Picked up a core M3

[raqball]

Picked up a SP4 core M yesterday and am very happy with it so far. I previously had the i3 SP3 and this machine feels much faster and snappier than it did.

One display driver crash so far but none since I modified the host file. I do every so often get a strange popping sound.

Overall I am verry happy with the SP4 and the core M processor. My use is mainly web surfing, watching video, email and office type documents. Every now and then I edit 1080p video from cycling cameras but that's about as heavy as my workload will get.

I like that it's fanless and I have not noticed it getting hot. Heck it barley even got warm when doing all the MS updates.

Anyways with all the negative threads going on I figured I would post a positive thread on my SP4 core M experience..

 

[jtcb]

I am planning to get either the S3 128GB and SP4 M3. My main usage will also be web browsing, watch Netflix/Youtube, etc, and some MS word and excel. I can't decide between the two but leaning for the SP4 M3 because I like the bigger screen, pen and typecover. Do you think it is worth the extra $ just for these extra features? How much of a performance boost between S3 and SP4 M3?

 

[raqball]

I think the SP4 core M is well worth the extra $$ over the SP3 i3. The SP4 is noticeably faster, smoother and snappier. You also get a slightly larger screen size and the screen on the 4 looks a lot better to my eyes.

I can't really commemt on the pen difference as I never use it. The new type cover is much better but if you get an SP3 you could just use the new type cover with it..

 

[jtcb]

No.. I am talking about the Surface 3, not the SP3.

 

[raqball]

I never had the non pro Surface 3 so I can't comment on it but I'd assume the core M would demolish it. Yeah, the new type cover is awesome and I'm sure its also going to be an improvement over the non pro KB..

 

[Deltido]

The only reason I didn't get the S3 is because the charge time is ridiculously long (5hr or so). That's twice as long as a normal PC. My current main PC, the asus t100ta, also has a 5ish hr charge time. What good is 10 hours of battery life if you have to wait, seemingly, just as long to get it?

I tried out the S3 in the store, very nice screen and aspect ratio, it was faster than I expected as well. Very snappy in normal things. The keyboard cover was much better than I'd thought it would be, better than my ASUS'. But I just can't do the charge time.

 

[Darnellmc]

I think all of us who got a SPro4 i5 are secretly wondering if perhaps we could have been good with the fanless M3.

I am coming from an old homemade i5 desktop. Outputting to dual monitors. Doing 1080p video streaming, GoTo Meeting Presentation viewing, graphics and a little video editing, Remote Desktop to some remote servers and Chrome web browsing.

With dual monitors off the Dock and the reviews promoting the i5 as the better choice. I went with i5, 8GB RAM and 256GB storage.

 

[GreyFox7]

The m3 is much faster than the S3.

Disk is particularly slower on S3
Forum member hands on reviews SP4 | Page 4 | Microsoft Surface Forums

But it's just slower all around as well. S3 = Yellow, m3 = Green
Forum member hands on reviews SP4 | Page 3 | Microsoft Surface Forums

More comparisons
Forum member hands on reviews SP4 | Page 3 | Microsoft Surface Forums

 

[raqball]

The core M continues to meet my needs. Yesterday I transferred a 10 minute 1080p / 45 FPS video from an SD card to the hard drive. I then edited this 10 minute video using Garmin Virb PC software.

The video was edited down to a 2 minute 1080p cycling video and was then converted to a different format and saved back to my hard drive. The video was then uploaded and processed to Vimeo.

No problems with core M at all during this process and the unit never got hot.. I'd consider this a fairly heavy work load for the core M but it accomplished the task just fine