New Potential SP4 user

[Gui0312]

Hi guys,

New to the forums, I am considering purchasing a SP4. A little background and why I am here.

I currently have an iPad Pro 12" and initially bought it for productivity since I already had an older iPad but was too small/slow. The iPad Pro just isn't cutting, mostly because I don't find the "Pro" in it? I am a student and consider myself pretty well versed in technology and computers. I was between the SP4 and the new Samsung Galaxy Tab Pro S running Win10 but started to lose interest with the lack of a pen and the 1 USB-C with no other ports/connections.

Basically I want to know if I am fine with going with the Core M 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD SP4, right now I can get it for 899. -100.00 (799.99) with a Best Buy Student coupon. Or I can opt for the 1199. -100.o0 (1099.99) SP4 which sports an i5 with 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD--this one is currently on sale as well (reg. 1299.) I am not really considering the 999.99 model because it still has 4GB ram and 128GB but does have an i5

I will be using this daily for school (MS Office -- Word and PP mostly), taking notes with the pen occasionally, good amount of internet use, photo management with Google photos (not much in editing, mostly auto corrections). I have an iMac desktop for but I tend to use my portable a bit more.

I know it's long but I wanted to provide as much info. As I could!

Thank you!!!

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum

I would opt for the SP4 8/256. You will grow into it. I personally wouldn't go with the Galaxy. If I had to make a choice between the SP4 and something else it would be the HP Elite X2 2012. Not quite a Surface but pretty impressive. The HP does have user serviceable parts.

 

[Gui0312]

Welcome to the forum

I would opt for the SP4 8/256. You will grow into it. I personally wouldn't go with the Galaxy. If I had to make a choice between the SP4 and something else it would be the HP Elite X2 2012. Not quite a Surface but pretty impressive. The HP does have user serviceable parts.

Thank you for the recommendation. I think I will stick to,the i5, I don't want to be limited in performance in years to come. The way I understand it is that I can add a micro Sd card for extra storage? Any other recommended accessories other than the keyboard?

 

[leeshor]

That should cover it. (pun intended).

 

[ScottyS]

. . . Any other recommended accessories other than the keyboard?

You can get a Bluetooth mouse and keyboard and connect a monitor via mDP and use it as a desktop. You can connect a USB hub to connect many other devices (for home use a powered hub is best to power all those extra devices). And I have a mDP to VGA and a mDP to HDMI adapter to connect to projectors or TVs.

 

[coolowl]

I bought the SP4 8/256 in February and love it. I honestly expected to not like it as I'm a horrible second-guesser with buyer's remorse. But I love this laptop. It's so light and quiet. I never hear a fan, it doesn't get hot sitting on my lap and I use mine mostly as a true LAPtop.

I like the adjustable kickstand as I can adjust it to however I'm sitting. My favorite position is kicked back in the recliner. Ha.

You'll love the pen. A single click opens Notepad and a double-click saves a screen shot and opens Notepad with the screenshot in it. Enjoy!

 

[Gui0312]

I bought the SP4 8/256 in February and love it. I honestly expected to not like it as I'm a horrible second-guesser with buyer's remorse. But I love this laptop. It's so light and quiet. I never hear a fan, it doesn't get hot sitting on my lap and I use mine mostly as a true LAPtop.

I like the adjustable kickstand as I can adjust it to however I'm sitting. My favorite position is kicked back in the recliner. Ha.

You'll love the pen. A single click opens Notepad and a double-click saves a screen shot and opens Notepad with the screenshot in it. Enjoy!

So I got the SP4 Core i5 with 4GB RAM, the price I ended up paying was 749.00 (999 regular, minus 150. from sale, minus 100. from student discount coupon)

I am noticing the 4GB are usually all used up 3.8-3.9 usually with committed 6.5gb/7.5GB and paging pool at 235MB. I am not sure but I feel it's slow, opening web pages and documents are usually jittery. I read upgrading to the i7 would provide marginal upgrade in computation even though it is clocked slower but that maybe the graphics on the i7 would be beneficial for rendering pages etc? Would the i5 with 8gb or the i7 with 8gb be the better upgrade should I choose to upgrade from my current i5 with 4gb. I have little to no concern with the 128gb HD, I am fine with that storage. I looked at the Surface Book also but I am not happy with the battery life when the keyboard isn't connected. Also to mention I will not have that special pricing either, I could still use the student coupon for 100.00 off but the Best buy memorial day sale is over, so it would be about 1299 -100 for the i5 8GB and 1599 -100 for the i7 8GB.

Thanks!!!

 

[Sp3]

Hi
I looked into buying a Surface Pro 4, and ended up with a Surface Pro 3,
I got an i5 with 8 Gig ram and 265 GB ssd.

It would have cost me €556 more for the same spec in the pro 4.
The only thing I lost out on was a slightly better screen and much better speakers,
none of which matter for what am doing, I use it for music, running a DAW that replaces a mixing desk for small 120 people functions, ie, up to four mics, and eight backing tracks.
It works great, and by now Microsoft have the problems put to bed, unlike the surface pro 4, which I read a lot about and decided to avoid.
I use it for ms word and all other desktop apps, paintshop pro is no problem, in fact this
is the device I have had least problems with, it set up and updated no problem, it took
almost 4 hours on my slow internet to update which it completed without a single hitch.

It also has a mains charger that has a USB port for charging other devices, I use this to run an audio interface, this is not included in the pro 4 charger.

I also bought the Surface Pro 4 type keyboard, which works perfectly with the pro 3,
the pro 3 keyboard is not so good, so if you go this way, get the pro 4 keyboard.

Hope some of what I wrote helps

Regards, john

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum John

I think you left our 2 generation newer processor, better pen and the SP4 DOES come with a charger that has a USB port for charging.

 

[Sp3]

Welcome to the forum John

I think you left our 2 generation newer processor, better pen and the SP4 DOES come with a charger that has a USB port for charging.

Hi leeshor, thanks for putting this straight, I was completely unaware the wall wart charger that comes with the surface pro4 had a USB port, I did not see it at all when I was looking through the reviews that abound on the internet, perhaps it depends on location, I heard too that the wifi is not
the same from country to country as each have different allowable levells of acceptable signal strength, I think Canada is really low, which means staying closer to the router, worth looking into if you want the strongest signal and reception.

I was aware of the newer peocessor, but I have friends that tell me this is what is causing trouble, and to avoid it.
Did you know intel made a processor that shocked themselves in how fast it was, and their investors were very unhappy about this because anyone remotley clued in would not fork out for their higher end ones, I will just say, the processor in the surface pro is not this one, and no I dumped the data and fact sheet for this as it is of no conscern to me, because no one wants to comment on this processor and you can be dead sure it will be throttled in order to keep sales of the expensive one high.

I chose the older proven processor, and have zero problems, it performs extreemly well..
And lastly, I would have bought an i7 Surface if I wanted to drain my batter and heat up the whole unit, not a smart thing to do, I firmly beleive a new cooler running processor and components are the next thing required in order to take advantage of faster processing, apple is closer to doing this in my books.
A lot of programs do not take kindly to either hyperthreading or virtual cores, interupts slow things down, as every single one causes what ever is going on to be stopped, parked up, and revisited after, and depending on the programs / tasks running, this is much slower for certain jobs than doing the same job on a processor that has these things disabled, and you now have the problem with processor parking aswell, so now you have to edit the registry to even get this option to show up in the power settings so you can disable or adjust this in the newer processors.
Audio programs are the ones that suffer as a dely there causes either a silence or odd anomalys which are unmissable, video editing can suffer similar, though playing video rarely suffers at all.

I would love to have the pro4 but not till microsoft have things running better, the better screen is worth it, and the speakers are very good, stick in the older processor and I would buy two just because in my opinion they would be more reliable and efficient.
Lets put it this way, what processor and OS did NASA send to the moon, it was not the latest and greatest and for good reason.

But these are only my opinions, it really depends on what one is doing with any given setup, some setups require very different configurations and thankfully there are options to suit.

Happy shopping to all & kind regards, john