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Surface pro 4 i5 128gb / Samsung tab pro s

cent_0_o

New Member
Hello All,

I'm looking for some feed back to decide which device I should go with. Both of these devices fall in the price range that I'm looking for. Almost. The price difference is about 200 dollars with the surface keyboard. I will be using this for work. Mainly word docs, office 360, email (enterprise), notes. Both devices will be fine for what I need them for, but I will always lean more powerful device if possible. My main concern is the battery life of the surface. I've searched a bit, but reports have varied wildly. Some are swearing to 4-5 hrs max, and theres swear to 6-7 hrs. I'd like to get some feed back from your experiences or anyone that is a moderate user. If real world usability is going to give me two or more hours on the samsung it might be a no brainer for me. Any input would be great. Thanks!
 

leeshor

Well-Known Member
Welcome to the forum

I consider myself a moderate user. 5 hours is at my absolute low end of battery life but I've made a lot of Windows 10 adjustments, especially for background tasks. Whenever there is a really major update some of those are set back to defaults and I need to check again but 6-7 hours is not unusual for me. I have the i5 4/128.
 

Votality

Member
Welcome to the forum

I consider myself a moderate user. 5 hours is at my absolute low end of battery life but I've made a lot of Windows 10 adjustments, especially for background tasks. Whenever there is a really major update some of those are set back to defaults and I need to check again but 6-7 hours is not unusual for me. I have the i5 4/128.


Leeshor have you documented a full list of your battery scrimping adjustments?
 

leeshor

Well-Known Member
Leeshor have you documented a full list of your battery scrimping adjustments?
Unfortunately no. But if you look at background tasks there are far more off than on. Background Edge is usually the first to go. I don't have Chrome installed as that is just terrible for battery even if you aren't using it. All but one live tile is off and auto bright is off along with quite a few other adjustments. But as I said, I need to frequently recheck but if I see one or 2 of my settings have not changed I stop there. The major updates, (really upgrades), undo much of what I disable.
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
Hello All,

I'm looking for some feed back to decide which device I should go with. Both of these devices fall in the price range that I'm looking for. Almost. The price difference is about 200 dollars with the surface keyboard. I will be using this for work. Mainly word docs, office 360, email (enterprise), notes. Both devices will be fine for what I need them for, but I will always lean more powerful device if possible. My main concern is the battery life of the surface. I've searched a bit, but reports have varied wildly. Some are swearing to 4-5 hrs max, and theres swear to 6-7 hrs. I'd like to get some feed back from your experiences or anyone that is a moderate user. If real world usability is going to give me two or more hours on the samsung it might be a no brainer for me. Any input would be great. Thanks!
The Samsung is a Core M only, where the Surface offers Core M through i7. Also the Samsung is using a new non-standard Pen Technology.

My real world with an i7/16/256 is between 3.5 on the low end (doing presentations while connected to Skype for Business projecting my screen Wirelessly) to 7.5 hours. My normal is around 6 hours, but I push my machine...

Chrome installed on any of these Windows Machines will reduce your battery life by 25-50%....
 

Plantje

Active Member
Ditch Chrome and use Edge instead if you value your battery life (at least...that's what Microsoft seems to prove)

The screen of the Samsung is great! However, it is an AMOLED screen which may mean that images burn in. No proof of that so far, but it could perhaps be possible.
Huuuuuge advantage of the Samung: go to a store and try applying some pressure around the edges on the screen on the bezel. After that do the same on the SP4. You will notice that the SP4 then shows some wrinkles over the screen. Especially when you do that during starting up. That is absent with the Samsung.

Next to that: the Samsung looks a lot thinner and lighter whereas the differences are in fact minimal.

I have found the Core M processors to be fairly responsive, but I haven't tested them for a long time.
 
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