Microsoft Surface Pro 4 announced: "better in nearly every way" (The Verge)

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Stinkles said:
I upgraded and after a restart the Intel (8.1) display error is gone. Although weirdly it only started this morning, before I upgraded.

It does want me to reinstall Final Draft 8, but it seems to be working regardless. I will just keep using it until I lose a whole script because I ignored the polite warnings 15 or 16 times. And then blame it.
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Very good. :)

Steelyuhas said:
Still seeing the display driver crash. That's not going to be fixed by TH2, Intel needs to deliver updated drivers for Skylake processors.
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Hmm, yes. Is Intel usually this slow? Skylake has been out a while now.
Anyway, Microsoft should have been on top of this even before a release, this is not how a "premium" device should be launched.

Btw, when does the display driver crash most often happen? From what I read it is mostly in combination with Edge. Is this true?
I wont touch Edge until it has support for extensions, I cant stand having ads all over the place. Adblock is a must.

Mine should hopefully arrive next week, I believe the release date is 19 November here.
 
Xan Kriegor said:
There are lots of laptops that are really reliable for your needs. Ultrabooks get a lot of attention while from my experiemce, for college purposes and future proof CAD purposes, laptops are much better and cheaper. What you need to realize is that that the trackpads on Macbooks are great, but compare them to trackpads of Windows (10) devices of the same price and they're not that much better. As someone who has graduated from Architectural Engineering and currently studying Civil Engineering, having worked with MatrixFrame, Autocad, Archicad, Autocad Civil and Arkey, I advise you to not buy a Macbook Air (I owned one). I can't advise you to not not buy a Macbook Pro, that's personal. But, there are cheaper Windows bases devices that have good trackpads, great hardware with good build quality in general that are not worse than the MB Pro. Don't let your bad experiences with a certain Windows device form an opinion on Windows in general.
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I've never really used a MacBook so I'm not basing the trackpad on that. I had an old Toshiba and a sager that have trackpads that work. The one for the sp4 has issues with scrolling and left clicking which is very basic functionality. Maybe I just got a defective one.

I'll have to try updating Windows to see if it helps with anything. There are only some basic problems that are annoying that will probably get patched eventually. If the little annoyances get fixed, the sp4 is perfect for the price.
 
Stinkles said:
I upgraded and after a restart the Intel (8.1) display error is gone. Although weirdly it only started this morning, before I upgraded.

It does want me to reinstall Final Draft 8, but it seems to be working regardless. I will just keep using it until I lose a whole script because I ignored the polite warnings 15 or 16 times. And then blame it.
Click to expand...

I am performing the install on my SP4 now as I type on it. =]

The only real frustrating thing for me that still happens occasionally would be the display driver failing and then I loose my pen digitizer. Usually putting it in hibernate and reclogging in via pin fixes the issue.

--My latest accessory will be hopefully be coming in on Tuesday =D.
Microsoft Designer Bluetooth Mouse (slim Bluetooth one $24.02 + free sipping with my premier account!)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826105718


Still waiting for the incipio cases to be in stock.
 
Read a decent review that compared the i5 and core m3 versions, and reassured me that for general office and note taking use the m3 should be fine. Now to decide between the SP4 and iPad pro. I think the pen integration with one note might sway it towards the SP4, plus steam home streaming.
 
Luigi87 said:
Yeah older software with high DPI can be an issue.
I had the same issue with 3DS Max (as Autodesk hasn't updated that for high DPI yet, though Maya is).

I know you said you dread doing stuff like this, but this simple changed works.

http://www.danantonielli.com/adobe-app-scaling-on-high-dpi-displays-fix/
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Gosh that's a pretty horrible solution. It seems plainly ridiculous that Windows itself can't offer to override 'high res mode' for some applications in compatibility settings. I keep on seeing people blame the application creators, but it should be something that the user can define at an OS level.
 
I'm pretty torn on whether I want to swap it for the 8GB i5 version. It would be quite a hassle to take it back (as I'll have to install everything again), but the £230 extra might be good future proofing.

On one hand, this is probably too troublesome to use as my main PC, so maybe the 4GB is okay.
However, I don't want to be bumping into issues with RAM in a couple of years. The extra SSD space might be nice too.

edit:

thought about it for a while, and decided that I can't justify the price difference. This was already a luxury purchase.
I don't draw enough to make it worthwhile, and if I run into issues I can always sell this after a year or so and upgrade.
 
I've had a SP3 since July and then a SP4 since launch. Zero crashes.

Since the big Windows 10 update? 2 crashes. Spotify was acting all crazy last night and I got some blue screen that says Windows must restart.

This morning I hit the power button and it started to try to log me in with Windows Hello and it wouldn't confirm my face and then just crashed. I'll probably disable Windows Hello as I don't really use it.
 
dock said:
Gosh that's a pretty horrible solution. It seems plainly ridiculous that Windows itself can't offer to override 'high res mode' for some applications in compatibility settings. I keep on seeing people blame the application creators, but it should be something that the user can define at an OS level.
Click to expand...

In this case it is absolutely the developers fault. By default Windows will automatically auto-scale applications which are not DPI aware (ie. old or poorly coded applications). The issue here is that the Adobe applications are telling Windows that they are DPI aware (when they actually aren't), and so Windows defers to the application to handle the scaling and because it isn't implemented properly you end up with tiny GUI.
 
mrklaw said:
Read a decent review that compared the i5 and core m3 versions, and reassured me that for general office and note taking use the m3 should be fine. Now to decide between the SP4 and iPad pro. I think the pen integration with one note might sway it towards the SP4, plus steam home streaming.
Click to expand...

This was my dilemma like 3 weeks ago. I have a lot of Apple products, including an iPad Air 2 and wasn't sure if I wanted to go the Surface or iPad Pro route. I decided to get a SP4 and I'm really glad I did. Two of the things I've been using most are the Steam in home streaming and Xbox One streaming. Both have worked great. Ultimately for a device like this I decided I'd rather have something that runs a full blown OS vs something that runs what is still largely a mobile OS.
 
Futureman said:
I've had a SP3 since July and then a SP4 since launch. Zero crashes.

Since the big Windows 10 update? 2 crashes. Spotify was acting all crazy last night and I got some blue screen that says Windows must restart.

This morning I hit the power button and it started to try to log me in with Windows Hello and it wouldn't confirm my face and then just crashed. I'll probably disable Windows Hello as I don't really use it.
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I've had 2 crashes so far with my SP4, and they were when I was streaming Youtube video fullscreen.

Other than that, no real issues. Was streaming Steam games all weekend from my gaming PC using a wired 360 pad to my SP4. No issues at all, even with more twitchier games like DB Xenoverse. I have a AC wifi router, was streaming at 720p no problem, need to try at 1080p next.
 
Jeels said:
Any nice cases out there?
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en-EMEA-L-Ted-Baker-Microsoft-SP3-Leather-Style-Sleeve-Black-DAF-00593-RM6-mnco.jpg

I'm tempted by the Ted Baker one, but I'll probably opt for the Snugg ones from Amazon instead.
 
After much internal debate I decided to upgrade my SP3 to the SP4. Ended up being just over 2k Canadian with the cover for the 8GB/256GB option. I have 30 days to see if it's worth the upgrade for me. What made it a bit easier was that my wife gets to keep the SP3 for herself instead of always asking to borrow it.

After the first night of playing around it does seem like it's enough an upgrade for me though. I love the way the pen attaches now and I'm surprised how well it sticks. Drawing seems snappier although I didn't test side by side. However even in PS I noticed almost no lag.

The screen is also better and bigger without changing the footprint which is nice.

I'm going to see how well it does with my music production software next.

I have to say, the new covers are a huge improvement though. They feel better and the keys and trackpad are MUCH nicer.
 
I keep running into problems with the battery being used up while it's in sleep mode.

I believe this is a known bug? Is there any workaround for this other than to shut it down when I'm down with it? I tried setting it to hibernate, but I took it out of my bag a few hours later and it was warm and the battery totally gone. I didn't dare leave the house without my power supply.


It's frustrating that there's no option to change the resolution to 1368 x 912 (50% of the native res). This would be a really great resolution to work at, and would solve a lot of headaches with regards to software with bad DPI settings. Is there any way to make the surface pro display at this custom resolution?
 
dock said:
I keep running into problems with the battery being used up while it's in sleep mode.

I believe this is a known bug? Is there any workaround for this other than to shut it down when I'm down with it? I tried setting it to hibernate, but I took it out of my bag a few hours later and it was warm and the battery totally gone. I didn't dare leave the house without my power supply.
Click to expand...
Me too, is this a known bug? I find it pretty annoying, was expecting to be able to use it a bit like an iPad to pick up where I left off without that much battery drain.
 
dock said:
I keep running into problems with the battery being used up while it's in sleep mode.

I believe this is a known bug? Is there any workaround for this other than to shut it down when I'm down with it? I tried setting it to hibernate, but I took it out of my bag a few hours later and it was warm and the battery totally gone. I didn't dare leave the house without my power supply.


It's frustrating that there's no option to change the resolution to 1368 x 912 (50% of the native res). This would be a really great resolution to work at, and would solve a lot of headaches with regards to software with bad DPI settings. Is there any way to make the surface pro display at this custom resolution?
Click to expand...

Stryder said:
Me too, is this a known bug? I find it pretty annoying, was expecting to be able to use it a bit like an iPad to pick up where I left off without that much battery drain.
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n64coder said:
Ditto. This also affects the surface pro 3
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From what I've gathered it's a problem with Windows 10, not the Surface itself since one the Pro 3 there wasn't an issue until people upgraded to Windows 10. For me personally on my Pro 4 setting it to hibernate has basically solved the drain issue. Can keep it in hibernate and only see a drop of like 10% every 24 hours. Sleep mode was draining about 10% an hour by comparison.
 
Does anyone have en exact release date for Europe?

Saw that Swedish web shops said 19th here in Sweden, but some of them are changing it now.
 
Got the Shakes said:
From what I've gathered it's a problem with Windows 10, not the Surface itself since one the Pro 3 there wasn't an issue until people upgraded to Windows 10. For me personally on my Pro 4 setting it to hibernate has basically solved the drain issue. Can keep it in hibernate and only see a drop of like 10% every 24 hours. Sleep mode was draining about 10% an hour by comparison.
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yep, hibernate should fix battery drain issues. Takes about ~5 seconds longer to get to the desktop compared to sleep but it's worth it.

Set it so when you press the power button it goes into hibernate.
 
I've been itching to get a tablet to do the following on:

- sketch/draw/paint (Stylus is very important)
- view anime/tv/movies on
- read comics (I have a awesome e-reader for books already)

Now I've been researching so many things online and at the end of the day either the Android tablets that I wanted to get aren't available any longer or their OS isn't up to the newest build. What I would most likely have bought by now would have been the nVidia Shield Tablet 2 if it was out, because people really loved the first one and it would have been excellent for me if it got released around August/September as it was speculated. But alas....

I'm not an Apple fan, as I don't like the ecosystem that it has created, just my personal thoughts (which someone can rip me apart for if they need to) (I use to own an iTouch; GF has an iPad Air and I got parents an iPad, so I am more than familiar with the product line and Apple in general).

MS's Surface Pro is the next logical solution for me. What has been disappointing is that the Surface Pro 3 is almost the same high price as the new Surface Pro 4 here in Canada. So there is no reason to even look at the SP3, if all I would have to do is put down a few extra Canadian funny money to get a SP4.

The major issue for me with the SP4 (and I think I would look more at the M3 Processor - No fan) is the cost. $1200 here in Beaver Money. That's a lot of money.

I can get more use out of it though for work though, as well as use it for certain games and the like.

I guess, in the end, I am looking for people's suggestions for either another option for the SP4 M3 or help me wrap my head around the idea that I could get a solid 3-5 years owning a SP4 and get my moneys worth from it. Thanks folks!
 
Jinaar said:
I've been itching to get a tablet to do the following on:

- sketch/draw/paint (Stylus is very important)
- view anime/tv/movies on
- read comics (I have a awesome e-reader for books already)

Now I've been researching so many things online and at the end of the day either the Android tablets that I wanted to get aren't available any longer or their OS isn't up to the newest build. What I would most likely have bought by now would have been the nVidia Shield Tablet 2 if it was out, because people really loved the first one and it would have been excellent for me if it got released around August/September as it was speculated. But alas....

I'm not an Apple fan, as I don't like the ecosystem that it has created, just my personal thoughts (which someone can rip me apart for if they need to) (I use to own an iTouch; GF has an iPad Air and I got parents an iPad, so I am more than familiar with the product line and Apple in general).

MS's Surface Pro is the next logical solution for me. What has been disappointing is that the Surface Pro 3 is almost the same high price as the new Surface Pro 4 here in Canada. So there is no reason to even look at the SP3, if all I would have to do is put down a few extra Canadian funny money to get a SP4.

The major issue for me with the SP4 (and I think I would look more at the M3 Processor - No fan) is the cost. $1200 here in Beaver Money. That's a lot of money.

I can get more use out of it though for work though, as well as use it for certain games and the like.

I guess, in the end, I am looking for people's suggestions for either another option for the SP4 M3 or help me wrap my head around the idea that I could get a solid 3-5 years owning a SP4 and get my moneys worth from it. Thanks folks!
Click to expand...

Have you considered the non-pro Surface 3? It's still a full windows tablet, it's just cheaper, smaller, and less powerful than the pro.

If you're only looking to do iPad/Android level tasks then the Atom CPU shouldn't give you any problems. The Surface Pen is sold separately, but it will offer a much better drawing experience than an iPad Air or non-Note Android device.
 
Darkangel said:
Have you considered the non-pro Surface 3? It's still a full windows tablet, it's just cheaper, smaller, and less powerful than the pro.

If you're only looking to do iPad/Android level tasks then the Atom CPU shouldn't give you any problems. The Surface Pen is sold separately, but it will offer a much better drawing experience than an iPad Air or non-Note Android device.
Click to expand...

Nope, never thought of that. Let me do some research into that. Thanks for the idea!
 
Futureman said:
yep, hibernate should fix battery drain issues. Takes about ~5 seconds longer to get to the desktop compared to sleep but it's worth it.

Set it so when you press the power button it goes into hibernate.
Click to expand...

I have it set to hibernate when you press the power button or close the cover. Basically got rid sleep all together since it seems broken at the moment.
 
Darkangel said:
Have you considered the non-pro Surface 3? It's still a full windows tablet, it's just cheaper, smaller, and less powerful than the pro.

If you're only looking to do iPad/Android level tasks then the Atom CPU shouldn't give you any problems. The Surface Pen is sold separately, but it will offer a much better drawing experience than an iPad Air or non-Note Android device.
Click to expand...

* I was wrong
 
I've managed to fix all my problems with PaintToolSai now!

Also, I've been using Toolbar Creator to create some sort of hotkeys to help me use the problem when I'm detached from the keyboard. It's a fiddle to setup but seems like it might do everything I need.
 
SURFACE 3
$770 - Surface 3 - 128GB / 4GB RAM / WIFI
$80 - Microsoft Surface Pen
$160 - Surface 3 Type Cover
------------------------------------------
$1010 (or $1080 for Surface 3 Value Bundle with Carrying case and warranty)


SURFACE PRO 4
$1180 - Surface Pro 4 - 128GB / Intel Core m3 / 4GB RAM
$170 - Surface 4 Type Cover
$0 - Pen included
---------------------------------------------------------
$1350


SURFACE PRO 3
$960 - Refurbished Surface Pro 3 - 128GB / Intel Core i5 / 4GB RAM
$170 - Surface 4 Type Cover
$0 - Pen included
---------------------------------------------------------
$1130

And this is why these big companies can go burn in hell for all I care. I never want to know the markup all the accessories net them for revenue. All three products are so close to the same price. ARGHHHHHH!

http://www.parkablogs.com/picture/review-microsoft-surface-3-artists-and-drawing
- good write up for art software and how it performed on the SURFACE 3. Very good very good.

http://www.parkablogs.com/picture/review-microsoft-surface-pro-3-artists-and-drawing
- Surface Pro 3 review for art software
 
Question! (I'm mobile, so forgive my formatting issues)

I was set to go buy an iPad pro over lunch tomorrow, but I wanted some thoughts from surface pro users first.

I intend to use the device for:

Drawing
Reading comics
Excel and word
Light gaming (older titles, emulation, etc)

My concern with the surface is that to get a machine that can really handle photoshop adequately, I'd be spending more money than I really wanted. And drawing and comic reading are the two most important aspects of the device for me.

But that said, on the gaming side, I would hate for the machine to be super limited. I have a gaming desktop, so I'm not looking to play Fallout 4 on the go. But if I wanted to boot up Diablo 3, I would love for the machine not to stutter to a halt.

Any thoughts from folks who may have been in a similar situation recently?
 
I have no idea how you would be leaning iPad Pro if that's the stuff you want to do, get a SP4 with 8GB ram (for PhotoShop), enjoy life. New firmware update coming soon too, hopefully stamping out more issues.
 
Why are you going to have to spend way more for Photoshop? The i5 will be fine - not like the i7 will be hugely quicker, in ultrabooks they're all dual core anyway. It'll still be better at photoshop than an iPad.

Plus if you have a gaming desktop you can do steam home streaming and play your games on your surface pro
 
Given the speed at which MS is deploying fixes/features on W10, I expect stylus performance to improve even further in the not too distant future.
 
I was set to go buy an iPad pro over lunch tomorrow, but I wanted some thoughts from surface pro users first.

I intend to use the device for:

Drawing
Reading comics
Excel and word
Light gaming (older titles, emulation, etc)
Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of drawing on the iPad, and I bought an iPad mini 2 mostly to draw on Procreate with. However when the iPad Pro came around I considered it for a long time before deciding that the Surface Pro 4 is a much better option. The price is almost the same once you add the pen and keyboard (£40 more for the iPad Pro vs the SP4 i5)

Excel and Word are pretty bumpy on iOS devices imo, especially because the file management is so awful. I drove myself nuts trying to add a signature to a Word document via iOS a few days ago.

As for gaming, that's a tricky one. On one hand, iOS games are excellent, and I often play them on my iPad. In terms of emulators, however, the iPad is garbage, and can't easily connect to good games controllers.

I do some pretty high resolution artwork at 600dpi A4, and from my initial tests the Surface Pro 4 i5 seems to work pretty well. I'm using Photoshop CS1 to avoid all the headaches with shrunken GUI, but mostly I use Clip Studio and PaintTool Sai.

The iPad Pro will be an amazing experience for drawing, but I think it's a 1st gen device. I think it needs more time in the oven before it becomes something I'd want to get, and things like Force Touch could make a big difference in the future.
 
Animator said:
My bad I thought the regular surface 3 was RT as well.
Click to expand...
No worries, Windows RT was kind of a disaster from a marketing standpoint, and it's really not hard to see why someone would assume the non-Pro variant would continue that legacy without actually looking into the product.
 
nicoga3000 said:
Question! (I'm mobile, so forgive my formatting issues)

I was set to go buy an iPad pro over lunch tomorrow, but I wanted some thoughts from surface pro users first.

I intend to use the device for:

Drawing
Reading comics
Excel and word
Light gaming (older titles, emulation, etc)

My concern with the surface is that to get a machine that can really handle photoshop adequately, I'd be spending more money than I really wanted. And drawing and comic reading are the two most important aspects of the device for me.

But that said, on the gaming side, I would hate for the machine to be super limited. I have a gaming desktop, so I'm not looking to play Fallout 4 on the go. But if I wanted to boot up Diablo 3, I would love for the machine not to stutter to a halt.

Any thoughts from folks who may have been in a similar situation recently?
Click to expand...

I was on the fence between SP4 and iPad Pro too, for drawing and painting.
SP4 was my primary choice, but after tests I was disappointed in the drawing capabilities and decided to go for iPad Pro which is more accurate, doesn't have any jitter and picks even the lightest pressure (SP4 requires more force which feels a bit janky to me).

There's also the tilt function, which might be useful to you or not.
I find it at least more useful than with my Intuos, the Wacom pen just doesn't fit for tilting as the nib is miniscule.

iPad of course doesn't run Photoshop, I'm a long time PS user myself, but Procreate is pretty amazing with nice brushes, performance, touch gestures, etc. and supports .PSD files.
I haven't tried Adobe Sketch yet but it should be nice too, waiting for my own Pencil to arrive.

iPad is also good for comic reading, but for other uses like gaming, SP4 is better.

I don't know if MS can fix the stylus problems with software, I hope so but they never did with SP3 and same basic issues are still here. Might be a problem with the N-trig tech itself.
 
artsi said:
I was on the fence between SP4 and iPad Pro too, for drawing and painting.
SP4 was my primary choice, but after tests I was disappointed in the drawing capabilities and decided to go for iPad Pro which is more accurate, doesn't have any jitter and picks even the lightest pressure (SP4 requires more force which feels a bit janky to me).
Click to expand...
Which art programs were you using, and which version of the SP4? I haven't noticed any of these problems with my i5 with Clip Studio and Sai. (Sai took a lot of updates to fix pressure problems though). I haven't spent much time with Photoshop though, mostly due to me switching to CS1 due to UI issues.
 
dock said:
Which art programs were you using, and which version of the SP4? I haven't noticed any of these problems with my i5 with Clip Studio and Sai. (Sai took a lot of updates to fix pressure problems though). I haven't spent much time with Photoshop though, mostly due to me switching to CS1 due to UI issues.
Click to expand...

Photoshop and Sai, I think Clip Studio and Sai (or Photoshop with Lazy Nezumi plugin) are the best bets with SP4 as they can apply smoothing to the lines to compensate for the occasional jitter, but personally I don't like the latency (or rubberbanding effect) that kind of feature adds. Many still prefer them even with Wacom, though.

I use very delicate pressure a lot while painting to adjust size / opacity, so the heavier initial activation force of SP4 wasn't for me, didn't just feel like I had absolute control over the line. But not everyone is that sensitive to it, so it would be the best to actually test it before purchase.
 
Thanks for the information guys.

How well does the SP4 do with comics (CBR files)? Also, I'm assuming 8GB RAM is sort of the "minimum" for doing art and gaming? My coworker has the SP3, so I'm going to go play with his a bit now.
 
nicoga3000 said:
Thanks for the information guys.

How well does the SP4 do with comics (CBR files)? Also, I'm assuming 8GB RAM is sort of the "minimum" for doing art and gaming? My coworker has the SP3, so I'm going to go play with his a bit now.
Click to expand...

what kind of art do you do? how complex? lots of layers?

I have the core M3 SP4 and it works perfect for me with Photoshop. I generally have Photoshop, Chrome and Spotify open and never feel any sluggishness or unresponsiveness. I do some pretty basic line drawing and coloring though so I'm not being too demanding.
 
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