Opinions on Surface Pro 3

[sonicrobby]

The only thing I didnt like about the Pro3 was the touch responsiveness. It fell short of my experience compared to iDevice touchscreens. I guess I just love the 1:1 ratio of the zooming and such. (I should mention it was just playing with it at best buy and not long term exposure).

I love that it does run a full OS, and if I had the spare cash, I would pick one up to run my Solidworks on.

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I'm probably one of the biggest fans of the device here. It's been my daily driver since release. Main thing you need to know before buying are your use cases. If you're gonna treat it like an iPad and just check email and play free puzzle games, it's a waste. If you're expecting a perfect laptop, it's a waste.

If you need to have complex x86 software available in a really portable form factor, this is it. If you want the best digital note taking integration available, this is it. If you want to do digital art without lugging around a Cintiq, this is it.

Things I use my SP3 for:
- Digital Notetaking
- PDF Markups
- Matlab
- eReader
- Office
- Manga Studio
- Steam games

What kind of steam games? and how do they handle on the iGPU?

 

[spinedoc77]

You know that's what I get tired of to be honest. I'm not throwing you under the bus, but we see the same old arguments and issues, without really looking into what the OP needs or wants.

I did a lot of research, and analysis (really too much) on the SP3, I flipped flopped on buying it so many times, it would make your head spin. At the end of the day, I felt it was not a good choice for me. Yet as I look back through the lens of hindsight, I think I could have erred on a number of those points.

I have had some situations where my MBP was a decent solution, but the SP3 would have been superior.

Yeah I hear ya. I'm trying to be more receptive to others having opinions and just stating their uses instead of just jumping in and saying no my way is the best way. Without that though 99% of the forums go away, lol.

 

[maflynn]

Yeah I hear ya. I'm trying to be more receptive to others having opinions and just stating their uses instead of just jumping in and saying no my way is the best way. Without that though 99% of the forums go away, lol.

I don't think you're guilty of this and I wasn't trying to accuse you. The SP3 is an excellent machine and its hard not to excited about it

 

[TechGod]

I think that's the issue with these forums, and I'm just as guilty of anyone else. X IS BETTER THAN Y. No it isn't, a more accurate statement is "X is better for my wants and needs than Y.". Once you post up something is "better" then you get stuck in the rut of describing why it's better, and all you are doing it describing the way YOU use the device.

But then again if everyone realized this we wouldn't have 99.9% of these forums as it seems like that's all they are based on. I suppose it's human nature... "I paid a lot for this device and I'm going to defend it and the company behind it until I die"

It was meant to be a tongue in cheek, hence the " runs and hides" statement st the end.

 

[spinedoc77]

It was meant to be a tongue in cheek, hence the " runs and hides" statement st the end.

Lol, yeah I kinda figured.

 

[Technarchy]

All signs point to the Surface 3 having a far more positive response from consumers than previous iterations.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/23/7030831/microsoft-q1-2015-financial-earnings

I say it's well deserved praise, and the sales to support what is a good product in my opinion.

 

[Misskitty]

i picked this up today and WOW is all I have to say. I went to Best buy 4 times over the past couple weeks to play with it and was still on the fence. but some products you need to have it in your home to get a feel of how it really performs.

Im actually considering selling my 2011 MBP and ipad air for the SP3. The screen on the SP3 is crazy, it blows away the MBP screen and the keyboard is so much better its not even funny.

I do love the stylus and the 12" screen is a nice plus over the ipad airs.

I also have a 6.4" screen phone, so having a SP3 would probably make more sense than having an air as the air is only 50% larger than my phone screen.

The ONLY thing im on the fence about and having a tough time swallowing, is the price. $1200 IS A LOT!!!!

 

[paolo-]

I'm also on the fence. I'm done with University so I don't really need all the computing power and size of my 15" retina macbook pro when I'm on the go and said macbook pro doesn't actually have enough horsepower for my desktop use.

I don't have an iPad or tablet. I don't really need one but I'd mainly use it to annotate pdfs, browse the web, email, facebook... The few times I've played with my friends' I've noticed they don't rely on too many 3rd party apps and I don't think I would either as a casual user so I think I'd be ok with the selection on the windows store.

For the price of the 15" macbook pro, I could get a surface that would have better portability, give me some tablet features and I'd also appreciate the pen as someone who dabbles in digital painting and has trouble sorting my hand written notes as they scatter around my desk. On top of that, I could get a really decent desktop computer that would blow the doors off my rMBP and stay withing budget.

I've tested the surface pro 3 a few times in store and I've been impressed. The build quality and attention to detail is similar to what I've come to expect from Apple products. The screen is gorgeous, same feeling as my retina screen. Weight is very reasonable. The pen and palm rejection also seemed good. I'm also fine with the keyboard, as a light typist I actually found the keyboard quite nice to use.

The main problem remains Windows... I regularly need to use bootcamp, so I can set it up in a way that alleviates most of my problems with the OS. But some things never change: the registry, the hickups, the endless settings menu...

 

[maflynn]

All signs point to the Surface 3 having a far more positive response from consumers than previous iterations.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/23/7030831/microsoft-q1-2015-financial-earnings

I say it's well deserved praise, and the sales to support what is a good product in my opinion.

With radeongate striking apple's MBP the past few years, and my rMBP having a discrete GPU, I'm looking at replacing my MBP sooner then later. The specter of buying a SP3 over a MBP (iGPU only) is definitely there. I think MS has done some good things with the SP3, and people are finding out its a good machine.

 

[Liquorpuki]

What kind of steam games? and how do they handle on the iGPU?

Been playing Fallout New Vegas and TF2

Played Wildstar on it before which ran fine and I have Marvel Heroes 2015 on it right now, which stutters when there are a lot of players on the screen but is otherwise playable.

With the Intel iGPU you can only run games at low/medium settings and more toward the low end. Settings depends on whether the game is GPU or CPU bound. A CPU bound game like Guild Wars 2 gives you better performance than a GPU bound one. And for Intel iGPU's, anything HD3000 or before was garbage. HD4000, things finally became playable at low settings.

 

[jwalker99]

I'v been using the SP3 for several months now, and it has completely replaced my MacBook Air 11 and iPad 3. For me, the convenience of a laptop and tablet combined into one device far outweighs a few small compromises.

In my use as a laptop, the biggest advantage the MBA has over the SP3 is the trackpad. But the Surface adds a touch screen, a pen, and vastly superior screen resolution. And while it may not be quite as stable to actually type in your lap on the sofa, that's usually when I'm using a tablet anyway.

And as a tablet, there is no denying the iPad has superior app selection and is generally just more intuitive to use. But as a "consumption" device, the Surface has a superior browser which replaces 90% of the missing apps I used on the iPad. The 10% of apps that it can't replace almost all fall into the "productive" category. Here the iPad definitely can offer a more optimized touch only experience. But then again, when I want to be productive, that is generally when I'm back to the laptop. Clip on the keyboard and the SP3 becomes a far more capable productive device.

 

[Toltepeceno]

MBA is better than a SP3.


*runs and hides*

Very informative and well thought out post, I can see why you consider yourself to be a techgod.

Actually though that is the problem with getting info on forums. Don't get me wrong, there is great info on forums and mixed in are usually experiences that reflect what you are looking for but there are also those that believe their choices are the only ones and therefore the best for everyone. It's not the case for sure. The devices are different and neither is best for everything.

Sometimes I think internet anonymity is creating a bunch of narcissists, It used to not be that way.

 

[TechGod]

Very informative and well thought out post, I can see why you consider yourself to be a techgod.

Actually though that is the problem with getting info on forums. Don't get me wrong, there is great info on forums and mixed in are usually experiences that reflect what you are looking for but there are also those that believe their choices are the only ones and therefore the best for everyone. It's not the case for sure. The devices are different and neither is best for everything.

Sometimes I think internet anonymity is creating a bunch of narcissists, It used to not be that way.

Are you ****ing kidding me? I mentioned it was a tounge in cheek. I don't actually think that and reading the whole thread would have helped you realise I was joking.

Hence the runs and hides comment.

 

[Toltepeceno]

Are you ****ing kidding me? I mentioned it was a tounge in cheek. I don't actually think that and reading the whole thread would have helped you realise I was joking.

Hence the runs and hides comment.

From your other posts I don't see any reason to think you were kidding.

Most of my post still stands as it was directed at internet forums in general. I've been doing this since dial up and it's far worse now than ever.

 

[TechGod]

From your other posts I don't see any reason to think you were kidding.

Most of my post still stands as it was directed at internet forums in general. I've been doing this since dial up and it's far worse now than ever.

Ummm, what other posts?

 

[Michael Goff]

I have no desire to use any windows devices in my personal life. The Air 2 (based on benchmarks) is only roughly 27% slower than the new SP3 (and coincidentally my MacBook Air) and it does everything I need it to do - including productivity tasks.

That being said, I'm still tethered to windows at work and I wouldn't mind at all if they were to allow us to use SP3s instead of our laptops. I travel a ton and I either have to go with a slow, small dell or a larger, faster dell.

Both suck.

I wouldn't mind going with a SP3 for what I use my work laptop for.

My biggest problem with the "my iPad has a processor that's almost as powerful as your laptop" argument is that it doesn't take into account one important fact. The laptop will have things that take advantage of that awesome power. The iPad could have infinite power, but that hardly matters in the grand scheme of things.

That, of course, isn't taking into account RAM (amount and speed) or the speed of the storage.

 

[TechGod]

My biggest problem with the "my iPad has a processor that's almost as powerful as your laptop" argument is that it doesn't take into account one important fact. The laptop will have things that take advantage of that awesome power. The iPad could have infinite power, but that hardly matters in the grand scheme of things.

That, of course, isn't taking into account RAM (amount and speed) or the speed of the storage.

Pixelmator is opening the door to some awesome iPad apps...

 

[Michael Goff]

Pixelmator is opening the door to some awesome iPad apps...

I doubt we're going to see a lot of great iPad apps. It might happen, but until then I will continue to question the purpose behind the power.

 

[Misskitty]

The only thing i dont like on the SP3 is that the trackpad lacks 3 finger back/fwd page swiping. Is there no way to put this on?

And the trackpad doesnt scroll fast like apple trackpads do. Any fix for this?

 

[Technarchy]

My biggest problem with the "my iPad has a processor that's almost as powerful as your laptop" argument is that it doesn't take into account one important fact. The laptop will have things that take advantage of that awesome power. The iPad could have infinite power, but that hardly matters in the grand scheme of things.

That, of course, isn't taking into account RAM (amount and speed) or the speed of the storage.

You're not seeing beyond the home screen. The iPad2 has a hell of a lot of horsepower fueling its app selection

 

[adder7712]

The Pro 3 is a laptop. It'll make your MBP redundant.

 

[vomhorizon]

The next iPad will most likely be a 12.9 inch power user tablet that will take the SP3 head on. I think apple going thin, light is a precursor to making it bigger. Shave off another 20% and you have a very light, and thin yet very powerful tablet (even if next generation only receives a 15% speed bump). I don't think apple will combine mac book air into the iPad family but will bring up the iPad +, PRO etc up as an alternative to an entry level mac. IOS9 with multi-tasking will most likely support such a device. Covers are easy to do for most OEM's, ultimately it comes down to how portable the device is as a tablet and had apple done this a year or two ago the device would have been heavy, clunky and the software totally ill prepared to offer anything that is even remotely (from an UX POV) better than the standard iPAD4 or Air.

 

[paolo-]

The next iPad will most likely be a 12.9 inch power user tablet that will take the SP3 head on. I think apple going thin, light is a precursor to making it bigger. Shave off another 20% and you have a very light, and thin yet very powerful tablet (even if next generation only receives a 15% speed bump). I don't think apple will combine mac book air into the iPad family but will bring up the iPad +, PRO etc up as an alternative to an entry level mac. IOS9 with multi-tasking will most likely support such a device. Covers are easy to do for most OEM's, ultimately it comes down to how portable the device is as a tablet and had apple done this a year or two ago the device would have been heavy, clunky and the software totally ill prepared to offer anything that is even remotely (from an UX POV) better than the standard iPAD4 or Air.

The problem Apple will have going down that road is what happens to iOS and Mac OS? It ultimately is the problem Microsoft had with Windows 8.

Do you add stuff to iOS to give it true multitasking, access to the file system? Or do you take Mac OS and enable it to run iOS apps (possibly with an emulator while waiting for programmers to make the binaries compatible with Intel, like we had with Rosetta) on top and integrate some better touch features? Or do you start fresh with something completely new to solve the problem of making an operating system that brings out the best of a tablet experience and the experience of a notebook/productivity device on top of dealing with the problem of the current apps being on two different architecture?

I think Microsoft's solution with Windows 10 works. It's a hodge podge and it isn't as elegant as something Apple would design. But I think it's great at making devices that you can interact with in many ways, mouse/trackpad, keyboard, touch and pen and also gives you the laid-back tablet experience one minute and can run your full on desktop apps the next.

I'm curious to see how far Apple will bring the iPad as a productivity device. I think iOS would need to evolve a lot for a 12.9" tablet with a CPU that can take on a notebook to make sense.

 

[Robstevo]

I got the surface 2 RT and sold it within a few months because it was a piece of junk with a huge lack of apps , kept on crashing , and I got this weird blue screen were I had to try and find my windows key and type in a huge long ass code just to try and boot my device up again.

Build quality was amazing though , only build quality of any device to match what apple provides , and the kick stand was awesome.

I was thinking about getting the surface 3 but I'm gonna wait to see what they do worth the operating system when windows 10 comes out , I also think a device like the surface is the type that needs a few more revisions in order to fully provide the amazinf experience it has the potential to deliver to consumers

 

[Michael Goff]

You're not seeing beyond the home screen. The iPad2 has a hell of a lot of horsepower fueling its app selection

No, I'm talking about the apps. There isn't much, to my knowledge, that really requires having 'almost as much power as a laptop'. Maybe some of the games use it, but I doubt they're going to be straining the newer processor anytime soon.

I'm talking about things that I can use my laptop for, like AAA games where my laptop can barely play them on low settings as they require a behemoth of a laptop to run on high. The iPad doesn't have anything like that. We have a situation where the hardware might be great, and it is, but the software with it doesn't need as much strength.