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Mac to Surface? Are you still Happy?

My response is probably out of place and untimely.
I was never a Mac user, although I did try an IPad for a while.
I also don't use a Pro, I use the original Surface RT.

The RT has all but replaced my old laptop (some kind of Samsung). The only thing I still use the laptop for is PowerPoint presentations, because I'm too lazy to figure out how to do that on the RT (though I'm reasonably sure it could). I'm a pastor, and I use the RT to write and to present my sermons. It meets all of my writing and presentation needs far better than the IPad ever did. I love this thing.

If you use any of the Surface products for preaching, feel free to join my Facebook community:
https://www.facebook.com/PreachingWithMicrosoftsSurface
 

wellington

New Member
Hi, only had my Pro 3 a couple of days and I'll admit it is taking some getting used to. I have an iMac, iPad, iPhone and everything else Apple. I needed a portable machine for work so thought I'd give the surface a shot as it had received some pretty good reviews.
There are elements I love about it (pen is great, hardware looks and feels fantastic, essentially as powerful as my Windows desktop but more portable, great screen, funs fast). Its far easier to get stuff done than with the ipad - but there are also things that frustrate me.

The windows 8 experience still jars for me. The fact there are two versions of internet explorer and two mail clients confuses me and doesn't make for a terribly coherent OS. The process of flicking out the kickstand and folding out the type cover feels a bit clumsy and awkward compared with just lifting the lid on a laptop and the afterthought of the pen holder is really lame.

Early days yet and I'm going to persevere but it really does make me realise I'm better off with gadgets that do a few things well rather than lots of things averagely.
 

InspectHerGadget

Active Member
Hi, only had my Pro 3 a couple of days and I'll admit it is taking some getting used to. I have an iMac, iPad, iPhone and everything else Apple. I needed a portable machine for work so thought I'd give the surface a shot as it had received some pretty good reviews.
There are elements I love about it (pen is great, hardware looks and feels fantastic, essentially as powerful as my Windows desktop but more portable, great screen, funs fast). Its far easier to get stuff done than with the ipad - but there are also things that frustrate me.

The windows 8 experience still jars for me. The fact there are two versions of internet explorer and two mail clients confuses me and doesn't make for a terribly coherent OS. The process of flicking out the kickstand and folding out the type cover feels a bit clumsy and awkward compared with just lifting the lid on a laptop and the afterthought of the pen holder is really lame.

Early days yet and I'm going to persevere but it really does make me realise I'm better off with gadgets that do a few things well rather than lots of things averagely.
In the end it is what the device can do for you that other devices don't. In the case of the Surface Pro, it is a unique design. It doesn't mean though that it is right for you.

I think the MBA is still superior for typing. If I were a journalist, I would have the MBA in preference. No cursors jumping to unanticipated places or switching pages or programs unexpectedly like on the SP3 or the Surface 2.

It is a great device though the SP3 and I use the OneNote to handwrite customer cards in my work and MYOB for accounting and I love having the separate keyboard too even though the typing isn't quite as good as on the Mac. It is also a windows world, software wise and I have no desire to run parallels on a Mac just to run my software.
 

nalbagli

Member
I am copying a part of my post in another thread, I am a new SP3 user, and have many apple products.

Hi I've been and still am a Mac user for years, I own a Macbook Pro Retina, iPad, iPod and iPhone, and even though I love those products, and I really prefer OSX over to Windows, but I completely love the Surface hardware. That is why when the first Surface came out, I bought it, but my expierence wasn't good enough, battery life sucked, I couldn't use it on my lap and I never got used to Windows. That is why I sold my first Surface just after a few months.
Even my first expierence with this product wasn't good, I decided to buy a Surface Pro 3 just a few days ago, this because, I think many of my issues with the first one have been solved, and I really hope this machine can replace my iPad and also my Macbook, that is why I bought the i7 model. I would really love this because it is really light and thin and I can carry it with me to my University, and one of the features I love the most is the Surface pen which allows me to take notes on it.
After a few days I can say I have completely loved the SP3, the new kickstand is great and I can always use it on my lap (except when using shorts haha), which for me is key feature to be an actual laptop replacement. Taking notes on it is perfect and the computer runs flawlessly.
My only problem until now is tha being an iCloud user I have not been able to sync my calendar with the Calendar Metro app and the same with my contacts on my People Metro app. This has not been such a big deal as I have it synced with outlook but I found it really strange that I can't do it on the Metro apps, if anyone could help me with this it would be great.
Finally I think I am slowly adapting myself to my Windows ecosystem, even if I still prefer OSX mainly because I find it really confusing this division of the Metro and Desktop interface, especially the fact that apps have both versions, but other than that it has been a good expierence and really hope it will stay as my all in one machine.

I have been surprised how many people on this thread have been saying that windows fails all of the time and that the machine has so many problems. Although I haven't been able to adapt completely to windows and as I said there are some things about it I really do not like, for me the SP3 has been really stable and I've encountered no issues except for the fact that I had to turn off Automatic updates because otherwise my surface got stuck on the black screen that says Surface on it when updating. I hope this get's fixed.
 

goodintentions

Active Member
I have been surprised how many people on this thread have been saying that windows fails all of the time and that the machine has so many problems. Although I haven't been able to adapt completely to windows and as I said there are some things about it I really do not like, for me the SP3 has been really stable and I've encountered no issues except for the fact that I had to turn off Automatic updates because otherwise my surface got stuck on the black screen that says Surface on it when updating. I hope this get's fixed.

Back when I was tech support, I found that most problems people reported to me were either not problems at all or were caused by the user.

Please understand that I do not mean that as a put down to people on here who have reported problems. God knows, I've found problems with windows and have reported them. As a programmer, I've found bugs in the API's themselves. Nothing in life is perfect.

That said, I stand by every word I said about my personal experience as tech support, that most problems are either not problems at all or were caused by the user.

Case in point. One of the most prevalent "problems" is the caret in word would jump around. When people reported this "instability", the first thing I would ask them to do is type out a sentence on their laptop for me to see. 99.9999% (with a 0.0001% margin of error) of the time, it's actually the user's palms touching the trackpad and causing the cursor to jump around.

Another very popular one was when people would report the printer they wanted to use not appearing in the printers list. I found that 90% of the time I had to instruct them to scroll to see the printer they wanted. The other 10% was the printer wasn't on.

And I wasn't working as tech support that long either. I'm sure people who career in tech support have lots more insights into what the typical problems, or non-problems, that typical users have with windows.
 

vsherry

Member
I used to live out of my 15" macbook pro, running all of my companies projects off of it, producing tons of content, documents, videos, dvds, you name it. While I have not loved Apple in a long time, I needed a professional grade computer with, and this is pretty important, great service. I think we keep forgetting that service is a key part of the experience, and when I had issues with my MB pro, it was always resolved quickly and professionally.

But my company has grown up, and using Numbers and Pages really no longer works, we contract for large companies and the governement, and the reaction you get when you accidentally send a numbers file to a government accountant is pretty humiliating. I needed office, as well as all of the other software a technology company would use, but I could not handle getting a dell or thinkpad. So I bought a Surface Pro 1, a great computer, but not quite enough for me to get rid of my MB pro.

When the surface 3 came out I jumped, and I have not looked back. I have a dock at home and at work, with extra screens, a decent XCSD card, the keyboard and wedge mouse on my i5 8GB 256. The only thing that I have used the MB pro for in the last month is omnigraffle, and that is because the rest of my company uses that pretty exclusively.

Yeah, there are some hiccups, but the benefits greatly outweigh it for me. I use One note a ton, and getting back to my earlier point: The service has been incredible. That is critical, as it makes even the worst problems with hardware bearable.

PS: The wife asked for the SP1, so I did not trade it in. With the docks it means that either of us have our work setup with a simple plugin of the USB 3 Cable. Awesome!

I too have mostly retired my MacBook Pro AND tablet for Surface Pro 3. Very convenient, versatile device.
 

macster

Member
My response is probably out of place and untimely.
I was never a Mac user, although I did try an IPad for a while.
I also don't use a Pro, I use the original Surface RT.

The RT has all but replaced my old laptop (some kind of Samsung). The only thing I still use the laptop for is PowerPoint presentations, because I'm too lazy to figure out how to do that on the RT (though I'm reasonably sure it could). I'm a pastor, and I use the RT to write and to present my sermons. It meets all of my writing and presentation needs far better than the IPad ever did. I love this thing.

If you use any of the Surface products for preaching, feel free to join my Facebook community:
https://www.facebook.com/PreachingWithMicrosoftsSurface


Bible Class teacher/wannabe MS Office pwr user here. I have tested the Surface 2 as a PPT presentation device with our projector (NECNPM322W) and it works fantastically. I am getting the wireless projection tool next. But using the S2 for PPT presentations is a no brainer even with tons of animations. I haven't tested it with inbedded videos in PPT yet, but I think that it will work.

M~
 

InspectHerGadget

Active Member
I love my SP3 but love my iPad air 2 as well.

They are different devices. On an aircraft the iPad is perfect due to light weight and long battery life.

I use my SP3 as a laptop and only occasionally as a tablet. I always bring both when on holiday and the IPad gets used for browsing, reading magazines and listening to music. The SP3 gets used when I want to type and for work.
 

macmee

Active Member
I thought I would again check in here and say that I like my iMac, MacBook and SP3 all equally. Each form factor and OS has its advantages.
 
Im a windows guy but Ive played with the retina MacBook pros in bestbuy and would like to have one just because... but I cant justify the purchase, I have a gaming rig and the sp3 and they easily do everything I will ever need
 

RémiM

Active Member
I love my SP3 but love my iPad air 2 as well.

They are different devices. On an aircraft the iPad is perfect due to light weight and long battery life.

I use my SP3 as a laptop and only occasionally as a tablet. I always bring both when on holiday and the IPad gets used for browsing, reading magazines and listening to music. The SP3 gets used when I want to type and for work.

My better half has an iPad Air 2. I have to admit, it is very well built, thin, very light, and let's say it: sexy.

I had an iPad Air, for 2 months, and sold it. Coming from a Nexus 7, I felt I was in jail with the iPad and also mainly because I have 2 ears and these dammit iPads only have one speaker on their side. For me, this is the most stupid feature you can give to a tablet.

I got my SP3 the month after I sold my Air.

Now, I am very used to my SP3, that I use 50% in laptop mode and 50% in tablet mode. When sometimes I use the Air 2, well after a few seconds, I stop. Screen is too small, the capabilities are very limited, and when the sound is ON the screen of the Air 2 has a weird vibration that makes the touch experience not that good.

This is not because the Air 2 is bad, this is because the SP3 is excellent.
 
Reposted from my thread in the New Members forum:

Thought long and hard about posting this, quite how to phrase it etc. Am posting here as this is predominantly my own experience in relation to SP3 and the associated Microsoft eco-system.

Before diving in, I've no intention of this being ground for 'Mac vs PC' type arguments. The arguments from both sides are well known, have been fought to the point of exhaustion and the vast majority are of the same preferences and beliefs afterwards as they were going in. Little to no point can be serves by airing them again and I've no intention of invoking any of them here. Ultimately I arrive at the Surface Pro 3 and how it has been a godsend for my recent situation, but there's a little history to get through first.

Ok, that said, this is a story of Then and Now. The Now will come in a short while, but first the Then.

Then was 2003. There was a carrot and there was a stick. At the time I made my living as a desktop support engineer for a major multinational IT services firm, specifically supporting Microsoft products on the desktop and on the server. I'd begun to grow disillusioined as a PC owner in my home life. XP was still at Service Pack 1 and was, for a want of better words, a hot mess. Maintenance intensive, all to readily exploitable and full of attackable junk. For example, Windows Messenger started up with each and every copy of XP. Part of the basic, default install. If you used Windows Messenger then great, this was nice and convenient. If you didn't however, itwas worse than useless - it was an automatically invoked, direct line into the operating system for various bits of malware and exploits.

So, I turned the messenger service off via control panel. Great, so far so good. Except that Office 2003 at the time had a default setting to allow Outlook to interoperate with Windows Messenger. If the defaults were left on, Outlook would take 5 mins to launch to a usable state whilst it waited patiently for Windows Messenger to start. So the option was unticked. Again, so far so good. Until the next Office service pack was installed which, after a little investigation, turned the default back on and Outlook went back to patiently waiting for Messenger to fire up again. By this point I'd grown weary of having to do the day job at home, constantly having to tend to a machine that would either get infected or start to behave erratically if I didn't.

That was the stick. The carrot, at the time, was the Mac.

iTunes for Windows had just been released with, by comparison to the then version of Windows Media Player, as simple, sane interface. Basic play/previous/next controls given prominence along with a search box and everything else relegated to menus or preferences. Clean, elegant, sane. So I began comparing the mac UI to XP/Office 2013. One was a mess of buttons with equal prominence, the other of a relatively clean, intuitive UI. Case in point a Windows XP dialogue box for moving files around "Would you like to copy/move the files? Yes / No / Cancel." What should I select if I want to copy? What should I select if I want to move?. Compare with the samemac dialogue at the time "What would you like to do? Copy / Move / Cancel". Clear, unambiguous, obvious.

So I switched to Mac. And was happy. Until recently.

Last year I was made redundant from my 20 year job in IT. I had been minded to move on, so wasn't so bothered and the severance was worth my while. I found myself being thrown back into the job market. Job hunting had changed since I was last having to do it, the obvious change was how online centric it all was. Job hunting, applying and initial engagements with prospective employers was all done online.

The first issue I'd run into was that Office mac 2011 just wasn't so hot at rendering application forms supplied in Word format. For most people MS Office Web, Google Docs, iWorks or just about any other productivity package more than suffices for the odd letter, keeping a household budget spreadsheet etc. But when interfacing with the world of business the Lingua Franca is MS Office.

I'd been running a Windows 8 virtual machine via Parallels on my mac with Office 2010 in. For disaster resilience purposes, I'd also been saving job application forms, both originals and completed, to what was then SkyDrive (now OneDrive). Firing the VM up and down was becoming a pain, not to mention a serious drain on my laptops battery. Additionally these various documents needed to be signed before returning, often meaning printing, signing & scanning before submission.

For better or for worse, my main job – job hunting – was being primarily done in Windows. Relative to the XP days, both Office and Windows had come on leaps and bounds. Windows was much more stable, far less readily exploitable. Office, with the advent of the Ribbon and improved right click context menus, was far friendlier and more usable than it’s earlier incarnations. And my Windows machine was on my mac, itself a big and bulky beast.

I needed something light & portable, something reliable and would fulfil all of my job hunting needs. I’d followed the Surface line since the initial RT/Pro introduction. The form factor + Touch/Type Cover was great from the outset, but the desktop limitations of RT and the constrained battery life of the first Pro didn’t quite cut the proverbial mustard for me. 2 and Pro 2 was batter, especially with the 2 stage kick stand. But again, not quite there.

Surface Pro 3 ticked ALL the boxes. Seriously light, big enough screen, full fat Windows. So I took a deep breath and bought my first dedicated Windows machine since 2002.

Pinching to zoom in web pages and Office documents has been so much more intuitive and easy than going into various menus, selecting zoom and trying 200% zoom, no too much, 150% zoom, too little and eventually settling somewhere in between. Pinch to zoom has been the way we all read on phones and tablets and to finally have it in the serious productivity sphere has been great.

As a pre-existing OneDrive user, Office 365 has been well worth it for me. Having OneDrive as the default save location in Office 2013 has been great. Pick a folder and save, no multi-step alternate save process as per Office 2010 & Office mac 2011. In fact this completely saved my bacon. For each of my job interviews I’ve gone with a black ringbinder holding print outs of my job descriptions, personal specifications, CV/resume, educational certificated etc which I would read over with a coffee near the interview location. Apart from this one day for this one interview I’d picked up the wrong binder. No fear, I could pick up all of my notes etc via my phone via OneDrive and could read them all over in preparation for interview.

I got that job :)

As part of the acceptance process I had to sign a number of forms. Historically this would have meant printing, signing and scanning the forms before sending them back. Not with SP3 – just sign and date the forms with the stylus in Office 2013 and back they went with no silly out to paper and back again routine.

The combination of Surface Pro 3, Office 2013 and OneDrive have proved to be reliable tools that have all worked hand in glove with one another, a combination I hadn’t found on the mac or desktop/laptop bound Windows. Barring my media which my mac still has the edge for, most of my day to day work is now on the go anywhere, work anywhere Surface Pro 3. And I couldn’t be happier with it.
 
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