Does the Suface 3 counts? The Mr (husband) has it provisioned from work. Been using it for 3 years & still refuses to get it exchange/upgrade when offered to. He is weird. 
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Surface Devices
- Thread starter Dave245
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Typing this on the SP6 and Type Cover that I got through the $799 deal.
This thing is freaking awesome. How the heck are they not selling more of these things? Being able to detach the Type Cover and still have this kickstand on the back (which by the way is incredible) and still have a full computer in my hands is outstanding. This is so much better than an iPad which needs an entire keyboard cover to be able to prop itself up, and can't do any actual work.
This thing is freaking awesome. How the heck are they not selling more of these things? Being able to detach the Type Cover and still have this kickstand on the back (which by the way is incredible) and still have a full computer in my hands is outstanding. This is so much better than an iPad which needs an entire keyboard cover to be able to prop itself up, and can't do any actual work.
And even with the keyboard cover attached, Apple pretty much dictated that one viewing angle suits all, rather than giving a full range from almost vertical to almost flat. Not to mention no mouse/touchpad support in the ASK. No memory expansion or memory card support in the iPP, no ports for external hard drives or even charging your phone with the iPP. I am really not too sure why the iPad is as popular as it is. It is a rather limited device overall.
This was my track record with the iPad: iPad > iPad 2 > iPad with Retina Display > iPad Mini > iPad Air > iPad Pro 10.5
Now I have the Surface Pro 6. I tried many many times with all of those iPads to use it for my job and I could never get it to work.
I should add that I tried almost every keyboard cover that Apple sold alongside those iPads and hated every single one. I also always hoped they would put a kickstand on their device as it makes so much logical sense for what they're trying to sell it as.
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Many of us here have put quite a bit of effort, time, and $ in to trying to make the IP work long term or full time. I’m sincerely glad that it has worked for some others, but also a little embarrassed that it took me so long to understand that it really isn’t for everyone.
Admittedly, I actually have quite a few negative observations on my mind about the trials and errors of the IP (and the Apple ecosystem) that I wouldn’t mind venting sometime if the opportunity happened at the right time (rather than give in to the urge of a full-on internet rant). But I’m luckily moving on and getting back to using things more, instead of trying to figure them out. This sub forum has been an incredible aid in doing just that. Pretty cool experience really, after quite a long run of nagging frustrations. I’m having fun again and getting more done. That was the original intention if I recall correctly? Lol
I hear that. I really tried too. I tried following a few blogs, The iPad Alone and a few others, thinking surely it is just me and I must be missing something in the way I am using it because danged if it isn't frustrating trying to do any real productivity work on it. I even had the small business manager at the Apple store spend some time with me trying to show me her workflow and how she does certain things. I kept thinking really? That's like like 6 steps for something I can do in 2 on a MBP.
In the end, I just resigned myself to it being a really nice night table device for browsing the web, checking email, and doing some coloring to shut the brain down and go to bed
This was all before I bought the Surface Pro. Now the iPP often goes completely unused for days at a time.
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In the end, I just resigned myself to it being a really nice night table device for browsing the web, checking email, and doing some coloring to shut the brain down and go to bed
This was all before I bought the Surface Pro. Now the iPP often goes completely unused for days at a time.
Right on!
Macs and IPs are very fluid devices to use. No real complaints there. But damned when it’s time to work with the rest of the world. Then it’s like Jumanji.
On a side note; Wife and I have had such a positive experience with the surfaces that we are looking at android again. That topic probably doesn’t belong here, but it is the truth. We ordered Pixel phones to try. Both of us are skeptical as hell. But we won’t know if we don’t try. Wish us luck!
I hear that. I really tried too. I tried following a few blogs, The iPad Alone and a few others, thinking surely it is just me and I must be missing something in the way I am using it because danged if it isn't frustrating trying to do any real productivity work on it. I even had the small business manager at the Apple store spend some time with me trying to show me her workflow and how she does certain things. I kept thinking really? That's like like 6 steps for something I can do in 2 on a MBP.
In the end, I just resigned myself to it being a really nice night table device for browsing the web, checking email, and doing some coloring to shut the brain down and go to bed
This was all before I bought the Surface Pro. Now the iPP often goes completely unused for days at a time.
I tried to use iPad for some light work in the past, ended up giving it to the kids
Was immediately evident that the tablet added up to endless workarounds due to the nature of the device. It was kind of cool that you could do some things on it, however it was never much more than an extension of my MBP and generally far more inefficient.I'm sure some can get by on an iPad, equally the usage will still remain to be very limited in comparison to a full-blown computer with a desktop OS. To me even IPP remans firmly to be a consumption device for the vast majority of people and as long as Apple forces it's devices to be chained together to get the best out it's ecosystem it will remain so. Apple should have developed OS X for Pen & Touch years back, they didn't out of greed. Now Apple is stuck with mostly gimped hardware and software all at price points that people are waking up to being of poor value outside of looking nice...
Apple want IOS devices to be the future of computing solely for it's own selfish motivations; full control of the HW & SW environment including profit from the store, cheaper development & production costs, very likely higher margins. Apple used every trick in is sales & market book to try and achieve this. Unfortunately Apple didn't anticipate the massive backlash from the tech media and userbase due to it allowing the Mac to rot. Even then the Mac is paid little more than lip service, with each model having significant shortcoming's and or reliability issues.
Microsoft certainly didn't get Surface right straight out the gate, however Surface has developed and will continue to develop as a serious computing line while the Mac is fast becoming a laughing stock.
Q-6
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Well what do you know. 3 unit exchanges and none I would consider acceptable for an $1800 machine. Frankly... appalling levels of quality assurance. That is to say, it doesn't seem like there is any. Come on Dell that's you're premium machine. And now I am again laptopless.
You have an X1 Extreme right? How's that been. Seems like it might fit the bill after all.
What's the consensus on RAM these days? I feel like 8GB has been the standard for a very long time. Is it still slated to be the standard for another 4 or 5 years? Jumping to 16GB of ram on the Surface Book 2 costs as much as some decent budget laptop options. I can get an X1 Extreme 4k and the entry level dGPU SB2 for about the same price (~1800). I'd really like to keep it under 2k.
If only they'd stick an MX150 in the Surface Laptop 2 with no alcantara and sell it to me for $1299.
I'm not against alcantara but I have gross hands - all my Macs got pitted by me and my ThinkPads got supremely shiny. The platinum SL1 I had tried out was gross within a month. It just doesn't work for me. Maybe the black?
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Well what do you know. 3 unit exchanges and none I would consider acceptable for an $1800 machine. Frankly... appalling levels of quality assurance. That is to say, it doesn't seem like there is any. Come on Dell that's you're premium machine. And now I am again laptopless.
You have an X1 Extreme right? How's that been. Seems like it might fit the bill after all.
What's the consensus on RAM these days? I feel like 8GB has been the standard for a very long time. Is it still slated to be the standard for another 4 or 5 years? Jumping to 16GB of ram on the Surface Book 2 costs as much as some decent budget laptop options. I can get an X1 Extreme 4k and the entry level dGPU SB2 for about the same price (~1800). I'd really like to keep it under 2k.
If only they'd stick an MX150 in the Surface Laptop 2 with no alcantara and sell it to me for $1299.
I'm not against alcantara but I have gross hands - all my Macs got pitted by me and my ThinkPads got supremely shiny. The platinum SL1 I had tried out was gross within a month. It just doesn't work for me. Maybe the black?
I ended up returning the X1E. Not that I had any problem with the machine in general. But it arrived with a defect in the upper left corner of the display. I thought no biggie, I will give them a call and get it resolved. They said I could ship it back and do an exchange or else they could have someone out in 24-48 hours to replace the display. I thought that sounded easier and why you pay for onsite service, so chose that option. 3 weeks, several phone calls, emails and PM's later, they still hadn't sent anyone out nor had I received any phone calls from any support company.
I could still have sent it back for an exchange, but I wondered if this was a warning if something should go wrong that rendered it unusable. Would I be waiting 3+ weeks to have it serviced and have to keep calling them, emailing them, PM'ing them at every missed deadline? Every time I talked to them they said "We are escalating your case and you will absolutely hear from someone within the next day or two" and then nothing.
So I chose to send it back to Lenovo. The machine was great, the display was very nice, I *loved* the keyboard, the trackpad was pretty good, port selection awesome. But I didn't have much faith in the local support company they use for onsight.
Unfortunately, onsight support is only as good as whoever is contracted in the area to do it. Lenovo was able to track that the company had received the replacement display next day air as they had promised, but I never got a call from the local repair company and Lenovo wouldn't tell me who it was to call directly.
Ironically, I got a call from a local repair place the day after I shipped it back. They said it was forwarded to them by Lenovo due to the previous company taking no action on the job. I would put the blame ratio at probably 30% Lenovo 70% contractor and the 30% on Lenovo for not moving on from a bad contractor who is doing harm to their customer service reputation and for not moving on to someone else more quickly.
I am not sure if Dell onsite support would be any better here, or if it would just end up being the same contractor.
So, in the meantime, I have been spending the past 3 weeks evaluating a Surface Book 2. Which I actually really like, except I do wish it had a TB3 port, and I haven't made up my mind about the 15w processor for photo/video. But the advantage of a physical store 8 miles away is a big appeal after the Lenovo experience
Edit: Long story short, your probably fine with the X1E as long as your local support contractor is better than mine.
If I can back up this iPad Pro tonight*, I am off to Best Buy tomorrow to check out the SP6 and quite possibly do an exchange.
*Am so tired of the increasingly annoying iOS hoops I have to jump through.
*Am so tired of the increasingly annoying iOS hoops I have to jump through.
Best Buy is usually pretty good about working with you on an exchange, from my experience.
Hopefully they are good to you and it works out. Let us know
I have until January to return. My only question is after the exchange, will they let me pay off the balance for the Surface? I can’t see them refusing since it’s more money for them and possibly installment payments too for a few months.Best Buy is usually pretty good about working with you on an exchange, from my experience.
Hopefully they are good to you and it works out. Let us know
If not, I’ll just return for a refund and sit tight until MS have another sale on the black SP6. I’ve got the 2018 iPad here so...there’s something if I need to wait. I hope not though.
Don’t they still have that same Black Friday sale going? Maybe only at MS stores and not Best Buy? Not sure.
They both have the i5/8gb/256 black on sale for $1k that is more than plenty for what I would like to do with it. Just veering toward BB this morning for obvious reasons.
Costco has a deal on the bundles that include the pen and type cover for $1099, which is a good deal with the pen cost of $99 and the type cover $159.
But it seems that would only work out if Best Buy doesn't play along and you decide to go the refund route. That and they are back ordered until 3rd week of December
Great deal. You have to be a member of Costco right? Plus, I’d like to have something in the next week because digital art is so beneficial to my well being.Costco has a deal on the bundles that include the pen and type cover for $1099, which is a good deal with the pen cost of $99 and the type cover $159.
But it seems that would only work out if Best Buy doesn't play along and you decide to go the refund route. That and they are back ordered until 3rd week of December
I am okay with spending a bit over 1k to switch. A better deal would be amazing.
No dice on a Surface for me. The exchange went about $200 more than I wanted to pay. I could go $1300 but this was skirting $1500 without a warranty.
And I do not like the Surface pen at all. I felt lags.
My quibbles aside, I still think it’s a great line of products. Perhaps, I might have been swayed if BB had a Surface Studio 2 on display.
I did return the iPad Pro for a refund, so back to phone, iMac and a laptop I’ll ignore until I absolutely must use.
Will cut my loses and look for the 2018 iPad’s pencil (which frustratingly vanished in the last week). If I cannot find the pencil, I might try a Wacom Tablet and use my existing hardware until I cannot any more. At that point, I’ll decide what to do. I couldn’t see paying $800 for an iPad Pro given all the glitches in iOS.
And I do not like the Surface pen at all. I felt lags.
My quibbles aside, I still think it’s a great line of products. Perhaps, I might have been swayed if BB had a Surface Studio 2 on display.
I did return the iPad Pro for a refund, so back to phone, iMac and a laptop I’ll ignore until I absolutely must use.
Will cut my loses and look for the 2018 iPad’s pencil (which frustratingly vanished in the last week). If I cannot find the pencil, I might try a Wacom Tablet and use my existing hardware until I cannot any more. At that point, I’ll decide what to do. I couldn’t see paying $800 for an iPad Pro given all the glitches in iOS.
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I was picking up some new camera gear at BB today and decided to swing around to the various new tech I haven’t gotten to put hands on recently—Pixel 3/3 XL, Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop. All nice, but what impressed me the most was the Surface Studio 2 I stumbled upon when when circling to the back of the Surface demo area.
I have no need for the pen functionality but damn, it was great fun to use this machine standing in front of it, down in its ‘flattened’ orientation. I just navigated around the OS and various apps solely by touch and while I find doing the same on a smaller display (a la laptop/tablet) quite lackluster, can’t same this same thing about the experience on that big, beautiful display. Buttons and targets are much easier to touch.
I still think it’s terribly overpriced considering the class of CPU/GPUs on board and only a singular usb-c port without Thunderbolt 3. I also found the pen experience to be pleasant—softer with much more textured type feel when sliding across the display (not so much plastic on glass) but there is noticeable lag/latency vs. the iPP, at least to my untrained eye. All that being said, I’d kill for an iMac version of it.
That is interesting about the Surface Pen. I have not noticed any lag with mine on the Surface Pro 5. I don't recall Lisa Gade mentioning anything about lag. She said something about how she felt it was at least as good as Wacom AES.
I wonder if there was some issue with the particular unit, either the Surface or the Pen, that would be causing lag? Low battery in the pen maybe? Or some issue with how it was paired on a demo unit? Interference? Abused Demo Pen? Was it the current pen? Dunno.
All fair questions. All probable given the Microsoft setup at this Best Buy. For me, the touch was also lagging and that could also be the demo units. None of this was intuitive for me either - which was frustrating as all heck considering I know enough about Windows 10 to at least get around the desktop.
I suspect things would be different (or hope anyway) in a Microsoft store. I think it's great so many people here utterly love their Surface devices.
I was picking up some new camera gear at BB today and decided to swing around to the various new tech I haven’t gotten to put hands on recently—Pixel 3/3 XL, Surface Pro 6, Surface Laptop. All nice, but what impressed me the most was the Surface Studio 2 I stumbled upon when when circling to the back of the Surface demo area.
I have no need for the pen functionality but damn, it was great fun to use this machine standing in front of it, down in its ‘flattened’ orientation. I just navigated around the OS and various apps solely by touch and while I find doing the same on a smaller display (a la laptop/tablet) quite lackluster, can’t same this same thing about the experience on that big, beautiful display. Buttons and targets are much easier to touch.
I still think it’s terribly overpriced considering the class of CPU/GPUs on board and only a singular usb-c port without Thunderbolt 3. I also found the pen experience to be pleasant—softer with much more textured type feel when sliding across the display (not so much plastic on glass) but there is noticeable lag/latency vs. the iPP, at least to my untrained eye. All that being said, I’d kill for an iMac version of it.
Thanks for posting your tests with the SS2, I agree given the older specs. I would lose my stuff if Apple released an iMac version of the Surface Studio.
I am not sure I learned anything from this experience, outside of making a note that $650 is my maximum outlay for iPads and accessories/warranty. It was nice to at least get a look at the Surface (they are pretty cool). If I decide to give them another test run it will definitely be at the Microsoft store.
So, yeah, I m definitely not the person to look to for Surface testing and usage.
Hope everyone enjoys theirs.
I would say the answer to how it performs at the Microsoft Store fits into the "It depends" category. That isn't just for the Surface devices either.
The last time I was in there the Dell XPS 15 display was blinking rapidly. I mentioned "That's not a good sign" but they said it isn't typical and that those machines get abused by people from 10AM to 9PM every day, sometimes even dropped. Fair enough
. Also, things like the pens get paired with multiple machines because customers want to try the pen on the Surface Go, then the Surface Pro, then the Surface Laptop, then the SB 2. All without disassociating it with the previous models. You get the idea That said, you can set up a one-to-one type appointment with them where they will sit down with you and a freshly set up unit and go over the divide and any questions you have about it, including setting it up with the dock, external monitors, etc.
So yeah... it depends
The Microsoft Store also has Lenovo, Dell, Asus, Razer, Hauwei (sp?), MSI and a few other brands.
1 week in, the SL2 has been flawless so far. All fun. No brakes!
Definitely superior to any previous laptop I’ve had, and the most positive experience in personal computing since my past MacBook Air. Which was also very good. (My Old MBP was a boat anchor fwiw)
I really do like it, and plan to run the wheels off it. MS has come a long ways.
I have some trackpad concerns I need to look up but the rest has been gold. Incredibly powerful OS with too many options to count.
Gravy! Love it
Definitely superior to any previous laptop I’ve had, and the most positive experience in personal computing since my past MacBook Air. Which was also very good. (My Old MBP was a boat anchor fwiw)
I really do like it, and plan to run the wheels off it. MS has come a long ways.
I have some trackpad concerns I need to look up but the rest has been gold. Incredibly powerful OS with too many options to count.
Gravy! Love it
I've been using my Surface Pro 6 for nearly a week, it's a great machine that can do everything i want to do and could do on my old Mac and iPad Pro but all in one package, that for me is very impressive.
Have to chime in - I’m not surprised at kazmac’s experience with the laggy pen, I mentioned it here in my initial post in this thread re my SB2 (256gb version),
I wonder if the drive in the Surface device that kazmac experienced the slowdown was also, like mine, the 256gb version.