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ahostmadsen

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 28, 2009
1,109
854
As ultralight machines you can travel with (for work or whatever) they are about the same weight. If you can live w/o the keyboard (on screen kb is quite good) then the SP4 is about 200 grams lighter. I like the USB charge port on the ac adapter too, very smart. Apple could have done something similar.
But that is not quite a fair comparison. One reason to use a laptop is the keyboard.

I think it's like this (approximately)
SP4+keyboard=rMB+200g
SP4+keyboard-200g=rMB+iPad Air 2
 

whodatrr

macrumors 6502a
Jan 12, 2004
672
494
It happens. The new 5k iMac that I received yesterday may or may not have to be returned? Spent a while with Apple support and will try one more fix, before we have to do the shuffle. Last year, my iPhone 6 was replace 2 or 3 times (I forget) for minor issues. Nowadays, this tech is so complex that I find lots of stuff fails. But normally, since there are fewer mechanical elements, it fails quickly.

Also suspect that there's more risk in products that have just been released, with manufacturing kinks to be worked out as issues arise.

Good luck with your SP4.

I'm now on my second SP4. I was having issues with the Type Cover where upon snapping it on, the trackpad wouldn't work. The keyboard would work fine, but the trackpad wouldn't do anything. Spent about 2 hours in chat and on the phone with Microsoft last night. They said to swap out the keyboard, so I was at the Microsoft Store doing that today. The new keyboard didn't work on the SP4, so they said they would swap that, too.

I understand that sometimes things like this happen, so I'm not mad or upset or anything. I ended up with an extra charger out of the deal (on purpose or by accident), so that will be helpful.

I continue on my quest to see if this device will meet my needs.
 

lewdvig

macrumors 65816
Jan 1, 2002
1,416
75
South Pole
But that is not quite a fair comparison. One reason to use a laptop is the keyboard.

I think it's like this (approximately)
SP4+keyboard=rMB+200g
SP4+keyboard-200g=rMB+iPad Air 2

good point

SP4 766g (m3)
TC4 292g
power adapter 204g
total 1262g

MB 920g
power adapter 169g
total 1089g

yeah that's almost half a lb, pretty amazing

and the rMB should have better battery life too
 

tobefirst ⚽️

macrumors 601
Jan 24, 2005
4,612
2,335
St. Louis, MO
It happens. The new 5k iMac that I received yesterday may or may not have to be returned? Spent a while with Apple support and will try one more fix, before we have to do the shuffle. Last year, my iPhone 6 was replace 2 or 3 times (I forget) for minor issues. Nowadays, this tech is so complex that I find lots of stuff fails. But normally, since there are fewer mechanical elements, it fails quickly.

Also suspect that there's more risk in products that have just been released, with manufacturing kinks to be worked out as issues arise.

Good luck with your SP4.
Yeah, I'm not upset about it. A little frustrated, since it takes up my time, but understanding. I did purchase it the day it was released, so some hiccups aren't out of the realm of possibility. I'm enjoying the device this evening...just setting everything up the way (I think) I like it. It's cool tech, which is always attractive to me.

Now that the Type Cover is working properly, I can say that I *really* like the keyboard. A great feel to it. The trackpad is nice - very clicky - but is a little jittery a lot of the time. (Random question to anyone: how do I do an en or em dash on Windows? Option-hyphen works on the Mac, but here I'm lost. :)
 

Renzatic

Suspended
Yeah, I'm not upset about it. A little frustrated, since it takes up my time, but understanding. I did purchase it the day it was released, so some hiccups aren't out of the realm of possibility. I'm enjoying the device this evening...just setting everything up the way (I think) I like it. It's cool tech, which is always attractive to me.

Yeah, I broke my unwritten rule about getting brand new stuff the moment it comes up with the SP4. I rushed in, and now I'm paying the price. O_0

Now that the Type Cover is working properly, I can say that I *really* like the keyboard. A great feel to it. The trackpad is nice - very clicky - but is a little jittery a lot of the time. (Random question to anyone: how do I do an en or em dash on Windows? Option-hyphen works on the Mac, but here I'm lost. :)

It's been about forever since I used em and en dashes, but I think it's ctrl+num - for one, and ctrl+alt+num - for the other.
 

Sym0

macrumors 6502
Jun 6, 2013
395
47
My new Surface Pro 3 came out of the box flawless, setup, app installs and the rest of configuring went smooth as silk.

Sometimes I wonder if Mac only users have a curse over their heads preventing them from touching other platforms without encountering reasons to bash them ... :D


I love both platforms, and would be happy having any system as long as it is well sorted. But I started on DOS and x86 PCs at 12 years old and only started using macs three years ago, mainly because of iOS, the iPad and the iPhone sucked me in. Its all been fine and enjoyable and I find Apple products the most rewarding. My rMBP is on ebay and is already fetching $1500 with 4 days to go, its three years old - since when does a computer hold its value!!

Anyway, when things don't work in OSx I feel helpless, there is less you can do as a nature of the environment. But in Windows even if its a bit clunky, when something stops working or fails there is always a work around. Always.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
Yeah, I broke my unwritten rule about getting brand new stuff the moment it comes up with the SP4. I rushed in, and now I'm paying the price. O_0
Can you return it at this point if you're unhappy with it?

Overall I'm happy with my SP3, but then I like windows, so that probably sets me apart from many people in MacRumors.
 

Renzatic

Suspended
Can you return it at this point if you're unhappy with it?

Overall I'm happy with my SP3, but then I like windows, so that probably sets me apart from many people in MacRumors.

I could, but I'm not unhappy with it at all. I love it, and think it's one of the best purchases I've made in a good long while.

My regret lies with picking it up day one, instead of waiting a couple of months for the bugs to get banged out, then grabbing it. Like everything works really well, except for when I come across a video on the internet. I have to scroll past it really quick, or my screen takes on a greenish hue, and I risk the GPU flaking out if I stick around looking at it too long. It's a GPU driver issue apparently common to everything that's currently running Skylake, since the Surface Book and supposedly the new HP Spectre are suffering the same problem.

...it's made me scared of movies. O_0
 
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SteveJUAE

macrumors 601
Aug 14, 2015
4,513
4,754
Land of Smiles
This would almost be right if you remembered to add a Wacom tablet (approx. 300g) to the weight calculation to the rMB to even remotely equalise specs let alone adapters also required :)

good point

SP4 766g (m3)
TC4 292g
power adapter 204g
total 1262g

MB 920g
power adapter 169g
total 1089g

yeah that's almost half a lb, pretty amazing

and the rMB should have better battery life too
 

petsk

macrumors 6502
Oct 13, 2009
479
451
No matter how you look at it, Windows is such a massive piece of utter ****.

I've stayed away since Vista and bought a cheap win tablet a few months ago. It took me 2 freakin hours just to change the OS language.
 

tobefirst ⚽️

macrumors 601
Jan 24, 2005
4,612
2,335
St. Louis, MO
No matter how you look at it, Windows is such a massive piece of utter ****.

I've stayed away since Vista and bought a cheap win tablet a few months ago. It took me 2 freakin hours just to change the OS language.
Congratulations. You deserve an award.

This thread is for people who *are* interested in the product, so kindly show yourself to another thread, please.
 

ahostmadsen

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Dec 28, 2009
1,109
854
Congratulations. You deserve an award.

This thread is for people who *are* interested in the product, so kindly show yourself to another thread, please.
Yes.

I still think OS X and iOS are better than Windows, but Windows 10 also has merits. Now I'm testing out Windows on the SP4, and see if that can change my opinion.
 

whodatrr

macrumors 6502a
Jan 12, 2004
672
494
While that was true ~15yrs ago, not so much in the OS X era. There's a ton you can do from the UNIX command line. Just yesterday, for example, had an issue where the Disk Utility didn't recognize a drive - a quick flip of the terminal, running diskutil form the command line, and all was good. Yeah, the El-Cap GUI messed up disk util... but the command line functions still work.

Love my SP3, BTW. Just bought the new SP4 keyboard for it, and that's a big upgrade! I'll wait until the SP5 to upgrade my Surface, but it sure is tempting...

Anyway, when things don't work in OSx I feel helpless, there is less you can do as a nature of the environment. But in Windows even if its a bit clunky, when something stops working or fails there is always a work around. Always.
 

petsk

macrumors 6502
Oct 13, 2009
479
451
Congratulations. You deserve an award.

This thread is for people who *are* interested in the product, so kindly show yourself to another thread, please.

Look pal, this is not a Windows forum. Move on yourself.
 

whodatrr

macrumors 6502a
Jan 12, 2004
672
494
Speaking of first impression, what's up with all these hardware vendors selling handicapped systems?

Was just at Costco and the good news is that they had SP4s! the bad news is that the model they were selling was the 4GB i5, with a 128GB drive. While that system might perform well in the store, I bet they'll get quite a few returns from people buying them only to find there's not enough memory to run stuff they're accustomed to running.

Then again, who's to say? Maybe they'll just get people who want to surf the web and occasionally run an office app? Still, that's the only config that Costco had.
 

Max(IT)

Suspended
Dec 8, 2009
8,551
1,662
Italy
This would almost be right if you remembered to add a Wacom tablet (approx. 300g) to the weight calculation to the rMB to even remotely equalise specs let alone adapters also required :)
there are people that don't want to touch the screen of their notebook, with fingers or pens whatsoever....
 
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AFEPPL

macrumors 68030
Sep 30, 2014
2,644
1,571
England
No matter how you look at it, Windows is such a massive piece of utter ****.

I've stayed away since Vista and bought a cheap win tablet a few months ago. It took me 2 freakin hours just to change the OS language.

So user error then - its two clicks!! less than on the mac
Learn how to use it rather than blaming the tools..
 
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Renzatic

Suspended
So user error then - its two clicks!! less than on the mac
Learn how to use it rather than blaming the tools..

I've never changed the language in Windows before in my life. So as an experiment, I decided to see how difficult it'd be.

The first thing I did was go to the control panel. Looked to the right, and saw a header labeled "clock, language, and region". Right below that was "add a language". I clicked it, saw there was a big box there I could add a language, so I clicked that, and it gave me a big lists of languages, each with their own preview text. Once you add it, you just enable it...

...yeah. For something I've never done before, it was surprisingly easy. Took, maybe, three minutes. Though to be fair, it was more than two clicks.

For another experiment, I googled up "change OS language Windows", and one of the first hits explained exactly what I did above.

So I can assume two things here. Either he got a REALLY cheap tablet, and it took two hours to load everything up, or he never did it to begin with, and is complaining for cookie points.

there are people that don't want to touch the screen of their notebook, with fingers or pens whatsoever....

And those people shouldn't buy a tablet or a Surface.
 
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lewdvig

macrumors 65816
Jan 1, 2002
1,416
75
South Pole
I played with a SP4 at best buy today, amazing improvement over SP3 IMO.

The screen needs to be seen to be believed. And the pen really is much better.

The type cover 4 is incredible. The touchpad really is Apple like. And the keyboard is preferable to the rMB, for me that is.
 

Max(IT)

Suspended
Dec 8, 2009
8,551
1,662
Italy
And those people shouldn't buy a tablet or a Surface.
Nope, those people SHOULD buy a real tablet AND a notebook, like me.
Surface is just an half baked solution: not a great tablet and not a great notebook.
I bought a SP 3 at a very low price, I was intrigued by it as a windows phone user, I have sold it after one month because it basically is "worst of both worlds ".
 
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maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
I played with a SP4 at best buy today, amazing improvement over SP3 IMO.

The screen needs to be seen to be believed. And the pen really is much better.

The type cover 4 is incredible. The touchpad really is Apple like. And the keyboard is preferable to the rMB, for me that is.
I agree, though for me I think the differences are not great enough to justify replacing my SP3. I do think I'll get the new type cover however. I may get the new pen as well, just for the magnet.
 

Adamantoise

macrumors 6502a
Aug 1, 2011
991
388
I agree, though for me I think the differences are not great enough to justify replacing my SP3. I do think I'll get the new type cover however. I may get the new pen as well, just for the magnet.

Yup, that's the way to go. SP3 + new typecover.
 
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