Should I just wait for the surface pro 4

[Dave Drouin]

I'm in the same place. My laptop is 8 years old and i really want one of these though. sigh..... I see the broadwell chip coming by end of year though which will most likely make the SP4 a true fan-less device, which in my eye a tablet should be. My guess is all the vendors will jump on the fanless bandwagon, probably sooner than MS with an SP4. Maybe SP4 will be out for the holidays?

 

[vlad0]

Broadwell surface for the holiday season is optimistic, though, not impossible.

Broadwell + LTE = a more future proof product overall

I will skip this one, my Asus u33j will suffice for a bit longer. I blame the internetz for keeping me informed about tech development.

I tend to buy new laptops at Intel's "tick" time frame and skip the "tock" , but this time it will be hard since tock is supposed to intro DDR4 memory.. but still, not that big of a deal for me. Dropping power consumption is way more important.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Tick-Tock

 

[ytrewq]

I'm in the same place. My laptop is 8 years old and i really want one of these though. sigh..... I see the broadwell chip coming by end of year though which will most likely make the SP4 a true fan-less device, which in my eye a tablet should be. My guess is all the vendors will jump on the fanless bandwagon, probably sooner than MS with an SP4. Maybe SP4 will be out for the holidays?

While it is technically possible for MS to release SP4 with Broadwell by year-end, it would be foolish from a commercial perspective. A holiday release would mean that the SP4 hits the shelves only five months after the SP3. That's a ridiculously short product cycle. Some people have expressed frustration that the SP2 was outdated so quickly, and it was available 8 months before the SP3. 8 months is still an extremely short cycle. 8 months would put the SP4 on shelves at the end of February at the earliest.

 

[kevinn206]

Broadwell surface for the holiday season is optimistic, though, not impossible.

Broadwell + LTE = a more future proof product overall

I will skip this one, my Asus u33j will suffice for a bit longer. I blame the internetz for keeping me informed about tech development.

I tend to buy new laptops at Intel's "tick" time frame and skip the "tock" , but this time it will be hard since tock is supposed to intro DDR4 memory.. but still, not that big of a deal for me. Dropping power consumption is way more important.

Intel Tick-Tock - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That would be my ideal configuration. It's strange that MS is targeting businesses for the SP3 but delays LTE capability. Even the SP2 until now still doesn't have integrated LTE. I have cellphone service with Tmobile, so we get 1 GB/month free of tablet LTE free until end of 2014 and then 200 MB/month afterward. Not a bad deal since I can still tether with my cell phone.

 

[vlad0]

That would be my ideal configuration. It's strange that MS is targeting businesses for the SP3 but delays LTE capability. Even the SP2 until now still doesn't have integrated LTE. I have cellphone service with Tmobile, so we get 1 GB/month free of tablet LTE free until end of 2014 and then 200 MB/month afterward. Not a bad deal since I can still tether with my cell phone.

Yeah, its is strange but I think they main two reasons are

1. Intel. They still don't have a core chip with built in LTE radio. Putting a separate LTE chip would increase battery consumption and add an extra component to the motherboard, it would also require separate drivers, etc.

Broadwell doesn't look like it will have built in radio as well, but it might play nicer with 3rd party chips.. the Asus 300 Chi has an LTE option, which is promising.

2. Design. Having an all metal casing would block the LTE signal to the device too much. Its not exactly as bad as smartphones where you have a very tiny screen, which could be used as an outlet, but still.. having only parts of the screen side open to LTE radio waves is not ideal.

To integrate the current gen antenna properly you need plastic, which is what they did on the Surface 2 LTE

There is a plastic bar at the top of the device

The same would need to happen to the Surface 3 pro

Now, since they got Nokia's tablet designs, they are all about radio connectivity and antenna placement. Their work on the metal Nokia N8 was outstanding.. pretty much everyone copied the antenna design from that. So maybe they can take a closer look at their stuff and see what they can do.

Or maybe just go full high quality plastic and be done with it.

The Asus 300 chi which I mentioned is a question mark for now. The unit they had on display was all metal, but we don't know if that particular one had LTE radio built in.

 

[smoheath]

The surface pro 1,2 and 3 have that plastic bit too.

Here it is on the pro 3,

Sent from my Surface Pro 2 using Tapatalk


Sent from my Surface Pro 2 using Tapatalk

 

[latempete]

The surface pro 1,2 and 3 have that plastic bit too.

Here it is on the pro 3,

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/14/y4uzuja7.jpg

Sent from my Surface Pro 2 using Tapatalk


Sent from my Surface Pro 2 using Tapatalk

I just handled one today at Best Buy. I was all over it for a good half-hour and I'm am 99.9% sure that entire case is metal.

 

[smoheath]

It has to have the plastic piece at the top for the Wi-Fi antennas. If you look at the picture I posted there is a slightly darker gray part at the top that spans about 80% of the device. That is the plastic. If you didn't notice it, then well done Microsoft for making it seamless. It doesn't come down as far as the other surface models.

 

[vlad0]

Good catch! I didn't see it in the store.. its very well blended in I guess.

So my second point goes away.. they should be able to use this for the LTE antenna as well

 

[smoledman]

For me it's not about the hardware at this point, it's fine. It's the apps, apps, apps. The state of the Windows app store is execrable right now. This is an area that iPad shines, it has all the apps that anyone wants. F.e., I need a great Podcast app but every single entry in the Windows Store is utter crap. No Amazon Instant Video, crappy Audible, crappy Kindle and so on. This is not acceptable.

 

[aa125690]

For me it's not about the hardware at this point, it's fine. It's the apps, apps, apps. The state of the Windows app store is execrable right now. This is an area that iPad shines, it has all the apps that anyone wants. F.e., I need a great Podcast app but every single entry in the Windows Store is utter crap. No Amazon Instant Video, crappy Audible, crappy Kindle and so on. This is not acceptable.

I like how you are only listing Amazon's apps in here while saying the Windows app store sucks.

 

[smoledman]

I like how you are only listing Amazon's apps in here while saying the Windows app store sucks.

Well Amazon apps and Google apps are important to a platform. It's not as if Microsoft has their own great video service, e-book service to offer.

 

[Pete The Penguin]

While it is technically possible for MS to release SP4 with Broadwell by year-end, it would be foolish from a commercial perspective. A holiday release would mean that the SP4 hits the shelves only five months after the SP3. That's a ridiculously short product cycle. Some people have expressed frustration that the SP2 was outdated so quickly, and it was available 8 months before the SP3. 8 months is still an extremely short cycle. 8 months would put the SP4 on shelves at the end of February at the earliest.

I can wait 'til Feb.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

I like how you are only listing Amazon's apps in here while saying the Windows app store sucks.

Those Amazon apps are available for iOS and Android but not Windows. What is your point?

 

[AvatarEW]

For me it's not about the hardware at this point, it's fine. It's the apps, apps, apps. The state of the Windows app store is execrable right now. This is an area that iPad shines, it has all the apps that anyone wants. F.e., I need a great Podcast app but every single entry in the Windows Store is utter crap. No Amazon Instant Video, crappy Audible, crappy Kindle and so on. This is not acceptable.

A non-issue for me as I just use web browser version which provides full functionality rather than a stunted app.

My nieces do use the game apps quite often on my SP1, SP2, and Dell Venue 8 Pro.

 

[WillysJeepMan]

A non-issue for me as I just use web browser version which provides full functionality rather than a stunted app.

Do you believe that all apps are nothing more than front-ends to websites? :shocked:

 

[badMojo69]

I'm waiting for the 4? Until then I've sold my SP2 and purchased a Galaxy Tab Pro 12.2 (pure media consumption device) for my digital comic book viewing pleasure. Then once the Intel M CPUs come out I'll see about getting a new TabPc for X-Mas.

 

[smoledman]

A non-issue for me as I just use web browser version which provides full functionality rather than a stunted app.

My nieces do use the game apps quite often on my SP1, SP2, and Dell Venue 8 Pro.

Ah yes let's use the full website with tiny touch targets that's SLOW to render instead of a rich native app that's super fast and provides the BEST user experience. You do realize there is a reason native apps took off on mobile once Apple introduced them in 2008?

 

[smoledman]

This is a perfect example:



Terrible, just terrible.

 

[Christopher Lindsay]

Drive we've completely gotten off subject of my op. Can someone confirm for me that the WP and windows rt app store are different? I was under the impression I could run apps between windows phone and rt but I'm hearing that may not be true at all.