12.3 screen, no thank you, I'd rather take the new 14" Lenovo X1 Yoga 2nd gen, which also has a 3 USB + 2 TB3 ports (amazing ports set for such a slim form factor).
New Surface Pro
251–260 of 606 posts
Re: New Surface Pro
#252Looks like a nice incremental improvement to the Surface Pro line. The "no fan" option on the Core i5 could be quite nice, one of the annoyances about the Surface Pro 3 that I've seen was the noise of the fans.
I'm curious, does "no fan" mean no vents? Cos it will overheat once dust accumulates.
It has vents. It may even have active cooling by other means (e.g. Lumia 950 smartphones are water-cooled).
Don't think dust will gather inside the device that easily if there is no fan to suck it in.
Re: New Surface Pro
#253One import thing with all Surface laptops that most people don't know: > Support is limited to the country you purchased the device in. Eg: - If you buy an Apple laptop, and need a repair, they'll fix it if it's in warranty, regardless of where you are. - If you buy a Microsoft laptop, and need a warranty repair done in a different country, Microsoft won't help you. I purchased a Surface Book (which I love) in a Micr…
In my case, I bought a Surface 3 via an employee discount program and it didn't come with English-capable Windows. It was a PITA, Microsoft doesn't do international as well as Apple.
Re: New Surface Pro
#254One import thing with all Surface laptops that most people don't know: > Support is limited to the country you purchased the device in. Eg: - If you buy an Apple laptop, and need a repair, they'll fix it if it's in warranty, regardless of where you are. - If you buy a Microsoft laptop, and need a warranty repair done in a different country, Microsoft won't help you. I purchased a Surface Book (which I love) in a Micr…
This used to be called "gray market" (grey?) items. Items that are imported not through official channels (for example camera lenses that are often for sale from the bigger dealers in NYC).
There is no warranty, but the lenses are cheaper (due to currency values and the price the companies set it can be a little cheaper, but sometimes a lot cheaper). In the old days the prices in magazines for equipment where in 2 columns, US and imp (imported by us).
In your case you bought the computer overseas an brought it in yourself.
For example Nikon doesn't want you buying gray market and set up a page to try to deter people: https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-store/gray-market.page
Some places that sell gray market lenses will cover the warranty for you in place of the manufacturer (probably a good bet, the if the items are well made and they have an in house repair)
https://www.photo.net/discuss/threads/would-you-buy-gray-mar...
Re: New Surface Pro
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, but most of my USB-A stuff will still be fine in 2 years, and much of it in 5. I won't have acquired enough USB-C things in 2 years to care much about it.
Everyone buying a newly released Mac this year will only have USB-C. People buying svelte Windows PCs will be getting only USB-C. Next year's Surface will be only USB-C. I'm guessing that many of the almost 400 million Android phones that ship this year will have USB-C. Chromebooks? They're going USB-C. You're just telling us that you'll be happy with legacy. That's fine with me. Not everyone has to plan for the futu…
Those are host devices. My wife's and my external CD/DVD burner, USB DAC, Arduino, external hard drives, iPhone 7 Plus, two iPads, half-dozen flash USB drives, various controllers, external keyboards and mice, wireless non-Bluetooth mouse adapters, laser printer, et c., et c will mostly still be working just fine in 2 years, and all connect over USB-A. I'm guessing I'll only have one or two USB-C things by then unless I decide to drop a ton of money replacing lots of perfectly-good equipment.
[EDIT] I'd add: yeah, we have some USB-C Android phones at work. Most of them have... USB-A on the other end of the cable that came with them (there's one exception).
Re: New Surface Pro
#256Alright, now that this is out: what should I get? Most of my heavy-duty work is done via SSH into a remote VM. I watch movies, but mostly browse the web. Most of my actual work is programming intensive. I like pretty screens. Larger is usually better. I want to be able to take it on a plane without hassle when I travel. New surface? HP Elite x360 15"? Wait for Surface Book refresh? Yoga?
Dell Precision 5520 looks like the best machine out right now, among the larger/higher-performing options.
Precision 5520 has the same chassis as XPS. Dell's laptops used to have coil whine issue and quality control seems to be bad at least during the past few years. This is a strong competitor of the XPS https://www.notebookcheck.net/Gigabyte-Aero-15-7700HQ-GTX-10... and this is a competitor on the workstation area http://store.hp.com/wcsstore/hpusstore/pdf/HP_ZBook_Studio_G...
Re: New Surface Pro
#257I got excited, then I saw prices. Then I saw the keyboard isn't even included and costs $160. Ouch. This will be $1800+ after tax, why not just get a really solid laptop at that point? Hell you could buy two solid desktops
I ran to get my wallet, then I realised I have to ask the house too..
Re: New Surface Pro
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not a functional laptop. Putting a Surface on your lap is the worst experience you'll ever have. But as a portable Windows 10 device, my Surface Pro 1 is one of my favorite devices.
I don't know what kind of laps other people have, but I'm decidedly average in every way, physically, and I use my SP3 on my lap every day. Usually it's on a table or desk, but it's fine on my lap too.
It is completely lapable, but typing on keyboard without anything underneath is a bit weird. I hope they upgrade the SurfaceBook next.
Re: New Surface Pro
#259Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dell Precision 5520 looks like the best machine out right now, among the larger/higher-performing options.
Looking for a hybrid though (tablet mode), doesn't look like Precision does that? Otherwise that'd be a solid choice.
XPS 13" has convertible model. Nowadays Precision laptops come with the same chassis as XPS, nothing premium there as XPS is the regular multimedia laptop. I'd recommend before getting Dell's laptop to first go through the owners comments at the Amazom/reddit/etc, I saw many complaints about quality control and the coil whine problem, so for me Dell is not an option.
Re: New Surface Pro
#260I've been very happy with my SP4, but I wish I'd gone for the i7 CPU instead of the i5. It would be nice if the top-level configuration on the SP5 had 32gb of memory - I end up swapping sometimes (which TBH isn't that bad with a SSD, compared to the old rotating rust drives)
What Core i5 model does your SP4 carry? Does anyone know where you can find the models they are using in the new SPP? I'm sure the Core i7 are something like the 7500U (i.e. dual core, four threads) - is your Core i5 dual core, dual threads?
It's an i5-6300U at 2.4 GHz. 1 socket, 2 cores, 4 logical processors.