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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
I love my iPad Pro. For consumption. Recently bought the 12.9 after I broke the screen on the 11". But it can't replace a laptop unless your needs are simple. When it can run full desktop apps (never) it may be viable.

The iPad is the best tablet on the market as a tablet. The Surface Pro is not perfect. It is a mediocre tablet and a solid real solution to replace a laptop. Even as a mediocre tablet it will still do all your usual tablet type tasks.

Plus, the kickstand on SP should not be underestimated, neither should the surface keyboard. Sure it is not that portable as you do need a flat surface but it has way more versatility than the iPad.
 
I love my iPad Pro. For consumption. Recently bought the 12.9 after I broke the screen on the 11". But it can't replace a laptop unless your needs are simple. When it can run full desktop apps (never) it may be viable.

The iPad is the best tablet on the market as a tablet. The Surface Pro is not perfect. It is a mediocre tablet and a solid real solution to replace a laptop. Even as a mediocre tablet it will still do all your usual tablet type tasks.

Plus, the kickstand on SP should not be underestimated, neither should the surface keyboard. Sure it is not that portable as you do need a flat surface but it has way more versatility than the iPad.
Personally I like the surface products :) The tablet functionality is adequate for my needs and prefer a single solution versus multiple devices, although I have many LOL. Right now my favourite is the M1 MBP the sheer performance & battery runtime in such a small platform is impressive.

1632456760498.png

Definitely cracking on for a 13" Ultrabook, equally just a matter of time before MS catches up...

Q-6
 
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I love my iPad Pro. For consumption. Recently bought the 12.9 after I broke the screen on the 11". But it can't replace a laptop unless your needs are simple. When it can run full desktop apps (never) it may be viable.

The iPad is the best tablet on the market as a tablet. The Surface Pro is not perfect. It is a mediocre tablet and a solid real solution to replace a laptop. Even as a mediocre tablet it will still do all your usual tablet type tasks.

Plus, the kickstand on SP should not be underestimated, neither should the surface keyboard. Sure it is not that portable as you do need a flat surface but it has way more versatility than the iPad.
This, the iPad is the best tablet that can replace a laptop for some people (like me and my family for family stuff), the Surface is a workhorse that can also be used as a tablet. But it's nothing like an iPad, as it's running Windows.

I don't get these comparisons, it's two different things. Pick what fits your needs best and that's about it.
 
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Right now my favourite is the M1 MBP the sheer performance & battery runtime in such a small platform is impressive.

There is no doubt the M1 devices are impressive I still regularly use my Mac Mini. Even software running under Rosetta has little impact on performance overall. although I use my PC more these days.

The M1X Mac Mini may tempt me back away from the PC if the performance gains over the M1 are as anticipated.
 
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Ipad does not make the best art device as many Apple fans would like you to believe. It limits you to small apps, which while nice can't compare to programs such as Corel Painter, Rebelle, or even full Photoshop. For me iPad is my sketch pad for casual work, fun, but not full featured.
Interesting to hear that as relearning Photoshop so I can use it to learn art and graphic etc. design is one of the reasons why I’m looking at an SP8. Plus those heat pipes in the SP8 are huge, the cooling is so darn important. Really tired of dealing with overheating and the resulting crashes and loss of touch in iPads. iOS14 has turned my iPad Air into a furnace.

Sort of rethinking the Surface Laptop Studio if Asus do not release those new ProArt Studio laptop(s) within the next month. Not crazy about the internal specs or the pricing tiers (but many computer prices are up: alas HP’s high end Spectre has crossed the $2k threshold, so I digress.) That said, MS do have sales a lot so…

I’m not sure where I stand with Apple anymore. Ah well.
 
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as a cartoonist I use my iPad for all my drawings now.
I do pencil sketches and scan this into a drawing app
then add lines, color, captions and export as photoshop in that app.
I tried using a pen pad and usb to a laptop Bothe MBA and Dell XPS
but the lines were not as consistent as on an iPad.
here is an thumbnail

turtle seaside.jpg
 
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I use my iPad for all my drawings now.
What I find interesting is that people call iPads iToys and yet there are tools, apps that people use to make money on it. I mean back in the day, artists used to use paper and ink/paint/charcoal to make works of art but you can't use an iPad because its not a full/real computer? No, not at all.

I'm not a creative person, I cannot even draw a straight line with a ruler, but I found the iPad to be superior in taking notes, heck even editing PDFs is a better experience then on the PC - I seem to have less frustration using the iPad for some things

One thing that I am disappointed in regarding the iPad, my battery life is inferior to what I was expecting but since this isn't an iPad thread, I'll not go any further.

As for the Surface Pro, I have really no need for such a device at this point. Perhaps if I was in the office, maybe, but since my team is basically 100% remote at this point all my meetings have been zoom-ified
 
Interesting to hear that as relearning Photoshop so I can use it to learn art and graphic etc. design is one of the reasons why I’m looking at an SP8. Plus those heat pipes in the SP8 are huge, the cooling is so darn important. Really tired of dealing with overheating and the resulting crashes and loss of touch in iPads. iOS14 has turned my iPad Air into a furnace.

Sort of rethinking the Surface Laptop Studio if Asus do not release those new ProArt Studio laptop(s) within the next month. Not crazy about the internal specs or the pricing tiers (but many computer prices are up: alas HP’s high end Spectre has crossed the $2k threshold, so I digress.) That said, MS do have sales a lot so…

I’m not sure where I stand with Apple anymore. Ah well.
From my experience I'd go with Microsoft. my 1ST Gen Surface Book never failed me and took my daughter through college.

Q-6
 
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So if a person could live with 8 GB of RAM in the Surface Pro 8, and is willing to buy their own 2230 m.2 hard drive, That person could get a lowest level Surface Pro 8 (i5 8GB RAM 128GB SSD), Microsoft Warranty 3 Yrs, and the combo pen and keyboard for just under $1600. Then add in a 512GB hard drive for around $100. Hmmmm.
 
What I find interesting is that people call iPads iToys and yet there are tools, apps that people use to make money on it. I mean back in the day, artists used to use paper and ink/paint/charcoal to make works of art but you can't use an iPad because its not a full/real computer? No, not at all.

I'm not a creative person, I cannot even draw a straight line with a ruler, but I found the iPad to be superior in taking notes, heck even editing PDFs is a better experience then on the PC - I seem to have less frustration using the iPad for some things

One thing that I am disappointed in regarding the iPad, my battery life is inferior to what I was expecting but since this isn't an iPad thread, I'll not go any further.

As for the Surface Pro, I have really no need for such a device at this point. Perhaps if I was in the office, maybe, but since my team is basically 100% remote at this point all my meetings have been zoom-ified
Yeah the notetaking in Notability is really nice. Really, really nice.

I think the frustration for me sets in when I try to use the iPad for anything outside of media consumption or note-taking. There are just limitations within any iPad apps that have desktop equivalents. It also doesn't help that I refuse to pay for the Pro line. :)

For me, I have found that I like the actual ability to exactly match software with my desktop (AMD, Nvidia 3060TI) with my portable and I don't have to have a third device. Before it was Gaming Desktop, then macbook m1 (with different software), and an iPad (with different software again).

Now I have a much more cohesive setup.
 
I'd like to try one, but the lack of apps in a non starter unless you become able to use native Android apps.
My house alarm, cctv , heating etc all works on apps that you just can't get in windows so the iPad and iPhone remain king.
 
I think the frustration for me sets in when I try to use the iPad for anything outside of media consumption or note-taking. There are just limitations within any iPad apps that have desktop equivalents. It also doesn't help that I refuse to pay for the Pro line. :)
I think creative stuff is probably one of those things that is suited nicely. I've been debating whether to subscribe to Adobe's photography plan again, I stopped the sub last year or 2019 (I forget) but the non-classic version of LR is cloud based and the iPad could work well in that regard. I'm trying out LR right now, but I'm not seeing a nice migration path from LR classic to LR. I don't seem to be able to import my catalog, with all of its settings, keywords, and what not. That's amounting to a show stopper for me.

So that means my iPad is mostly a consumption device and I'm ok with that
 
I think creative stuff is probably one of those things that is suited nicely. I've been debating whether to subscribe to Adobe's photography plan again, I stopped the sub last year or 2019 (I forget) but the non-classic version of LR is cloud based and the iPad could work well in that regard. I'm trying out LR right now, but I'm not seeing a nice migration path from LR classic to LR. I don't seem to be able to import my catalog, with all of its settings, keywords, and what not. That's amounting to a show stopper for me.

So that means my iPad is mostly a consumption device and I'm ok with that
I switched to Capture ONE 20 but damn do I miss Lightroom. They’ll release a native iPad version next year, but I think I’ll subscribe to adobe again instead of buying C1 2022
 
Capture ONE
I've tried Capture One a number of times, and I really try to like it, but Adobe has made such a great product. I really wished apple actually improved, developed and didn't kill Aperture.
 
I've tried Capture One a number of times, and I really try to like it, but Adobe has made such a great product. I really wished apple actually improved, developed and didn't kill Aperture.
I bought it because of the Fuji RAWs, which c1 handles much better imo. But I sold everything Fuji and wait for my new Panasonic gear right now.
The worst part was managing the library. I have been totally spoiled by Lightroom which I used since v1 or 2 I think I’m that regard. I just didn’t understand C1

Just imagine a natively running Aperture on both Macs and iPads. That would be so good
 
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Too bad that surface laptop studio has no amd cpu...
SP8 is the real winner of this event
The problem is AMD can't have Thunderbolt for some unknown reasons. Makes me think Microsoft might be working on their own silicon like Apple to decouple themselves from Intel/AMD lock in problems.
 
The problem is AMD can't have Thunderbolt for some unknown reasons. Makes me think Microsoft might be working on their own silicon like Apple to decouple themselves from Intel/AMD lock in problems.

Thunderbolt exists on desktop AMD motherboards. Intel supposedly open sourced Thunderbolt to increase adoption but don't know the details if it's truly open that AMD can integrate into their own chipset or open in the sense that you can buy Intel Thunderbolt chipset and use without license. Anyhow, different people prioritize features differently. I'd rather have battery life and CPU performance which AMD offer over Intel with Thunderbolt and slightly better iGPU performance for an ultraportable. Or, Intel can outsource to TMSC so we don't have to compromise. Maybe Surface Pro 9 will finally hit the bullseye but 8 is close enough having waited since 3 and 4.
 
What I find interesting is that people call iPads iToys and yet there are tools, apps that people use to make money on it. I mean back in the day, artists used to use paper and ink/paint/charcoal to make works of art but you can't use an iPad because its not a full/real computer? No, not at all.

I'm not a creative person, I cannot even draw a straight line with a ruler, but I found the iPad to be superior in taking notes, heck even editing PDFs is a better experience then on the PC - I seem to have less frustration using the iPad for some things

One thing that I am disappointed in regarding the iPad, my battery life is inferior to what I was expecting but since this isn't an iPad thread, I'll not go any further.

As for the Surface Pro, I have really no need for such a device at this point. Perhaps if I was in the office, maybe, but since my team is basically 100% remote at this point all my meetings have been zoom-ified
I compare my iPad to real life sketch pads and pencils, ink, crayons. I compare my computers to canvas, oils, and watercolor. (I still use real media in addition to digital). All of it is art, and all art matters. But when it comes to replicating real oil and watercolor to print on canvas, the iPad falls short with the apps it provides. With Painter I can create art than when printed is indistinguishable from real media. Also, the poor file system on iPad makes it too difficult to move and exchange files. If it were not for OneDrive, I would not be able to use it for work at all. iCloud has improved from the joke that it debuted at, but it still falls short.
 
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