Quoting myself 'cause I guess it was a fluke.
After nine more hours, down to 47%, and it didn't wake from sleep.
Oh well...
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 announced: "better in nearly every way" (The Verge)
- Thread starter Anton Sugar
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Quoting myself 'cause I guess it was a fluke.
After nine more hours, down to 47%, and it didn't wake from sleep.
Oh well...
Plumbago now available.
It's a handwritten simple note taker that was creating by the Microsoft Garage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFAfaFdXFWg
It's a handwritten simple note taker that was creating by the Microsoft Garage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFAfaFdXFWg
brotkasten
Member
Why is this not part of OneNote? Seems very redundant.
Probably wanted to simplify notebook. Reminds me of courier.
brotkasten
Member
It just seems like any other note app, except with a worse looking UI. And I don't see the Courier resemblance at all. The comparison would make sense if it had a split viewing browser support.
Then it's not for you. *shrugs*
I'm just happy that there are new apps appearing. You look at iOS and there are dozens of apps like this. Windows store is a wasteland.
I think there is merit for having a "simpler" note app than one note. As a heavy one note user though I wouldn't bother unless exporting to one note was easy
Shogmaster
Member
OneNote is vector based. This looks raster based from playing around for a minute.
Anton Sugar
Member
So my SP3 just bricked randomly the other day. Wouldn't turn on at all, even trying all the different button combos.
Took it to MS store and, since it was still under warranty, they replaced it immediately. Yay!
Got the replacement home, got it all set up. But...once the fan kicked into overdrive, it was making a constant buzzing.
Took it to the MS store and they replaced it.
Got the second replacement home, and it was fine...for five minutes. Now it's not detecting my SP3 type cover at all. In addition, I noticed that it has the dreaded vertical strip of yellow discoloration on the left side of the screen.
Sigh. I wonder if I can badger them to upgrade me to an SP4.
Took it to MS store and, since it was still under warranty, they replaced it immediately. Yay!
Got the replacement home, got it all set up. But...once the fan kicked into overdrive, it was making a constant buzzing.
Took it to the MS store and they replaced it.
Got the second replacement home, and it was fine...for five minutes. Now it's not detecting my SP3 type cover at all. In addition, I noticed that it has the dreaded vertical strip of yellow discoloration on the left side of the screen.
Sigh. I wonder if I can badger them to upgrade me to an SP4.
You can. They are pretty good about making things right. Really depends on the person you are working with.
I didn't realise hibernation battery drain was an issue. I've not had any issues with mine hibernating.
Shogmaster
Member
Looks like they went full retard on the thiness, using USB-C and forcing a giant "dock" hub on you to carry. Also, Verge is fucking useless as usual not asking who's digitizer the pen uses. But from the description, it looks like Wacom AES (i.e. 2048 levels pressure).
I guess the star of the tablet is the thinness, but along with it comes awkward port hub and the uselss looking soft stand and keyboard, Also the $699 starting price is a bit high based on the competition.
In fact, I think you can do much better if you get past the anorexic persuasion and go with something that is already out like the HP Pavilion X2 12 if you want a bargain Surface Pro clone.
It actually has a functional keyboard dock that effectively turns it into a laptop and is $100 less with basically the same innards (Core M, SATA M.2 SDD, Wacom AES etc). The only thing you give up is resolution but 1920x1280 is just about perfect for a 12" anyways with no UI scaling needed. And you get full size USB-A port along with USB-C and uHDMI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZjo_Rdo9Po
I bought the top end Surface Pro 4 and I love it. There are however odd quirks that make me think they haven't really reached Apple levels of user experience smoothness - e. g. I get a "Intel display driver has crashed" notification every now and then, and sometimes when bringing the device out of hibernation it has completely restarted and the previous boot state is lost.
What really annoys me though is the terrible battery life, I get maybe 3 hours at medium brightness and moderate use - browsing, text processing, music. I wasn't expecting 10 hours+ but at least something to keep up with my old Macbook Air. Oh well.
What really annoys me though is the terrible battery life, I get maybe 3 hours at medium brightness and moderate use - browsing, text processing, music. I wasn't expecting 10 hours+ but at least something to keep up with my old Macbook Air. Oh well.
Did you update it with the update that came out last week? I should fix those issues.
BeforeU
Oft hope is born when all is forlorn.
3hr for that use case? That doesnt seem right. You should get close to 6 at least. May be consider get it replaced? Or let it charge few time.
Against my own better judgement, I bought an SP4 i5 256GB model during launch.
It has been the worst device I've ever bought, bar none. Nothing worked right on this thing, and it hasn't gotten any better.
The screen has yellow glow blobs along the bottom edge, after a few weeks some other blobs started showing, these pressure point blobs, like when you would press a screen too hard.
I had all the possible software issues that were reported. Fan kicking in, screen not responding, pen failing, device crashing, bad drivers etc..
On top of that, I was expecting this device to be able to deliver some power, like at least be OK with me coding and doing some photoshop work on an external 4k monitor and an external 1080p monitor, but all it does is struggle, be sluggish and blow those fans like crazy.
It's just a terrible, terrible device and I can't wait to RMA it once I'm back in Belgium.
I donated it to my wife, who uses it for light browsing and emails.
It has been the worst device I've ever bought, bar none. Nothing worked right on this thing, and it hasn't gotten any better.
The screen has yellow glow blobs along the bottom edge, after a few weeks some other blobs started showing, these pressure point blobs, like when you would press a screen too hard.
I had all the possible software issues that were reported. Fan kicking in, screen not responding, pen failing, device crashing, bad drivers etc..
On top of that, I was expecting this device to be able to deliver some power, like at least be OK with me coding and doing some photoshop work on an external 4k monitor and an external 1080p monitor, but all it does is struggle, be sluggish and blow those fans like crazy.
It's just a terrible, terrible device and I can't wait to RMA it once I'm back in Belgium.
I donated it to my wife, who uses it for light browsing and emails.
I dunno, I think that's kind of cool. I really like that it's lighter than my iPad 3. Weight is one of the main reasons that I've been putting off getting a surface. I've got wrist problems so maybe this is what I need.
That price is pretty high though, $999 for for the m5 8GB 256GB version. Yeesh, I could get the i5 surface for that price with the recent Microcenter sale.
That's... Yikes.
Anton Sugar
Member
Didn't have any such luck. They offered a trade-in, which was something like $215 (i5 128gb 4gb RAM), plus could take another $100 off, but the equivalent SP4 would still be nearly $600 for me.
Meanwhile, the replacement SP3 (my third replacement, and fourth SP3 in about a year's time) also had the strip of yellow discoloration on the left side of the screen :-| It was their last replacement, though, so I am using it until some new ones come in.
Sucks some of you are having lots of issues. I'm glad the only thing I've had to deal with is using hibernate instead of sleep due to excessive battery drain w/ sleep.
I can echo the "3 hours battery life" above. Though I typically use 75% brightness and I'm always using Photoshop which probably hogs a lot of battery.
I can echo the "3 hours battery life" above. Though I typically use 75% brightness and I'm always using Photoshop which probably hogs a lot of battery.
That sucks. It sounds like the device is stuck using the Basic Display Driver instead of the Intel graphics driver or something. You should've returned it or exchanged it ASAP.
Anton Sugar
Member
To be fair, my first SP3 was great for a year before it bricked. I've just had nothing but issues with my replacements. MS Store rep said that's particularly strange, because replacements are supposed to have pretty rigorous quality control :-|
Apparently external monitor not waking up after sleep is a common issue since the update:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/46uquq/after_217_update_problems_with_dock_and_external/
So apparently they fixed the SP4 screen not waking up after sleep by breaking the external monitor connection.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/46uquq/after_217_update_problems_with_dock_and_external/
So apparently they fixed the SP4 screen not waking up after sleep by breaking the external monitor connection.
Urgh, Just reached into my bag where my Surface Pro 4 was, and noticed my carry case was very warm, and the fan was on. I have no idea why! There were no apps running, so I'm guessing I must have had a restart scheduled for this morning. 
Now my battery is down to 40%, I'm so glad I had my charger with me!
I really hate it when laptops/tablets turn themselves on in my bag.
Aside from that, I picked up this cheap bluetooth mouse for my SP4, and it's been really excellent. Highly recommended.
Now my battery is down to 40%, I'm so glad I had my charger with me! I really hate it when laptops/tablets turn themselves on in my bag.
Aside from that, I picked up this cheap bluetooth mouse for my SP4, and it's been really excellent. Highly recommended.
flaxknuckles
Member
No because that would need new hardware. Surface Pro 5 should definitely have it though (along with better latency) because I don't see Microsoft being okay with being showed up by Apple.
Urgh, Just reached into my bag where my Surface Pro 4 was, and noticed my carry case was very warm, and the fan was on. I have no idea why! There were no apps running, so I'm guessing I must have had a restart scheduled for this morning.
I really hate it when laptops/tablets turn themselves on in my bag.
Aside from that, I picked up this cheap bluetooth mouse for my SP4, and it's been really excellent. Highly recommended.
My SP3 used to do this to me every now and again. Just turn on in my bag. Drove me crazy
Dr. Benton Quest
Banned
Does something like this exist just for art?
I'd rather not spend 500+ bucks when all i need is a portable digital sketchbook.
I'd rather not spend 500+ bucks when all i need is a portable digital sketchbook.
Charles Brandon
Member
iPad pro? But that's not cheap either.
la flama blanca
Banned
Just checked out the ipad pro, seems like that may be for you.
Yeah, why spend 500+ when you could spend 1000?
la flama blanca
Banned
Shit wow, didn't know it was that expensive lol
flaxknuckles
Member
It isn't. The base model is $800
Kinda need the Apple Pencil ($100) if you want to actually do art like he said.
And then of course, 32GB of storage is a joke especially if you're working on a lot of high-resolution art assets. So that's an extra $150 if you want the next step up (128GB)
So really you're looking at $1050 before tax.
And then if you want the keyboard cover, it's $40 more expensive than the Surface Type Cover, which is hilarious considering that the iPad Pro Smart Keyboard seems like a piece of shit.
flaxknuckles
Member
Or $950 total if you get the ipad pro 128gb from ebay and the pencil from best buy. But yeah it's basically $1000 lol.
EDIT: And yeah that keyboard is friggin horrible. I tried it at the Apple Store and it should really cost $5 because it has worse quality than the cheapest of keyboards you can buy on Amazon. I bought a $35 keyboard case with adjustable angles from Amazon for my ipro instead.
Joel Was Right
Member
So many problems. I'm surprised there isn't more outrage over this.
I sketched a fair amount on my ipad mini 2 in procreate, so that's always an option for simple works. After using a good stylus and windows software (basically Clip Studio Paint) on the SP4, I haven't wanted to go back.
In terms of budget SP4 alternatives, you might find something on the SurfaceProArtist year round up. The Toshiba Encore 2 Write at <$400 might suit your needs, and if you find yourself using it lots you could consider moving to a Surface Pro later down the line.
Funky Papa
FUNK-Y-PPA-4
I just toyed around with this at the MWC.
It is very nicely built and the pen is really, really nice, but the keyboard is SHIT. Keys are stupidly huge and it flexes like a mofo. Then there's also the thing about not including neither the pen nor the keyboard, which is some serious fuckery at that price range/specs. At least Huawei throws a type-c adapter with it.
Still, a very nice first attempt from Huawei. Dell and HP only wish the could have been that good their first time around.
Edit: Let me ask around about the digitizer.
Oh god that keyboard is a instant no from me, I want more Surface Pro competitors but this isn't one of them...
'Just' a portable sketchbook but you'll want a nice size canvas,a quality stylus, a good quality screen and a fast enough processor so you don't have lag when sketching.
That isn't cheap.
Three suggestions but still not super cheap
1) Microsoft surface 3. Still runs full Windows and supports the stylus, but uses an atom processor, has a smaller screen, and you need to buy the stylus separately
2) iPad Air 3 might possibly add pencil support and Apple should be announcing it in a couple of weeks so worth holding on for that just in case. Smaller screen but would otherwise be great.
3) wildcard - WiiU or even 3DS. Weird but you can use art academy as a sketching tool on the WiiU gamepad and it's pretty fun. Very limited scope though as you literally can only use that app.
For super serious work or something just average for on the go drawing? Check out the Cube i7.
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