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Surface Devices

Do you own a Surface device

  • Yes I own a Surface Pro or Surfacebook - it’s great

    Votes: 165 51.2%

  • Yes I own a Surface laptop - it’s great

    Votes: 36 11.2%

  • No - i’m not a fan

    Votes: 69 21.4%

  • Not anymore I had a bad experience

    Votes: 52 16.1%
  • Total voters
    322
Queen6 said:
TBH I've never bought into Apple's ecosystem, just the base OS and hardware. I think that's why I've never really had much if any issue other than poor HW design. Apple cant hamstring what I use as it not their SW, if they were to block it that would be the end of the Mac as a usable tool, just be an iPad without touch and a fixed keyboard...

Q-6
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I admire that you've avoided their ecosystem and am always glad to hear your perspective. 🙂

If I have to jettison these movies and most of the music, it'll sting but it's nothing in the grand scheme of things. I'll find new ways to create (Why I bought some cross platform software on sale last year.)


From a hardware perspective, the M1s are very, very good. Battery life and efficiency are on point. I like my M1, I just wish I could use it like my Snow Leopard era iMacs. And I am not sure, I can see myself with a more powerful M chip Mac since I am bound by the ecosystem, and DMR in particular.

It's all good. I am encouraged by my recent Windows exploration though and know I'll find something that fits my needs and/or just evolve.

Thanks @Dave245 off to look at the Surface Laptops now.
 
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It's a shame they are using the Ryzen 4000 series in the SL4. But I guess they have a partnership with Intel.

That's a real shame. I guess the Surface Book 4 won't have the Ryzen 5000 series either. But I guess we'll see in the fall if they update it. Hopefully they will at least be able to put in a GeForce 3060 in the base.
 
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KarmaRocket said:
It's a shame they are using the Ryzen 4000 series in the SL4. But I guess they have a partnership with Intel.

That's a real shame. I guess the Surface Book 4 won't have the Ryzen 5000 series either. But I guess we'll see in the fall if they update it. Hopefully they will at least be able to put in a GeForce 3060 in the base.
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Indeed. Shame the price point doesn’t reflect using the older chip, but most Surface products do go on sale frequently.

I liked the SL2 a lot, but it did not meet my needs and I wasn’t ready to jump yet. I hope MS goes ahead with a Studio and SB4 update later this year.
 
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kazmac said:
I admire that you've avoided their ecosystem and am always glad to hear your perspective. 🙂

If I have to jettison these movies and most of the music, it'll sting but it's nothing in the grand scheme of things. I'll find new ways to create (Why I bought some cross platform software on sale last year.)


From a hardware perspective, the M1s are very, very good. Battery life and efficiency are on point. I like my M1, I just wish I could use it like my Snow Leopard era iMacs. And I am not sure, I can see myself with a more powerful M chip Mac since I am bound by the ecosystem, and DMR in particular.

It's all good. I am encouraged by my recent Windows exploration though and know I'll find something that fits my needs and/or just evolve.

Thanks @Dave245 off to look at the Surface Laptops now.
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You know me fairly well :) This is exactly why I dropped Apple's proprietary scheme's eons ago. All my music & video content I can play on any device. Same applies to all, if I have a license to; listen, watch or play the hardware should be of my own choice not the providers. I Like Apple for the OS, security, design language the rest they can keep LOL.

I pulled the plug on Apple's and others trickery around 2K. Wasn't too bad to pull out then, equally I can appreciate the cost of replacing a significant library. What really crystallised in my mind was that these are just services and can be cut off for numerous reasons. My libraries are under my control, yes it was time consuming and painful to physically purchase and rip disks at the time.

Music discovery is free and easy as are films, the quality I don't care as if I like, I'll buy the HD/HR content. Another way to put is if all my Mac's & PC's were eradicated and I was left with a single box with Arch Linux, I'd be good as I simply don't want to be penned in digitally or in the real world...

Still good, always will be, 45 RPM vinyl better still...
600x600bb.jpg


Q-6
 
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Dave245 said:
Surface Laptop 4 officially announced by Microsoft.

www.theverge.com

Microsoft announces Surface Laptop 4 with choice of Intel or AMD processors

The AMD version is the less expensive option.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
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Currently have no need or purpose, equally would like to try one but don't see one surpassing my M1 MBP barring SW versatility. Microsoft's hardware is certainly at the same level as Apple's, however will remain gimped until either AMD or Intel can catch up. My $$$ is on AMD as Intel was simply too greedy & lazy, now they reap what they sow...

Q-6
 
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I used to have a Surface Pro 6 base model. It had a quad-core 8th gen intel core i5. It also had 128gb ssd (showed as 119gb) and 8gb of RAM. However, battery life was terrible. I ended up switching up to a MacBook Air Early 2020 with dual core 10th gen i3 with 256 gb and 8gb of LPDDR4X RAM. It sounds like a downgrade, but it runs surprisingly faster than my SP6!
 
Queen6 said:
Currently have no need or purpose, equally would like to try one but don't see one surpassing my M1 MBP barring SW versatility. Microsoft's hardware is certainly at the same level as Apple's, however will remain gimped until either AMD or Intel can catch up. My $$$ is on AMD as Intel was simply too greedy & lazy, now they reap what they sow...

Q-6
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I want to see the M1 MacBook Air vs the baseline Surface Laptop 4. They both have similar specs!
 
GSWForever8 said:
I want to see the M1 MacBook Air vs the baseline Surface Laptop 4. They both have similar specs!
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The M1 will shred the SL4, my own M1 MBP is computationally far faster than this Asus Hex core PC which bench tests as 4th/5th fastest in it's class globally (8750H) that's fast sustaining a full 3.9 GHz across all cores beating out some Octa core notebooks including Mac's...

If you can live with Apple, if your software runs you will be impressed as the M1 SOC is ridiculously fast. The Asus as capable as it is the fans (3) are max'd instantly under such loads. The M1 MBP barely breaks sweat remaining near silent unless pushed to the limit for extended periods of time. The Asus less than two hours battery life (iGPU only) the M1 MBP I've yet to exhaust no thx to COVID, safe to say nothing an AMD or Intel solution will remotely touch.

Q-6
 
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Queen6 said:
The M1 will shred the SL4, my own M1 MBP is computationally far faster than this Asus Hex core PC which bench tests as 4th/5th fastest in it's class globally (8750H) that's fast sustaining a full 3.9 GHz across all cores beating out some Octa core notebooks including Mac's...

If you can live with Apple, if your software runs you will be impressed as the M1 SOC is ridiculously fast. The Asus as capable as it is the fans (3) are max'd instantly under such loads. The M1 MBP barely breaks sweat remaining near silent unless pushed to the limit for extended periods of time.

Q-6
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That’s very true. I use a baseline early 2020 MacBook Air and it runs faster than my previous Surface Pro 6, despite the Surface having a more powerful chip.
 
Is the Surface 7 the newest release from this calendar year (2021)?
they (Microsoft) claim the screen is visible in any light.
 
Queen6 said:
M1's really rip, no doubts about it.
Click to expand...

Indeed, can't deny it. As much as I want to dislike Apple for the past issues of butterfly keyboard faults and other things they made me suffer, a corner has been turned. Actually looking forward to seeing whether they can sustain what has been started.
 
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LeeW said:
Indeed, can't deny it. As much as I want to dislike Apple for the past issues of butterfly keyboard faults and other things they made me suffer, a corner has been turned. Actually looking forward to seeing whether they can sustain what has been started.
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All should know full well that I call the cards as I see them; 2016 MBP was a joke nor was I proved to be wrong. The M1's are OK, they have issues, equally they are far more upfront and more a limitation of the SOC, as opposed to design screw up's & general BS.

I'm not overly concerned with the next generation of MBP as IVE is out of the picture, equally Apple does have a tendency to be overly ambitious which we all know too well doesn't always end well for Apple or the users. I think 3rd Gen will be where it's at. The current portable M1's are in a tried, tested & proven chassis with a reliable keyboard which I'm comfortable with. I'm sure you'll agree that a computer deeply involved in the revenue stream, one does not need any negative surprises like auto failing keyboards or massive thermal throttling etc.

I do think Apple listens, especially to it's professional audience, although small we have a strong presence and that is a value to Apple. Most I know including myself dropped the Mac in 2016 solely due to piss poor design & reliability. Apple absolutory needs our positive advocation. Are the new M1's perfect no, not by any means yet the path seems solid and Apple looks to be responsible & responding on the SW side.

Q-6
 
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I see that with the Surface Laptop 4, the AMD version is cheaper than the Intel one. Is there much difference I wonder?
 
You can't max out ram and storage on AMD either. Only intel systems. the AMD is limited to 16/512 configuration and the intel version is 32gb and 1tb.
 
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LeeW said:
I read somewhere it is because they are using a previous-gen AMD rather than current, hence cheaper.
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Steve Adams said:
You can't max out ram and storage on AMD either. Only intel systems. the AMD is limited to 16/512 configuration and the intel version is 32gb and 1tb.
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That explains the price difference then. Not a bad laptop if you are in the Windows system.
 
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Steve Adams said:
Not at all. I am partial to dell systems, but I have been contemplating moving to microsoft devices again.
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If I didn’t own Macs, I would definitely have brought one. Mainly to play some PC games that are not hugely spec hungry.
 
We have SL3's in our office, since we needed laptops with a good camera/mic for video conferencing. I have to say I like the build quality of the Surface Laptops. I'm really impressed. It's like the MacBook Pro for Windows computers. The 13.5 inch 3:2 aspect ratio screen is really nice.

I want to see what Microsoft does with the Surface Book 4. I hope they put in a good RTX 3000 series dGPU. I'll buy one or a Razer. Depends on what MS does.
 
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Been in a bit of a hunt for a laptop (mostly for imaging related stuff including telescope control) and thought I'd check out the new offering from microsoft and was a bit disappointed with the offering. Wanted an AMD chip but looks like it's bottom of the rung for storage. Microsoft have some sort of contract with intel or something?

Anyway it looks like just 1 usb port (at least full sized) and either a USB c port or display / thunderbolt / charging port?
 
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