wall, which was not the problem. I've tried reinforcing the connection with electrical tape, and that helps to a very limited extent.
Complaint #2: A month into owning the SP3 I dropped it and the screen cracked. This broke the touch screen (the Surface thinks I'm repeatedly tapping where the screen is cracked.) I had to disable the touchscreen drivers to make the Surface usable, so now the tablet functionality is all gone, which is a bummer because I bought it in part for reading and videos. And, even with the drivers disabled, when the computer boots up from power off, it often waits indefinitely at the screen with the word "Surface" unless I "massage" the area where the screen is cracked. This behavior (and recommendation to massage the screen) is documented in this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/4vmimv/surface_pro....
Dropping it was my mistake, but I wish the Surface's touchscreen was more resilient/better able to handle cracks. iPads and iPhones seem much better off in this respect.
Complaint #3: Occasionally, the Surface will turn itself back on when I've pressed the power button to turn it off. The result is I'll come back to use the Surface later and the battery will be totally dead. I'm 85% sure that it's not me hitting the power button to turn it back on, especially because my power settings are such that, if it's sitting idle for 5 minutes, it should go to sleep.
I really like the Surface in a lot of ways, but the issue with the power cable and the fragility of the touchscreen make me unlikely to buy another Surface, and make me hesitate about recommending a Surface to a friend.
> Xbox
> Xbox 360
> back to "Xbox One"
Microsoft sure has weird naming tendencies,.
Angular 2
Angular
Facebook Messenger
Messenger
Not to mention... google play store vs play store vs google play music vs google books vs Inbox vs gmail vs Google docs vs Google Drive (wtf is even the difference between these two?)
I want to mock but then I recall every naming meeting we've ever had at my company and I totally get it
Its got the same pixel density of a macbook pro, weights half as much, has a touchscreen, etc.
For a casual home user? No, I would never recommend a Surface Pro.
* 17.3" 1080p
* Core i7 (quad core)
* 16GB RAM
* Discrete graphics
* Backlit keyboard (at no extra charge!)
$800 shipped to my door. Only thing I need to do yet is order an M.2 SSD and I'll be happy for the next 4 years.
So my heart leaped a little seeing a new Surface announcement, but personally, smaller screens will never work for these tired eyes. That and when I bumped up to 16GB of RAM... I hit $2200. (It's also hard to see which Core i7 they put in these, but I have a sneaking suspicion there's a 'U' in the model name, meaning it's actually dual core.
Obviously the laptop I'm getting weighs 3-4 times as much and has a fraction of the battery life. It's a completely different animal. But for me, personally, the Surface will just remain "interesting" until it's portable, powerful AND the pricing is not exorbitant. Then I could see trying to get some work done on it when I'm out and about.
woah.
the days of carrying 3-4kg laptops are 20 years ago for me. life is too short for that.