iPad Pro 12.9 or Surface Book

[alecgold]

If you buy the product and it proves to be noisey, underpowered, etc then return it. If you are ordering the product before refining your use needs--then i find that wasteful. Your last paragraph tells me you have not researched the product. There are many videos on you tube comparing the products.

No, I haven't researched the Surface Book, but then again, I wasn't in the market for one. Just wanted to shared the two experiences I had.

But I did my due diligence with the Surface 4 and iPad Pro. And I would never return a product because it was noisy, underpowered or the likes, I would see that as my own fault. Also returning products in Europe is much less easy/likely to be accepted.
Yet I once returned an iPhone 6s (within 7 days) that had a big yellow blotch in the middle of the screen, it was annoying the crap out of me and yet I really felt a like a whiner. But the girl in the Apple Store was really easy going, looked at it, recognized it and swapped for a brand new one and adviced me to unpack it and install it then and there so I could make sure it was perfect.

 

[Seed101]

moronic

I think one of the great things about Apple is the relaxed return policy.

They're confident in their products which enables you to check them out and return them if you're not 100%...

...personally, I don't see the problem in that approach as opposed to the alternatives...

 

[Renzatic]

But I'm always worried with devices that try to be everything, it will end up like all those $299 all-in-one-printers that were mediocre at most things (and really bad at some, they annoyed the crap out of me with continuous paper jams when scanning and who in the world want's a fax these days?)

The thing with the SB is that it's a laptop first and foremost. This is what it's major focus is. It has about the best chicklet keyboard on the market, the trackpad is just about as good as the one you'd get on the MBP (which is a first for a Windows machine), and the touch/pen features are really nice and well thought out.

The fact you can undock the screen, and use it as a tablet is more of a fluffy secondary feature to its primary function. You'll probably use it every once in awhile, but for the most part, you're going to be using it as a laptop. If you buy it for the tablet specifically, thinking you're going to get a best of both worlds setup, it'll only disappoint you.

The way I see it?

If you want a tablet: get an iPad.

If you want a tablet that can replace your laptop: get an iPad Pro or Surface Pro 4, depending on your use case.

You want a laptop that's pen enabled, and can do light tablet duties in a pinch: Surface Book.

Want a classic laptop: Macbook Pro. Or the Dell XPS 13, which I've heard a lot of good things about.

 

[rowspaxe]

But I did my due diligence with the Surface 4 and iPad Pro. And I would never return a product because it was noisy, underpowered or the likes, I would see that as my own fault. Also returning products in Europe is much less easy/likely to be accepted.
Yet I once returned an iPhone 6s (within 7 days) that had a big yellow blotch in the middle of the screen, it was annoying the crap out of me and yet I really felt a like a whiner. But the girl in the Apple Store was really easy going, looked at it, recognized it and swapped for a brand new one and adviced me to unpack it and install it then and there so I could make sure it was perfect.

I guess this is sarcasm. Good luck

 

[Phil A.]

`

Thanks.

Re: the two stylus, Would you say the pencil is 'head and shoulders' above the SB?

I kind of suspect it is, but it's countered by the OS...tough choices!

Personally, I think it is - as I said, I'm by no means an artist but I'd imagine the difference is even greater for someone with artistic talent. It's got better balance and feel and the action on the screen feels more natural with the Apple Pencil

My main pen use is note taking and the iPP excels at that. I used my SB once when I forgot to pack my Apple Pencil but it wasn't anywhere near as good an experience as the iPad (both using OneNote)

The SB is a brilliant, brilliant laptop (I personally think it's the best one available at the moment) and is an adequate tablet in an emergency. The iPP is a brilliant, brilliant tablet!

 

[Renzatic]

Personally, I think it is - as I said, I'm by no means an artist but I'd imagine the difference is even greater for someone with artistic talent. It's got better balance and feel and the action on the screen feels more natural with the Apple Pencil

I finally got to play with the Apple Pencil on an iPad Pro at Best Buy today. I'm actually somewhat in agreement with you here.

It's not, like Seed said, heads and shoulders above the Surface pens. As far as responsiveness goes, I couldn't tell a vast amount of difference between the two. It's the fact that it feels more firm and precise against the screen that really sold me on it. If I had to use a real world example, I'd say the iPP is like writing on a single sheet of paper on your desk, while the Surfaces feel more like you're writing on top of a stack of papers. It feels more solid.

Some people might like the softer feel of the Surface pens. The resistance its pen offers is more, for lack of a better word, realistic. But I liked the firmer feel of the Pencil, myself.

 

[Wildkraut]

Well do a list with pro and cons, ipad pro vs surface book. E.g. If you plan to use ZBrush, or animate cartoons with flash, toonboom, then there is no way around surface book or cintiq like device.

 

[zhenya]

While I think the Surface Book is interesting design, at this point I would have a hard time relying on it as a sole convergence device. I've tried to do so with my SP3 and have found even that to be a better laptop than a tablet, and the SB has been considerably more problematic than my (problematic) SP3. In many ways I prefer the Surface Pen (I have the new pen like the SB uses). Aluminum rather than plastic, larger diameter is more comfortable to hold. Shortcut button, flip to erase, replaceable nibs of different hardnesses, a battery that lasts for most of a year.

In practice though, the Surface Pen still feels too artificial to me such that I feel like I'm always having to work around its limitations (offset is less than perfect, lag is apparent, lines are difficult to draw straight, etc). Using the Pencil for the first time was like a breath of fresh air. It is the first stylus I've ever used that works how I expect it to - lines always appear where I intend them to, right to the edges of the screen. If I need to I can connect two lines easily, precisely, and repeatedly. While I only take notes and draw sketches with my stylus, I can't see how you can easily draw more complex things with the Surface Pen that makes these basic operations so difficult.

 

[Serban]

While I think the Surface Book is interesting design, at this point I would have a hard time relying on it as a sole convergence device. I've tried to do so with my SP3 and have found even that to be a better laptop than a tablet, and the SB has been considerably more problematic than my (problematic) SP3. In many ways I prefer the Surface Pen (I have the new pen like the SB uses). Aluminum rather than plastic, larger diameter is more comfortable to hold. Shortcut button, flip to erase, replaceable nibs of different hardnesses, a battery that lasts for most of a year.

In practice though, the Surface Pen still feels too artificial to me such that I feel like I'm always having to work around its limitations (offset is less than perfect, lag is apparent, lines are difficult to draw straight, etc). Using the Pencil for the first time was like a breath of fresh air. It is the first stylus I've ever used that works how I expect it to - lines always appear where I intend them to, right to the edges of the screen. If I need to I can connect two lines easily, precisely, and repeatedly. While I only take notes and draw sketches with my stylus, I can't see how you can easily draw more complex things with the Surface Pen that makes these basic operations so difficult.

very true and very rip from reality
i hd to get rid of my SB because i have high quality glass desk and got scratch all over. you cannot use the power adapter in both ways if you are connected to a monitor using display port. battery life as a tablet i got 3 hours without any updates or something fissy in the background, with full task i got around 1 hour and 25 min
but yes if you want a laptop and a tablet, go for the surface pro 4 with the keyboard...only if you take advantage of that dGPU SB is better...

 

[Wildkraut]

@Seed101:
Well the pencil of the iPad Pro is by far better, but if you depend of special Applications, then a better pencil won't help you. Windows has more "real pro" Apps than the iPad. Specially for artists like you.

ToonBoom
All Adobe Apps (incl. Flash for Cartoon Animation)
Lot of Plugins for Adobe
Corel Painter
Mischief
Manga Studio
Spine
ZBrush
3DSMAX
Modo
Blender
Autodesk Stuff
Cinema 4D
etc.

They all run great on a Surface Book up to a level.

I own an iPad Pro, but i don't see it as a real pro device.
The hardware is very capable, but the limitation is sadly the iOS & missing "real pro" Software.

So simply do a pros and cons list (iPad vs Surface), and check if the iPad suit your needs.
Also think about your whole production pipeline, to see if it incorporates well to it.

I use the iPad Pro primary for concept drawing, doodling around, and consuming contents.

 

[andy271]

surface book 2 and surface pro 5 will be released soon so I would wait .the ipad is a superb machine for drawing and procreate is superb ,artrage is good but no were near like the desktop version Wacom and Microsoft are working on a stylus so I would wait

 

[rowspaxe]

@Seed101:
Well the pencil of the iPad Pro is by far better, but if you depend of special Applications, then a better pencil won't help you. Windows has more "real pro" Apps than the iPad. Specially for artists like you.

But aren't the devs going to fix this. I think I read that here!?!?

 

[MCAsan]

Scenario one: iPad Pro 12" running Astropad with whatever drawing program you want to use on your Mac.

Scenario two: iPad Pro 12" running native drawing apps and using iCloud storage if wanted.

 

[rowspaxe]

surface book 2 and surface pro 5 will be released soon so I would wait .the ipad is a superb machine for drawing and procreate is superb ,artrage is good but no were near like the desktop version Wacom and Microsoft are working on a stylus so I would wait

.
I don't know about "soon" -- but I passed on the current editions of surface products and windows 10 as too problematic. I look foward to MS and Vaio pushing the hybrid concept further. I have found both the pencil and surface pen to perform differently in different sofware environments. Apple is smart because the store ipps are loaded with real drawing apps whereas MS demo onsurfaces have only fresh paint and oneNote
[doublepost=1463955756][/doublepost]

Scenario one: iPad Pro 12" running Astropad with whatever drawing program you want to use on your Mac.
.

too much latency for me

 

[eyeseeyou]

If you need to use applications that are only available on a desktop os or windows then you have no choice but to go with the surface.

 

[Serban]

i think ipad pro will be a more pro device thanks to more upcoming pro apps for it. I think iOS10 will add more features for it and so on.

 

[andy271]

the biggest problem with the surface book and the surface pro 4 is the initial force required to get a light stroke this isn't a problem with the apple pencil ive had them all I liked the surface book because the screen was superb and accurate I didn't like the n-trig stylus.the ipad pro pencil is ultra sensitive and is truly groundbreaking hence the reason Wacom and Microsoft are creating a pen similar maybe better than the apple pencil ..if and I don't think it will happen apple ever released the mac book pro in a similar device to the surface tablets with the apple pencil they would have the market all to themselves and Wacom would stuggle ..

 

[Wildkraut]

Well I don't think we will see more "Pro" with iOS10. We will just see few minimal UI improvements, iOS does not change that much, look at iOS 7>8>9, just minimal "hard to notice" improvements.
We will also see more features that tries to tie you to their eco system.

As example, Apple even tried to disable the Pencil Navigation completely in the lastest iOS release(Public Betas), but then users started to moan around, and they made it available again.

Apples primary priority is now the iPhone, other devices just exist to support the iPhone sales.
I think Apple would even ditch the MacBooks at the long run, if they were not needed to develop iPhone Apps.

With iOS10 we *won't* see any "pro" iPad features like...

• Advanced printing options
• Configurable keyboard delay and repeat setting
• System wide PDF printer
• App shared local storage location, with file manager
• Native SMB,FTP,AFP Support in a file manager
• Optional and Permanent Desktop Safari User Agent for iPad Safari.
• Safari Download Container incl. Queue
• Build-in Calculator App
• Build-in Weather App (not pro, but usable)
• Change Default Browser App
• Change Default Email App
• Change Default App of file types
• Native usage of the iPad Pro as Wacom Like Device on the Mac
• Build-in Font Manager
• External Storage Support to write and read anything you want.
• Mouse Support
• Mobile Xcode
• And more... the list could be very long.

Somehow im looking very optimistic forward to the Ms Surface 5, I think they will improve the Ntrig Pencil a lot, because Microsoft bought the company recently. And if they fix the Pencil lag, precision, sensitivity then i'm sold to Microsoft(again).

Windows 10 got very usable
I don't mind 1h more or less battery life
Windows has far more and better "pro" Apps.
You can join Domains, and be part of Active Directory, access all kind of Storage types and Shares(SMB,FTP,FTP,WEBDAV,*CLOUD,etc.)
You can connect a mouse.
You can connect all kind of hardware to it.
They now even have Unix cmd/bash support.

Ms keeps adding great "pro" features, while apple just care of UI and eco system improvements/tying methods for noobs (reducing features and add unnecessary limitations to iOS).

I own an iPad Pro 12.9, but i wish i could do more with iOS.
So if you plan to buy an iPad Pro of * size, don't buy it with an illusion of getting more "pro" features with iOS10.

 

[2ilent8cho]

If you do go down the iPad Pro route but want to use Mac OS X drawing software with the pencil http://astropad.com maybe of some help.

 

[Wildkraut]

If you do go down the iPad Pro route but want to use Mac OS X drawing software with the pencil http://astropad.com maybe of some help.

Sadly lags too much, it's a great workaround the unnecessary iOS limitations, but not a 100% "professional" solution.
You won't see any Film Studios using Astropad to model the next Marvel Character in ZBrush. Astropad is not "pro", but a clever workaround. Its up to Apple to provide a decent professional solution or at an api/interface for third party devs.

And if they really add that feature someday to iOS*, they will try to sell it to you as a new iPad feature by adding unnecessary limitations to older devices. Like they did with Siri, Adblocker, Facetime, Nightshift, Weather, Calculator, etc.

 

[Serban]

sorry but only the pip/slide over/split view for ipad is a standalone featured welcomed in iOS9 that i cannot live without..
so now, whats an ipad without those features? why buy a bigger than ipad mini if you dont use those
iOS10 will come with multiple users accounts, file management, improved airplay and so on
[doublepost=1464268953][/doublepost]and ets not compare windows (20 years OS with almost 10 years of iOS)

 

[Wildkraut]

sorry but only the pip/slide over/split view for ipad is a standalone featured welcomed in iOS9 that i cannot live without..
so now, whats an ipad without those features? why buy a bigger than ipad mini if you dont use those
iOS10 will come with multiple users accounts, file management, improved airplay and so on
[doublepost=1464268953][/doublepost]and ets not compare windows (20 years OS with almost 10 years of iOS)

PiP/Split view is somehow good yeah, sadly not very well supported in many apps.
Oh and iOS is not only 10 years old, a lot of it comes from the OS X base, so you can add few more virtual years to iOS.

 

[Serban]

hmm i think macos brings more from ios too...next macos will have Siri ... so we can add some years for desktops OS too..so same deal

 

[4004786]

Buy both. Try them out for a few weeks, and return the one you use least.

I only do simple illustrations these days, so iOS apps (namely Procreate) work great for me. Also, the Pencil + iPad hardware is my favorite pairing for drawing. But if I was more serious about it like I used to be, I think the lack of Photoshop features (like Kyle Webster brushes), complex fills, etc., would be very limiting. Astropad helps with that a bit, but it requires a Mac to work.

I hope one day that iOS is as solid for drawing as Photoshop, but in my experience we're not there yet.

 

[Serban]

yes Procreate i think is one of the best drawing app from any platform...and it will become better and better since apple release ipad pro with apple pencil