Microsoft Surface |OT| - Style, Performance, and Creativity in a Variety of Windows 10 Hardware

So I had to satisfy my curiosity so I picked up a Go 8GB from Micro-center.
It's pretty decent, if I had not just gotten a 2017 Pro I could have most likely kept this had I bought it first.

I only have a few problems.

• With the pro, I can put it on my lap in tent mode and use the onscreen swipe keyboard (it needs improvement) good enough to do most browser actions. On the go, the screen is too small with desktop apps or RDP and the keyboard just get's in the way.
• The thing get's hot pretty damn fast and it is not like I am doing much on it.
• The battery life is only about 5 hours in my testing.
• I can output to a single monitor just fine but going to two is laggy.
• The palm detection is worse than the pro, I end up hitting things by accident.

It's a great little thing, but in a world where I picked up the pro for 100 bucks more than I paid for this and the cover I just can't justify keeping it. I sure hope they keep making these as it is very close to what I want.

My Surface Pro 6 i5 256gb shipped this morning, and will arrive tomorrow. I also picked up a fast 256gb microsd card as extra storage. I already have a 2017 pen and SP4 type cover so I'm sorted. I'll post up impressions when I get it.

Anyone else order an SP6?

Got my SP6! It's really nice.

Screen is a good improvement over the SP4, and much snappier loading too.

Gaming is unsurprisingly lacklustre so far. Dead Esther works fine, Subnautica chugs, and Forza Horizon 4 said no thanks (spins forever on one of the loading screens).

Yeah, the surface is my main machine.

I have the 8GB SP6, the 4GB SP4 and an Alienware Alpha R2. The Alienware machine sits under my TV as a console.

I'm really impressed at the improved pen responsiveness. The black finish is nicer than I expected, and they even put black inside all the ports and vents.

how cheap do the older gen surface tablets go for? I wouldn't mind grabbing one for sketching

Greigor the FellHand said:

how cheap do the older gen surface tablets go for? I wouldn't mind grabbing one for sketching

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I would expect the series 5 to have a chunk lopped off it in Amazon Black Friday.

My SP6 is treating me well.

I'm struggling on this at the moment.

I've been reading some in-depths on the SP6 which touch on some topics that are sad to hear. The throttling is still quite aggressive on the i5, a necessary evil of the fanless design. That I can roll with. What is more concerning is that the SSD aspect is of a considerably lower performance than the SP5. Now that is quite sad.

With the lack of USB-C, I'm seriously considering grabbing a student SP5. It is just under £1k and i feel I lose pretty much nothing from it.

Yeah, it's a really dull revision. The only exciting thing about it at all are the 2 extra cores. For a normal browsing/office work experience there is no reason not to just save money and get a SP5.

I'm toying between that and the HP Elite X2 1013. The latter looks like a real solid machine. Not saying the surface doesn't.

dock said:

My SP6 is treating me well.

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That black /red combo is a very satisfying contrast. Nice!

Still rocking an SP4 here and home and while I'd really like to upgrade sometimes soon, it's hard to justify. It's amazing how resource intensive even web apps are nowadays and it'll definitely bring this machine to a crawl on occasion.

Rocking I7 8GB SP4 and it still flies. I've been careful on what I install and try to use the MS Store as much as possible.

I'm debating trying to sell my 10.5inch iPad Pro and switch to the surface pro 6. What's the feedback on it so far? Pen capabilities the same as the Apple Pencil?

Is there a marvel unlimited app?

J-Wood said:

I'm debating trying to sell my 10.5inch iPad Pro and switch to the surface pro 6. What's the feedback on it so far? Pen capabilities the same as the Apple Pencil?

Is there a marvel unlimited app?

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Current Surface Pen is not as comfortable as the 1st gen Apple Pencil, but it's magnetic and has FAR longer lasting battery. There is no Marvel Unlimited app, you have to use the website on a browser, and honestly, that's how almost everything is gonna be on the Surface; including Youtube.

What do you currently use the 10.5 for? Depending on what you use it for, it could be either an upgrade or downgrade depending on what you are looking for.

WillyFive said:

Current Surface Pen is not as comfortable as the 1st gen Apple Pencil, but it's magnetic and has FAR longer lasting battery. There is no Marvel Unlimited app, you have to use the website on a browser, and honestly, that's how almost everything is gonna be on the Surface; including Youtube.

What do you currently use the 10.5 for? Depending on what you use it for, it could be either an upgrade or downgrade depending on what you are looking for.

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I'd say myTube is a quite capable YouTube app. Doesn't support resolutions > 1080p (due to API limitations, I guess), but apart from that, it's great.

fourfourfun said:

What is more concerning is that the SSD aspect is of a considerably lower performance than the SP5.

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Update: the 256GB variant of the i5 is 30% faster than the 128GB. That's quite the difference.

Basically my choice in machine now comes down to:

SD Card capability vs. USB-C Thunderbolt (plus £££ on a big SSD version)

I'm erring towards the latter as I can get an external drive if desperate. I cannot put Thunderbolt in separately.

Howdy folks, just got a quick query and would like to hear people's experiences.

I am planning on either getting a Go or Pro in the coming weeks, and atm I'm leaning towards the Go, but I would like to be able to use the machine to play some of my more basic Steam library. The one game outside of that I would like to run well is Overwatch. I'll perfectly fine with ultra low settings, I would just like to know in people's personal experience, how Overwatch runs on the Go or the Pro?

Surface Go LTE 128GB
Coming Soon $679.00 November 20, 2018. https://www.bestbuy.com/site/microsoft-surface-go-10-128gb-silver/6314372.p?skuId=6314372
Was hinted at on r/Reddit that it was gonna be listed soon and here it is

I only hope that the GO is successful enough that they put out a version next year with a better CPU. I really really want one but the battery life on the go is absurd.

I weighed things up and went for the HP Elite 1013 in the end. In a showdown between that (no SD card), Surface (no USB-C) and a Thinkpad (got everything but christ it is hulky)--the lack of SD card became less of a deciding factor for me. I've gone for 512GB, so I should be sorted for the interim. By the time 1TB SSD becomes a thing, I'll probably be able to upgrade. Really enjoying the climate of tablet computing though, I think they're on the cusp of great things.

Tregard said:

Howdy folks, just got a quick query and would like to hear people's experiences.

I am planning on either getting a Go or Pro in the coming weeks, and atm I'm leaning towards the Go, but I would like to be able to use the machine to play some of my more basic Steam library. The one game outside of that I would like to run well is Overwatch. I'll perfectly fine with ultra low settings, I would just like to know in people's personal experience, how Overwatch runs on the Go or the Pro?

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I watched a few YouTube videos back before I got my Go and the performance in Overwatch isn't very good. If you set everything to ultralow, scale back the resolution to 1280x720 and change resolution scale to 50% you still aren't going to get a solid 30fps in large fights. Honestly, even with Steam games I'd temper your expectations. A lot of games do not run as well as I had hoped they would given how old some of them.

Had two Pro 6 tablets and both had a dead pixel. I got it for £900 instead of £1150 and I can't just replace it for a new one for some reason. Will probably either keep it or send to MS for repair but I need to do a bit of research on the repairs procedure. I haaaate dealing with stuff like this.

Worst part is that the first one I returned had a dead pixel in a far less annoying place and I could have lived with that.

Amazing hardware though. Wish I had more things to use it for...

So. I got the HP Elite 1013 through. It is a wonderful machine. Dinky, light and an amazing keyboard. Including the pen too was a pretty awesome move.
You can definitely hear the fan at work on the i7, but it isn't crazy loud. Great machine, the lack of SD card slot sucks, but I can live with that on a 512GB machine.

But.

I made a fuck up. I went to spread it out over Paypal Credit, but clicked source of funding as bank account. So I had an absolute shit-tonne come out yesterday morning which has bounced. So now I have to send it back to get a refund to buy it again properly. :-/

Extra sucky aspect is I bought it with a 10% off coupon that expired on Sunday. So I might not be able to get it again.

So I'm starting an MBA program in May and it requires all students to have a laptop. I've been using a MacBook Air for years (and I love it), but it's very long in the tooth now so I'd like to upgrade for school. Problem is, I absolutely hate the new MacBook keyboards. So I'm now looking elsewhere.

The Surface Book is most appealing to me as a student, as I can easily see myself flipping the screen to jot handwritten class notes, or removing the display to read digital textbooks. Is it true that they're still using last gen CPU's though? Where's the Surface Book 3?

Surface Laptop 2 looks and feels great, but the inflexibility is the display kind of defeats the purpose.

There are quite a few convertibles out the now. I really liked the look of the Dell XPS 2-in-1. Spectre X360 on the HP side of things.

If you need to rip the keyboard off, my work dish out both Pro and Book, and I have to say I'm less impressed with the Book in real life vs. on paper/videos. It just doesn't look as nice as an Air for example. I would head to the Pro if I were dead set on a Microsoft.

I'll try and stick up some shots of this thing I've got. The keyboard is spectacular for a detachable cover.

I trialed a Surface Book 2 for a while because I thought I would want it as an upgrade from my Surface Pro 4. I didn't like the weight and found the detaching process annoying.

The Surface Laptop is a lovely MacBook Air clone but, yeah... I couldn't go back to something without a pen.

So my Surface Pro 6 is my favourite computer in a long while. The 8GB version is able to run three screens and photoshop/blender/Unity simultaneously without breaking a sweat.

fourfourfun said:

There are quite a few convertibles out the now. I really liked the look of the Dell XPS 2-in-1. Spectre X360 on the HP side of things.

If you need to rip the keyboard off, my work dish out both Pro and Book, and I have to say I'm less impressed with the Book in real life vs. on paper/videos. It just doesn't look as nice as an Air for example. I would head to the Pro if I were dead set on a Microsoft.

I'll try and stick up some shots of this thing I've got. The keyboard is spectacular for a detachable cover.

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Yeah I considered those, I just can't get over the design of them. They look silly. They're only a couple of steps away from the "PC G4M3R" aesthetic.

I'm not thrilled with the design of the Surface Book either, but it's more elegant than the HP and Dell offerings at least. I wish they'd put out a new model with a better looking hinge though. And 8th gen Intels.

And yeah, as a longtime Apple user I'm wary of using a third party device. I'd rather get the thing from Microsoft that I know will work with Microsoft's OS as well as anything can.

dock said:

I trialed a Surface Book 2 for a while because I thought I would want it as an upgrade from my Surface Pro 4. I didn't like the weight and found the detaching process annoying.

The Surface Laptop is a lovely MacBook Air clone but, yeah... I couldn't go back to something without a pen.

So my Surface Pro 6 is my favourite computer in a long while. The 8GB version is able to run three screens and photoshop/blender/Unity simultaneously without breaking a sweat.

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The Laptop can use the pen, theoretically... just not at any angle you'd actually want.

I'm leaning more towards the Pro 6, I guess. I just hate the lack of USB-C. With most of my classmates likely having newish MacBooks and Windows laptops, I imagine there will actually be a decent number of USB-C flash drives going around.

dock said:

I trialed a Surface Book 2 for a while because I thought I would want it as an upgrade from my Surface Pro 4. I didn't like the weight and found the detaching process annoying.

The Surface Laptop is a lovely MacBook Air clone but, yeah... I couldn't go back to something without a pen.

So my Surface Pro 6 is my favourite computer in a long while. The 8GB version is able to run three screens and photoshop/blender/Unity simultaneously without breaking a sweat.

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Are you using a dock? Which one?

I have a Surface Book 2 and love it. Would love to extend it to a couple more screens.

molnizzle said:

They're only a couple of steps away from the "PC G4M3R" aesthetic.

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Do have a look at the Elite range, it's the business line, so keeps it neutral:

https://www.notebookcheck.net/HP-Elite-x2-1013-G3-i5-8350U-SSD-3k-2-in-1-Review.336734.0.html

Caveats: it is expensive and no SD card slot.

Picking up my Go today. I'll be using it for web and emails. That's it. Maybe some light photoshop/lightroom because iOS sucks.

no one likes the 3rd gen Thinkpad X1 Tablet? It has USB C w Thunderbolt 3 and comes with a keyboard and Wacom Pen.

Sydle said:

Are you using a dock? Which one?

I have a Surface Book 2 and love it. Would love to extend it to a couple more screens.

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I use the official dock with the magnet cable. It's pretty great, tbh.

Hello Surface people.

I'm trying to find a stand for the Surface Book 2 (15") for someone for Christmas so that they can prop the tablet up on a table when they don't want to use the keyboard. It doesn't look like there's anything official? Any ideas? Something like the kickstand on the Pro, or even like the foldable iPad cases that fold into a stand?

Thanks.

dock said:

I use the official dock with the magnet cable. It's pretty great, tbh.

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Thanks for the tip.

sca said:

no one likes the 3rd gen Thinkpad X1 Tablet? It has USB C w Thunderbolt 3 and comes with a keyboard and Wacom Pen.

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I liked everything apart from the size and look. I wish they'd drop that Thinkpad design.

Leeness said:

Hello Surface people.

I'm trying to find a stand for the Surface Book 2 (15") for someone for Christmas so that they can prop the tablet up on a table when they don't want to use the keyboard. It doesn't look like there's anything official? Any ideas? Something like the kickstand on the Pro, or even like the foldable iPad cases that fold into a stand?

Thanks.

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I was looking for stands a while ago, because I was looking for something to prop the Surface Pro in portrait mode. I found a decent number of iPad Pro stands which were the right size, but nothing perfect.

Yeah, stands are not out there, I was looking for something that would work for my DJ gigs and nothing exists.

Welp, my surface pro 4 just stopped working a few weeks ago. Shuts off as soon as it's unplugged and has to be plugged in for a while before I can even get it to stay on for more than a minute, so I guess the battery is dead. I tried out a refurbished surface book 2, but the keyboard was flat out broken on arrival. B key didn't work and it was impossible to type without random "bbbbbbbbb" strings being inserted every few keystrokes lol.

I loved my surface pro and thought hard about getting a pro 6, but ultimately decided to get a decent gaming laptop instead and just keep my old surface pro plugged in on the desk in tablet mode. I'll probably jump back in on the surface line in the next couple years. Can't imagine how the hardware will have changed by then.

Complicated said:

Welp, my surface pro 4 just stopped working a few weeks ago. Shuts off as soon as it's unplugged and has to be plugged in for a while before I can even get it to stay on for more than a minute, so I guess the battery is dead. I tried out a refurbished surface book 2, but the keyboard was flat out broken on arrival. B key didn't work and it was impossible to type without random "bbbbbbbbb" strings being inserted every few keystrokes lol.

I loved my surface pro and thought hard about getting a pro 6, but ultimately decided to get a decent gaming laptop instead and just keep my old surface pro plugged in on the desk in tablet mode. I'll probably jump back in on the surface line in the next couple years. Can't imagine how the hardware will have changed by then.

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It's going to change (at least the Surface Pro) next year. Not sure what it's going to look like but its certainly changing.

dock said:

I was looking for stands a while ago, because I was looking for something to prop the Surface Pro in portrait mode. I found a decent number of iPad Pro stands which were the right size, but nothing perfect.

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That's exactly what he wants to do, prop it in portrait mode. Are you able to please link me to the ones you found? Did they work at all?

Exis said:

Yeah, stands are not out there, I was looking for something that would work for my DJ gigs and nothing exists.

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Whyyyy did they not have the kickstand? :S

fourfourfun said:

I liked everything apart from the size and look. I wish they'd drop that Thinkpad design.

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Did you want the size to be bigger or smaller? I thought it was comparable in size to the Surface Pros. As for the design, I'm quite fond of the Thinkpad look

edit: I see it's bigger

fourfourfun said:

I liked everything apart from the size and look. I wish they'd drop that Thinkpad design.

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Thinkpad design is probably what brings in buyers (especially businesses). It's associated with quality and reliability.

As for the X1, I am interested in it, and I hear it is better in pretty much every way to a Surface, except for battery life. Battery life is important to me, so that sours me.

WillyFive said:

Thinkpad design is probably what brings in buyers (especially businesses). It's associated with quality and reliability.

As for the X1, I am interested in it, and I hear it is better in pretty much every way to a Surface, except for battery life. Battery life is important to me, so that sours me.

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Yeah, I've been reading the same with the battery life. Also it looks to have no USB A

WillyFive said:

Thinkpad design is probably what brings in buyers (especially businesses). It's associated with quality and reliability.

As for the X1, I am interested in it, and I hear it is better in pretty much every way to a Surface, except for battery life. Battery life is important to me, so that sours me.

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Yes yes, that is what I had been reading too. Every single tablet had a caveat I found. Boiled down to picking the con that I could deal with the most.

My 8gb Surface Go does not like the new ResetERA.

Really struggles with all the fancy animation-style element resizing etc. Half the time the hamburger menu doesn't actually toggle the sidebar...

This is a silly question but can the 24w surface go charger work fine on my Surface Pro 2017 that ordinarily uses the 44w charger? Charger it came with is fine at home but the figure-8 to wall plug is a bit annoying to deal with when I need to plug it in for a couple moments.

I'm really due an upgrade to my main machine, being on a mid-2011 11" Macbook Air for a near 7 years now, and I'm like 90-95% sold on a 13.5" Surface Book 2 at this point. The Mac lineup doesn't suit my needs anymore. The ability to play the majority of PC games appeals greatly and I believe it'll handle Unity and UE4 easily. I like the laptop-tablet form factor a lot too. But before I pull the trigger, I have some questions for people with knowledge please...

A couple of problems I read about were the mousepad tracking being laggy in some way, and the power supply not being powerful enough to supply the machine when running demanding games/applications and causing battery drain even plugged in.

Are the mousepad issues fixed? I had a play with a machine in a store and found the trackpad pretty nice. Coming from a Mac, it's one thing I don't wanna skimp on (although I know the touchscreen is lovely). As for the power supply thing, is that the 15" only, or both sizes? Again, is it still a problem?

Finally, is there any generally accepted 'best' estimate for a new Surface Book 3? I read somewhere that rumours place it around the end of 2019, but I'm not sure how accurate they are. I Google occasionally but don't usually find much.

Thanks for any replies!