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Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Announced (12", 3:2 aspect ratio, new stand)

B

brotkasten

Member
ElNino said:
Sure, and the WiFi on my wife's (kid's) iPad is terrible as well. Half the time it won't connect and I need to reboot, not to mention the sounds/speakers not working for half the games/apps as well.

Is it an iOS problem, or simply the iPad? I guess it doesn't really matter, but at least I don't need to deal with it much.
Click to expand...

The difference is that something like the WiFi issues are a well documented issue with the surface line. There have been more than a few attempts by Microsoft to fix it via firmware updates.

Same for the weird battery draining and system load issues in combination with SD cards, that apparently have been present since the Surface Pro 2. This months FW update is supposed to fix that finally.

I'm not saying Windows devices are more janky than Macs or Apple devices in general. I'm just saying that that's the stigma.
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
szaromir said:
As someone who's more likely to buy a SP4 over an iPad Pro, I don't think I would miss much in terms of games going with the iPad. Playing desktop games on a 12' screen must be a torture.
Click to expand...

Nah. I mentioned this in the Microsoft Hardware event thread, but I've played Diablo 3 on my Surface Pro 3 for 10+ hours recently. Works great. Need to turn everything down and run at 1280x720 but once I do, it's plenty smooth and plays perfectly with a mouse.

If a SP4 even just moderately improves on that I'll be super happy.
 
F

Futureman

Member
brotkasten said:
The difference is that something like the WiFi issues are a well documented issue with the surface line. There have been more than a few attempts by Microsoft to fix it via firmware updates.

Same for the weird battery draining and system load issues in combination with SD cards, that apparently have been present since the Surface Pro 2. This months FW update is supposed to fix that finally.

I'm not saying Windows devices are more janky than Macs or Apple devices in general. I'm just saying that that's the stigma.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's specifically anything with Windows or Mac. I've heard about widespread WIFI issues on both sides for as long as I've been following technology.
 
S

szaromir

Banned
dLMN8R said:
Nah. I mentioned this in the Microsoft Hardware event thread, but I've played Diablo 3 on my Surface Pro 3 for 10+ hours recently. Works great. Need to turn everything down and run at 1280x720 but once I do, it's plenty smooth and plays perfectly with a mouse.

If a SP4 even just moderately improves on that I'll be super happy.
Click to expand...

I had the screen size in mind more than the performance you get on SP3 - I vastly prefer playing on my desktop over my laptop because of the screensize (27' vs 15'). Same reason I don't play on handhelds (be it 3DS/Vita or phones)... I just really dislike playing on small screens.
 
B

brotkasten

Member
Futureman said:
I don't think it's specifically anything with Windows or Mac. I've heard about widespread WIFI issues on both sides for as long as I've been following technology.
Click to expand...

I see WiFi as one of the best worst technologies. It's been around for over a decade and it's amazing and getting faster and better and whatnot. And yet I feel like we have the same issues since ever.

Anyway, I posted this list of articles about the Surface WiFi issues in the WP thread a while ago. This is what I'm basing my assumptions on.

http://winsupersite.com/surface/will-microsoft-ever-fix-surface-pro-3-wi-fi-issues
http://windowsitpro.com/microsoft-surface/surface-pro-3-wi-fi-really-broken
http://www.infoworld.com/article/28...some-glitches-but-wi-fi-problems-persist.html
http://www.zdnet.com/article/early-surface-pro-3-users-struggle-with-wireless-networking-glitches/
http://www.windowscentral.com/micro...ppearing-wi-fi-and-slow-connection-complaints
http://www.winbeta.org/news/microso...ce-pro-2-wifi-slowdown-caused-bluetooth-radio
http://www.eyeonwindows.com/2014/10...inal-resolution-to-surface-pro-3-wifi-issues/
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/05/su...s-persist-ahead-of-new-surface-announcements/
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
brotkasten said:
I see WiFi as one of the best worst technologies. It's been around for over a decade and it's amazing and getting faster and better and whatnot. And yet I feel like we have the same issues since ever.

Anyway, I posted this list of articles about the Surface WiFi issues in the WP thread a while ago. This is what I'm basing my assumptions on.

http://winsupersite.com/surface/will-microsoft-ever-fix-surface-pro-3-wi-fi-issues
http://windowsitpro.com/microsoft-surface/surface-pro-3-wi-fi-really-broken
http://www.infoworld.com/article/28...some-glitches-but-wi-fi-problems-persist.html
http://www.zdnet.com/article/early-surface-pro-3-users-struggle-with-wireless-networking-glitches/
http://www.windowscentral.com/micro...ppearing-wi-fi-and-slow-connection-complaints
http://www.winbeta.org/news/microso...ce-pro-2-wifi-slowdown-caused-bluetooth-radio
http://www.eyeonwindows.com/2014/10...inal-resolution-to-surface-pro-3-wifi-issues/
http://www.ubergizmo.com/2014/05/su...s-persist-ahead-of-new-surface-announcements/
Click to expand...

I had many wifi issues with my Sp1 specially after upgrading to 8.1... My sp3 was actually rock solid in this regard, though again when in the 10 preview it was terrible. Now after a few firmware updates the only issue I have now is that it sometimes coming back from sleep it won't recognize my wireless printer, so I have to restart, but it's always that specific problem so I assume it's something on the printer driver and not wifi.

Another very annoying issue that's still a thing on SP3is the shared bandwidth with Bluetooth when using a 2.4ghz network, when you stress the wifi connection the Bluetooth suffers and vice versa. It's not a problem on my home network, but pretty much everywhere I take my surface becomes hard to use with my Bluetooth mouse or headset.
 
S

Sai

Member
I still occasionally get that DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE error. Actually, since upgrading to Windows 10, I get that error after my wi-fi just completely dies on me in the middle of use; before it would only happen when I first booted it up.

Still using the Pro 2, but I thought it might be relevant. :I
 
H

hwalker84

Member
Sai said:
I still occasionally get that DRIVER_POWER_STATE_FAILURE error. Actually, since upgrading to Windows 10, I get that error after my wi-fi just completely dies on me in the middle of use; before it would only happen when I first booted it up.

Still using the Pro 2, but I thought it might be relevant. :I
Click to expand...

Had that error a few times. Had Wifi die completely once.
 
F

Funky Papa

FUNK-Y-PPA-4
It looks like everybody and their mother is looking after that Surface money now.

A new tablet known as the HP Envy 8 Note (5000) was uncovered last week by TabletMonkeys.com.

...

But further information emerged later, as a page on the HP Switzerland website (since pulled, but cached here) was discovered, which revealed plenty of details about the Envy 8 Note, including:

Described as "a game changer"
Comes with "full-sized keyboard and stylus"
Includes HP DataPass, offering 200MB of free data per month for two years
Key specs including:
Quad-core Intel Atom (Cherry Trail) x5-Z8300 processor
Up to 64GB storage (plus microSD slot)
5MP rear camera
Dimensions:
Tablet - 218 x 126.6 x 7.7mm; 430g
Keyboard - 262 x 170 x 9.9mm; 550g
Stylus - 130 x 9.5mm diameter; 16g
microSIM slot
microUSB 2.0 port
4G LTE bands 1/2/3/4/5/7/8/13/17/20
Accelerometer, ambient light sensor, gyroscope, proximity sensor
Click to expand...
S54QvaU.jpg
f6QprMc.jpg


I trust HP to fuck this one up, but I'm somewhat happy to see some competition.
 
metareferential

metareferential

Member
I'm glad I bought the SP3, I'm really loving it.

Depending on what 4 will offer I might even double-dip. Having a full-blown Windows desktop at this size is amazing.
 
E

everthustodeadbeats

Member
I wish they would fix the one bug that makes me mental. No predictive text for non-Metro like apps. When I launch that on-screen keyboard, it shouldn't matter. Give me predictive text.
 
J

j-wood

Member
Does anyone else have the issue sometimes where if you are using the SP3 while plugged in it shows "plugged in, not charging"? My screen is set to 50% brightness and I just have chrome going when this happens usually. Is it really pulling that much power? Or is chrome a POS?
 
D

dLMN8R

Member
If LTE is available, I hope it's just an option. I have absolutely zero use for built-in mobile network support when tethering works perfectly.
 
F

Futureman

Member
I think I like my Pro 3 enough to sell it and my rMBP. It's a one-month old Core i5/256GB/8GB. Gotta wait til SP4 is closer to being available though.

Wonder how much I'll get for it? $$$
 
H

hwalker84

Member
j-wood said:
Does anyone else have the issue sometimes where if you are using the SP3 while plugged in it shows "plugged in, not charging"? My screen is set to 50% brightness and I just have chrome going when this happens usually. Is it really pulling that much power? Or is chrome a POS?
Click to expand...

Never. Any idea if you have a low power output in your home/apartment?
 
B

brotkasten

Member
Y

Yaari

Member
I don't see that changing anytime soon. I'm still not sure if I want to ask relatives to take one with them for me though, I don't know how warranty will work and stuff like that. But it will make a significant difference in pricing.

Oh well, excited for the reveal. Just sold my iPad 3 today.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
It's pricey, but believe me, it could be a lot worse.

In brazil it's not available officially, and it costs 2-4 times the US price to get one imported. Without any warranty whatsoever.

It's literally cheaper to buy a ticket to the us and get one there*.

*Not so much these days because Real dropped of a cliff recently, and not every vendor updated their pricing yet.
 
S

szaromir

Banned
Color.Morale said:
Holy shit. I'm definitely interested in the Surface Pro (I know that's not the Pro) but I refuse to pay so much for it.

European prices are freaking crazy.
Click to expand...
We do have to pay more, but there's always hunting for a deal. Pro 3 i5 + type cover is €1000 in Media Markt currently, if the reveal on Tuesday is underwhelming I'm jumping on it.
 
C

Chezzymann

Member
So I had my surface pro 3 charging all night and I noticed that the battery was only at 96% when I woke up... I plugged it in again and it went to 98% before saying 'not charging'. Is there something wrong with my battery? Or is it normal to stop charging around 98-99%? I've only had this surface pro for about a month, I ran a test and it went from 42,000 kWh to 40,000 which is a 5% drop. I've had 25 cycles in the past month because I charge it every night and use it until it gets to the low battery warning 10% each day. I literally just replaced my surface pro 3 last month because the battery failed. If its really messing up again I'll be really upset. The surface pro 3 is the only device I've ever had to constantly worry about battery with. If anyone can help that would be great. Hopefully its not.

Edit: I use my surface pro 3 about 8-10 hours each day so its very hard for me to prevent a low battery warning from happening each day. Should I keep it plugged in most of the time and only let it off battery for about 2-3 hour bursts?
 
S

szaromir

Banned
Chezzymann said:
So I had my surface pro 3 charging all night and I noticed that the battery was only at 96% when I woke up... I plugged it in again and it went to 98% before saying 'not charging'. Is there something wrong with my battery? Or is it normal to stop charging around 98-99%? I've only had this surface pro for about a month, I ran a test and it went from 42,000 kWh to 40,000 which is a 5% drop. I've had 25 cycles in the past month because I charge it every night and use it until it gets to the low battery warning 10% each day. I literally just replaced my surface pro 3 last month because the battery failed. If its really messing up again I'll be really upset. The surface pro 3 is the only device I've ever had to constantly worry about battery with. If anyone can help that would be great. Hopefully its not.

Edit: I use my surface pro 3 about 8-10 hours each day so its very hard for me to prevent a low battery warning from happening each day. Should I keep it plugged in most of the time and only let it off battery for about 2-3 hour bursts?
Click to expand...
Yeah, constantly discharging batteries is deadly for them, eg. discharging it to only 60% would greatly increase the longevity as opposed to 10%.

Although I heard Win 10 has screwed up the battery management, so the software might be partially at fault here.
 
C

Chezzymann

Member
szaromir said:
Yeah, constantly discharging batteries is deadly for them, eg. discharging it to only 60% would greatly increase the longevity as opposed to 10%.

Although I heard Win 10 has screwed up the battery management, so the software might be partially at fault here.
Click to expand...

I'll make sure it only goes to 10% once a month now instead of nearly every day. Which probably means it'll be on the charger most of the time since I use it so much but apparently that's not a bad thing from what ive read. Is it a bad thing when the battery stops charging at 98-99% (assuming its not windows 10)? Lots of other people online told me its normal and part of a way to prevent battery damage.
 
D

darkinstinct

...lacks reading comprehension.
Color.Morale said:
Holy shit. I'm definitely interested in the Surface Pro (I know that's not the Pro) but I refuse to pay so much for it.


European prices are freaking crazy.
Click to expand...

They are not. Euro includes 19 % tax plus repairs for two years, US includes no tax and 30 day return. Euro price is fair.
 
C

Chezzymann

Member
Sorry for posting about this so much but I keep getting conflicting information on how to mange battery properly. My battery went from 41,145 mWh (what it came with out of the box) to 40,037 mWh in a little under a month which is a 3% drop. There seems to be very few consensus on the internet on how to preserve battery. People tell me its okay to keep it charging all night, others tell me its bad for the battery in the long run to stay fully charged for long periods of time. Also people are telling me its not healthy for it to constantly charge back from low percentages (10%,) and others tell me its fine to charge it when you like and battery technology is fine that it doesn't matter, just make sure for it to run down to 10% every month to keep it working (that's what the Microsoft message said, but it isn't clear if its fine to have it go down to 10% every day, which is what I do with it)

Basically I'm thinking the only way to keep the capacity from dropping more is to charge it to 99% (which is the max it will do for some reason), take it off the charger and let it go down to around 40% (which takes around 3 hours for me) and then charge it again to 99%, and continue doing that. As you can imagine it can get a little tedious to manage it like that but I don't know what else to do to prevent the battery capacity from dropping like this. If it keeps this up I'll lose 70% of my battery in the next two years.

Edit: apparently another person told me its fine to keep it charged at 100% for a while (like 8 hours or so, not days) and the guy who told me it wasn't was full of shut, so I guess ill just try to make sure it stays above 40% most of the time and not wait for the low battery warning to start charging
 
K

Klocker

Member
Regarding Surface 3 (not pro) does anyone know why we have not gotten a firmware update since w10 has released? I know SP3 had gotten one or two
 
S

szaromir

Banned
Chezzymann said:
Basically I'm thinking the only way to keep the capacity from dropping more is to charge it to 99% (which is the max it will do for some reason), take it off the charger and let it go down to around 40% (which takes around 3 hours for me) and then charge it again to 99%, and continue doing that. As you can imagine it can get a little tedious to manage it like that but I don't know what else to do to prevent the battery capacity from dropping like this. If it keeps this up I'll lose 70% of my battery in the next two years.

Edit: apparently another person told me its fine to keep it charged at 100% for a while (like 8 hours or so, not days) and the guy who told me it wasn't was full of shut, so I guess ill just try to make sure it stays above 40% most of the time and not wait for the low battery warning to start charging
Click to expand...

I don't think it's doing much damage to the battery at all to work on the device when it's plugged in, in fact it's better than to constantly discharge and recharge the battery (unless trickle charging in the device is really badly implemented). I keep most of my portable devices plugged in whenever I can to minimize the number of charge cycles. I guess it somewhat increases my electricity bills, but it's not a big deal during this era of energy saving devices - it's October already and I've only used 300kWh this year.
 
F

Futureman

Member
what is with this recent update where you can't turn the screen off?

Before if you hit the top power button, it would turn off the screen. Now when I press it, it goes to this all red screen that gives me a few options like lock, power off, restart, etc. I guess you just have to let the screen time out? or am I missing something?

SURFACE PRO 4!!!!
 
D

darkinstinct

...lacks reading comprehension.
Futureman said:
what is with this recent update where you can't turn the screen off?

Before if you hit the top power button, it would turn off the screen. Now when I press it, it goes to this all red screen that gives me a few options like lock, power off, restart, etc. I guess you just have to let the screen time out? or am I missing something?

SURFACE PRO 4!!!!
Click to expand...

IDK mine works just like always. Power button = screen off.
 
K

Klocker

Member
Futureman said:
quick and dirty video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPPdDV98T5Y

I did not change anything in settings and it did not previously do this...

when I touch "Lock" it just goes to the lock screen and if I hit the power button there it goes back to the red screen.
Click to expand...

Did you go to power settings and reset to default? And reboot. Also go to advance power settings and check your options under what is set to happen when you hit the button
 
C

Chezzymann

Member
szaromir said:
I don't think it's doing much damage to the battery at all to work on the device when it's plugged in, in fact it's better than to constantly discharge and recharge the battery (unless trickle charging in the device is really badly implemented). I keep most of my portable devices plugged in whenever I can to minimize the number of charge cycles. I guess it somewhat increases my electricity bills, but it's not a big deal during this era of energy saving devices - it's October already and I've only used 300kWh this year.
Click to expand...

Yeah I figured that. Just curious since I haven't gotten a definitive answer from this thread yet and I trust neogaf more than other sites, is it a bad sign if the battery isn't fully charging to 100? Ive said this like 5 times now but whenever it gets to 96%-99% it'll say 'plugged in not charging'. The battery still lasts its normal time, 5-6 hours. Everything else seems perfectly normal.
 
D

Drifters

Junior Member
As to the whole "battery" discharge thing, once a month below 10% and turn it off at night if you have it docked or plugged in.
 
L

LukasTaves

Member
Damn, Ms made me really hard for me to decide which device to get now.

Sp4 is not a complete game changer compared to sp3, but the thermals are pretty much the only peeve with it, and that being improve is kinda huge for me, specially now with an iris on the i7 model. This could be a very capable mobile station even for some gaming.

Then there's the surface book, which probably goes even further on the performance bit, if it runs some new games well it could be a perfect complement of my xbone (which is my primary gaming device) without the need of any other device to scratch that ichy. Though that price is a bit of a downer, even though thinking of it, it's not all that more expensive then the i7 Sp4, specially factor in the cover.

The choice is also difficult because there's no clear winner when comparing them directly.

- The keyboard on the book is better and offer more battery life, but it's heavier.
- The tablet portion despite being bigger it's lighter, so it's very possible it's better to hold, on the other hand no kickstand and the poor battery life makes it worse to use as a tablet.

Another thing is that I'm very happy with my SP3 and grabbing either the sp4 or the book seems just like an completely unnecessary luxury XD

Most of my gaming is done on xbone these days, I have a medium end gaming laptop that I use very little, just when there's a game that hasn't launched on xbone or my sp3 can't run very well, it would be nice to get my list of devices down to 3 (xbone, phone and either a sp4 or book for everything else), but it seems like too much cost just for some convenience XD
 
K

kazinova

Member
I wish the SP4 Type Cover with the fingerprint reader came in a color other than Black. Any news on SP4 Pen compatibility? Does the eraser work? Is the pressure sensitivity better on the SP3 with the SP4 pen?
 
F

Futureman

Member
kazinova said:
I wish the SP4 Type Cover with the fingerprint reader came in a color other than Black. Any news on SP4 Pen compatibility? Does the eraser work? Is the pressure sensitivity better on the SP3 with the SP4 pen?
Click to expand...

SP4 Pen works w/ SP3, though I'm pretty sure reports say it's still the lower pressure sensitivity.

My Microsoft Store has the SP4 on display, I want to get out there and try the pen on my SP3 and see if the wobbly diagonal line issue is any better with the new pen.
 
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