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Get pro4 or wait for 5

MikemanSP4

Super Moderator
Staff member
I'm curious as heck as to what Shawn gets as well. Oh and you left something off on your item's description that is important... I bet your Beast of a Machine has 16gigs of ram doesn't it? No biggie but the extra 8 makes a difference when it comes to heavy lifting. But I have never noticed and lag with my 8 gigs because of my usage. Web browsing with 8-10 tabs open, Excel pivot tables 40 megs in size up to 2-3 open at a time, One Note switching back and forth between my 3 notebooks with no pause, and the other basics such as email, etc.

So yeah... I agree on these being Beasts of Machines!


I could kick myself in the teeth for NOT buying the 16 Gbs of RAM.... Comes down to that almighty dollar and the saying "happy wife, happy life". You are correct with the 16Gbs of RAM making a HUGE difference when it comes to heavy lifting. I have a ASUS gaming rig and it came with 8 GBS of RAM - Once I dropped another 8 in, my gaming experience was all the more enhanced with better load times, and more seamless game-play. I do use software that turns on a "Game-Mode" when gaming, thus turning off a ton of graphic options, and also trimming down the machine to free up resources. But like you mentioned MickeLittle - the 8GBs of RAM have been enough!
 

MickeyLittle

Active Member
I wound up getting a Dell. I've been on a tight budget lately and it was on sale. After I bought it I saw how horrendouslyhorrible their customer service was and felt the need to purchase an extended warranty so I probably saved very little is anything.

Its been working fine though and has the features I wanted so I guess it turned out.

I might get one the surfaces anyway as I may have some money coming in. I'll probably wait till the pro5 prices come down a little. I guess it all boils down to how much home maintainance comes up this year.

So what model Dell did you end up getting and how are you liking it?
 

MassDude

New Member
I had also thought about this for awhile. When it became apparent that a new Surface Pro 5 was not imminent, I picked up the Surface Pro 4 i5 8GB 256GB. Luckily, Saturday was the last day for the free Microsoft Dock, which I got and saved another $199. I'm happy with my decision - I'm not doing heavy video editing or gaming so this is perfect for me.
 

convergent

Active Member
I had also thought about this for awhile. When it became apparent that a new Surface Pro 5 was not imminent, I picked up the Surface Pro 4 i5 8GB 256GB. Luckily, Saturday was the last day for the free Microsoft Dock, which I got and saved another $199. I'm happy with my decision - I'm not doing heavy video editing or gaming so this is perfect for me.

I did the same thing on Friday. I have been toying with picking up a SP4 for a few months and my work issued Dell laptop has been having office problems and needs a re-image, so took the opportunity to buy one to see if it can replace the Dell and provide my OneNote pen based note taking goal. So far I'm loving it after just a few days. I got the same one you did.

I've been a Mac user for about 10 years, and had to go back to using Windows at work about 4 years ago... otherwise heavy in the Apple ecosystem for home use... which includes a lot of photography work in Lightroom. I've been very disappointed in Apple over the last few years and Microsoft seems to have found themselves and doing good things. I will see how the SP4 works out and may have to replace may Mac with a Surface Studio at some point. One step at a time though. I have a lot of questions and things to learn about the SP4, Windows 10, and the pen.
 

awwshoot

Member
I wound up getting a Dell. I've been on a tight budget lately and it was on sale. After I bought it I saw how horrendouslyhorrible their customer service was and felt the need to purchase an extended warranty so I probably saved very little is anything.

I have always liked Dell's Support when we ordered OptiPlex and Latitudes! Unfortunately their hardware quality started slipping (fought Bad Caps for years) and the final straw was the weak power supplies in their 980s. Since then my job moved to allowing me to build all our desktops going forward. :)

My issue with their Laptops was their dirty tactic to add special circuitry in the laptop and batteries to block aftermarket battery purchases. Had to replace our fleet of Latitude XT2s due to the cost of replacement batteries!

In the end we bought our Surface Pro 4s through Dell with their Complete Care package. If a nurse accidentally drops one and the Patients driver accidentally drives over it, I make a call and they send a replacement in 24 to 48 hours and I just put the broken one in the box. They fight with Microsoft. We had one of our SP4s act up so I called told the tech my issue and troubleshooting steps performed. Replacement arrived with a ding on one of the sides and a minor scratch on the display. Called back and they had another one on the way!

Far easier than getting one of Microsoft's rough refurbished units and having to deal with it the flaws!
 
I have yet to go to my bank and start the process. A bit busy right now. As soon as I do something, I will let you all know.

Cheers,

Shawn
 

John2k14

New Member
I was waiting for the SP5 to replace my SP3 but as they are not releasing anytime soon I'll get the new surface laptop with the carpet keyboard... Go for the 4 is an excellent machine!
 

PCAnyWhere

Member
I just went for an SP4 i7/256/16GB version 2 days ago as an upgrade from my throttling and memory starved SP3 i7/256/8GB. it was working well for the most part and I was holding out for the SP5; but with recent tweets about the lack of an SP5 in 2017 I went for it. Here in Canada it just went on sale for another $250 off and I just got the refund today from the Microsoft Store. $1800 CDN its cheaper to come to Canada to pick one from if you buying with USD.

I had already bought the newer SP4 type cover and pen to extend the life of my SP3 so I didn't even need to get a the type cover.
 

Hunter78

New Member
Well my experience is that the SP 5 is just a speed bump over SP 4! The big deal is buy SP 4 for 20-40% of the original price, and that's a good deal!


Skickat från min iPhone med Tapatalk
 

convergent

Active Member
I did the same thing on Friday. I have been toying with picking up a SP4 for a few months and my work issued Dell laptop has been having office problems and needs a re-image, so took the opportunity to buy one to see if it can replace the Dell and provide my OneNote pen based note taking goal. So far I'm loving it after just a few days. I got the same one you did.

I've been a Mac user for about 10 years, and had to go back to using Windows at work about 4 years ago... otherwise heavy in the Apple ecosystem for home use... which includes a lot of photography work in Lightroom. I've been very disappointed in Apple over the last few years and Microsoft seems to have found themselves and doing good things. I will see how the SP4 works out and may have to replace may Mac with a Surface Studio at some point. One step at a time though. I have a lot of questions and things to learn about the SP4, Windows 10, and the pen.

I was down to a couple of days left in my 30 day return period so decided to return the SP4 and wait to see what happens next week. I'm also considering going with one of the other competitors, namely the Acer Switch Alpha 12. They seem to come close on reviews, but are about half the price.

After using the SP4 (i5, 8G, 256G) for almost a month, I really like it. I'm still on the fence about whether I want to use a personally owned machine as my daily driver at work (not being on the domain, not having the same end point protection, no support, etc..). If I don't, I'd be primarily using it as a tablet for OneNote, and then as a personal computer. I did use it for some Lightroom work (I do a lot of photography) and it worked quite well... but as long as I still have my Mac on the desk I'd probably use that; although with syncing the libraries to OneDrive now; I could start working on them in the field.

Back to the return... I am not someone that likes to return things so was a little uneasy about going into the Microsoft store with my bag of goodies to return. I bought it with the dock bundle; and also bought the bundle of office 365, extended warranty, sleeve case, and keyboard. The receipt for these bundles was kind of strangely done. It listed some items at $0 and some at discounted prices, that added up to the total advertised. The guy that waited on me was quite happy about the fact that I was returning it and said he assumed I was returning it because of the announcement next week, and that he thought I was making a wise choice. He then proceeded to tell me that I could just keep the items that were listed as $0, but that he couldn't return Office 365 even though it was a sealed box still. I was cool with that part because it was discounted on the receipt; and I am already a subscriber so this is a renewal I'd buy anyways. But he let me keep the dock and sleeve case. While I don't get why a store would do that, it did cause me to rethink my buying decision. I had pretty much decided to get an Acer for about half the price and just wait and see how the market goes in the next few months. But now that I have the dock already... will wait to see what next week brings - new products and price movement on the SP4.

Will be eagerly watching the news this coming week to see what is next.
 
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