Surface Pro 4

I haven't really looked into Intel's price for the CPU's, but damn $300 for the i7 upgrade seems steep to me. I guess if you really need it, you need it. Just makes it tough to upgrade if you -want- it.
 
I can't tell if I have the latest firmware installed. How do I verify that?
 
So I saw one of these at Costco. I currently have an SP3. Looks wise, it's a side-grade. The newer KB seems nicer. But the build quality on the initial production run seems like shit (might be worked out by now?). The Costco model screens glue had delaminated, so the screen popped out. All from sitting in aa display.

Performance wise, that'll depend. It'd probably be an upgrade. I just wish they would have given us a hard-keyboard option for the SP4. The SB can have the nVidia, crazy hinge, more ram, etc.. SP4 would just be extra battery, USB ports, mSSD area, and a nice sturdy keyboard. Like the original Asus Transformer's, if ASUS figured out a tablet-hinge-clamp 4 years ago, there's no reason this couldn't be an option.

I kinda wonder if MS has accessories on lockdown somehow or if 3rd parties can jump on. I haven't seen any knockoff keyboards for the Pro line.
 
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Picked up a SP4 Core M3 yesterday for the silent fanless having come from previously owning a hissy SP3 i5.

Microsoft/Best Buy need to do a better job of presenting the product because most of the store SP4 demos weren't fully functional like non-working touch input, flickering screen, etc. that could turn away potential buyers that don't understand they're likely driver issues and fixable.

Knock on wood I did the major Windows 10 update first thing after unboxing and haven't had any of the known issues except for audio stopped working one time that required a reboot but it's still early on day one. Thankfully no loss of WIFI after resuming from sleep and battery life seems good that's estimated to approach 9'ish hours.

Got the SP4 with Type Cover keyboard with fingerprint (on sale at Best Buy for $129) for a pretty good deal for $939 out the door.

Really no complaints at this point except for the edge backlight bleed that's noticeable in the dark with lights turned off. For future improvements would like to see the move to SAMOLED, 8GB DRAM with fanless Core M, ~13" screen size and Type Cover with dGPU and secondary battery options.
 
mi7chy said:
Picked up a SP4 Core M3 yesterday for the silent fanless having come from previously owning a hissy SP3 i5.

Microsoft/Best Buy need to do a better job of presenting the product because most of the store SP4 demos weren't fully functional like non-working touch input, flickering screen, etc. that could turn away potential buyers that don't understand they're likely driver issues and fixable.

Knock on wood I did the major Windows 10 update first thing after unboxing and haven't had any of the known issues except for audio stopped working one time that required a reboot but it's still early on day one. Thankfully no loss of WIFI after resuming from sleep and battery life seems good that's estimated to approach 9'ish hours.

Got the SP4 with Type Cover keyboard with fingerprint (on sale at Best Buy for $129) for a pretty good deal for $939 out the door.

Really no complaints at this point except for the edge backlight bleed that's noticeable in the dark with lights turned off. For future improvements would like to see the move to SAMOLED, 8GB DRAM with fanless Core M, ~13" screen size and Type Cover with dGPU and secondary battery options.
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How'd you score it for $939 OTD?
 
One of the Best Buy stores took $50 off for veteran discount when I mentioned Microsoft store 10% discount plus I took advantage of their earlier $100 off deal trading in an old laptop that was just taking up space and $15 rewards credit buying other stuff. Fingerprint type keyboard was also on sale which I still need to pick up from another store and luckily the last one within the surrounding areas. Kind of all worked out and battery life has been great so far contrary to what I've read. Been playing around with it almost non-stop since 8'ish am to 6:21pm and still have 19% battery left. Better than the 7'ish hour battery life with previous i5 SP3 but will see if it's repeatable after first charge. Performance is plenty usable too and better than Thinkpad Helix 2 with fanless Core M 5Y10 which I was already happy with.
 
jonneymendoza said:
i have heard some people have got there i7 sp4 shipped and delivered now?
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You can follow the discussions, benchmarks and impressions on reddit. Was deciding between fanless Core M3 and waiting for i7 but wasn't sure gaming capability was important enough to deal with fan noise and potentially shorter battery life, throttling, etc. Would be a viable option if power keyboard was available.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3tcydc/sp4_i7_16256_just_got_it_2_days_before_the/
 
Good luck to everyone waiting for various bug fixes. Mine might have been defective, not sure. I ended up needing to wipe it and reinstall Windows, at which point it got stuck in a loop that can't be recovered without service. It's headed back.
 
brentsg said:
Good luck to everyone waiting for various bug fixes. Mine might have been defective, not sure. I ended up needing to wipe it and reinstall Windows, at which point it got stuck in a loop that can't be recovered without service. It's headed back.
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every prodcut has bugs including ipad stuff so dont worry. return it and get a new one
 
jonneymendoza said:
every prodcut has bugs including ipad stuff so dont worry. return it and get a new one
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It's certainly fair to say that every device has problems, but I've been using computers since their inception and I can't think of a device that I've owned that was this buggy at any point in its life. MS really should have done a better job cleaning these things up before launch. Many of these issues were painfully obvious right out of the box, so it's not like they were undiscovered issues that required a large number of users to detect.
 
You guys must have had some serious problems. I have throughly (Literally) enjoyed my surface book and am typing this now on it. Sure I had a few minor bugs but they were probably more related to the brand new Windows 10 operating system which btw I love more than Windows 7 which I thought I would never say. I plan to upgrade all my computers to windows 10 soon.

As far as bugs I am seeing less and less and less with each subsequent firmware patch that is released. my only serious gripe with the surface book is the inclusion of the tiniest LED to indicate whether or not the machine is asleep or on or what?

I placed it in my bag thinking it was fully asleep when 10 mins later checked it and it was immensely hot because it was NOT asleep.
 
brentsg said:
It's certainly fair to say that every device has problems, but I've been using computers since their inception and I can't think of a device that I've owned that was this buggy at any point in its life. MS really should have done a better job cleaning these things up before launch. Many of these issues were painfully obvious right out of the box, so it's not like they were undiscovered issues that required a large number of users to detect.
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Thats not true. the ms surface pro is not as buggy as yoru exaturating and i too have been using systems since the dawn of time.
 
brentsg said:
Good luck to everyone waiting for various bug fixes. Mine might have been defective, not sure. I ended up needing to wipe it and reinstall Windows, at which point it got stuck in a loop that can't be recovered without service. It's headed back.
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You could've done a USB recovery. Most likely lingering software issues that will be resolved. Bound to happen when making a lot changes but Windows 10 is headed in the right direction with it working like a fusion of Windows and Android.

https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/warranty-service-and-recovery/downloadablerecoveryimage
 
jonneymendoza said:
Thats not true. the ms surface pro is not as buggy as yoru exaturating and i too have been using systems since the dawn of time.
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I am currently writing this on a fully updated Surface Pro 4 and it is buggy as hell. The problems include flickering (which the Nov 3 update should have resolved), sleep/resume bugs, and syncing issues with the keyboard. And yes, Hyper-V is disabled.

This is definitely one of the buggiest devices I've purchased and I've been a hardware enthusiast for 20 years. I'm going to send back and wait.
 
Disciple Lan said:
I am currently writing this on a fully updated Surface Pro 4 and it is buggy as hell. The problems include flickering (which the Nov 3 update should have resolved), sleep/resume bugs, and syncing issues with the keyboard. And yes, Hyper-V is disabled.

This is definitely one of the buggiest devices I've purchased and I've been a hardware enthusiast for 20 years. I'm going to send back and wait.
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Hmmm, sounds like you might have a bad device. The updates and Threshold 2 seemed to resolved the biggest issues for most people that I've been seeing for the SP4 and SB.
 
My SP4 Core M3 has been running 100% stable since using the recovery image to reimage the drive, avoiding Edge browser and using Chrome with 'Enable touch events' set to 'Enabled' and 'Disable touch adjustment' set to 'enable', setting 'Close lid' to do nothing and using the power button instead to sleep.
 
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Yeah, I've done two resets - one from Windows settings, one from factory re-image. No luck. This definitely seems to be a hardware issue or unresolved software issue. There are some people on various forums talking about issues post update, but definitely a thinner crowd than those with pre-update display issues.

I should note that the flickering is more than just on/off, but rather colored artifacts in horizontal and vertical lines. At times these artifacts can completely encompass the screen and sometimes they branch out off of icons etc. This happens in addition to ongoing on/off flickering (activated usually at the same time).
 
jonneymendoza said:
Thats not true. the ms surface pro is not as buggy as yoru exaturating and i too have been using systems since the dawn of time.
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Not sure what to tell you. My experience was terrible. It wouldn't sleep acceptably. The screen flickered like mad if I didn't have the brightness set to blind myself in a dim room. (Yes, had Hyper-V off, but shouldn't need to) The display driver crashed, etc.

I had lots of other VMWare issues on the device, but not sure if they were VMWare, Win10, or device oriented but it doesn't matter. It just couldn't serve as a work machine for me in the current state.

I've move onto a different device and I'm 100% trouble free and working again. I wasted a bunch of time on SP4. Thanks for taking the time to tell me my experience didn't happen though. /s
 
brentsg said:
Not sure what to tell you. My experience was terrible. It wouldn't sleep acceptably. The screen flickered like mad if I didn't have the brightness set to blind myself in a dim room. (Yes, had Hyper-V off, but shouldn't need to) The display driver crashed, etc.

I had lots of other VMWare issues on the device, but not sure if they were VMWare, Win10, or device oriented but it doesn't matter. It just couldn't serve as a work machine for me in the current state.

I've move onto a different device and I'm 100% trouble free and working again. I wasted a bunch of time on SP4. Thanks for taking the time to tell me my experience didn't happen though. /s
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rubbish. come on now. your sp4 sounded fucked, all u had to do is replace with a new one
 
jonneymendoza said:
rubbish. come on now. your sp4 sounded fucked, all u had to do is replace with a new one
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Exactly. this is not how the machines are. Your machine maybe, but not all. My Surface book has ran nearly perfect since the day I bought it and it was launch day. And those that did have problems, usually swapping them, got one that worked fantastically.
 
Microsoft just published an updated graphics driver to Windows update. Do a manual check updates to pull it if you prefer not to wait.
 
mi7chy said:
Microsoft just published an updated graphics driver to Windows update. Do a manual check updates to pull it if you prefer not to wait.
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Just updated by Surface Book with this, hopefully it takes care of the Intel GPU driver crashing issue. Also there's a new Cumulative Update for 1511 just out as well.
 
Just picked up a Surface Pro 4 i5/4/128 today. All updates done, everything going smooth. This thing is great. Not a whole lot different than the SP3, but Windows Hello is great, new keyboard is much better, slightly larger screen is noticeable. Cortana works perfect.

Have most of my software installed now. I was going to go bigger on the RAM and storage, but I'm going to grab a 128GB SD card for it. For RAM, I'm not going to run VM's. I'm just going to SSH or RDP into the server for that.
 
Having had the SP4 for nearly a month now the hardware is excellent across the board but am most impressed with the new type cover. Key feel is on par with the original Thinkpad keyboard while palm rejection is the best I've used so far and even better than Macbooks. It's the only one where I can lightly brush the meaty part of lower thumb that attaches to palm which happens often under normal use without registering false movement.

Front facing speakers are excellent. Better sounding than the iPad Prosumer four side firing speaker configuration that tends to distort at higher volume.

Display is excellent under normal use. One exception is when cold booting it cranks up the brightness full blast at the Surface logo BIOS screen exposing some edge light bleed but under normal use you have to look really hard to notice it. Just an LCD technology issue in general.

The one area where it's not yet excellent is Windows 10. While I like the fusion of desktop and mobile UI it's still relatively new so can be quirky but fortunately it's directly supported and updated by Microsoft so the improvements come at a steady pace.
 
I picked up an i5/8gb/256ssd and couldn't be happier. Haven't encountered a single issue that people are reporting on /r/surface. Although, I don't run cortana and turned off most of the default windows apps. It's working great as a laptop replacement and didn't take nearly as much getting used to as I thought it would. It also runs civ5 great with dx9 selected.
 
There's a subtle pressure mark on my Pro 4 screen. Is it possible to get rid of it? Or is it best if I exchange it? It's bothering me.
 
brncao said:
There's a subtle pressure mark on my Pro 4 screen. Is it possible to get rid of it? Or is it best if I exchange it? It's bothering me.
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You can try massaging the area and see if that fixes it. If the problem persists you shouldn't have a problem getting an exchange.
 
I got the replacement in the mail. It's worse. The bleed at the bottom of the screen is VERY noticeable. It makes my prior one look good. I hope this isn't normal. I don't want to play lottery until I get one with little to no bleed. There seems to be quality control issues.
 
brncao said:
I got the replacement in the mail. It's worse. The bleed at the bottom of the screen is VERY noticeable. It makes my prior one look good. I hope this isn't normal. I don't want to play lottery until I get one with little to no bleed. There seems to be quality control issues.
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Argh, sorry to hear that. I'm increasingly convinced that Microsoft has permanently shot itself in the foot with the hardware and software quality issues for both the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book. Even if everything's sorted out tomorrow, they'll have a reputation for poor build quality and bugs that will take a while to shake off.
 
Aurelius said:
Argh, sorry to hear that. I'm increasingly convinced that Microsoft has permanently shot itself in the foot with the hardware and software quality issues for both the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book. Even if everything's sorted out tomorrow, they'll have a reputation for poor build quality and bugs that will take a while to shake off.
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On a weekend trip this weekend sitting out on the patio of the restaurant on a very pleasant winter day, waiting on the wife and surfing on my Surface Book. There's really nothing like the Surface Book at the moment. For all the issues that have been reported this thing is beyond utterly cool. It's turned out to be a bit more powerful that I'd expected. Even plays the latest Tomb Raider at medium settings a resolutions well.

It unfortunate that there are these problems but the Surface line is pushing boundaries. If they were more conventional devices I'd be much more critical of them, and if I were personally seeing these problems.
 
I dunno, the first gen (that I still have) suffered from various issues for a while and that did not really hinder the products popularity or growth.

Only thing keeping me from upgrading is I want one with USB type C instead of the dumb proprietary charger. We'll see.
 
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Ripskin said:
I dunno, the first gen (that I still have) suffered from various issues for a while and that did not really hinder the products popularity or growth.

Only thing keeping me from upgrading is I want one with USB type C instead of the dump proprietary charger. We'll see.
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damnit, same. If The surface line implemented USB C with external graphics support I'd buy in a heartbeat
 
In the process of returning the replacement item. Lets hope the second replacement is better. They said the replacement was defective. This time they said they'll check the second replacement before sending it out. *Cross-fingers*

Btw, this is my first foray into IPS technology. I've owned many TN monitors, but they all do not exhibit this problem, or at least it's not noticeable. I had plans to buy a 4k monitor in the future, but with the issues of light bleed now on my mind, OLED seems like a better proposition. Damn you Microsoft. You have forever changed my perception of LCD monitors. I'd rather not play lottery. OLED and USB-C is what I'll be waiting for on my next Surface device.
 
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Hey guys I have a question. Does your pen's eraser button sometimes not work? And to get it to work you have to resync it again?
 
brncao said:
Hey guys I have a question. Does your pen's eraser button sometimes not work? And to get it to work you have to resync it again?
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I don't think that's normal. I have a Surface Book and the pen that came with seemed to be unresponsive to pen button clicks so I got the pen swapped out and the issue went away.
 
returned my sp4. utter shit it is but at least i gave it a go for good while.

went through an original one i brought and a replacement device. both fucked and went on a major rant with em!

This is Xbox 360 all over again and im not prepared to go through 6 SP4 to get a relaible one. fuck that

piss poor CS as well! fuck me
 
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