Microsoft Surface

Kurrelgyre wrote:
cartoonin99 wrote:

That is a great price point to get people into the Surface line. I think I will pick up a Surface Pro 3 next year, since I would rather have an i7 instead of the Atom processor in the regular Surface 3. Factory refurbs, FTW! ;)

Unless you're going to blow air on it with a fan or just use it for "bursty" work, it'll be throttling a lot. There's just not a lot of air flow to cool a CPU that's running hot in a casing that slim.

I haven't had any issues whatsoever with my MS refurb Surface Pro, even when playing games through Steam. It has an i5 and I have had nary a hiccup. Granted I am not using the machine for creating spreadsheets and I generally only have 3 or so tabs open at a time, even with another program or 2 running in the background, so I may not be exactly taxing it.

cartoonin99 wrote:

I haven't had any issues whatsoever with my MS refurb Surface Pro, even when playing games through Steam. It has an i5 and I have had nary a hiccup. Granted I am not using the machine for creating spreadsheets and I generally only have 3 or so tabs open at a time, even with another program or 2 running in the background, so I may not be exactly taxing it.

The SP3 form factor and internals are radically different from its predecessors.

Is that so?

That is a curious design choice then. I am assuming since they wanted a thinner profile?

It's noticeably thinner and lighter than previous generations, despite the larger screen. The weight is also distributed through the whole body pretty evenly.

I'm hoping to pick up the i7 256g one in the next few weeks. Would be nice to find a deal. I want the type keyboard. I wont be getting the dock but may pick up a few adapters for assorted connections, USB, power etc.

Quick question. My girlfriend is asking what Surface Pro 3 to get for work. Mostly document and email stuff but her Outlook inbox has bogged down some of the laptops her work has given her in the past (IP law). Would the i5 8BG be sufficient or should she just go all out and get an i7?

After doing a bunch of review searching I'm heading towards the i5 myself. I've read the i7 isn't going to add a ton of performance for what Ineed it for. Comared to what your wife will be using it for Iplan on also using it for photoshop and lightroom in addition to what your wife is doing.
I foudn a few reveiws saying that the i5 will do these tasks easily and that the battery will last longer and not heat up as much as the i7.

Note I don't have one yet.

It probably wouldn't benefit much from the i7 but it would benefit from bigger storage. I have seen many 20+ GB inboxes so 64GB probably would not cut it.

OK, I think i5 is a safe bet then, especially if heat is an issue with the i7. The 250GB SSD on 8GB ram version should cover all her work stuff.

I've also been eyeing the Asus T300Chi.

Anyone with a Surface Pro 3 i5 or i7, how is your battery life? The Chi reports 8 hours but real life testing can get up to about 6. The reports I'm reading online say teh SP3 gets to about 4 hours.

thoughts?

EvilDead wrote:

OK, I think i5 is a safe bet then, especially if heat is an issue with the i7. The 250GB SSD on 8GB ram version should cover all her work stuff.

They're not playing any storage squeezing tricks on it to reduce the installation footprint like it does on the 16/32GB Atom-powered devices.

Best Buy's running an in-store trade-up deal through this Saturday.

Kurrelgyre wrote:
EvilDead wrote:

OK, I think i5 is a safe bet then, especially if heat is an issue with the i7. The 250GB SSD on 8GB ram version should cover all her work stuff.

They're not playing any storage squeezing tricks on it to reduce the installation footprint like it does on the 16/32GB Atom-powered devices.

Best Buy's running an in-store trade-up deal through this Saturday.

It will be a company provided unit so that wouldn't matter. If they did that with the non-pro model that would be awfully tempting for me to take advantage of though (later this year when I have more spending money).

I'm tempted to trade in my "old" Surface RT for the Surface 3, especially since Microsoft will give me $100 for it with the type cover.

Surface 3 reviews all sound positive - obviously I have been limping along with RT so I don't need a super powerful tablet. Anyone else considering it?

T-Prime wrote:

I'm tempted to trade in my "old" Surface RT for the Surface 3, especially since Microsoft will give me $100 for it with the type cover.

Surface 3 reviews all sound positive - obviously I have been limping along with RT so I don't need a super powerful tablet. Anyone else considering it?

I'm at MS Ignite and it launched today at the store at the expo. Seems to be selling briskly

TheGameguru wrote:
T-Prime wrote:

I'm tempted to trade in my "old" Surface RT for the Surface 3, especially since Microsoft will give me $100 for it with the type cover.

Surface 3 reviews all sound positive - obviously I have been limping along with RT so I don't need a super powerful tablet. Anyone else considering it?

I'm at MS Ignite and it launched today at the store at the expo. Seems to be selling briskly

Any hints when the pro 4 will launch?

T-Prime wrote:

Surface 3 reviews all sound positive - obviously I have been limping along with RT so I don't need a super powerful tablet. Anyone else considering it?

It's still pretty pricey once you add the separately sold pen and keyboard, and then probably go for the higher-end model, but charging by microUSB is such a nice change.

So I finally updated my Surface RT and gave it some love and attention after not using it for months (the last time I updated it was in November!) and it's absolutely stupid how quick this runs. It was a dual-issue where Windows wasn't fully updated, and the little 32GB Surface was trying to download and sync my entire 30GB OneDrive. Once I disabled syncing and told it to keep files online only, this thing is (relatively) fast again. Makes for a solid Netflix/Hulu machine.

I have an original RT as well and most of the time it's pretty fast. It is definitely a nice netflix/hulu machine. It's also great for meetings and in the car. Too bad we won't get full Windows 10 (though I understand why).

I really like my Surface Pro 3 but it is basically a laptop. In fact I never use it as a tablet, it's too big and clunky. And its app store is an absolute wasteland compared to iTunes. But since it acts as a laptop, I don't need apps because internet (and Steam!).

The problem with RT is that it doesn't have the strengths of the Pro. The iPad is a good Netflix/Hulu machine too but with access to a gazillion great apps as well.

I love my Surface Pro 3 - especially at work. I use it as a tablet all the time - love the ability to take notes digitally, but using handwriting. The ability to create old school notebooks with sections and pages within sections made me a huge OneNote user. I wish the apps werent so sparse and in some cases non-existent, it doesnt need a bunch of app because - well you know - Windows. Upgraded it to Windows 10 and I love what they have done with it.

I'm also please with the Win10 upgrade on the surface. I just wish it had come with more configuration options for the pen buttons.

Does the Surface Hub app no longer handle that?

I'm pretty sure it never did what I wanted it to do (i.e., reconfigure the side buttons).

I upgraded a Surface Pro 3 to Win10 and am having a couple of issues. I am using it without a keyboard cover. Just using touch and/or stylus for OneNote only at home. I use a dock at work.

1. The touch keyboard doesn't always pop up when I touch a text entry field.

2. When it does, roughly half of the time the writing input pops up instead of the full keyboard even though the last time I selected the full keyboard.

Are these bugs, or settings I'm just missing somewhere?

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Does the Surface Hub app no longer handle that?

The top button on the pen doesn't launch OneNote anymore. Oddly, double-clicking launches the OneNote clipper. I haven't tried switching to the desktop version.

Double-post

PaladinTom wrote:

1. The touch keyboard doesn't always pop up when I touch a text entry field.

This was an issue for me from time to time in Windows 8.1 as well. I'm not convinced it's specifically a Win10 issue (timing aside). if anything for me it's been better.

PaladinTom wrote:

2. When it does, roughly half of the time the writing input pops up instead of the full keyboard even though the last time I selected the full keyboard.

From what I've experienced, it's going to pop out the pen input if you've used the pen recently as a pointing device. I've never had the pen-writing input pop up instead of the touch keyboard if I had been using mostly touch. If you're frequently alternating pen/touch then I can imagine that you're running afoul of some delay (hidden in the registry?).

PaladinTom wrote:

I upgraded a Surface Pro 3 to Win10 and am having a couple of issues. I am using it without a keyboard cover. Just using touch and/or stylus for OneNote only at home. I use a dock at work.

1. The touch keyboard doesn't always pop up when I touch a text entry field.

2. When it does, roughly half of the time the writing input pops up instead of the full keyboard even though the last time I selected the full keyboard.

Are these bugs, or settings I'm just missing somewhere?

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Does the Surface Hub app no longer handle that?

The top button on the pen doesn't launch OneNote anymore. Oddly, double-clicking launches the OneNote clipper. I haven't tried switching to the desktop version.

Are you in tablet mode? Also the pop-up keyboard does seem to require you to select in the right hand corner more often than not. I haven't played with the responsiveness in tablet mode, but I do notice it asks me if I want to be in tablet mode quite a bit and I usually say no. Something to try at least.

SpyNavy wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

I upgraded a Surface Pro 3 to Win10 and am having a couple of issues. I am using it without a keyboard cover. Just using touch and/or stylus for OneNote only at home. I use a dock at work.

1. The touch keyboard doesn't always pop up when I touch a text entry field.

2. When it does, roughly half of the time the writing input pops up instead of the full keyboard even though the last time I selected the full keyboard.

Are these bugs, or settings I'm just missing somewhere?

Kurrelgyre wrote:

Does the Surface Hub app no longer handle that?

The top button on the pen doesn't launch OneNote anymore. Oddly, double-clicking launches the OneNote clipper. I haven't tried switching to the desktop version.

Are you in tablet mode? Also the pop-up keyboard does seem to require you to select in the right hand corner more often than not. I haven't played with the responsiveness in tablet mode, but I do notice it asks me if I want to be in tablet mode quite a bit and I usually say no. Something to try at least.

I did try both modes, but the behavior was the same. What do you mean the "right hand corner?" I thought corner shortcuts were removed in Win10?

Also, taking Typos advice seems to work. I played with it for a few minutes last night without the stylus and the keyboard popped up every time.

Lastly, continuum doesn't seem to work in Win10 when going back and forth from no keyboard to a Surface dock with usb mouse/keyboard. It doesn't switch modes automatically nor does it ask me depending on the settings I've tried. Oh well.

Yeah I didn't have issues for the keyboard popping up to windows 10 occurred. It's also not switching from tablet mode properly when the keyboard is plugged in when I turn it on. So bit annoyed with 10 so far. Otherwise I do really like the desktop mode for it.

All my wifi issues... solved?

I had been having recurring issues with keeping my surface connected to the wifi, especially streaming (e.g., twitch or youtube). Wifi would drop I'd toggle the basic widnows fix my wifi troubleshooter, it would work again for a few minutes, I'd reboot, we'd do that dance for a while then it would be fine for a few days and we'd do it over.

Didn't seem like any of the firmware fixes did anything.

The Surface Pro 3 uses a Marvell AVASTAR Wireless AC chip. I had read somewhere (probably on some long buried reddit thread) that this was a somewhat "fussy" chip that really worked best when the router is set to directly (and potentially only?) support Wireless AC. I guess it doesn't work well under older standards.

My router was a Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH2, by all accounts a fine router and had worked really well with all my devices, but it's a wireless N.

I had been meaning to upgrade anyway so I made sure to get a solid AC router (an Asus RT-AC68U, a really positively rated AC router).

Going on two weeks since the change, and I've had no issues whatsoever (all it took was a $180 router.... *sigh*).