Are you buying the new Surface Pro or what?

[anon(5415472)]

MS promised something like 9.5 hours of battery life on the SP4. My real-world experience was between 4-5 hours doing modest computing stuff. And that is after making a lot of effort to tweak my settings for best longest battery life over outright performance.

Based on my experience, I figure we should expect a similar ratio (bullsh1t marketing promises versus actual performance) in the new machine. So ... 13.5 / 2 = 6.75.
Gamely Lounges

Thank you for tempering my expectations. I'll just wait 1 month or two after the first people get their surface laptops and surface pros and they post their reviews before I buy one. I just want an i5 surface that will last me until I get home. I have this tingly feeling I'm going to love that Pen no matter which one I choose.

 

[EssThree]

Honestly, the Pro 3 still does everything I need when I'm away from my desktop, so I find it hard to justify retiring it. When it konks out I'll grab the new Pro, though. But that was kind of my plan all along, even if it were just an iterative update over the 4. The new Pro is as big an improvement as I was hoping it would be.

 

[neo158]

Lol, why does every tech geek in existence think usb-c matters to regular people?

Simple answer is that it doesn't, until the vast majority of devices support USB-C then there's no need for it on the SP. I always think of Printers, first we had the Centronics port only, then we had transitional printers that added USB-B connections so until we see the same thing happen with USB-C there's no need for it.

@Dusteater you do know that "proprietary charging port" handles more than just charging, it's used for the dock and as of the new SP it will have a USB-C adapter for it as well.

 

[envio]

I've not long got the pro 4

Me too, I wouldn't be able to justify it and I'm very happy with my Pro 4. However, I have to admit that I am still tempted simply because of that improved battery life - 13.5 hours is a big deal and I use my Pro 4 in tablet form a lot.

I could be persuaded if there was a favourable buy-back scheme to upgrade to the Pro 2017.

 

[LokeTT]

So, the new Surface Pro is official! What do we think? Disappointed? Or excited? And most importantly, do you plan to buy one? Let’s keep it simple, using this format: Will you buy it (yes/no/maybe) > Why, or why not? I’ll get started:

Yes > That thing is slick looking, and I could really use a new Surface. Pen looks sick too!

Your turn ...

I got a SP4 w 8gb now, yes it is newer and all that, but not a ground breaker, plus I want a bigger screen (getting to old for 12'3 hehe)

 

[MrElectrifyer]

So, the new Surface Pro is official! What do we think? Disappointed? Or excited? And most importantly, do you plan to buy one? Let’s keep it simple, using this format: Will you buy it (yes/no/maybe) > Why, or why not? I’ll get started:

Yes > That thing is slick looking, and I could really use a new Surface. Pen looks sick too!

Your turn ...

Hell no. Highly disappointed that they simply couldn't replace that Mini DisplayPort with a Thunderbolt 3 port.

Mini DisplayPort never got anywhere near the adoption of HDMI nor VGA, it's just-as common as USB Type C is at this moment (if not worse). It's not like they have to replace the awesome magnetic Surface connect port in order to gain Thunderbolt 3 support. Yet they chose to keep that Mini DisplayPort and make the Surface Pro not future proof for the growing collection of USB Type C and Thunderbolt 3 accessories.

Screw it, sticking with my Surface Pro 2.

 

[savagelizards]

Nope - I am still happy with my Surface Book. Quite frankly, my use case is more for a lightweight laptop first and a tablet second. I would love to buy the performance base separately (and get the extra battery life and much improved GPU), but Microsoft doesn't want to sell that.

As for all those people distressed by Microsoft's lack of USB-C support, what are you missing out on? The proprietary Microsoft charging port works well, practically slips itself into place, offers mag-safe equivalent quick-disconnect for those times when you trip over your charging cable, and supports a nicely-equipped dock. It's several years yet before USB-C is the only standard out there, probably longer than the life of this device, and Microsoft is probably one of the better-positioned players to be able to gauge USB-C adoption. Their lack of support probably tells you all you need to know at present. It's still too early in the product cycle of the USB-C standard, and no matter which way the chips fall we are going to be increasingly dealing with dongles for the forseeable future.

 

[signal-2-noise]

There should be an option to select:

"Nope - already have a Surface Pro 4"

Which is my case. Bought Core i7/256GB model 3 months ago and it will do me fine for a couple of years. Just like the 1st gen Pro I still have kicking around did a few years ago.

 

[Loc Ngo]

I would wait till the LTE variant comes out. Hopefully there'll be good deals for students then.

 

[ajcletus500]

I'm tempted to make the plunge but.... I need to be a little more convinced for its steep price tag without the pen included.

 

[convergent]

I bought a SP4 about a month ago and just returned it at the end of the 30 day period to see what was announced. I really like the new Surface Pro and just need to get my head wrapped around if I want to spend that much. I most likely will because... nothing like having the latest and greatest and I've not done that in a while. You get the glamour of the new, but also the pain and suffering of bugs. :evil:

 

[Tim Stone]

So, the new Surface Pro is official! What do we think? Disappointed? Or excited? And most importantly, do you plan to buy one? Let’s keep it simple, using this format: Will you buy it (yes/no/maybe) > Why, or why not? I’ll get started:

Yes > That thing is slick looking, and I could really use a new Surface. Pen looks sick too!

Your turn ...

Nope - I have a new SP4 and that will work fine for my needs.

 

[hoyty]

Have a pre-order in for 30 of them. The battery life is most interesting for me. It might be all day battery life finally? Still can't get students through the day usually on SP4.

 

[DurocShark]

I won't be buying one for me (I still love my top specc'd SB) but I'm buying a couple with LTE for my staff. Wish I could pre-order the LTE models though.

 

[dc9super80]

No. No USB C / Thunderbolt 3. The pen doesn't come with it as it did with my Pro 4. They should have included the keyboard, not remove accessories. I have a pretty solid i7 Pro 4. Other than improved battery life, I don't think i am missing much.

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Have a pre-order in for 30 of them. The battery life is most interesting for me. It might be all day battery life finally? Still can't get students through the day usually on SP4.

30 devices? Wow, this is for a school? Or college?

 

[Chintan Gohel]

No thanks on the new Surface Pro. Without Thunderbolt 3, this thing is dead on arrival. Proprietary charging, yuck. Try again in another 2 years Panos Panay, maybe next time you can get it right.

It can't fail just because it lacks one or two ports that most devices don't even have yet

There are millions of laptops that don't have pen support - but they still sell, don't they?

Or the fact that some phones no longer have headphone jack - still sell, right? :wink:

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Lol, why does every tech geek in existence think usb-c matters to regular people?

They don't, not yet anyway.

In my situation:
Mice still have USB A, keyboards are USB A, chargers same, flash drives same, hard drives same, power banks same, USB cables are USB A, camera same, printer same, fitness tracker same, tablet same, phone same, external DVD drive same - so far everything I have used connects via a USB type A port

Even tech companies like ABB and GE still give out free flash drives that are USB type A

 

[Chintan Gohel]

Will I buy the Surface Pro? Probably not: I have the SP4, i7/16GB/512GB. To me, it looks like too little improvement compared with the one I own. Still, I'm curious...

* 50% increase in battery life... SP4 said 9 hours of video playback. But what is reality?
-- My first use of the SP4 in December 2015, the battery went from 100% to 15% in ca. 2 hours: I did what I do now -- participated in web discussion fora.
-- Since then, my experience is that *in real life*, the battery life has varied between 2-5 hours, depending on use, firmware upgrades, etc.
-- A couple of weeks ago, I had the *shocking* experience of "burning down" the battery from 100% to 20% in 45 minutes: I ran computing intensive Python scripts in rapid sequence.

* So: I'm curious as to the *real life* battery capacity. Of course, I like what I hear about "instant on", no battery leakage in sleep mode, etc. Again, I'm curious as to what testers find.

* I just stayed a few weeks abroad, renting an apartment with wi-fi. Wi-fi worked fine on my Lumia 950, but I was not able to get any decent connection with the SP4... if I opened Edge and typed in an url, perhaps 5 minutes later, the web page showed up... impossible to use. In a cafe across the street, the wi-fi worked fine also on the SP4. Any improvements with wi-fi? I'm curious about the LTE model.

* I may get hold of one of the new type covers -- I "hate" the plastic surface of the original type covers... after 5 minutes, it feels like my hands are sweating and sliding off the keyboard. But I don't need to upgrade my SP4 to get the keyboard.

* Pen... does the new pen work with SP4 -- and give 4096 levels of pressure sensitivity? Or does the improvement require some new processor in the SP (2017)?

* For an upgrade, I might also like to see 32GB RAM... OK, it would be monstrously expensive, so maybe not.
--
An alternative to me (running computing intensive programs) would be to have a "home" workstation and the possibility to remotely log into the workstation using some SP (2017) or something and just use the SP as a terminal/word processing tool. To have stable connection, the LTE version would probably be necessary... I am quite disillusioned wrt. wi-fi and the dream of stable connection.

Your surface device seems to have a very bad battery life - could you share how you use it? What programs do you use, what runs in the background, screen brightness setting, whether you use wifi or wired net etc

 

[Chintan Gohel]

So, the new Surface Pro is official! What do we think? Disappointed? Or excited? And most importantly, do you plan to buy one? Let’s keep it simple, using this format: Will you buy it (yes/no/maybe) > Why, or why not? I’ll get started:

Yes > That thing is slick looking, and I could really use a new Surface. Pen looks sick too!

Your turn ...

To put it in words about how I feel about the surface pro - unfazed and a little unimpressed

Let's look at what improved

• It has the kaby lake intel processors -that was going to be obvious that they would put them -nothing unexpected there
• Battery life has improved - again this is expected - a new gen processor has been inserted, obviously it was going to improve battery life, additionally the windows version is higher, creators update which has better battery performance. Plus firmware upgrades and in the future background apps throttling. This was expected and nothing new in my opinion
• Size is still the same, same screen size, same pixel density, same weight - so nothing of interest there
• price has gone up since the keyboard or pen don't come included by default - so that isn't an improvement, right?

The thing that could be interesting is adding support for a SIM card, but that should have been default for all surface devices for some time now

The pen is improved, I agree

But the keyboard seems the same

So for me, very little is exciting here