Deal or No Deal - Surface Pro 4 pricing

[Nickb1984]

Hi All,

I hope you guys can offer some advice.

I am after a Surface Pro 4 (only concern remains the battery life!) for a Online MBA I'm taking which starts in September.

I have been offered a one month old Pro 4 i5 128gb with type cover - asking ?600.

How does this look to you, proposed usage and price wise?

Many thanks,
Nick

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Price looks okay, just make sure it works perfectly.
And just check online if there are any offers, you might get a good deal on a new one

 

[worldspy99]

Here in the USA there is a good sale on at Best Buy with an educational discount. See if you can find a new one on eBay or other online website in the UK before you get the 600 GBP deal that you mentioned above.
Cheers!

 

[Nickb1984]

Thanks both. That's helpful.

Looks like ?630-?650 (without typecover) is the cheapest in the UK...

 

[Lone Swordsman]

That does seem good for something above minimum with the Type Cover included. I wonder though if MS shouldn't be knocking $100 (or its British equivalent, in this case) off the price of new Surface models to begin with.

 

[Nickb1984]

That does seem good for something above minimum with the Type Cover included. I wonder though if MS shouldn't be knocking $100 (or its British equivalent, in this case) off the price of new Surface models to begin with.

Now being offered at ?550. Getting very tempted.

Any additional views on suitability for an online MBA?

Cheers

 

[demon09]

The MBA part is a bit of an uncertainty--we need more detail. What kinds of projects will you be working on? The I5 128gb has 4gb of ram, which is fine for a bit more than basic tasks, web browsing, word processing, some spreadsheet work, casual voice chats/video chats. I would guess that an online MBA would be solidly in that realm for projects. If you know there is some larger project that is a part of this, or that you need some specific software program, we would need to know what it was to say better if it might work.

For what its worth, I am using the same setup, and I design online courses (for a different kind of online program) but I think it would be sufficient for most student-based projects that aren't tied to heavy processing software.

 

[2687]

Used price looks fine, but i would go lower

 

[Nickb1984]

It's a fairly generic MBA, so heavily based on assignment writing, typically around 2,000-5,000 words, researching academic papers etc. The final project will be 10,000 words +.

There will be some excel and low level financial modeling. The course will involve a lot of online discussion forums, a lot of reading and handling large PDFs.

Slightly concerned in battery life as I will be fitting study around work and travel and work so won't have constant access to power sockets.

 

[demon09]

It will handle the software aspects just fine with little to no slowness (would depend though on how much you have open at once). Documents and webpages don't take much memory.

The battery may be a bigger concern there--realistically you are looking at 4 to 5 hours use max with very conservative brightness and being diligent about closing background apps that are not in use, less if you're opening and closing a lot of apps or doing video chat while on battery-- likely 2.5 to 3.5 in those situations.

Posted via the Windows Central App for Android

 

[Nickb1984]

Thanks again, that's very helpful. So, in the extreme, how much battery life could I expect if I were watching a YouTube video lecture whilst on battery?

Cheers
Nick

 

[demon09]

At 50% brightness, with battery saver on and a strong Wi-Fi connection, around 2.5 to 3.5 hours.

If it is possible to download the videos and turn off Wi-Fi you may be able to get more.