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[StudioTan]

Thought of getting my wife the pro 4, but after bumping it to 8gb of ram and the keyboard, it's almost the same price as the surface book.

They are different use cases. Not having the kickstand on the tablet section of the Book makes it much less versatile for my uses cases than the Pro.

 

[internetwolf]

Thought of getting my wife the pro 4, but after bumping it to 8gb of ram and the keyboard, it's almost the same price as the surface book.

does she want portability or a little more power?

 

[see5harp]

They are different use cases. Not having the kickstand on the tablet section of the Book makes it much less versatile for my uses cases than the Pro.

Yea I found that to be a little bit strange when messing with my brother's and realizing how top heavy it was. I did find removing the screen and flipping it around to browse apps and the web a pretty awesome way to use the device though on your lap though.

 

[StudioTan]

Yea I found that to be a little bit strange when messing with my brother's and realizing how top heavy it was. I did find removing the screen and flipping it around to browse apps and the web a pretty awesome way to use the device though on your lap though.

There's just not a good way to draw on it except by having it on your lap which is not comfortable for me. There's too much spring when it's attached to the base to use that configuration for drawing.

 

[see5harp]

There's just not a good way to draw on it except by having it on your lap which is not comfortable for me. There's too much spring when it's attached to the base to use that configuration for drawing.

Yea for art I could see that being an issue. I also found the device to be way too large to use it as a tablet and that's ignoring the drastically reduced battery life. I do think messing with his just reinforced how much I'd rather get a surface pro 4 though.

Love the fact that most TV's just have the screen mirroring stuff built in. Obviously I've used people's apple tv and understand how cool that tech is but to simply turn it on on the television and see something pop up in the "connect" section of the notification bar was pretty cool, even for someone who has been sharing content between devices wirelessly for a while now.

 

[jmdajr]

does she want portability or a little more power?

Well if you want to type while on your lap, I assume the Surface Book is better.

But just as a tablet, maybe the pro is better?

This is still the best thing I can think of which has the, "best of both worlds."

 

[ElNino]

I do still like mine a lot, except for how often the damn thing blue screens for a variety of reasons. Which is starting to.. grate on me.

Maybe I'm lucky, but I've yet to get a blue screen (knocks on wood). I've also never had the Intel video driver crash that I'm aware of. The only problem I've had is occasionally I've had the screen not come on while Windows Hello was trying to authenticate me. It's only happened a few times though and might have been fixed already.

I was using it this holiday and was also pleasantly surprised with the battery life as I don't always need to run it for long without connecting to the dock at home. I used it off and on for 4 days and didn't even come close to needing to the charge it.

 

[jmdajr]

Talked it over with the wife, and for sure she wants it more like a laptop. Her Nexus is just fine as a tablet.

But after reading about all the issues, I wonder if a Dell XPS 13 is better. We have two dell laptops that pretty much never died. They were good machines.
No Nvidia processor though.

 

[Netherscourge]

I want one of these so bad, but I wish they had a 980M option for the dedicated GPU.

I don't care if it makes it heavier, thicker or more noisy - I just want a legit gaming option for it.


I just want an all-in-one mobile tablet/gaming laptop hybrid.

 

[jmdajr]

I want one of these so bad, but I wish they had a 980M option for the dedicated GPU.

I don't care if it makes it heavier, thicker or more noisy - I just want a legit gaming option for it.


I just want an all-in-one mobile tablet/gaming laptop hybrid.

I thought the surface book was a pro 4 with a fancy keyboard, but nope. The tablet part is much different. Ports are not there, battery life is not there. Oh well.

 

[dLMN8R]

A 980 in this thing would be a bad idea. The GPU as-is when in use makes the base really hot. I can imagine a more powerful GPU requiring the entire thing to be redesigned for more efficient heat management.

I thought the surface book was a pro 4 with a fancy keyboard, but nope. The tablet part is much different. Ports are not there, battery life is not there. Oh well.

But it also means that the Book's screen is much thinner and lighter than the Pro 4, despite it being a lot larger and with a higher-resolution screen. Nice trade-off IMO. I just pop it off to read the news for a couple hours here and there.

 

[ElNino]

I thought the surface book was a pro 4 with a fancy keyboard, but nope. The tablet part is much different. Ports are not there, battery life is not there. Oh well.

Yes, this is the fundamental difference between the Book and the Pro. The Book is a laptop (with most ports in the base) that can be a tablet as well. The Pro is a tablet (with all ports in the screen) that can be a laptop. For general computing needs, both should function basically the same, dGPU not withstanding.

 

[jmdajr]

A 980 in this thing would be a bad idea. The GPU as-is when in use makes the base really hot. I can imagine a more powerful GPU requiring the entire thing to be redesigned for more efficient heat management.

But it also means that the Book's screen is much thinner and lighter than the Pro 4, despite it being a lot larger and with a higher-resolution screen. Nice trade-off IMO. I just pop it off to read the news for a couple hours here and there.

That's true. It's incredibly light. I was pretty surprised.

 

[Warnen]

Have had my Surface book for just about a month now, still love it. So great having a Laptop and Tablet in one with such great build quality.

Shit jinxed myself, shortly after this post flash stoped working on edge and chrome. After trying a bunch of stuff I turned to MS customer there answer is to wipe system and reinstall everything.

Sorry that's what killed me on surface one and two. Back to Mac....

 

[Owari]

I want one of these so bad, but I wish they had a 980M option for the dedicated GPU.

I don't care if it makes it heavier, thicker or more noisy - I just want a legit gaming option for it.


I just want an all-in-one mobile tablet/gaming laptop hybrid.

I play every major AAA game from 2015 on my Surface Book in HD no problem. Increased graphical capability would be nice, but isn't essential. The device you describe is the Surface Book, bro.

Shit jinxed myself, shortly after this post flash stoped working on edge and chrome. After trying a bunch of stuff I turned to MS customer there answer is to wipe system and reinstall everything.

Sorry that's what killed me on surface one and two. Back to Mac....

Why are you using Flash in 2016 though? Didn't all that stuff die like 6 years ago? That shouldn't be the deciding factor on keeping the Sbook, to be honest. You can get by completely without flash for a couple of years now. It literally breaks everything it touches, even Adobe warns against using it.

 

[Warnen]

Why are you using Flash in 2016 though? Didn't all that stuff die like 6 years ago? That shouldn't be the deciding factor on keeping the Sbook, to be honest. You can get by completely without flash for a couple of years now. It literally breaks everything it touches, even Adobe warns against using it.

One of the things I do most on my laptop is stream vids from crunchy roll, they still use flash player. If I don't use it then a main reason I use a laptop is gone.

Also it's not the fact that that flash doesn't work it's the fact that years later MS answers to a problem is still delete everything and do a fresh install. That's insane.

 

[Owari]

One of the things I do most on my laptop is stream vids from crunchy roll, they still use flash player. If I don't use it then a main reason I use a laptop is gone.

Also it's not the fact that that flash doesn't work it's the fact that years later MS answers to a problem is still delete everything and do a fresh install. That's insane.

Like it or not, that's how many issues are solved. Especially when you're putting sketchy software like Flash on a PC or Mac. Most likely you have a virus from the unstable flash, which is why they recommended a system reset.

Just do the reset and download Plex for your streaming, using a plugin like this. boom. easy. Rule #1 for every computer owner: Never download Flash. You're going to go "back to Mac", download flash, and get a ton of viruses, and probably be reset to square one. It's not worth it.

Either way don't buy a MacBook right now, they're about to refresh the Pro line with the 2015 Retina MacBook keyboards and USB-C, and the 2015 RMB is useless with one USB-C port.

 

[RunLikeH3LL]

One of the things I do most on my laptop is stream vids from crunchy roll, they still use flash player. If I don't use it then a main reason I use a laptop is gone.

Also it's not the fact that that flash doesn't work it's the fact that years later MS answers to a problem is still delete everything and do a fresh install. That's insane.

You know doing a "re-install" is not the same as it was on Win 7 and older? On 10 you can do a Refresh which preserves all personal files and certain apps, and replaces just the core Windows files. Then there is a Reset which is a full wipe and reload, but all updates are preserved. Both are done through settings, are incredibility easy to do and don't require an installation USB stick.

 

[jmdajr]

Well we got the Surface Book. We be fucking poor now.

First problem I had:

When I install my old version of Lightroom, the tools/panels are fucking microscopic. It's like adobe for people with 20/10 vision. I actually had to find a registry hack for all the shit to scale properly without dropping the screen resolution.

Anyhow. Yeah I wasn't too thrilled for a moment there.

 

[Osiris]

Currys/PCWorld have leaked the UK price. (Pre-orders start tomorrow)

£1299 for the base model... yeah.... no.

Looks like it's a SP4 i5 for me at the end of the month then

 

[Wolffen]

Well we got the Surface Book. We be fucking poor now.

First problem I had:

When I install my old version of Lightroom, the tools/panels are fucking microscopic. It's like adobe for people with 20/10 vision. I actually had to find a registry hack for all the shit to scale properly without dropping the screen resolution.

Anyhow. Yeah I wasn't too thrilled for a moment there.

To be fair to the surface book, that's not a surface book issue, it's a Windows 10 and third party software issue. Same thing happens on a MacBook Pro in bootcamp. (drives me nuts) Even MS SQL Management Studio has problems with scaling on hi-res monitors in Windows 10.

 

[Kyoufu]

Currys/PCWorld have leaked the UK price. (Pre-orders start tomorrow)

£1299 for the base model... yeah.... no.

Looks like it's a SP4 i5 for me at the end of the month then

£2,249 for the 16GB dGPU model.

Not sure if want.

 

[jmdajr]

To be fair to the surface book, that's not a surface book issue, it's a Windows 10 and third party software issue. Same thing happens on a MacBook Pro in bootcamp. (drives me nuts) Even MS SQL Management Studio has problems with scaling on hi-res monitors in Windows 10.

Yeah. I guess we are not there yet.

:|

But we should be!

 

[MatrixMan.EXE]

Not sure whether to pick up an i7 Surface Pro 4 or i5 Surface Book w/dGPU now. Decisions, decisions. I didn't expect the release date to be next month, and I was planning on picking up the pro at the end of January.

 

[Skilletor]

Well we got the Surface Book. We be fucking poor now.

First problem I had:

When I install my old version of Lightroom, the tools/panels are fucking microscopic. It's like adobe for people with 20/10 vision. I actually had to find a registry hack for all the shit to scale properly without dropping the screen resolution.

Anyhow. Yeah I wasn't too thrilled for a moment there.

I have this problem with Scrivener and ComicRack. Scrivener is really hard to use on my surface book which sucks since it's what I use most to write with. :/

Even dropping screen resolution doesn't do much to fix it.

 

[jmdajr]

I have this problem with Scrivener and ComicRack. Scrivener is really hard to use on my surface book which sucks since it's what I use most to write with. :/

Even dropping screen resolution doesn't do much to fix it.

It's like when I bought my first ever HDTV tube TV and was super excited. All of a sudden my games and dvds movies looked like total shit.

Very disappointing.

 

[Kai]

So I pulled the trigger and chose this instead of the XPS. Got the i7, 512g &16 gig ram version for $2499 (price match from Microcenter at Best Buy).

Downloaded the latest drivers, but I am only getting around 5.5 hours of battery. Does that sound bad\good?

 

[ElNino]

So I pulled the trigger and chose this instead of the XPS. Got the i7, 512g &16 gig ram version for $2499 (price match from Microcenter at Best Buy).

Downloaded the latest drivers, but I am only getting around 5.5 hours of battery. Does that sound bad\good?

I guess it depends on what you are using it for. I have the i5, dGPU version and I would say for "normal" (ie. non-gaming, high CPU intense tasks) usage I get around 10 hours. I've never really tested it though, I usually use it here and there throughout the week and generally only charge it when I connect to the dock.

 

[ZackieChan]

Saw this in the MS store the other day. Looks great, but too pricey for me.

How do people like the Surface Pro 4? What model do I need to get in order to avoid a shitty experience?

 

[Tathanen]

So I pulled the trigger and chose this instead of the XPS. Got the i7, 512g &16 gig ram version for $2499 (price match from Microcenter at Best Buy).

Downloaded the latest drivers, but I am only getting around 5.5 hours of battery. Does that sound badgood?

It's probably pretty alright. i7 and gpu will drain more battery than the i5 builds.

 

[Haloid1177]

Saw this in the MS store the other day. Looks great, but too pricey for me.

How do people like the Surface Pro 4? What model do I need to get in order to avoid a shitty experience?

I'd visit this thread for SP4 questions/impressions:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1121042&highlight=surface+pro+4

The i5/i7 both offer great experiences though.

 

[Charles Brandon]

Hello thread.

I've decided to get one of these when they are released in the UK next month.

The primary use would be for work. I am particularly interested in the notes taking function. I attend a lot of meetings and write a lot of notes and tend to lose track of them, so it would nice to have them all on my hard drive. Does it work well? Is the hand writing recognition good? I have pretty shit hand writing tbh.

Also, I wouldn't mind play some games on it, but I'm not that bothered about the latest and greatest releases (I usually use my PS4 for that, I'm not a massive PC gamer) so I have plumped for the i7 with the graphics card, 256gb storage and 8gb ram. The upgrade to the top spec model is £400+ which seems ridiculous for 4gb ram and another 256gb of storage (which I don't need really). Is this going to bottle neck me? What sort of games can I expect to be able to play at decent res/fps on this?

Sorry if this has been answered already (I'm sure it has). Feel free to ignore me.

 

[dedhead54]

So I pulled the trigger and chose this instead of the XPS. Got the i7, 512g &16 gig ram version for $2499 (price match from Microcenter at Best Buy).

Downloaded the latest drivers, but I am only getting around 5.5 hours of battery. Does that sound bad\good?

I am at 90% battery right now, with screen brightness all the way up and battery saver on, and it says 8hr 36min remaining. If I am just surfacing the web I will probably get that full 8.5 hours. 5 seems a little short.

I have the i5/256/dGPU model.

 

[x3sphere]

I've been very happy with my Surface Book but still getting routine BSODs. I thought this would have been fixed by now if it was a firmware / driver issue. It just happens when waking from sleep sometimes. Should I RMA?

 

[dw.og]

Really considering this as my next machine. The two-in-one combo is a no brainer. The only drawback: Windows. Everything I have now is Apple. My primary device is a Mid 2012 MacBook Air, which still works fine but is getting old. There is a service battery warning message up in the toolbar and a faint white smudge stuck in the middle of the screen.

Has anyone switched from a MacBook or iPad to any of the Surface products?

Also, what are the biggest differences between the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4?

 

[BeforeU]

Really considering this as my next machine. The two-in-one combo is a no brainer. The only drawback: Windows. Everything I have now is Apple. My primary device is a Mid 2012 MacBook Air, which still works fine but is getting old. There is a service battery warning message up in the toolbar and a faint white smudge stuck in the middle of the screen.

Has anyone switched from a MacBook or iPad to any of the Surface products?

Also, what are the biggest differences between the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4?

I would hold off buying this until they release a new firmware, to see if it fixes all the issue it has. should be coming out this month.

Windows 10 is fantastic, the main difference between this and Pro is. This is slightly bigger, it has full size laptop keyboard and huge trackpad. Feels like MacBook trackpad and you can configure to have dedicated 1GB VRAM.

 

[la flama blanca]

I'm a professional designer and 3d artist who also likes to use photoshop for my personal artwork. Wondering if this is the best machine to get right now.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Also, what are the biggest differences between the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4?

• SP4 is a bit smaller, moderately thinner, and moderately lighter.
• SP4 can have its keyboard removed at any point in time, while on the SB you press a button and wait for a green light to detatch
• SP4 has an integrated kickstand, meaning it can stand up on its own if you place it on some kind of hard surface
  
• SB has a full sized, physically solid keyboard. It is an outright better typing experience
• SB has a superior trackpad (the finest I've ever used on a windows machine by far), although both are good.
• SB is more comfortable to use on your lap, as it is better balanced between top and bottom (the SP4 has all its innards in the screen, the keyboard cover is massively lighter)
• The Surface Book is more powerful graphically (with dGPU models)

 

[dLMN8R]

I actually think the trackpad on the Type Cover 4 is a bit better than the Surface Book! They're both excellent, but my finger glides over the type cover a little better. The coating on the book is different.

 

[ElNino]

I've been very happy with my Surface Book but still getting routine BSODs. I thought this would have been fixed by now if it was a firmware / driver issue. It just happens when waking from sleep sometimes. Should I RMA?

Do you have any other peripherals/drivers installed that might be causing the BSODs?

I had one BSOD shortly after getting the SB, while waking and using Windows Hello, but I have not had any since then. Only difference might be that I put it in Hibernate instead of Sleep in between uses.

 

[Rktk]

I'm a professional designer and 3d artist who also likes to use photoshop for my personal artwork. Wondering if this is the best machine to get right now.

If I were you I would find out how the software you use runs on one of these things. I'll hazard a guess and say 3D art is out of the question but I'd be pleasantly surprised if I'm wrong.

 

[x3sphere]

Do you have any other peripherals/drivers installed that might be causing the BSODs?

I had one BSOD shortly after getting the SB, while waking and using Windows Hello, but I have not had any since then. Only difference might be that I put it in Hibernate instead of Sleep in between uses.

Only the Surface Dock. My setup is pretty standard otherwise, no exotic programs. All I have open most of time is just Chrome and Sublime Text.

Hmm... I'll try changing the power options to Hibernate instead.

 

[Animator]

I'm a professional designer and 3d artist who also likes to use photoshop for my personal artwork. Wondering if this is the best machine to get right now.

I rum photoshop, maya, houdini and zbrush. All of them run great.

 

[nynt9]

Does anyone know of a cover to use with the tablet top of it that can also hold the pen like the surface pro covers?

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

My Surface Book bricked. Had to return it. Not even sure what happened. Just opened it one day and the red LED light was stuck on and it refused to power on or even perform a hard reset.

Microsoft Store's answer desk was clueless and since it's the i5 128gb with dGPU, I had to return via online and couldn't through the store.

Sent it off and should have it back in two weeks.

 

[ElNino]

Only the Surface Dock. My setup is pretty standard otherwise, no exotic programs. All I have open most of time is just Chrome and Sublime Text.

Hmm... I'll try changing the power options to Hibernate instead.

I have the Surface Dock as well. The one BSOD I got was resuming out of sleep, not connected to the dock. I've avoided sleep almost since the beginning as my Surface Pro had problems with that as well. Not sure if Hibernate vs Sleep would be the issue for you, but it's worth a shot until they patch the firmware for Sleep.

 

[Pops Maellard]

Really considering this as my next machine. The two-in-one combo is a no brainer. The only drawback: Windows. Everything I have now is Apple. My primary device is a Mid 2012 MacBook Air, which still works fine but is getting old. There is a service battery warning message up in the toolbar and a faint white smudge stuck in the middle of the screen.

Has anyone switched from a MacBook or iPad to any of the Surface products?

Also, what are the biggest differences between the Surface Book and Surface Pro 4?

I switched and regretted it. Losing iMessage alone wasn't worth it to be honest.

I don't want to be overly negative about the Surface because it's a great effort on MS's part, but if you've already invested in the Apple ecosystem it's not really worth it. My experience with my Pro 4 so far has been that it's almost as good, but not quite as good as my MacBook Pro.

 

[TurtleSnatcher]

I switched and regretted it. Losing iMessage alone wasn't worth it to be honest.

I don't want to be overly negative about the Surface because it's a great effort on MS's part, but if you've already invested in the Apple ecosystem it's not really worth it. My experience with my Pro 4 so far has been that it's almost as good, but not quite as good as my MacBook Pro.

That makes sense. It's the same reason why I'll never switch from iPhone to Android. I'm far too embedded in that eco system.

 

[x3sphere]

I have the Surface Dock as well. The one BSOD I got was resuming out of sleep, not connected to the dock. I've avoided sleep almost since the beginning as my Surface Pro had problems with that as well. Not sure if Hibernate vs Sleep would be the issue for you, but it's worth a shot until they patch the firmware for Sleep.

I did end up switching to Hibernate and haven't had a BSOD since

 

[Kai]

So after debating for a few months between the Surface Book and the XPS 13/15 - I ended up with the Surface Book.

i7, 512bg, 16g RAM here is my experience after having it for 3 weeks...

After installing all the updates I haven't had any of the BSOD's, driver issues, display issues at all. I didn't check the battery drain issue on sleep because I immediately turned "hibernate" on after 15 mins of idle. However, I will say that using Edge is a pain in the ass as it has had a lot of weird issues causing problems. Also, after about a week, my wifi wouldn't automatically kick in after waking up from hibernate. I solved this by going into the settings of the wifi card and turning off power saving mode. I rather use edge because it apparantly better for battery life - but the constant issues with it crashing websites and having to reboot (and no adblock extension) make me use Chrome instead.

As for battery life: I guess I am getting around 8.5 hours based on the below data (feels more like 6.5ish - mostly internet browsing and streaming videos off Youtube - using Chrome).

Battery life estimates

AT FULL CHARGE AT DESIGN CAPACITY
PERIOD ACTIVE CONNECTED STANDBY ACTIVE CONNECTED STANDBY

2015-12-24 - 2015-12-31 - - - -
2015-12-31 - 2016-01-07 - - - -
2016-01-07 - 2016-01-14 12:09:02 - 11:35:55 -
2016-01-15 6:35:24 - 6:22:35 -
2016-01-16 7:54:36 - 7:38:16 -
2016-01-17 8:34:36 - 8:18:11 -
2016-01-18 6:29:51 - 6:21:21 -
2016-01-19 8:48:29 - 8:28:44 -
2016-01-20 7:27:04 - 7:14:52 -
2016-01-21 9:04:47 - 9:00:01 -
2016-01-22 6:14:30 - 6:08:46 -
2016-01-23 8:26:01 - 8:16:15 -

Current estimate of battery life based on all observed drains since OS install

Since OS install 8:56:44 - 8:40:25 -

OVERALL - this has been an amazing computer. It is by far the best keyboard and screen I have ever used (to me includes using a Macbook Pro Retina). Also the versatility of using the tablet, or turning the screen turned around to keep both batteries has basically replaced the need for both a tablet and laptop in my life. I love it.