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New Surface Pro

microsoft.com

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Re: New Surface Pro

#461

Post by bobbles »

nailer wrote: post #41

One 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…

I have the exact same problem with my Surface Pro 4 (among many many others that Microsoft refuses to fix).

As a pro-tip you can disable the touchscreen in device manager. Even if you do this the pencil/pen will still work on the touchscreen, but 'touch' will be disabled, so you can can still use it in a pinch but without it being a non-starter device.

Re: New Surface Pro

#462

Post by bobbles »

joemi wrote: post #459

Can you actually use this "laptop" on your lap? Doesn't the fact that it has a kickstand make it extremely awkward, if not impossible? I have not tried one like that myself, so I honestly don't know, but I'd be very surprised if it worked on one's lap.

I have SP4 - despite many other issues I have with it, the kickstand DOES make it great to use on a lap. In fact I find it much easier to use on my lap than any laptop that I have used.

Being able to adjust to any angle means you can use it just as comfortably in an airport chair vs on a lounge etc.

Re: New Surface Pro

#463

Post by ashark »

astrodust wrote: post #438
MLR wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mouse, headset, keyboard, gamepad, bluetooth receiver, USB sticks, and yes a phone charger. I have no intention of replacing any of these things until they break, that could be a long, long time.

This is exactly the same things people were saying when USB 1.0 arrived, yet somehow people managed to switch.

I'm pretty sure I didn't retire the last of my ps/2, serial, and parallel port equipment until about 2010. Gameport and AT probably went out around '05-'07—until then USB saw very little use and if I'd had to pick all-USB or no-USB, I'd have chosen the latter. My ~3-4yr old unremarkable desktop motherboard still has several legacy ports. I've made no special effort to resist USB, I just haven't retired equipment if it's still useful.

USB came out it 1996. Peripherals stick around a long time.

Re: New Surface Pro

#464

Post by jacobolus »

dingo_bat wrote: post #283
Analemma_ wrote: post #82

I'm interested to see if the claims of ~20ms latency on the pen hold up in reviews. That's less than half of the latency of the Apple Pencil and within spitting distance of the 10ms considered to be the holy grail of imperceptibility. I could never get into pen-based input because the latency drove me nuts, but may have to rethink that.

Apple pencil was never touted as having particularly low latency. On the other hand surface devices have always made a point of having the best touch/stylus experience, so I won't be surprised if that 20ms really holds good.

A year ago when I tested the two back to back, the Apple stylus had something like half the latency of the MS one, and also seemed more accurate.

It’s hard to tell how much of that is hardware difference vs. optimization of the signal processing software though.

Re: New Surface Pro

#465

Post by ChuckMcM »

Joeri wrote: post #330
passive wrote: post #199

I've been using a Surface Pro 3 as my one-and-only for almost 3 years, and it really feels like time to upgrade, so I've been looking forward to this one. My workload is probably something like 40% reading, 30% writing, 25% coding, and 5% running code, and the Surface has been a nearly ideal form factor for this. The new "Surface Pro" ticks a lot of boxes for me: - Supports my existing keyboard, pen, dock, and power…

Do you actually use it in tablet mode? I always wonder how many surface pro buyers actually use it as anything but a laptop.

I've got a surface pro 4 and use it roughly 33% of the time in 'tablet' mode. I also have a Surface Book which I used a lot in 'clipboard' mode (reversed and folded down over the keyboard). Always when drawing, and mostly when reading.

Perhaps not surprisingly I think a pixel sense "screen" that could be paired to something like a NUC wirelessly would be a pretty awesome peripheral as well. Something I intend to build out of my SP4 when I upgrade it.

Re: New Surface Pro

#466

Post by MatmaRex »

joemi wrote: post #459

Can you actually use this "laptop" on your lap? Doesn't the fact that it has a kickstand make it extremely awkward, if not impossible? I have not tried one like that myself, so I honestly don't know, but I'd be very surprised if it worked on one's lap.

I have a Surface 3 and it's doable. Mind that the device is also a bit smaller than the usual laptop, so there's enough space (on my knees at least) to place the kickstand.

Re: New Surface Pro

#468

Post by Analemma_ »

freeone3000 wrote: post #369
romaniv wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had really bad experience with Surface Pro 3 (lots of hardware and software issues), but I have to say this: Microsoft is trying to do the right thing here. There is no reason tablets should be dumb-down media consumption devices when they have computing power equivalent to desktop PCs of a few years ago. But to be used as real computers they must have keyboard and stylus by default and must allow to install arbitr…

Surface Pros run Windows 10, so they have the same UI as other computers. I don't see the problem?

Unfortunately, as far as "tablet mode" is concerned, Windows 10 is still a step back from Windows 8. Obviously Windows 8 had its problems, but the tablet UI was fantastic. W10 has gradually been getting back the W8 tablet features it dropped though, so maybe it'll get there

Re: New Surface Pro

#469

Post by komali2 »

Joeri wrote: post #330
passive wrote: post #199

I've been using a Surface Pro 3 as my one-and-only for almost 3 years, and it really feels like time to upgrade, so I've been looking forward to this one. My workload is probably something like 40% reading, 30% writing, 25% coding, and 5% running code, and the Surface has been a nearly ideal form factor for this. The new "Surface Pro" ticks a lot of boxes for me: - Supports my existing keyboard, pen, dock, and power…

Do you actually use it in tablet mode? I always wonder how many surface pro buyers actually use it as anything but a laptop.

It goes into tablet mode for me when:

1. I write in my daily journal using the surface pen and onenote.

2. I am taking notes in onenote with the surface pen at a meetup.

3. I am writing random fiction nonsense (onenote, surface pen).

4. I am taking notes in onenote w/ pen on one side of the screen, while having chrome open on the other with one of the MOOCs I am taking.

5. I am working on Chinese or Japanese exercises in onenote w/ pen with my kindle open to an exercise book.

I play around with portrait / landscape, having the flipback extended, etc, based on mood and position.

SP3.

Re: New Surface Pro

#470

Post by komali2 »

pfooti wrote: post #227
passive wrote: post #199

I've been using a Surface Pro 3 as my one-and-only for almost 3 years, and it really feels like time to upgrade, so I've been looking forward to this one. My workload is probably something like 40% reading, 30% writing, 25% coding, and 5% running code, and the Surface has been a nearly ideal form factor for this. The new "Surface Pro" ticks a lot of boxes for me: - Supports my existing keyboard, pen, dock, and power…

what sort of coding do you do on the spro? I'm going to be buying a new laptop / ultraportable / tablet in the near future, and I'm curious about this. Can you comfortably run some kind of linux VM on it? What kind of external keyboard does it support? How does the display hold up in moderate lighting conditions? For a lot of work, I've got a desktop, but I use my 2013 mbp at cafes and such. I mostly do node and fron…

I'm a web dev front/back, I just use the Windows Subsystem for Linux. Works like a charm. Check out this huge comment chain from a couple weeks back on styling it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14317932
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