Their pricing structure floors me. On the i7 models, you pay $1100 more for 750GB of extra SSD space and 8GB of extra RAM over the entry level i7 model. That is ridiculous. With that kind of premium to protect, they'll also make it nearly impossible to manually upgrade/replace the RAM and SSD, which makes buying one of these things a pretty bad decision.
New Surface Pro
521–530 of 606 posts
Re: New Surface Pro
#522Their pricing structure floors me. On the i7 models, you pay $1100 more for 750GB of extra SSD space and 8GB of extra RAM over the entry level i7 model. That is ridiculous. With that kind of premium to protect, they'll also make it nearly impossible to manually upgrade/replace the RAM and SSD, which makes buying one of these things a pretty bad decision.
Agreed, but how's that different to what the competition is doing?
16GB RAM starts at 2199 $US. That indeed quite off-putting for something that should replace my laptop.
Re: New Surface Pro
#523I'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…
It might not be the absolute best, but 8GB is totally workable for a lot of dev situations, especially if you're not doing a docker-style situation. I've recently went form 8GB to 16GB (and a processor jump) and my dev environment haven't really gotten snappier. That said it still feels like the easiest thing they could offer in all SKUs, given the price.
I did all of 2016 as a full time webdev with 4 gigs (not on a surface pro).
Linux, a reasonably memory efficient text editor, and some chrome tab discipline is all it takes.
In end, however, Docker dependencies eventually forced my hand to upgrade.
Re: New Surface Pro
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
My pro 4 works perfectly fine. I'm just a desktop apps junkie (sales mainly) and so there is no real reason to upgrade. That said the new pen's deeper resolution is impressive, as I switched (primarily) from Evernote to OneNote and haven't looked back. (I still pay for Evernote, now it is purely for legacy info).
Microsoft built an Evernote-OneNote import tool.
Awesome! I wasn't aware of that and did briefly google for one a while back. Hopefully I can migrate, the $5 bill every month, while not expensive, is becoming a bit annoying now as the value exchange simply isn't what it used to be for me.
Re: New Surface Pro
#525One 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…
Apple doesn't do this in every country, but I assume it's an attempt by both companies to prevent a type of arbitrage.
Re: New Surface Pro
#526Their pricing structure floors me. On the i7 models, you pay $1100 more for 750GB of extra SSD space and 8GB of extra RAM over the entry level i7 model. That is ridiculous. With that kind of premium to protect, they'll also make it nearly impossible to manually upgrade/replace the RAM and SSD, which makes buying one of these things a pretty bad decision.
Agreed, but how's that different to what the competition is doing? 16GB RAM starts at 2199 $US. That indeed quite off-putting for something that should replace my laptop.
I'd argue that iPad Pro isn't really competition for the Surface Pro. It's a tablet; the Surface Pro is a full-fledged PC. I would absolutely buy one because I love the weight and form factor, but I'd need at least 16GB of RAM, and I just won't pay an $1100 idiot tax for the top of the line model. I'll watch to see what iFixIt says about soldered RAM etc., but I'm not hopeful.
Re: New Surface Pro
#527I'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…
I agree, I have had a SP3 and SP4 with the i5/256 configuration, and I'd pay more for the 16GB option...but the i7 is too expensive of a leap. I really wish they'd offer an i5/256GB/16GB RAM option. The Pro 4 is a sizable leap from the 3 (surprisingly, mostly because the 3 throttles at high temps, I think.) So an upgrade with just 8GB will probably suffice...but yeah, it would be nice.
Re: New Surface Pro
#528> The most versatile laptop. ...that doesn't ship with a keyboard (pen isn't included either). No USB-C. 16GB RAM maximum.
They'll "give" you a USB-C dongle. https://www.theverge.com/2017/5/23/15674254/microsoft-surfac... > Microsoft is planning to release a dongle that will plug into the new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop devices and provide USB-C support. It’s like any dongle you’d expect, and it simply slots into the Surface connector port on the device. “If you want to charge a device with a Type-C charger, you can. If you want to pu…
I don't fault Microsoft for doing this, the USB-C connector is so far from being off the ground in the market, there's no reason to support it on major devices yet. Most new technologies are going wireless, you move data wirelessly, you charge wirelessly. The need for USB connectors is dying, the old USB connector is nice to have on the Surface out of sheer convenience with some legacy devices, but I only use it maybe 2 times a year.
Re: New Surface Pro
#529One 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…
My surface book has had the same phantom tap issue in the past. It seems to be resolved now, whether by driver updates or other magic unknown to me. It hasn't happened in months now even though I'm using it about 10hrs per day.
Re: New Surface Pro
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pardon my ignorance but what is the difference in the UK style keyboard vs the US style keyboard? Is the 4/$ replaced with the 4/£ key? Wouldn't this be problematic when programming (for example variable substitution on the shell etc.)?
Having recently (5 months) switched from UK to US layout, I find `/~ location to be more convenient on UK layout. First, it's somehow easier to type ~ on UK layout (no weird finger twists) - helps quicker to get to your home directory when navigating terminal. Second, I use cmd+1/2/3 to switch tabs a lot. Cmd + ` rotates windows. You can imagine it's very easy to mix up 1 with ` and instead of having the tab you want…
> helps quicker to get to your home directory when navigating terminal.
Protip: "cd" with no arguments normally takes you to your home directory. Though if you need to reference something in your homedir using a global path without changing directories, ~ is probably still the fastest way to do it.