Has Anyone Ditched Their Desktop For a Docked Surface?

[RicKaysen]

I'm trying to decide if I should go for the new dock and connect the SP4 to my monitor and keyboard. I don't do anything too graphics intensive, but light Photoshop and web surfing while pushing video out to my TV are routine. Will my i5/8/256 be enough?

 

[Indistinguishable]

I think for those purposes, you'd probably be fine doing that. Let us know how it goes! I'd like some pictures.

I play too many games for my Surface Pro 3, i5, 128gb to keep up.

 

[boltman2013]

Should work for your use case.... heck you can use the MS wireless receiver and just get a 3.0 USB hub supports 2 or 3 monitors through Miracast/WiDi (Do work/play on one or two and stream on the other)

 

[RicKaysen]

Yeah, not a gamer myself. I just wish they'd bundle in the required cables. I'm not all that familiar with the ones I need for the purposes I listed. I guess I need adapters for the display ports out to the TV and monitor. I'm accustomed to HDMI and DVI.

 

[snakebitten]

Did this 2 years ago. The SP2 with that nifty dock and a 24 Inch touchscreen on the desk was more than enough to legitimately replace desktop\laptop. This is in the non-gamer and non graphics world, of course.

In fact, as for walking around with a Surface, the SP2 is a tidier package, in my opinion. But that glorious tablet screen of the SP4 is hard to ignore. Simply awesome.

 

[GatsbyGlen]

I wish, but I don't think the SP4 would be able to replace my "work" laptop, a Lenovo quad core i7 and 32 GB RAM. I need huge amounts of RAM to make use of 64bit Excel, Power Pivot and data sets on the order of up to 10 million records. I opted for the i5/8/256 to use on a personal level, and to also use as a tablet. Also, I wanted something that could connect to my digital piano.

My "work" laptop is downloading KB3105213. Is this the Threshold 2 update?

 

[boltman2013]

I wish, but I don't think the SP4 would be able to replace my "work" laptop, a Lenovo quad core i7 and 32 GB RAM. I need huge amounts of RAM to make use of 64bit Excel, Power Pivot and data sets on the order of up to 10 million records. I opted for the i5/8/256 to use on a personal level, and to also use as a tablet. Also, I wanted something that could connect to my digital piano.

My "work" laptop is downloading KB3105213. Is this the Threshold 2 update?

Cumulative Update for Windows 10 for x64-based Systems (KB3105213)

NO I'm still on 10240 after applying it

 

[DCProjMgr]

Yup - I did this last year with the SP3. I like the dock on the SP4 even better. Pictures follow.


This is my desktop. The SP4 is above the keyboard for easy touch control:




The desktop waiting for the SP4:



SP4 "Office in a Bag" ready to take off for a meeting:



SP4 in Coffee Shop / Meeting mode:

 

[RicKaysen]

I was thinking more along the lines of using it while the screen was off, but using it as a secondary touch screen is cool.

 

[RichBrown68]

Actually I work as the director of a men's residential recovery facility, and most of my computing involves typing documents, doing Web searches, sending emails, and occasionally using Publisher to create an event flyer. So I got the Surface 3, the dock, a USB wireless keyboard / mouse and a monitor. It worked great as a 3-in-one tablet / laptop / desktop computer. I've since donated the Surface 3 to the facility and gotten the Surface 4 (so far, without a dock), and am using it as my only computer.

 

[Jcmg62]

I ditched my old Toshiba laptop and went the docking station route with my SP3 about six months ago. The dock, wireless keyboard/mouse and display came in at about ?300.

I guess I could have bought a new laptop for that, but it would have been at the very low end of the market.

Overall, I'm really happy with the setup and thrilled that the SP4 will fit into the same dock.

I won't be going back to a desktop or laptop again anytime soon

 

[dkediger]

Doing this more and more for folks at work. Actually have replaced several desktop+iPad users, as well as several MacBook users.

A select few even get large 34" curved ultra wide monitors.

But, yeah, the folks love these setups.

 

[brianbrain]

This is exactly what I plan on doing...Replacing my desktop, tablet, and laptop with an i7/16/256 SP4. The wait is killing me.

 

[Mark Morales]

I agree. I did the same with the SP2 years ago. It was perfectly capable of replacing a desktop for most use cases including light graphics. At my office, I had a desktop and a SP2 dock attached to the same monitor/keyboard/mouse via a switch. I found myself mostly using the SP2 and only rarely switching over for more intensive work (and usually that wasn't even necessary). Now I have 2 SP2s for testing and have added an SP4 and Surface Book... they are all perfectly capable of replacing a desktop for most people.

Picture of current setup:

 

[Qtweeder]

yeah my mum did this last year with her sp3, she is only a web surfer, light user really, and hers is the i3 only, that coupled with the official dock, and an external monitor, logitech wireless keyboard/mouse meant she could just undock and walk away, completely untethered, and vice versa - as she likes that traditional sit at the desk time sometimes - certainly sounds like your usage with that spec you mention would be fine, its a great replacement system for some folk.

 

[RicKaysen]

My only hesitation at this point is only seeing display port to VGA cables for the external monitor.

 

[Don Geronimo]

My only hesitation at this point is only seeing display port to VGA cables for the external monitor.

For my setup, I just bought an MDP->DVI for my Surface dock, which took care of my VGA hesitations.

 

[rickc1961]

I work in health care and we use a number of SP2-3 and recently 4's that we are using as desktop replacements. We don't do any heavy lifting and I have never received any complaints or issues from the users. That said, Photoshop, video out to a TV and web surfing is a significant load. My SP2 does wireless display and runs a few apps simultaneously pretty seamlessly.

 

[snakebitten]

Hey Mark, nice office. But how do you keep it so clean? Do you actually work?

 

[Mark Morales]

For the picture, I moved all the papers and stuff that are usually scattered around lol. I also lined everything up and turned on most of the screens at once. Today it's right back to normal. And if you could see behind me in that pic... well we won't go there!