Microsoft Surface Pro 4
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The hardware is great! The software still has some bugs though, particularly some drivers. Had a couple of crashes already. Windows hasn't crashed, but some drivers have failed and restarted. Also, I have fully charged the battery last night, but this morning it's close to 50%. As if it never went to hibernation. I'll need to keep an eye on that.
Avatars are still hit and miss in IE. Many are missing. All showing up fine in Microsoft Edge.
Well not quite the SP4, I did get my SP4 keyboard for my SP3. It has a much better feel to it, much stiffer and the trackpad is much larger. I will use it a while to see how it goes, but right now it has breathed new life into the SP3....
Quite the impressive unit but at over $3K for the top end, I’d rather get a real computer like a Dell Precision M6800 or HP ZBook 17 for the same cost or a few bucks more. There doesn’t appear to be enough touch screen friendly apps in the Windows Store for me to show interest in Windows tablets yet. Maybe the really high resolution of the screen helps in this regard, but I cannot stand typing on tablets using an on screen keyboard that takes up half of the screen real estate. I’ve never found any of these physical snap on keyboards particularly comfortable to use, and they typically lack a dedicated number pad. Also there doesn't appear to be one, I love having a physical wifi on/off toggle. Not just a key on the keyboard that doubles as a Function key, but an actual good ole' fashion switch.
SP4 is about portability. It's a tablet first and foremost. A tablet that is more powerful than most ultrabooks. And its Type Cover keyboard is surprisingly good: feels like a real keyboard. But when closed it just looks like a cover, doesn't add much bulk.
Very few laptops have dedicated numeric pad. And those that still do are real monsters. That M6800 is 8 pounds! Not exactly designed for portability. (I almost bought one two years ago, but went with the m3800 instead: much easier to carry).
As for the price, SP4 is not cheap, but it's not $3000. The most expensive configuration you can buy today (i5/16/512) is $1899. The most expensive configuration you can buy this year (i7/16/512) is $2199. Plus $130 for the Type Cover. The one with a 1 TB SSD is not available until next year and will cost $2699. 1TB SSD is very expensive. But very few people really need it. Comparatively well configured SP4 (i5/8/256) is priced at $1299. Which I think is very reasonable for what it offers.
Very few laptops have dedicated numeric pad. And those that still do are real monsters. That M6800 is 8 pounds! Not exactly designed for portability. (I almost bought one two years ago, but went with the m3800 instead: much easier to carry).
As for the price, SP4 is not cheap, but it's not $3000. The most expensive configuration you can buy today (i5/16/512) is $1899. The most expensive configuration you can buy this year (i7/16/512) is $2199. Plus $130 for the Type Cover. The one with a 1 TB SSD is not available until next year and will cost $2699. 1TB SSD is very expensive. But very few people really need it. Comparatively well configured SP4 (i5/8/256) is priced at $1299. Which I think is very reasonable for what it offers.
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They are costly but not $500 costly. Many good ones retail for under $400.
There was a time when nobody would ever need more than 640K of ram and a 5MB hard drive was unimaginably large. Micro$oft has changed all that -- with impunity. Much is made about music and movie collections being stored for (and from) trips. I don't think it is unreasonable to expect that something that is truly portable yet flexible isn't going to be called on for this kind of stuff.
We've heard a lot about the visual and tactile impressions thus far. How does the SP4 perform?
Keep in mind that this is a PCIe 3.0 based NVMe SSD. Not SATA SSD that you are probably referring to.
The AnandTech's review has some benchmarks. Very impressive performance:
The Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Review: Raising The Bar
The Intel Core i5-6300U manages to pretty much outperform the Broadwell Core i7-5600U in multi-threaded tests, and single-threaded workloads come in pretty close to the higher clocked Broadwell i7
I think I am going to keep the i5 version.
You are correct. As (if) NVMe drives become more popular, the price should drop quickly.
At the same time, you're kinda screwed for expansion options if you must use NVMe.
I'm interested in your benchmarks that were part of your selection criteria, not some pundit running benchmark suites on a demo unit.
Not thrilled with the battery life so far. I have to charge 2 or 3 times a day! Granted I use it more intensively these first days, but still. It charges rather quickly but there is no indicator that it's fully charged. I have to turn it on to see the charging progress.
And the most strange issue is that it drains battery rather quickly in standby mode (Connected Standby). Up to 10% per hour! Must be a bug of some sort. I now shut it down at night to prevent the battery drain overnight.
And the most strange issue is that it drains battery rather quickly in standby mode (Connected Standby). Up to 10% per hour! Must be a bug of some sort. I now shut it down at night to prevent the battery drain overnight.
Got the new dock. It's very heavy! Both the dock itself and its power brick. I am certainly not going to travel with it!
In contrast, the power adapter included with the SP4 itself is relatively small and light. And it has a USB charging port on it, so I could charge my phone from the same outlet. Nice touch! This is very handy for travel!
In contrast, the power adapter included with the SP4 itself is relatively small and light. And it has a USB charging port on it, so I could charge my phone from the same outlet. Nice touch! This is very handy for travel!
The biggest problem so far appears to be in the Intel video driver. Causes all kinds of issues, especially when using Microsoft Edge browser: annoying tint (color temperature) changes when playing videos (or even when there is an animated ad on the web page), occasional crashes. Some report occasional flickering - I haven't seen that yet. I really hope a patched driver will be released soon!
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I wonder if there is some manner of Wake on WLAN and/or Wake On Bluetooth turned on that is eating the battery. I suppose that Bluetooth would need to be enabled to get the tablet to wake up from a keypress or mouse click like a non-tablet might do. Perhaps Bluetooth 4.0 isn't as lightweight as implied. Having to carry extra power banks devalues the lightweight properties of the device.
These practical use insights, good and bad, are much more valuable than any blog benchmark.
It seems odd that a web browser could have such low level control. I wouldn't put it past Microsoft to try to write to a lower ring than documented to get the benchmark numbers up.
I'll have to play with some settings to see what might be causing that. It has something to do with that new "Connected" Standby thing in Windows 10.
For now, I just shut it down when not in use. It takes less than 8 seconds to boot Windows 10 from the SSD, so no big deal.
Sorry, my mistake, I was thinking the Surface Book which tops out at $3200, not the Surface Pro 4.
