Buying advice

[flight799]

Hello everyone,

I am new to the forum, although I've been watching them for some time as do my research. I'm looking for some recommendations in a couple of areas.

First, I have been a long time Mac user. I've had my current Macbook for almost 10 years. It has been very good to me...enough so that I have not felt the need to upgrade. But now as I finally look to replace this aging hardware I'm somewhat underwhelmed by the Apple offerings, and somewhat disenchanted with the whole Apple/icloud ecosystem. Admittedly though, once you're in the Apple vortex it's hard to get out. So I'm looking for some solid advice from anyone who has made the jump from Apple/OsX back to Windows 10 on a Surface Pro 4. How hard is the transition? And is it worth it?

Based on all the research I've done, I've pretty much convinced myself that the Surface Pro 4 is the way to go. I do a lot of general computing, word processing, email, browser work and occasional photo editing with PS/Lr. But that's about as intense as my needs get. I'm not a gamer at all. I like the idea of replacing my Macbook/ipad combo with one unit and having it be fully functional wherever I am. With that in mind I'm looking for some advice on which Surface Pro 4 model. I really like the idea of the fanless Core M3, and from some of the reviews I think it would be sufficient for my current needs. But, being a guy who is inclined to hold on to hardware for a while, I'm trying to think of future needs as well. Would the Core i5 be more "future proof" at least for the next few years? I have not intention of going all the way up to i7. And would the 8GB be a worthwhile investment over the 4GB?

Thanks for any feedback you can provide.

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum (finally)

I feel the 8GB i5 would be a good spot for you. I also feel the M3 idea is a no go. There is no such thing as future proof these days, at least not for most people but the i5 sounds like a good fit.

 

[Nspyr]

As far as transition goes, its kind of like going from using a mouse to using a touch pad. There's different movements and gestures that you will get use to. The i5 8gb model is considered by most to be the "sweet spot". You can get by with the stuff you plan on doing. However, like leeshor mentioned, you might want to consider future proofing. For instance, I bought an i5 SP3 last year and throughout the year I demanded more from it, doing more thing than I originally planned. This year, I went with the i7 model. Also, consider that the SP4 just came out and still has a lot of teething problem. My i5 (that I bought prior to the i7) had so many bugs that I returned it. The i7 is so much better (even though it still has some issues). If you could hold off, wait until the drivers mature. The same thing happened when the SP3 launched. As time went on and all the problems got ironed out, it was an awesome machine. Hope this helps

 

[Foreverseeking]

Flight799, I would recommend this whatever the case, but definitely as you're coming from Apple.

WAIT!

Make the purchase in January when MS have fixed some of the show killing bugs on the SP4. I can not use my SP4 for work any longer, as I have had failures to boot windows from sleep and hibernate at a rate that makes windows 98 look positively stable. Top tech magazines, and even lovers of Windows aka Thurrot, are advising right now against people buying this product. There are very good reasons why. Fortunately, it's all software based and will hopefully get sorted out soon.

To help with the transition, make sure you get good apps. Many apple users have a few, but good solid apps on their computer. Office 2016 is very solid, and I love outlook for mail. Programs like lightroom are basically the same and run very nicely on my SP I5 8GB. I would recommend strongly for that if you're working with adobe products,. You will be going over 4GB ram no problems.

If you absolutely need this device right now, it works great when used as a desktop replacement (always on, not using sleep etc) but whenever I close my type cover to take it somewhere, I have to do a little dance to the gods to ensure I can turn it back on again! ;-)

 

[GreyFox7]

Flight799, I would recommend this whatever the case, but definitely as you're coming from Apple.

WAIT!

Make the purchase in January when MS have fixed some of the show killing bugs on the SP4. I can not use my SP4 for work any longer, as I have had failures to boot windows from sleep and hibernate at a rate that makes windows 98 look positively stable. Top tech magazines, and even lovers of Windows aka Thurrot, are advising right now against people buying this product. There are very good reasons why. Fortunately, it's all software based and will hopefully get sorted out soon.

To help with the transition, make sure you get good apps. Many apple users have a few, but good solid apps on their computer. Office 2016 is very solid, and I love outlook for mail. Programs like lightroom are basically the same and run very nicely on my SP I5 8GB. I would recommend strongly for that if you're working with adobe products,. You will be going over 4GB ram no problems.

If you absolutely need this device right now, it works great when used as a desktop replacement (always on, not using sleep etc) but whenever I close my type cover to take it somewhere, I have to do a little dance to the gods to ensure I can turn it back on again! ;-)

As a workaround just do hibernation instead of sleep it only takes a few seconds to come up, probably less time than your little dance.

 

[Foreverseeking]

I have already done that. Hibernation is what I'm talking about as it also fails on me maybe 1/10 times, more so if I leave edge running (but sometimes I simply can not close the browser without task manager). It shows the surface logo, then black screen with just the IR camera on red. It is the most unstable device I have ever owned... other than maybe my first windows 98 PC... but even then, it's a close race. It was then that I learned about the little dance