Deciding between a SP3 or a Retina MacBook.

RavenSword

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Do you have a Microsoft store nearby? They have them just roaming the store, untethered and free like their are on tech safari. When you detach the keyboard, you are shocked by the weight or lack of it. It is so balanced that I could not detect the extra quarter of a pound when holding the Surface 2. The security tether will ruin that sensation, for sure. It feels very natural in portrait for browsing and note taking.

Best Buy really should have an untethered unit for reps to bust out and show off how light it feels and how well it handles; they would sell a lot more of them.

I think the closest microsoft store is like 45 minutes away from me. And yeah , the tether made trying to get a sense if using it as a tablet pretty impossible.
 

acegamer

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Yeah, you won't be able to get a feel for the tablet functionality at Best Buy unfortunately. I played with it a couple of times at the MS store and it felt great as a tablet to me. It would be a bit heavy if you just try to hold it out in front of you but I find that when I normally use a tablet it is resting in my lap anyway. When standing up holding the SP3 in the crook of your arm between wrist and elbow with it against your side works pretty well and will let you hold it for a longer period without the weight being an issue. It is obviously not as light as some other dedicated tablet devices but it is a good compromise if you really want an all-in-one device to avoid having to carry two devices around.
 

mozman68

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So that was my take. Good laptop, meh tablet.

But really, good conditions to try as a laptop, bad conditions to try as a tablet...I disconnected the keyboard and it wasn't locked in at the Microsoft store in Chicago. Incredibly light and worked great as a tablet IMO.
 

RavenSword

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But really, good conditions to try as a laptop, bad conditions to try as a tablet...I disconnected the keyboard and it wasn't locked in at the Microsoft store in Chicago. Incredibly light and worked great as a tablet IMO.

Yeah, it's not really fair of me to judge it as a tablet in those conditions. Bit it was the only thing I had available.
 

Ian Too

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Have you ever tried to take notes with an ipad.....capacitive screen is the worst, and the Bluetooth pens are laggy, and not natural feeling. If note taking is something you plan to do, then I think you should go to the store and try out the SP3. Its going to be a beast of a tabtop.
When I read your comment I took up my old iPad, signed in to One Note and found that, much t my surprise, One Note for iPad does note support freehand note taking and neither did any other app I had installed. So. I take your point and say give the SP3 a decent look.

Sometimes you just don't realise what you have. I think this is the death-knell of the iPad in my home.
 

WillysJeepMan

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When I read your comment I took up my old iPad, signed in to One Note and found that, much t my surprise, One Note for iPad does note support freehand note taking and neither did any other app I had installed. So. I take your point and say give the SP3 a decent look.

Sometimes you just don't realise what you have. I think this is the death-knell of the iPad in my home.
That is Microsoft's fault for not providing that support in OneNote. They also don't provide that support in the OSX version of OneNote.

As for "any other app you had installed"... you don't have the proper apps installed. Outline+ is a OneNote clone that DOES support freehand notes and supports reading and writing OneNote notebooks. Penultimate is one of the top selling notetaking apps in the iOS app store and it too supports freehand notes. There are literally dozens if not hundreds of notetaking apps for the iPad that support freehand notes. There have been freehand notetaking apps available since day-1 of the iPad's availability.

So I'm left with the questions, "just how important is freehand notetaking to you that you don't have any of those apps installed? How could you have searched the iOS app store and NOT find a freehand notetaking app?"
 

darthhen

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The final straw was Apple's denial by silence of a widespread issue with late-2011 Macbook Pros overheating causing GPU failures due to a manufacturing defect.

On the flipside, the competition has improved. Windows 8.1 (as an operating system) is better than XP, Vista, and Win 7. Hardware makers are able to improve quality without raising prices. I am quite pleasantly surprised at the performance and quality of my 11.6" Asus X200MA netbook.

That's one of the reasons why I'm not so starry-eyed about all-things-Microsoft... I have a personal agenda, I want a high quality option as I continue my exodus from Cupertino. :smile:

The Fruit Company threw AMD under the bus for the GPU failure.
 

realwarder

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Gotcha. Still, pretty pricey.

Cheaper than equivalent MacBook Pro with Retina...

To totally throw you off, the Lenovo Yoga 2 is a pretty neat bit of hardware if you've never seen one.

But let's face it, if you want a Mac, get a Mac, if you want a PC, there are a bunch of laptop choices, many of which are cheaper than anything mentioned in this thread but still nice.
 

jedge

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When I read your comment I took up my old iPad, signed in to One Note and found that, much t my surprise, One Note for iPad does note support freehand note taking and neither did any other app I had installed. So. I take your point and say give the SP3 a decent look.

Sometimes you just don't realise what you have. I think this is the death-knell of the iPad in my home.

OneNote for iPad / iOS is basically just a restyled OneNote Online... which is actually pretty good, but yeah no handwriting.
I tried out all the handwriting apps i could find on iOS and ended up using Notability. It's not compatible with OneNote directly, but it's not hard to bridge the gap. Notability -> export to Dropbox as pdf -> import into OneNote from pdf. Heck the "Insert -> File Printout" button is right on the ribbon.

So OneNote on an iPad isn't at all hopeless. But it also isn't even in the same league as the SP3, which was practically built for OneNote. I can't wait to get one.
 

RavenSword

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OneNote for iPad / iOS is basically just a restyled OneNote Online... which is actually pretty good, but yeah no handwriting.
I tried out all the handwriting apps i could find on iOS and ended up using Notability. It's not compatible with OneNote directly, but it's not hard to bridge the gap. Notability -> export to Dropbox as pdf -> import into OneNote from pdf. Heck the "Insert -> File Printout" button is right on the ribbon.

So OneNote on an iPad isn't at all hopeless. But it also isn't even in the same league as the SP3, which was practically built for OneNote. I can't wait to get one.

Is doing handwritten notes that big of a deal though? Honestly, 9 times out of 10 I'd much rather type it out than handwrite the note. Only use I can see is if I need to draw diagrams or charts or something.
 

WillysJeepMan

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Is doing handwritten notes that big of a deal though? Honestly, 9 times out of 10 I'd much rather type it out than handwrite the note. Only use I can see is if I need to draw diagrams or charts or something.
For some, handwriting is important... particularly when jotting down math formulas, symbols, etc. Then, as you mentioned, is the ability to draw a diagram or chart. OneNote for Mac and iOS don't support ANY kind of hand drawing...

So OneNote on an iPad isn't at all hopeless. But it also isn't even in the same league as the SP3, which was practically built for OneNote. I can't wait to get one.
And THAT might be the reason why Microsoft has kept inking out of OneNote for Mac and iPad.
 

AG VK

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For some, handwriting is important... particularly when jotting down math formulas, symbols, etc. Then, as you mentioned, is the ability to draw a diagram or chart. OneNote for Mac and iOS don't support ANY kind of hand drawing...


And THAT might be the reason why Microsoft has kept inking out of OneNote for Mac and iPad.

More likely it's simply because iPads don't have Wacom touchscreen layers and styli :)
 

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