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I have an SP3. It is the best device I've bought in years.

I interact with the device in a fundamentally different way. I will sit and read a document with a pen and no keyboard (to proofread, highlight and makes notes). I'd tried this on ipad and it never fit in my workflow well.

I will use it to take notes at a meeting in OneNote. Again, the ipad workflow never worked for me for this.

The benefits definitely aren't for everyone. But it fits me perfectly, and I wouldn't go back from it now. Its probably at least a year before I upgrade (I also have a desktop for heavy lifting). I'm feeling the pinch of the older SP3 cpu a bit on some of the work I do, but not enough to warrant an upgrade yet. If I had money to throw around, I'd get the new one as a drop in upgrade without a second thought.

volkk|8 years ago

OOC, can you explain why the iPad workflow has never worked for those things you mentioned? Seems like one of its core intended designs is taking notes/reading documents much like an actual notebook

nrki|8 years ago

The form-factor is pretty amazing. The portability is very good. The performance is also very good within the above two factors.

The problem is the software and features:

- Windows 10 is a known factor, and it constantly frustrates.

- No Thunderbolt or USB-C is ridiculous in 2017.

I'd like to see Microsoft releasing Linux drivers for the Surface Pro. If they really love Linux enough to support it on Azure, they should support it everywhere. (I know, they support it on Azure to compete with AWS and Googs)

monochromatic|8 years ago

I've pretty much gotten used to Windows 10 at this point, and there are even a couple of minor UI tweaks that I miss when I use my Windows 7 machine at work. What frustrates you?

apapli|8 years ago

My pro 4 works perfectly fine. I'm just a desktop apps junkie (sales mainly) and so there is no real reason to upgrade. That said the new pen's deeper resolution is impressive, as I switched (primarily) from Evernote to OneNote and haven't looked back. (I still pay for Evernote, now it is purely for legacy info).

vezycash|8 years ago

Microsoft built an Evernote-OneNote import tool.

killjoywashere|8 years ago

I have an iPad pro, a MacBook, and a Surface Pro. I carry the MacBook and the iPad. The surface is too hot, cooks off battery too fast, the screen is small, the UI for the desktop app I use has icons too small to Target with the pen. The charger is janky.

nogridbag|8 years ago

I realize by "too hot" you were mainly talking about how it affects battery life. But I thought I'd add that I have a 15" Macbook Pro (work) and a Surface Book (home) and at times I find the MBP's keyboard almost unusable as it generates so much heat I can barely touch the keys. I've resorted to using third party apps to run the fans at higher speeds earlier to try and mitigate this. One of the features I love about the Surface devices is that the CPU is in the display and thus the keyboard never gets hot.

This new Surface Pro supposedly has longer battery life and the core i5 is fanless. We'll see how it translates to actual real world usage in future reviews hopefully.

sebtoast|8 years ago

In my case, I wouldn't upgrade just for the sake of upgrading to a newer device since the ones we have are still doing the job, maybe parent poster is in the same boat.

apapli|8 years ago

You got it in one. I'm very happy with my pro4, so no need to upgrade. It is perfect for meetings and quickly doing work on the move. I will never[1] go back to a standard laptop, my desktop does the heavy lifting.

[1] Never say never, but it is a pretty big improvement!

arrty88|8 years ago

As an apple fan who gave the surface 3 pro (with surface 4 keyboard) a try, yes you can mix and match the keyboards, I didn't end up keeping it long. My MacBook Air's keyboard and touchpad was much superior to the surface and I found coding on the tiny surface cumbersome.

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