Surface ad claims can't do it on my mac

[spinedoc77]

If there's one thing that'd give me pause over going with an SB, it'd be the rather short battery life of the tablet portion. Granted, that not it's primary use, so it can get away with it somewhat, but the estimated 2 1/2 - 3 hour lifespan is just a little too short if I want to do something like binge on some movies, or get into a book.

This is something I hope will be expanded upon with the inevitable SB2. If they could eek 4-5 hours out of it, I'd be thrilled.

I would have gone with a SB over a SP4 if it wasn't for the terrible battery life of the tablet portion of the SB, and also it has no kickstand. I'm a bit surprised MS didn't allow for this, but then I guess they really wanted to differentiate the 2 products. I'm still waiting for a larger surface pro since I don't really carry it around anywhere, I usually use my 8" tablet for travel. I'd be first in line for a 15" surface pro.

 

[Renzatic]

I would have gone with a SB over a SP4 if it wasn't for the terrible battery life of the tablet portion of the SB, and also it has no kickstand. I'm a bit surprised MS didn't allow for this, but then I guess they really wanted to differentiate the 2 products. I'm still waiting for a larger surface pro since I don't really carry it around anywhere, I usually use my 8" tablet for travel. I'd be first in line for a 15" surface pro.

The kickstand would probably be overkill for the SB, since the tablet is very much a secondary function of it. That's not say that it's a bad idea, cuz it was one of the first things I thought of when playing with one at Best Buy, but it seems that if you want a more tablet oriented device, you've gotta go with the Pros.

Same with the 15 inch screen. I wouldn't be surprised if the upcoming Book 2 came with 13.5" and 15" options (especially when you consider that they seem to be positioning it as an MBP competitor), but the Pros will probably remain at 12.3". I don't even think MS will be making the 10" Surfaces for much longer.

 

[tbayrgs]

Since this seems to have the greatest concentration of those familiar with Windows tabs/convertible, I was hoping to get some quick opinions on a product in the same vane as the Surface Pro 4.

I've haven't used Windows with any regularity (some light casual use here and there) for a good 8+ years now and would really like to dip my toe back in that pool. The hardware has made massive strides since the days of my last Window machine, a Dell beast running XP, and have seen lots of praise for Windows 10 so thought now was as good a time as any. I have very light needs---no heavy lifting like extensive video editing, etc so my little bit of research brought me to the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S. I wan't something very light and portable and want to explore the tablet side of using Windows as well. I've played around with the Surface Pro 4 and it's a bit heavier, quite a bit more expensive taking into account the added cost of the keyboard, and likely overkill for my initial needs. The TabPro S review generally show the keyboard (included ) is fairly decent, the display is exceptional (OLED high res) and best part is very good battery life (8-10 hrs). I also don't have any serious need for a Pen, something the SP4 appears to do better. I should add, I have a line on TabPro S for just under $600, brand new, unused.

My reservations are primarily that it's running just a Core M3 with 4GB of RAM. Think that'll be enough for light to occasionally more moderate tasks? My Macs aren't going anywhere so I'll have more horsepower if needed elsewhere.

Sorry for the slight thread high jack--thought a quick question here in a related thread was better than an entire new one. If the Mods disagree, I'm happy to start a fresh one.

 

[BlueGoldAce]

Since this seems to have the greatest concentration of those familiar with Windows tabs/convertible, I was hoping to get some quick opinions on a product in the same vane as the Surface Pro 4.

I've haven't used Windows with any regularity (some light casual use here and there) for a good 8+ years now and would really like to dip my toe back in that pool. The hardware has made massive strides since the days of my last Window machine, a Dell beast running XP, and have seen lots of praise for Windows 10 so thought now was as good a time as any. I have very light needs---no heavy lifting like extensive video editing, etc so my little bit of research brought me to the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S. I wan't something very light and portable and want to explore the tablet side of using Windows as well. I've played around with the Surface Pro 4 and it's a bit heavier, quite a bit more expensive taking into account the added cost of the keyboard, and likely overkill for my initial needs. The TabPro S review generally show the keyboard (included ) is fairly decent, the display is exceptional (OLED high res) and best part is very good battery life (8-10 hrs). I also don't have any serious need for a Pen, something the SP4 appears to do better. I should add, I have a line on TabPro S for just under $600, brand new, unused.

My reservations are primarily that it's running just a Core M3 with 4GB of RAM. Think that'll be enough for light to occasionally more moderate tasks? My Macs aren't going anywhere so I'll have more horsepower if needed elsewhere.

Sorry for the slight thread high jack--thought a quick question here in a related thread was better than an entire new one. If the Mods disagree, I'm happy to start a fresh one.

Both will be plenty powerful for moderate tasks. It will do fine with office work, like photo editing, etc. I wouldn't use it for lightroom, but I am sure it can manage photoshop to a limited degree.

 

[Renzatic]

My reservations are primarily that it's running just a Core M3 with 4GB of RAM. Think that'll be enough for light to occasionally more moderate tasks? My Macs aren't going anywhere so I'll have more horsepower if needed elsewhere.

I have the Core M3 SP4. While there have been occasions where I've managed to choke it out, I've been rather surprised at just how far I could push the thing. Provided your moderate tasks aren't editing 4k video on the go, and running the latest games at native resolution, it's a pretty stout little processor.

 

[tbayrgs]

Thanks for the advice. The seller lowered his price to $580 so I pulled the trigger. Not bad for a brand new, unused model that would've cost $899 a few months ago and still sells for $700-750 now. I'll share my impressions after a few weeks in another thread in case anyone is interested.

 

[Renzatic]

I'll read it.

To put things a little more in perspective for you, the current gen Skylake M3 is roughly equivalent to last gens mobile Core i3, give or take a bit here and there. The one nicest thing about it is that it's hyperthreaded, but it's also meant to be a fanless processor, which means that it has a tighter heat envelope. How it compares directly depends on what you're using it for.

Though when I first got it, I ran a Blender CPU rendering benchmark to see how far I could push it. It won't win any speed awards, but hell, I was shocked it was able to do it at all.

 

[mi7chy]

Core M3 is plenty. If anything I'd like for it to come with 8GB DRAM base instead of 4GB since you'll likely run out of DRAM before fully taxing the Core M3.

Galaxy TabPro S has the superior display but the Surface Pro 4 has the superior keyboard, overall design and bundled pen. A Surface Pro 5 with AMOLED would be perfection since one of the drawbacks of SP4 is the LCD backlight bleed.

 

[gotluck]

Agreed 4gb ram should be the bottleneck if you do see one that is

I would like to hijack this thread too

Just built a desktop mATX Hackintosh and it is sweet!!! My first Mac ashamed to say it is my first PC built from individual parts, ironically it took apple to motivate me

 

[QuickDraw]

i read many positive comments on the SB in this thread, but my experience with it has been pretty negative. Display scaling issues every single day when having two monitors connected (using the sb dock), or attaching to projector. Power management issues i am not able to resolve (hot bags/not going to sleep/hibernate, crashing when going to sleep. Iffy touchpad scrolling/gestures, depending on the application. I tried to fix driver issues by going on the Insider Builds. I eventually reinstalled windows completely. Hardware is unbalanced/top heavy it's difficult to have your laptop on your lap, the whole thing is just too wobbly for me when typing. I can't speak for the Pen or tablet mode, as i find myself not using it as a tablet.

Anyways, i realize many of my gripes are software related, so there is hope things can be fixed and of course ymmv others might not have these issues and are perfectly happy for their use cases.

P.S:5 of my co-workers have the same SB, with similar experiences (especially display scaling, and not going to sleep when closing the lid), so i don't think i have a lemon, unless we all got a bad batch of hardware.

 

[frankgrimes]

i read many positive comments on the SB in this thread, but my experience with it has been pretty negative. Display scaling issues every single day when having two monitors connected (using the sb dock), or attaching to projector. Power management issues i am not able to resolve (hot bags/not going to sleep/hibernate, crashing when going to sleep. Iffy touchpad scrolling/gestures, depending on the application. I tried to fix driver issues by going on the Insider Builds. I eventually reinstalled windows completely. Hardware is unbalanced/top heavy it's difficult to have your laptop on your lap, the whole thing is just too wobbly for me when typing. I can't speak for the Pen or tablet mode, as i find myself not using it as a tablet.

Anyways, i realize many of my gripes are software related, so there is hope things can be fixed and of course ymmv others might not have these issues and are perfectly happy for their use cases.

P.S:5 of my co-workers have the same SB, with similar experiences (especially display scaling, and not going to sleep when closing the lid), so i don't think i have a lemon, unless we all got a bad batch of hardware.

Yeah that's the pleasure of being an early adopter, it's the first version and it will need time to mature. But it's a highend and highpriced device so this stuff shouldn't happen. MS just has to do a better job of testing their software before releasing stuff. Do you have the one with a dedicated gpu?

 

[QuickDraw]

Yeah that's the pleasure of being an early adopter, it's the first version and it will need time to mature. But it's a highend and highpriced device so this stuff shouldn't happen. MS just has to do a better job of testing their software before releasing stuff. Do you have the one with a dedicated gpu?

yes, I have the Core i7, 512GB SSD, 16GB RAM /dGPU version

cheers

 

[Renzatic]

MS just has to do a better job of testing their software before releasing stuff.

If past history is an indicator, there should be something of a disclaimer stating that you shouldn't buy any new Surface product until at least 3 months after release. I made the mistake of buying my SP4 right on release day, and...

...let me tell you, it kinda pissed me off sometimes. The screen would turn a greenish hue while watching videos in Edge, the screen would sometimes refuse to turn on after being put to sleep, the keyboard wouldn't always activate when plugged into the system. It works beautifully now, nary a hiccup to be seen, but it took about 4-5 months and 3 big system updates to get to this point.

 

[Michael Goff]

Yeah that's the pleasure of being an early adopter, it's the first version and it will need time to mature. But it's a highend and highpriced device so this stuff shouldn't happen. MS just has to do a better job of testing their software before releasing stuff. Do you have the one with a dedicated gpu?

How can they do that when they fired their testers?

 

[spinedoc77]

Thanks for the advice. The seller lowered his price to $580 so I pulled the trigger. Not bad for a brand new, unused model that would've cost $899 a few months ago and still sells for $700-750 now. I'll share my impressions after a few weeks in another thread in case anyone is interested.

If the SP4 didn't exist I'd most likely have one of those tablets,it's super nice. My only gripes are the keyboard isn't in the same league as the SP4's and I'm disappointed with Samsung's close ties with Wacom that it doesn't have a Wacom digitizer/stylus. But for $580. man you can't lose that's a nice deal, congrats.

 

[mi7chy]

If past history is an indicator, there should be something of a disclaimer stating that you shouldn't buy any new Surface product until at least 3 months after release. I made the mistake of buying my SP4 right on release day, and...

...let me tell you, it kinda pissed me off sometimes. The screen would turn a greenish hue while watching videos in Edge, the screen would sometimes refuse to turn on after being put to sleep, the keyboard wouldn't always activate when plugged into the system. It works beautifully now, nary a hiccup to be seen, but it took about 4-5 months and 3 big system updates to get to this point.

I believe the majority of the issues are Intel driver related so Microsoft's hands are tied. The SP3 had fewer issues with the only noticeable one that I recall being the disappearing WIFI but the easy work-around was to uninstall WIFI from device manager, redetect hardware changes and it comes back. No big deal compared to the SP4 that was rougher initially. My experience with AMD in general has been smoother out of the gate so I'd be open to Microsoft using AMD Zen mobile APU in the upcoming SP5 with the benefit of even better graphics performance.

 

[soulreaver99]

Had a rocky start with the Surface Book i7/16/512 I picked up today

Froze right after logging in for the first time
USB ports stopped working
Chrome keeps crashing

So I force installed the Anniversary update which fixed the USB ports. Chrome still didn't work.

Then I uninstalled the 64-bit version of Chrome and reinstalled the 32-bit version which so far works perfectly.

There have been a handful of reports of people having issues after the AU but so far everything is running fine. The keyboard and trackpad is the best I've ever used on a Windows laptop. Aside from all the BS I experienced at the beginning of using this, this is an amazing device. Even tablet mode was quite impressive.

 

[maflynn]

So I force installed the Anniversary update

I saw someone one WindowsCentral having issues and a reinstall of Anniversary fixed it (maybe it was you )

Then I uninstalled the 64-bit version of Chrome and reinstalled the 32-bit version which so far works perfectly.

Good to know, so I can keep this in mind
[doublepost=1472553168][/doublepost]

If past history is an indicator, there should be something of a disclaimer stating that you shouldn't buy any new Surface product until at least 3 months after release. I made the mistake of buying my SP4 right on release day, and...

Agreed, and I was almost one of those people on the bleeding edge, I was so close to taking the plunge on the SurfaceBook when it was first released, but as the price crept up to close to 2k, I was extremely reluctant to spend that much money on a 13" laptop. Heck, I didn't want to spend that much on a 15" MBP anymore. I eventually opted for a 5k iMac, I feel that I got more value for my money.

As for the SurfaceBook, I took the plunge and ordered the base model. I'm just waiting for the delivery. I feel for my needs, and its intended purpose the base model should be fine. I'm a little hesitant about the 128GB of storage but I should be ok. Its not like the SB will be used to maintain my 500GB Lightroom library.

 

[JackieInCo]

I have the Surface Pro 3. I did the update from yesterday and looks like the battery problems are fixed. I could usually get 3-4 hrs on one charge and now my battery app is estimating about 7-8. Nice improvement. It will be two years that I have owned it in November and I have 34 battery cycles on it.

 

[Renzatic]

Agreed, and I was almost one of those people on the bleeding edge, I was so close to taking the plunge on the SurfaceBook when it was first released, but as the price crept up to close to 2k, I was extremely reluctant to spend that much money on a 13" laptop. Heck, I didn't want to spend that much on a 15" MBP anymore. I eventually opted for a 5k iMac, I feel that I got more value for my money.

If it were sporting a quad core mobile processor, I'd be more willing to plunk down that much cash. It'd make it a comparable machine to the 15 MBP in both software capabilities and price.

That's the other thing I'm hoping will be improved with the SB2. If it has a stouter processor, and the tablet portion lasts longer on a charge, I'd be greatly, GREALTY tempted to pick one up. Though I've got to fight through the fact that I don't really need that much laptop, since my desktop does all the heavy lifting, and my light, tablety SP4 has done a great job of meeting my on-the-go type needs.

Man, I hate being tempted by cool stuff.

As for the SurfaceBook, I took the plunge and ordered the base model. I'm just waiting for the delivery. I feel for my needs, and its intended purpose the base model should be fine. I'm a little hesitant about the 128GB of storage but I should be ok. Its not like the SB will be used to maintain my 500GB Lightroom library.

I feel like I have to be a little more tidy with the 128GB I've got in my SP4, but it hasn't ever become a limiting factor at any point.

Though if you ever feel like it is too little for you, you can upgrade the drive in the Surfaces, since they all use standard M.2 SSDs. The only downside is, well, it's not an easy thing to do. You have to be dedicated and utterly confident in your abilities to be willing to crack one of those things open.

 

[rowspaxe]

That's the other thing I'm hoping will be improved with the SB2. If it has a stouter processor, and the tablet portion lasts longer on a charge, I'd be greatly, GREALTY tempted to pick one up.

I am waiting 6 months on whatever they do next: hopefully rollout issues are a thing of the past. I like the SB but will give some consideration to the Viao Z flip. Whoever goes quadcore first will get a look from me. Intel graphics creeping up on the nvidea performance of the SB. Interesting times

 

[Renzatic]

I am waiting 6 months on whatever they do next: hopefully rollout issues are a thing of the past. I like the SB but will give some consideration to the Viao Z flip. Whoever goes quadcore first will get a look from me. Intel graphics creeping up on the nvidea performance of the SB. Interesting times

There is one advantage to having an Nvidia GPU inside the thing. While the Iris chips are closing in on their low-mid end performance in pure realtime 3D, Intel's stuff, I don't believe, has access to CUDA for GPGPU tasks.

So there still is a good reason to go with discrete GPUs these days.

 

[danckwerts]

Do you know what the Surface does better than either the iPad or the Mac? Split screen.

And, also, run OS X!

 

[maflynn]

Though if you ever feel like it is too little for you, you can upgrade the drive in the Surfaces, since they all use standard M.2 SSDs.

I'm rocking with windows 10 on my split up Fusion drive. Its on the 128GB SSD right now, though I do have my data on the spinning hard drive. That arraingement has been working well for me, but if push comes to shove, I'll pick up an external SSD

Though if you ever feel like it is too little for you, you can upgrade the drive in the Surfaces, since they all use standard M.2 SSDs.

That's good to know and something I'll keep in mind, but I'll probably be less likely to open it up but we'll see.

 

[Renzatic]

That's good to know and something I'll keep in mind, but I'll probably be less likely to open it up but we'll see.

When you see what's required, you'll probably change your mind. That's what happened to me.

Dunno what it is about glue, but it makes opening a computer scary.