Thinking twice need assurance

[chattoe]

Well after much reading up and watching videos etc I was pretty set on replacing my Mac with a SP4 and of all went well the iPad too.

Until that is its release over in the states.

All I've seen and read regarding the Pro 4 is problems be it battery issues to screen flickering etc.

I'm now thinking should I not bother save some money and go for the dell XPS 13.

What are your thoughts?

 

[Montpbm]

I haven't heard of any of those problems and I'm on YouTube everyday.. I think that you should get the SP4, it is an amazing device and there is nothing like it. Just saying.

 

[hovesteve]

Same here, in the UK getting one shipped on the 12th. These overheating even when asleep, flickering, yellow tint. Has anyone got a SP4 that is actually running ok? Are we assuming MS knows about all these and is gonna put out firmware updates? Do I cancel my order

 

[GatsbyGlen]

I can't say anything about the XPS 13.

Screen flickering and battery aren't an issue for me so far (i5/8/256). I did notice the tint issue while using Edge, so I'm using Chrome for now.

This is my first Surface Pro. I absolutely love the pen feature. The SP4 was intended to be a higher end replacement for my Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10.5 tablet. The Samsung is a great tablet, but I really don't do much with it, besides playing Candy Crack on the Crapper. Additionally, the SP4 isn't going to replace my work laptop, a Lenovo W541, i7 Quad, 32GB RAM. Talk about battery life? I'm lucky to get 4 hours on that thing. When docked though, it handles everything I need to do for work (Programming, Visual Studio, Multiple VMs, Excel/Power Pivot with massive data sets)

So with the SP4 I was looking for something light, convenient like a tablet, but could still be productive with it. A full blown Windows OS seemed the most logical. I suppose if I want my Android fix, I can download BlueStacks and use it. For work, Outlook and Excel can easily be down, but for more taxing jobs, I could always remote into my docked W541 and do stuff that way.

I'm a fan so far, albeit it's only been about 36 hours I'll give my own review after a couple of weeks.

 

[Hardcore1973]

I have owned the Dell XPS 13. It was a great machine but is a laptop only. The surface pro 4 will be your everything device. That is what makes it so great. Laptop and tablet. You will never look at a laptop again.

 

[ryankelsey7]

I have the SP4 and it is the best computer on earth. You wont regret it. It is extremely versatile

 

[boltman2013]

SP4m3 rocks

 

[Rafaelcab]

I unfortunately am having a lot of these problems on my surface pro 4 that you have been reading in the forums about and as of right now its hard to recommend it. If and when (which I hope is soon) Microsoft fixes it I'm sure it will be worth the purchase and the ultimate two in one its suppose to be.

 

[erasure25]

I don't have any screen flicker, light bleed, or color problems. Battery life is good, although I did disable a bunch of background apps, set it to turn off wifi on sleep, and turned "hey cortana" off (cortana functions but is manually activated). My feeling is that most SP4 don't have issues, but only a minority. People don't post on forums if nothing is wrong... People only post problems so it always seems like it's widespread.

 

[boltman2013]

Mostly user error

 

[WillysJeepMan]

Well after much reading up and watching videos etc I was pretty set on replacing my Mac with a SP4 and of all went well the iPad too.

Until that is its release over in the states.

All I've seen and read regarding the Pro 4 is problems be it battery issues to screen flickering etc.

I'm now thinking should I not bother save some money and go for the dell XPS 13.

What are your thoughts?

As with all of the generation of Surface devices, the first few months experience teething pains. Obviously those issues aren't universal, but pretty consistent.

My advice, hang on to your current hardware and re-evaluate the landscape in 3-5 months. If things have improved, then full steam ahead. If not, then consider alternatives.

 

[boltman2013]

I have the SP4m3 no issues. I say full steam ahead and go cheap get the m3..most issues seem to be on the i5 which possibly means they since they were what was in the store may have issues...three i5s at MS store (demos) had issues. The m3 is a different story as it was never intended to demo and likely the last one built its solid.

The m3 is so good no need for the i5/i7 and if you need more then you should be looking at the surface book. the sweet spot for SP4 is m3

Again those on the fence buy the m3 you will thank me later. I'm very picky it took me years to buy a new laptop.

 

[Guzzler3]

I betcha, if you roll the O/S back to W8.1 you won't see any of those issues (screen flicker, battery drain, overheating).

 

[chattoe]

I'm looking at learning how to code and do a lot of video conversion from my blue Ray's that I rip I've been looking at the i5 for that power but would the m3 be ok for those tasks

 

[WillysJeepMan]

I'm looking at learning how to code and do a lot of video conversion from my blue Ray's that I rip I've been looking at the i5 for that power but would the m3 be ok for those tasks

In my experience, processor power is not the bottleneck in video conversion/ripping, but the speed of the disk drives (both hard drive and optical drive) and the throughput of the disk controller. From a processor standpoint, the M3 will be fine.

 

[chattoe]

Is there much of a difference with processing power between the M and I CPUs

 

[boltman2013]

None that you will notice get the m3 ..absolutely! Any more needed then go SB.

My m3 is faster than my sons i5 SP3...the m3 will satisfy 99.9% of users that try it.

 

[chattoe]

None that you will notice get the m3 ..absolutely! Any more needed then go SB.

My m3 is faster than my sons i5 SP3...the m3 will satisfy 99.9% of users that try it.

Just looked at the m3 on MS website they don't do it with 8gb ram or a 256gb ssd

 

[boltman2013]

I know first off you don't need either , if for some strange reason you do then the better buy is the Surface Book

 

[chattoe]

I know first off you don't need either , if for some strange reason you do then the better buy is the Surface Book

I'm not interested in the surface book, I want the pro4 it needs to be a tablet first then a laptop. The surface books battery life isn't enough in tablet mode for my needs,

I'd consider the M3 if it had more than 128gb of storage as an option, it looks like it may be the i5 if this is the case