Is Virtualisation officially, 100% working on the S3 now? Should I buy one ?

[Cryio]

I want to buy an ultrabook for college. I'm undecided between the Surface 3 4GB/128 and a Surface Pro 3/4 with 8GB/256.

I mostly want to know if 4 GBs will be enough to run Windows 10 for the foreseeble future. Maybe the next 5 years.

For college, I intend to use Visual Studio 2015 (for Windows Phone/Mobile development), Matlab (any version), Ubuntu in a virtual machine and LabView for Arduino development. Would all these programs, along with W10, even fit on a 128 GB Surface 3 with enough space for comfort ?

Does Virtualisation in Surface 3 work reliably for VS2015? Or should I stretch for SP3/4? I mostly couldn't afford a Pro of any kind.

 

[cygnus11]

If this is going to be your main PC for the next 4-5 years, I personally would recommend getting the Surface Pro 4 8/256. I know it is much more expensive than a Surface 3, but it will serve you much better as a primary PC. I would definitely go for 8 GB of RAM if you are planning to use it for running virtual machines.

The Surface 3 is a perfect secondary PC for consuming content, casual gaming, and light productivity work. But if you can somehow afford the step up to the Pro (specifically the 4 since it is the newest model), I would highly recommend it.

 

[etphoto]

If I had the Surface 3 in my college days it would have worked great. However, I would only have written papers and do research on mine. I would not count on the S3 to run any "big boy" applications.

 

[xandros9]

4 GBs will be fine for the foreseeable future. BUT it may not be fine if you're more than a light-moderate user. (which upon reading the rest of your post, there's no way you are) I felt the squeeze of 4 in high school, so I go 8 minimum now.

A problem here is that the Surface tablets aren't very repairable so you may want to look into other solutions as well like the Dell Venue 11 Pro which I believe has a removable battery. The smaller screen may be an issue too.

You sound like you're going to do some heavy lifting and the non-Pro 3 will not take to those tasks well. That I can guarantee. First, 128 GB can be a bit claustrophobic for that and 4 GB of RAM is barely passable for serious VM use.

I would strongly recommend or even force a Pro 8/256 model onto you, but I highly recommend looking into perhaps a ThinkPad or Latitude instead for longevity and fancy things like that. Especially if you can go without the tablet/pen part.

 

[Steve Adams]

The dell is does not work as good as the surface. I have used both. The dell, as well as my asus vivotabs are MUCH slower than the surface 3 I have now.

 

[3earnhardt3]

I run Visual Studio for traditional LOB WPF apps and it is not really optimal. You should get the SP4 hands down. If you want to save money the SP3 can be found for significantly less but the extra screen size will come in handy on the SP4 when writing all that code.

 

[neo158]

If I had the Surface 3 in my college days it would have worked great. However, I would only have written papers and do research on mine. I would not count on the S3 to run any "big boy" applications.

I think a Surface 3 would be able to handle " big boy" applications, with some exceptions. The Surface 3 isn't using the Atom processors of the Netbook era.

 

[kingkoopa09]

The one with 8.1 Pro is plainly a Surface Pro and all AT&T did was refer to it as a Surface 3. Show me the specs where it states that it has an Atom processor and I'll be enclined to believe you.

Well since its in my hands I'm excited to tell u it's a s3 with pro windows

 

[Steve Adams]

My two are running windows 10 pro and windows 8.1 pro.