Surface Pro 4 first impressions

[Queen6]

Bang on same here wanted the Book but in the footprint of the SP4.

I even noticed the SP3 had a BT add-on for the KB but not sure if this would work on the new SP4 KB, so the Canvas resolves this issue, but not a backlit, shame they do not offer an alternative KB even if a little thicker

The Canvas kickstand certainly resolves any airplane tray issues with the SP4 (ie falling down the gap) and as I am not a laptop laptop user it's no issues for me

I noticed there must be some grey imports floating around (eg on Amazon) as they are with Win 8.1 and the spec is slightly different eg BT 4.0 not 4.1, so check before you buy.

I would certainly like to see some side by side comparisons rMBP 15 vs Canvas etc I can't even find a proper review on the SP4 with the M processor to compare a little closer to our rMB, not that I want a low spec one just intrigued on battery life etc

Apple to produce a 12" like the Canvas, that would completely screw up thier line up of laptops which is already confused.

I have time and tend to travel fairly frequently. Am in southern China now (Hong Kong & Shenzhen) which is amazing for shopping for electronics and it`s likely I will be traveling to Houston fairly soon. I think it`s a little early to buy a Canvas. I definitely would want one on Windows 10 with the PCIE SSD. Same as you, the ones I am currently seeing on line here are on Windows 8.1

I plan to follow the canvas with keen interest, likely planning to buy one, or if it proves to be unfavorable Microsoft`s hardware early next year. Well unless Apple do something spectacular with their hardware, equally that will not remedy some of the problems I currently have.

Q-6

 

[SteveJUAE]

I've had similar issues with my rMB

If I pull out the power plug and then close the lid it's fine but if I reverse this and do it quickly sometimes the closed power drain is excessive

I haven't exactly run it through the scientific method, but battery life has been weirdly mixed from my experiences. Like last night, I browsed the internet for about an hour and a half and lost around 16% of the battery. That'd put it about on par with my old iPad, which lost about 10% per hour under the same task.

Video I haven't tested yet, for obvious reasons...

Games and whatnot? It sucks the battery down like a wino hitting a bottle of Night Train.

Sleep time? I'd say it loses about 1-2% per hour while asleep. Not great by any stretch of the word. I'd not touch my iPad for 2 weeks, and still have 70% battery left when I picked it up. But it's not a showstopper, either.

Though I did have one strange exception to this when I brought it with me onsite for a job. I kept it asleep through most of the job, only really intending to use it to bang out the invoice instead of doing it all at home. I had it shut for about 5 hours, and when I went to pick it up, it looked like it lost about 40% of its battery just sitting there. It's only happened once, but I'm guessing it's probably another sleep mode bug.

So from my totally anecdotal, aside glances based observation, I'd say it's probably a little better than the higher tier SP4's. You might be able to eek an extra hour or two out of it during light usage.

 

[Renzatic]

I've had similar issues with my rMB

If I pull out the power plug and then close the lid it's fine but if I reverse this and do it quickly sometimes the closed power drain is excessive

The only thing I had done different beforehand was setting the screen brightness to 100% while I was showing it off to people. I never set it back to its usual 50% I keep it at while on the go, and...well, the battery drained quicker than usual.

It's probably a coincidence, since the screen obviously wasn't on during that time, but that's the only exception to the norm I can think of.

 

[SteveJUAE]

I have time and tend to travel fairly frequently. Am in southern China now (Hong Kong & Shenzhen) which is amazing for shopping for electronics and it`s likely I will be traveling to Houston fairly soon. I think it`s a little early to buy a Canvas. I definitely would want one on Windows 10 with the PCIE SSD. Same as you, the ones I am currently seeing on line here are on Windows 8.1

I plan to follow the canvas with keen interest, likely planning to buy one, or if it proves to be unfavorable Microsoft`s hardware early next year. Well unless Apple do something spectacular with their hardware, equally that will not remedy some of the problems I currently have.

Q-6

I'm more flying around Middle East and Thailand and although you would think everything is available in Dubai, it's not in reality especially MS Products are not other than software, let alone the Vaio Canvas, all though sometimes there are grey imports available.

I think only 2 days past is there now is there an Official Apple store in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, before it was so called authorized retailers and international supermarkets that stocked Apple products, next to the tined fruit and they all have a $1-200 premium over USA and forget duty free shopping all prices are matched to USA/Europe plus P&P ++

Its cheaper in Europe with 20% VAT/Sales tax on most goods, little bargains to be found in these mega malls in the middle east.

I'll stand a better chance picking one up in Thailand or on a trip to China early next year else mail order from USA, hopefully by then a Skylake version will be out for the Canavs unless I see an impulse buy SP4 to tie me over

 

[SteveJUAE]

IMO, Apple was 100% Correct with choosing iOS for the iPad pro. Touch on a OS X would certainly be a disaster due to the UI not optimized for touch. You will end up with multiple mistakes when pressing buttons due to how small and how close they are to each other, just like how frustrating to use touch on Windoze desktop apps.

There is no justification for your remark with reference to Windows that does not exist similarly for Apple, Apple have simply chosen not to implement touch in OSX (currently)

I would go as far to say IMO that as OSX users are so use to the toolbar being in the same location this may not be so natural/optimal in a touch environment and would aggravate the hell out of OSX users if they changed this.

Windows tablets etc or Ipad Pro have identical issue that you note when using full enterprise applications. That's why both got around the big fingers tapping problem with a Pen/Pencil else the Ipad Pro screen would have to be the size of your coffee table if you tried to do something useful without a pencil.

Lesser Apple variants of Ipad Pro and others will always have interface/ergonomics/HFE problems with running mainstream enterprise software and why they are more of a casual/entertainment platform. This is what prompted Apple to develop the Ipad Pro with a pencil.

 

[Queen6]

I'm more flying around Middle East and Thailand and although you would think everything is available in Dubai, it's not in reality especially MS Products are not other than software, let alone the Vaio Canvas, all though sometimes there are grey imports available.

I think only 2 days past is there now is there an Official Apple store in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, before it was so called authorized retailers and international supermarkets that stocked Apple products, next to the tined fruit and they all have a $1-200 premium over USA and forget duty free shopping all prices are matched to USA/Europe plus P&P ++

Its cheaper in Europe with 20% VAT/Sales tax on most goods, little bargains to be found in these mega malls in the middle east.

I'll stand a better chance picking one up in Thailand or on a trip to China early next year else mail order from USA, hopefully by then a Skylake version will be out for the Canavs unless I see an impulse buy SP4 to tie me over

Hong Kong will be cheaper than the Mainland. The Z Canvas is pretty pricy in PRC with the 16Gb 512SSD going for around $3K, I have yet to look at the pricing in Hong Kong, however I would expect the pricing to be around RRP with no tax, it`s too niche a product for deep discounts. Malaysia would be a good option for me, if one can be sourced in KL as again no tax.

A Surface is not out of the question, as it also offers some advantages; dock MS stores etc, equally the Canvas seems to be where it`s at...

Q-6

 

[SteveJUAE]

Hong Kong will be cheaper than the Mainland. The Z Canvas is pretty pricy in PRC with the 16Gb 512SSD going for around $3K, I have yet to look at the pricing in Hong Kong, however I would expect the pricing to be around RRP with no tax, it`s too niche a product for deep discounts. Malaysia would be a good option for me, if one can be sourced in KL as again no tax.

A Surface is not out of the question, as it also offers some advantages; dock MS stores etc, equally the Canvas seems to be where it`s at...

Q-6

Yes forgot KL prices are good I bought 2 years back (near xmas) my middle sons rMBP 13 and a Sony Camera for my eldest there as there was no tax, the Sony store was very good, no discount but you get vouchers back to spend on accessories and quite a few bundled items.

Not sure if Canvas would be easy to find there

 

[spinedoc77]

I think lewdvig is refereeing to multiple user accounts on login eg Admin, Guest, user etc

I see little difference here on face value between the OS's and to justify swapping from Windows to OSX for this is trivia IMO

Perhaps he's forgetting you have to have a Apple/ITunes account to do most things related to software/updates/upgrades etc on his rMB and you have to login in each time it requests

If anything OSX can be more intrusive eg update to El Cap required an Apple account with all sorts of details required MS update to Win 10 asked for nothing

I sure there is other examples in reverse but this is minor stuff

I'm not familiar with OSx that much anymore, don't you have to logout a user to login a new user? Seems like it would be a security concern otherwise. Windows it's always been dead easy to simply log out and log in a new user or admin.

 

[spinedoc77]

IMO, Apple was 100% Correct with choosing iOS for the iPad pro. Touch on a OS X would certainly be a disaster due to the UI not optimized for touch. You will end up with multiple mistakes when pressing buttons due to how small and how close they are to each other, just like how frustrating to use touch on Windoze desktop apps.

Yep, Apple was 100% correct. I'm impressed with their ability to make consumers believe they need multiple devices, thus making double or triple the money off of a consumer in the Apple ecosystem. The ipad pro has iOS, in my opinion, mostly to force you to also buy a MacBook. The advantages of iOS were in how it could be run on very light hardware and had great battery life. Those needs don't exist anymore, we see windows Atom tablets being just as thin, light, having long battery life, etc, so the need for a watered down OS doesn't make sense anymore. "Apps" don't make sense anymore, an app on iOS which is either completely different as a program on OSx, or a watered down sandboxed app on OSx. Microsoft has the right idea with universal apps, which change depending on whether it's on a small screen or large screen.

 

[SteveJUAE]

I'm not familiar with OSx that much anymore, don't you have to logout a user to login a new user? Seems like it would be a security concern otherwise. Windows it's always been dead easy to simply log out and log in a new user or admin.

Yes, The functionality is more or less the same on both OS's I do not know why lewdvig thinks it different.

 

[Queen6]

Yes forgot KL prices are good I bought 2 years back (near xmas) my middle sons rMBP 13 and a Sony Camera for my eldest there as there was no tax, the Sony store was very good, no discount but you get vouchers back to spend on accessories and quite a few bundled items.

Not sure if Canvas would be easy to find there

View attachment 597190

KLCC would probably not be the best place. One of the big malls outside may have, possibly Low Yat Plaza as it specialised in IT & electronics, actually I would be surprised if they didn't have any. I always bought my Mac`s from MY as the pricing was unbeatable. Ironically we were probably there or there about around the same time, may even have some very similar pictures of the Pavilion

Thinking on it there is a Sony Store in the Twin Towers Mall, I wonder if they would stock the Canvas as it`s much bigger than the one in Pavilion, and always carried the full range of Sony products.

Q-6

 

[sracer]

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

It takes Microsoft quite a bit of time to squash those bugs. It was about 6 months after the release of the Surface 2 that Microsoft permanently squashed the chronic issues with intermittent loss of the Type/Touch covers and failure to switch from connected standby to sleep (from the original Surface RT and also plagued the Surface 2). Once they did, it worked wonderfully... but then the week after that they killed the RT Surfaces.

If you're in it for the long haul then stick it out. For me, life is too short to deal with those chronic issues so I traded my first Surface 2 and ended up picking up another one a year later.

 

[SteveJUAE]

KLCC would probably not be the best place. One of the big malls outside may have, possibly Low Yat Plaza as it specialised in IT & electronics, actually I would be surprised if they didn't have any. I always bought my Mac`s from MY as the pricing was unbeatable. Ironically we were probably there or there about around the same time, may even have some very similar pictures of the Pavilion

Thinking on it there is a Sony Store in the Twin Towers Mall, I wonder if they would stock the Canvas as it`s much bigger than the one in Pavilion, and always carried the full range of Sony products.

Q-6

Yes my bad it was the Sony Store at twin towers I used. The Pavilion Sony shop is smaller and I bought one of those round black biscuit tin Sony Home Theatre units for my TV when smart TV's were not so smart as its dvd was also a blue ray player.

 

[Queen6]

Yes my bad it was the Sony Store at twin towers I used. The Pavilion Sony shop is smaller and I bought one of those round black biscuit tin Sony Home Theatre units for my TV when smart TV's were not so smart as its dvd was also a blue ray player.

Last time I was at the Pavilion, one of the shops had a full size Batmobile, as in the one from the newer movies. Yy youngest was "blown away" as he loves all that stuff, certainly a good place to pass time.

Q-6

 

[SteveJUAE]

Last time I was at the Pavilion, one of the shops had a full size Batmobile, as in the one from the newer movies. Yy youngest was "blown away" as he loves all that stuff, certainly a good place to pass time.

Q-6

Yes I think there's a cool comic book/clothing/gadget shop on the lower floor. We looked for a Sheldon tee's shirt Green lantern or Flash

Well I tried numerous ways to see if MS Store could/would deliver the Canvas or the SP4 to UAE, nope

 

[Queen6]

Yes I think there's a cool comic book/clothing/gadget shop on the lower floor. We looked for a Sheldon tee's shirt Green lantern or Flash

Well I tried numerous ways to see if MS Store could/would deliver the Canvas or the SP4 to UAE, nope

Am just going to wait and see, there would likely be a good chance the MS Store in Shenzhen has them, equally the price will be higher due to local taxes. If I see one with the right configuration & price I will likely go for it. As the Z Canvas is still a very new product, just 6 months old, so VAIO may not update the Z Canvas to Skylake so soon.

First I need to dig deeper, as first and foremost the Z Canvas has to meet my needs and fulfil my expectations, there are other considerations such as a dedicated dock, pity the Z Canvas did not also include USB C as some of the better upcoming docks for the Retina MacBook would take care of that one.

Q-6

 

[lewdvig]

I call BS on the i5 overheating with junk like Sudoku. I have ran full PC games, AAA titles and the SP3 doesn't overheat. It does throttle though, but that's something to keep it from overheating. The SP4 is much better in that regard.

Multi account is annoying for sure, I like Google where you can login multiple accounts at the same time, although this applies mainly to the web mail/calendar. Now you CAN use multiple Microsoft accounts in the stock email and calendar app so I'm not sure what you are talking about.

I'm not trying to put you down at all, but sometimes if you spend a little time you can resolve things which seem like issues at first glance.

You could try it, instead of calling BS. See for yourself. Play Sudoku for 30 minutes and then press the SP3 against your face for a few seconds since the SP3 doesn't overheat.

Also, yes AAA games run like crap on the i5-4200U. There are entire youtube channels dedicated to watching games like GTA or Mordor choking on the SP3 at low settings and resolutions. Throttling is due to temps, the frequencies drop when temps get to high and features like turbo boost stop working. The fans are loud, and are on all the time. Even for simple things like windows updates. These are all heat related issues. Your just saying the SP3 has heat issues in a round-a-bout way.

SP3s hit 45-50 Celsius and stay there, because they can't dissipate heat well. That is bloody hot.

You missed the point completely on the multiuser. If I have work and play accounts I need to have MS live accounts for both. Not just for those two mail and calendar apps, but MS Store as well. It's an un-necessary PITA. It's an OS problem, not SP3. I'll get used to it.

Resolution is easy, if you don't like heat you have a 14 day return policy. Or, 30 days from MS Store.

My SP4 arrives Wednesday. I can live with the OS if the HW is better, and it seemed that way in the store.

 

[cbautis2]

You could try it, instead of calling BS. See for yourself. Play Sudoku for 30 minutes and then press the SP3 against your face for a few seconds since the SP3 doesn't overheat.

Also, yes AAA games run like crap on the i5-4200U. There are entire youtube channels dedicated to watching games like GTA or Mordor choking on the SP3 at low settings and resolutions. Throttling is due to temps, the frequencies drop when temps get to high and features like turbo boost stop working. The fans are loud, and are on all the time. Even for simple things like windows updates. These are all heat related issues. Your just saying the SP3 has heat issues in a round-a-bout way.

SP3s hit 45-50 Celsius and stay there, because they can't dissipate heat well. That is bloody hot.

You missed the point completely on the multiuser. If I have work and play accounts I need to have MS live accounts for both. Not just for those two mail and calendar apps, but MS Store as well. It's an un-necessary PITA. It's an OS problem, not SP3. I'll get used to it.

Resolution is easy, if you don't like heat you have a 14 day return policy. Or, 30 days from MS Store.

My SP4 arrives Wednesday. I can live with the OS if the HW is better, and it seemed that way in the store.

That's why it's pointless to put an Intel ULV chip on a tablet at this point. Maybe if in the future we can get the power of a 4 GHz dual core Haswell Chip on a 2-3 watt TDP chip then the tablet form will be viable since it won't need a fan while not generating heat above the human body temps.

Looking at the CPU package power consumption of my 2011 MBA using intel power gadget and I can see 2-4 watts of CPU power being consumed by just playing music while web browsing. That's equivalent of any arm running benchmarks already. No wonder you'll get scorching hot surface temps on the back of the surface pro. Anyways, Apple did the right thing with iPad Pro than M$ with the Surface since you can stress the CPU on the iPad Pro all day long, but it won't put out any excessive heat on the back of the device.

 

[lewdvig]

I think lewdvig is refereeing to multiple user accounts on login eg Admin, Guest, user etc

I see little difference here on face value between the OS's and to justify swapping from Windows to OSX for this is trivia IMO

Perhaps he's forgetting you have to have a Apple/ITunes account to do most things related to software/updates/upgrades etc on his rMB and you have to login in each time it requests

If anything OSX can be more intrusive eg update to El Cap required an Apple account with all sorts of details required MS update to Win 10 asked for nothing

I sure there is other examples in reverse but this is minor stuff

Multiple Mac accounts can use a single iTunes account. i.e. 5 users = 1 iTunes account

Windows 10, 5 users = 5 ms live accounts

 

[Renzatic]

That's why it's pointless to put an Intel ULV chip on a tablet at this point. Maybe if in the future we can get the power of a 4 GHz dual core Haswell Chip on a 2-3 watt TDP chip then the tablet form will be viable since it won't need a fan while not generating heat above the human body temps.

Looking at the CPU package power consumption of my 2011 MBA using intel power gadget and I can see 2-4 watts of CPU power being consumed by just playing music while web browsing. That's equivalent of any arm running benchmarks already. No wonder you'll get scorching hot surface temps on the back of the surface pro. Anyways, Apple did the right thing with iPad Pro than M$ with the Surface since you can stress the CPU on the iPad Pro all day long, but it won't put out any excessive heat on the back of the device.

There's no doubt that Apple's made some MASSIVE strides with ARM over these last few years, but the fact is, if you were to stress out an ARM chip as much as you can stress out an equivalent Intel, it'd get just as hot. It's not like ARM is a vastly different architecture that's somehow magically 1000x more heat and energy efficient. If anything, they're both becoming far more similar than dissimilar these days.

There's only so much you can do with silicon before you start running against the laws of physics. Right now, we're about ~10 years away from 2nm chips, which is about the theoretical minimum size limit of a CPU. We're talking a scale so small, the distance between two transistors is about the thickness of 8 atoms. Once companies get to that point, any efficiency advantages will have more to do with the CPUs instruction set than it's architecture. And here, you won't see too much difference.

 

[spinedoc77]

You could try it, instead of calling BS. See for yourself. Play Sudoku for 30 minutes and then press the SP3 against your face for a few seconds since the SP3 doesn't overheat.

Also, yes AAA games run like crap on the i5-4200U. There are entire youtube channels dedicated to watching games like GTA or Mordor choking on the SP3 at low settings and resolutions. Throttling is due to temps, the frequencies drop when temps get to high and features like turbo boost stop working. The fans are loud, and are on all the time. Even for simple things like windows updates. These are all heat related issues. Your just saying the SP3 has heat issues in a round-a-bout way.

SP3s hit 45-50 Celsius and stay there, because they can't dissipate heat well. That is bloody hot.

You missed the point completely on the multiuser. If I have work and play accounts I need to have MS live accounts for both. Not just for those two mail and calendar apps, but MS Store as well. It's an un-necessary PITA. It's an OS problem, not SP3. I'll get used to it.

Resolution is easy, if you don't like heat you have a 14 day return policy. Or, 30 days from MS Store.

My SP4 arrives Wednesday. I can live with the OS if the HW is better, and it seemed that way in the store.

I've ran AAA titles on my SP3 with no issues. Low settings and 15-30fps, I'm not saying it's optimal but if Sudoku runs that badly then I'd opine the game itself is the issue. There are plenty YouTube videos showing AAA titles on the SP3 running decently. I'm certainly not denying the SP3 heat issues, and that's one reason I sold it and am now happily typing on my SP4.

Multiuser, couldn't you just install iTunes in windows and resolve your issue. Mail and calendar we've already established work quite fine with multiple accounts. MS Store you're definitely right. But IMO I'd say iTunes is such a crappy solution that the negatives far outweigh the ability to have multiple accounts. I think Google got the store right more than anyone else, multiple accounts, and a web based client with no local install needed, and I really dig the remote install for apps on Google play.

Anyway I don't want to seem like I'm disagreeing with you, it looks like we both like the surface pros and both upgraded to the SP4.

 

[maflynn]

Windows 10, 5 users = 5 ms live accounts

I believe there is a way to create a local account in windows, though at this point, I couldn't care less. I'm happy with the way my SP3 is configured and running and I'm the only user on that computer.

 

[Renzatic]

I believe there is a way to create a local account in windows, though at this point, I couldn't care less. I'm happy with the way my SP3 is configured and running and I'm the only user on that computer.

There is, though it is kind of a bit buried. Go to settings>accounts>family & other users>add someone else to this PC. When it asks you how they'll log in, click the "I don't have this person's sign in information", then "add a user without a Microsoft account". Bam. Done.

 

[maflynn]

Thanks for the info. I hate how hard MS makes it. It almost seems like Apple was following suit with El Cap, but at least I was able to easily create my usual local account

 

[Renzatic]

Thanks for the info. I hate how hard MS makes it. It almost seems like Apple was following suit with El Cap, but at least I was able to easily create my usual local account

They really want you to use an MS account, that's for sure. If you don't want to use one at all, the only way you can get around it during the first boot setup process is to not log into wifi when it prompts you to. It'll automatically create a local account then.

But of course they don't tell you that.