USB 3 may not cut it, but what about the proprietary Surface adapter used for charging, and the surface dock? If I'm correct, I believe that's the same way that the Surface Book Connects to it's own base. Backwards compatibility for any future release like this would also be a huge +1.
I debating the SP4 over the Surface Book for a while actually, my final decision was based on the following:
- I'm a die-hard fan and user of the Kickstand/Detachable keyboard functionality of the Surface, and use it as a tablet all of the time. Perhaps the biggest drawback with the surface book is that, like any laptop, the screen will wiggle when using it as a touchscreen upright. The surface has no motion at all using the kickstand, and is much better suited to curling up on the couch and using the pen on Staffpad (music notation software I use often).
- The only benefit (that applies to me) of the Surface Book is the Gpu, and it's maybe between a 940M and 950M, not a 960M or 970M. That's not enough above the Iris 540 of the Surface Pro 4 i7 or close enough to my desktop 750ti to warrant the form factor trade-off for me.
- The only reason I wanted the gpu was some gaming, and it turns out that one of the two games that I play, Arma 3, actually gets fantastic frames at low-medium settings because it's a CPU intensive game.
- Lastly, the Surface Pro 4 is a 4th generation device, and the Surface Book is in its infancy. Whatever comes out this fall for SP5 is going to be much less of a step up from SP4 than I expect the SB2 to be from the SB. That's more of an abstract afterthought, but It crossed my mind.
What I really want is for the Surface Pro 4 to have something like this:
Razer Blade Stealth Ultrabook and Razer Core External Graphics Dock
If that were the case, it would literally replace my desktop. (Do you hear that microsoft? The tablet that replaced my laptop AND desktop?)
