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Microsoft Surface Pro 4 announced: "better in nearly every way" (The Verge)

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I just picked up a SP4 today (the $999 deal). I am getting an intermittent headphone static when there is no audio. Anyone else have this issue? Any fix?
 

Justin

Member
Has anyone seen any type covers for other alphabets? I am interested in a Cyrillic one but when I google it I only find a post from 2014 of a MS rep saying they would be out soon.
 

see5harp

Member
I missed the black Friday deals but am seriously thinking about jumping on the deal right now on the Microsoft Store. $999.99 and Free type cover and free Tumi case for the i5 256? I may even just get the 128 gig version with type cover for $850.
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
1) what mouse do you guys use with your surface? I really really liked the arc mouse, but it has fundamental design flaws. The first one lost connection so it wouldnt work once you made it curved. The second one just flat out broke you can feel a part moved completely inside it and now you cant even get it to curve into place. So recommend me a mouse, bonus if it has the ability to hook up to more than 1 machine via blue tooth.

2) has there been any rumors about the surface book 2? I was excited when they announced a new surface book, but it wasn't a new model. Really want 32gb of ram so it lasts a while and i can open large photos without too much trouble
 

dock

Member
1) what mouse do you guys use with your surface? I really really liked the arc mouse, but it has fundamental design flaws. The first one lost connection so it wouldnt work once you made it curved. The second one just flat out broke you can feel a part moved completely inside it and now you cant even get it to curve into place. So recommend me a mouse, bonus if it has the ability to hook up to more than 1 machine via blue tooth.
After experimenting with a few options, I'm really happy with the Microsoft Designer Bluetooth Mouse. The slim profile fits nicely in my bag, it never has connection issues, the scroll wheel works well and clicks easily and properly (unlike the Arc mice and some logitech mice).
 

dLMN8R

Member
I used the Arc Touch Bluetooth mouse for a while (and still do in certain cases) but yes it's less than ideal for some things. The form factor makes it less comfortable and hence less precise. I never had any connectivity issues with it though.

My current mouse of choice is the Logitech MX Anywhere 2. It has perfect response time over bluetooth, no latency at all, and it's really comfortable to hold. It also works on every material I try it on.

I had previously tried the Razer Orochi, and that thing was an utter piece of shit. It has terrible input latency that makes it unusable for games over bluetooth, the charge cable was somehow a pain in the ass, and the software it requires is just bloated and awful.
 

SteveWD40

Member
I used the Arc Touch Bluetooth mouse for a while (and still do in certain cases) but yes it's less than ideal for some things. The form factor makes it less comfortable and hence less precise. I never had any connectivity issues with it though.

My current mouse of choice is the Logitech MX Anywhere 2. It has perfect response time over bluetooth, no latency at all, and it's really comfortable to hold. It also works on every material I try it on.


I had previously tried the Razer Orochi, and that thing was an utter piece of shit. It has terrible input latency that makes it unusable for games over bluetooth, the charge cable was somehow a pain in the ass, and the software it requires is just bloated and awful.

So much this, I can even use it to some success on the material arm rest of my chair in the living room.
 

derFeef

Member
After experimenting with a few options, I'm really happy with the Microsoft Designer Bluetooth Mouse. The slim profile fits nicely in my bag, it never has connection issues, the scroll wheel works well and clicks easily and properly (unlike the Arc mice and some logitech mice).

I have that too for my SP3, I can vouch for it. The clicking is a bit loud though.
 

Polarburr

Member
I missed the black Friday deals but am seriously thinking about jumping on the deal right now on the Microsoft Store. $999.99 and Free type cover and free Tumi case for the i5 256? I may even just get the 128 gig version with type cover for $850.

Wait Wait. Is this the online MS store? Didn't see any Tumi case. Got the 999$ deal.
 

batrush

Member
I just picked up a SP4 today (the $999 deal). I am getting an intermittent headphone static when there is no audio. Anyone else have this issue? Any fix?
Getting this on my new Surface Book. I go under Device Manager and uninstall the Realtek HD drivers and it stops for a while.
 

captive

Joe Six-Pack: posting for the common man
After experimenting with a few options, I'm really happy with the Microsoft Designer Bluetooth Mouse. The slim profile fits nicely in my bag, it never has connection issues, the scroll wheel works well and clicks easily and properly (unlike the Arc mice and some logitech mice).
this one looked nice but i couldnt find anything on whether or not it supporting multiple devices at the same time or not.

I used the Arc Touch Bluetooth mouse for a while (and still do in certain cases) but yes it's less than ideal for some things. The form factor makes it less comfortable and hence less precise. I never had any connectivity issues with it though.

My current mouse of choice is the Logitech MX Anywhere 2. It has perfect response time over bluetooth, no latency at all, and it's really comfortable to hold. It also works on every material I try it on.

I had previously tried the Razer Orochi, and that thing was an utter piece of shit. It has terrible input latency that makes it unusable for games over bluetooth, the charge cable was somehow a pain in the ass, and the software it requires is just bloated and awful.
so i got the logitech mx. It supports 3 devices like my logitech bluetooth keyboard. Thanks!
 
Someone is offering a Surfacebook i7 16GB RAM 1TB SSD GTX 965M with performance base for $1700

Is it worth it? What should I look for before getting it? How is its resale value?
 

T Dollarz

Member
I see the 128gb core i5 version is $700 at Newegg, $740 at Walmart. Fuuuuck I want so bad. I'm thinking after christmas with whatever Xmas/bday money I get going towards it.
 

Futureman

Member
Someone is offering a Surfacebook i7 16GB RAM 1TB SSD GTX 965M with performance base for $1700

Is it worth it? What should I look for before getting it? How is its resale value?

The one that just came out for $3,300? This is new? It's an amazing computer so if you can get it for $1,600 off then jump on it.
 

Polarburr

Member
Hey guys. So I bought the Surface Pro 4 during Black Friday (8gb 256gb w/ Type Cover for $999). And I was wondering if it's possible for me to exchange the Type Cover in a physical Microsoft Store. Hoping to exchange it for the Alcantara version
 

golem

Member
Hey guys. So I bought the Surface Pro 4 during Black Friday (8gb 256gb w/ Type Cover for $999). And I was wondering if it's possible for me to exchange the Type Cover in a physical Microsoft Store. Hoping to exchange it for the Alcantara version

I believe they do take online returns in store
 

Meffer

Member
Looks like the battery for my pen died. The pen wasn't responding and the light wasn't turning on when I pressed the top button. Gotta get some new batteries.
 

Meffer

Member
It's been over a year and they haven't added the function to let you customize the side button on the pen. Why? Seriously why? I just want to assign the keyboard shortcut "undo" on the goddamn button. Does really need to be right-click all the time, Microsoft? Fucking Christ it still pisses me off.
 

Raguel

Member
I'm enjoying the hell out of my surface pro 4 i7 16gb ram. It's so smooth and fast. Especially compared to my nine year old laptop with 2gb of ram. I love it so far. Got the blue type cover, ms comfort scuplt mouse and a procase folio cover and they have made everything so efficient. The folio cover also acts as a good platform base so I can have it on my lap to work like a laptop.

A question though. Is there usually a lag for the surface to recognize the type cover when it's reattached after you detach it? It takes up to a minute for the surface to recognize the type cover sometimes.
 
I'm enjoying the hell out of my surface pro 4 i7 16gb ram. It's so smooth and fast. Especially compared to my nine year old laptop with 2gb of ram. I love it so far. Got the blue type cover, ms comfort scuplt mouse and a procase folio cover and they have made everything so efficient. The folio cover also acts as a good platform base so I can have it on my lap to work like a laptop.

A question though. Is there usually a lag for the surface to recognize the type cover when it's reattached after you detach it? It takes up to a minute for the surface to recognize the type cover sometimes.

Nice! Been rocking the SAME COMBO for awhile now, it's the best.

To answer your question: no, no lag here. Takes maybe 2 seconds tops...by the time I put the Surface down, it is recognized and working. Not sure what's going on there for ya....
 

dock

Member
It's been over a year and they haven't added the function to let you customize the side button on the pen. Why? Seriously why? I just want to assign the keyboard shortcut "undo" on the goddamn button. Does really need to be right-click all the time, Microsoft? Fucking Christ it still pisses me off.
the lack of customisation of the pen is part of why the Surface Dial is such a joke.
I use autohotkey to assign the SP4 volume buttons to inputs such as undo.
 

Meffer

Member
the lack of customisation of the pen is part of why the Surface Dial is such a joke.
I use autohotkey to assign the SP4 volume buttons to inputs such as undo.

I was thinking how that would work and that seems unwieldy for me sadly. I wish there was a petition that requested that we can assign whatever we want on all the buttons for the pen. Seriously if they're parading their Surface line as a tool for artists they fucking better add in the features and options digital artists use for years.
Because I'll be honest, if I could customize the pen the Surface Pro 4 would be the best tablet I've ever used for art. And I had a Cintiq.
 

Raguel

Member
Nice! Been rocking the SAME COMBO for awhile now, it's the best.

To answer your question: no, no lag here. Takes maybe 2 seconds tops...by the time I put the Surface down, it is recognized and working. Not sure what's going on there for ya....
Hmm. I don't know either. Will fiddle with it and see. Everything I checked online only provides solution for when it doesn't respond. It responds but takes a bit to recognize
 

dock

Member
I was thinking how that would work and that seems unwieldy for me sadly. I wish there was a petition that requested that we can assign whatever we want on all the buttons for the pen. Seriously if they're parading their Surface line as a tool for artists they fucking better add in the features and options digital artists use for years.
Because I'll be honest, if I could customize the pen the Surface Pro 4 would be the best tablet I've ever used for art. And I had a Cintiq.

I totally agree, although the volume buttons work pretty well imo as other buttons.

I've been openly critical of Microsoft for the problems with their software (despite the douchebag comments blaming the drawing software). The hacks that I use every time I draw with my SP4 are embarrassing. People gave it a pass at the start, ignoring the fact that this is the 4th iteration of the hardware/software, so there are few excuses at this stage.

Here's hoping the Surface line gets that mythical wacom pen support at some point. shame it didn't make it for 2015.
 
I totally agree, although the volume buttons work pretty well imo as other buttons.

I've been openly critical of Microsoft for the problems with their software (despite the douchebag comments blaming the drawing software). The hacks that I use every time I draw with my SP4 are embarrassing. People gave it a pass at the start, ignoring the fact that this is the 4th iteration of the hardware/software, so there are few excuses at this stage.

Here's hoping the Surface line gets that mythical wacom pen support at some point. shame it didn't make it for 2015.

Unfortunately hacking the volume buttons for shortcuts is ergonomically terrible. I never use my tablets in my arm. It makes for terrible drawing posture. You end up drawing only with your wrist.

Shortcut issue was one of the reasons I avoided SP3 and SP4 (another being much higher pen IAF, but the real reason being the price premium over other great Windows tablets with similar capabilities).

Even when the Wacom/MS dual protocol pen comes out for SP4/SB?SS, do not expect the Wacom Feel driver (which let's you map the pen's buttons with any shortcut keys) for it. They tie the driver to the touch panel, not the pen. I found this out the hard way with the Lenovo Miix 700, which uses Wacom's AES pens but uses Elan touch panel instead along with Wacom's touch panel firmware allowing use of Wacom pens.

Even when the late 2016 Feel driver update failed to appear on Miix 700, I still found that tablet a great value due to the many sales for it (got my Core M5 with 8GB of RAM and 128GB SSD for $550 new back in February). But now with the Wacom Expresskey Remote being available in the market, I think likes of Miix 700 (and to a lesser degree SP4 due to higher pen IAF) that doesn't get the Feel driver may be the best option for artists since the Feel driver would have conflicted with the pro driver necessary to drive the Expresskey Remote on that computer. Sure there are ways to install both on the machine (Which BTW Wacom doesn't tell you unless you bug their technical support people with specific question), but Wacom won't admit publicly that having both drivers on same install will eventually corrupt both drivers.

Back on topic; Unless MS finds a way to incorporate pen key mapping on a OS level (which may be easier said than done since 3rd party devices likes of Wacom controls that via device driver, in their case, the touch panel driver) you won't see pen mapping for a while. I think it will end up being in a part of a major OS update (which I was hoping that the Creator's update would incorporate but now it doesn't look like so). I don't think a simple driver update for N-Trig Duo Sense will do. I hope I'm wrong.
 

dock

Member
Unfortunately hacking the volume buttons for shortcuts is ergonomically terrible. I never use my tablets in my arm. It makes for terrible drawing posture. You end up drawing only with your wrist..
What are the correct and proper drawing positions?
You've told me a few times that I'm drawing wrong, as are others.
 
What are the correct and proper drawing positions?
You've told me a few times that I'm drawing wrong, as are others.

Wrong is probably the wrong word here (har har), but proper drawing posture should allow you nearly full extension of your arm. A good drawing position won't force you to lock any of your arm articulations (shoulder, elbow, wrist, fingers). A simple test of your position is draw a long straight line. If it keeps curving, you have restrictive drawing position. Of course you can simply avoid drawing long straight lines, but I'd argue then your posture not optimal for drawing.

You can certainly make good drawings in terrible postures, but you are fighting your posture the whole time, and also limiting the kinds of lines you can make.
 

see5harp

Member
Wait Wait. Is this the online MS store? Didn't see any Tumi case. Got the 999$ deal.

Yea it was cyber Monday and I pulled the trigger. Gotta say I'm more than pleased with the purchase. I think they also offered a Kate spade as an alternative. $1000 with the type cover plus a bag that would cost $80 or so was good enough to not really care about the new surface.
 

Futureman

Member
is anyone else's "Show Desktop" button hidden on their SP4? On my work computer it's a small little bar next to the clock that I can click to show the desktop.

On my Surface it's weird... like it's there but cut off. I'm not sure if this is a glitch or if it's hidden for some reason? there's just a tiny sliver and I can click it to show desktop but it definitely seems off.
 
is anyone else's "Show Desktop" button hidden on their SP4? On my work computer it's a small little bar next to the clock that I can click to show the desktop.

On my Surface it's weird... like it's there but cut off. I'm not sure if this is a glitch or if it's hidden for some reason? there's just a tiny sliver and I can click it to show desktop but it definitely seems off.

I have a tiny sliver on my Surface Pro 4. I think it may be intentional? Doesn't need to be a bigger button, just slide the mouse to the bottom right and viola.
 

Futureman

Member
I guess my work computer is Windows 7, so maybe they changed it?

it seems awkward with the Pen... I never use a mouse w/ my SP4... only pen or touch.
 

batrush

Member
Well that sucks. I am going to swap mine out today and see if the replacement has the same issues.

Not sure if you're still having the problem, but for anyone else who's been getting weird popping/static feedback when using headphones on a Surface product, I found out what was causing the problem for me (Surface Book).

Go into device manager, under "Sound, video and game controllers" and check if Realtek HD SST drivers are installed (may have to go to advanced/driver details to be sure). Windows automatically installs those instead of the non-SST Realtek HD drivers, which are incorrectly listed under incompatible drivers. You will manually have to download the latest drivers from Realtek and install them directly through device manager (I'm using drivers the updated 11/29/2016).

Completely solved the issue for me.
 

InfernoNR

Member
Anyone else using a surface pro 4 have issued with jittery scrolling on the touch screen while scrolling very slowly? It's annoying the hell out of me and I'm wondering if I have a defective unit.
 

Bumhead

Banned
Didn't jump on any of the Black Friday deals, but a couple of weeks later and I'm sat here still wanting one. Dammit.

How is the m3 version? Reviews actually seem pretty good to say it's the baseline spec, but does anyone have any real world experience with it?

Would be used for web browsing, some media consumption/streaming and some work applications.. email, word, excel and that's about it. The only game I'd be playing is Football Manager, but without the 3D match engine. Would that be sufficient?
 

see5harp

Member
That's basically how I've been using my Surface i5. The only gaming I've done on it is Don't Starve and Hacknet so the fans have turned on only a couple times. I personally think the fanless would have suited me just fine.
 
I have been looking into IT systems for the company I work for and the Surface Pro's look pretty good, however I have a couple of queries.

Firstly we would be looking to get Office 365 and OneDrive accounts so that we can all access the same documents whether we are in the office, or out in the field, but my colleague is concerned that due to the internet being rather average at the office, that it will cause slowdowns if documents are constantly synching to the cloud, rather than being saved locally. Does anyone know if this would be a problem?

Also, is there the option to do full backups (not just documents) like Time Machine on a Mac?

Basically I have been using a Mac since around 2011, so I am not really familiar with Windows now integrates to cloud and backup services.
 

jokkir

Member
This goes on sale tomorrow and I'm kind of tempted to buy it. Any experience with video editing on the i5 model? I think I'll just buy and test it for a bit. I really need a more powerful computer than my Chromebook
 

Futureman

Member
This goes on sale tomorrow and I'm kind of tempted to buy it. Any experience with video editing on the i5 model? I think I'll just buy and test it for a bit. I really need a more powerful computer than my Chromebook

The Verge just did a short article about video editing on the top of the line Performance Base Surface Book and were a little frustrated with rendering and exporting.

I'm guessing it's decent if you aren't doing anything too demanding.
 

Jonboy

Member
This goes on sale tomorrow and I'm kind of tempted to buy it. Any experience with video editing on the i5 model? I think I'll just buy and test it for a bit. I really need a more powerful computer than my Chromebook
Any way to tell which model will be getting the $200 discount?

The i5/4gb is currently $250 off ($749), but that doesn't include a type cover.
 

Paganmoon

Member
Just recently updated to anniversary build on my SP4. Windows Hello has been really darn slow since the update. Takes way longer to recognize than before the update.

Anyone else have a simillar experience?
 
Just recently updated to anniversary build on my SP4. Windows Hello has been really darn slow since the update. Takes way longer to recognize than before the update.

Anyone else have a simillar experience?

I don't remember it being slower or faster than before the update, but it's really slow now. Sometimes it seems to go through it three times. Super annoying.

Im also annoyed that I spent extra for the damn fingerprint keyboard that I never use due to Hello.
 
So I have a sneaking suspicion my missus just bought me the bog standard Surface Pro 4 (I have a Pro 2 at the mo). Kinda blown away at the gesture to be honest, but then she is super awesome.

Any drawbacks software wise with the Intel® Core™ m3-6Y30 Processor version?

Any limitations?

Advice appreciated! :)
 

SteveWD40

Member
So I have a sneaking suspicion my missus just bought me the bog standard Surface Pro 4 (I have a Pro 2 at the mo). Kinda blown away at the gesture to be honest, but then she is super awesome.

Any drawbacks software wise with the Intel® Core™ m3-6Y30 Processor version?

Any limitations?

Advice appreciated! :)

None for me, it's only a shade less grunt than the i5 and many can't tell the difference. The limitation of 4GB Ram 128GB are there but unless you got the 8GB / 256 GB i5 you really won't see a difference, other than the M3 is silent.
 
None for me, it's only a shade less grunt than the i5 and many can't tell the difference. The limitation of 4GB Ram 128GB are there but unless you got the 8GB / 256 GB i5 you really won't see a difference, other than the M3 is silent.

Awesome. Marked improvement over the Pro 2 then!

I've heard the Type Cover 3 is compatible? Worth trying to get one of those on the cheap, or is the pro 4 cover the better way to go?

Does the bluetooth Xbox One S pad work without the wireless adaptor from MS?

Do I need any accessories? Halp!
 
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