Surface Pro 4?

chrism_scotland

chrism_scotland

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Just wondering if any folks have a Surface Pro 4 and how they find it?
I've currently got 2 devices, a 15" Macbook Pro and a Google Pixel C Tablet.

The Pixel C is fine for basic browsing and watching movies, etc but its sadly not really any cop for photo editing, until a proper version of Photoshop/Lightroom exists they're just not powerful enough, my mum is looking for a tablet and given that its almost brand new (was a warranty replacement) I'm thinking of giving her my Pixel C.

I don't really take the tablet out all the time preferring just to rely on my phone but I like the tablet portability when I'm in the house on the sofa and especially when travelling but ideally I'd like something with a bit more oomph and practicality in particular for photo editing on the move and the SP4 has attracted me as it seems the best rated windows hybrid/tablet.

I'm looking to probably sell the Macbook and have a small desktop build for the house but I feel something like the Surface Pro would be a good tablet upgrade!
 
mrgubby said:
I use a surface pro 4 for mobile editing , when it's at home I've got it connected to a docking station running two 1920x 1080 screens :)
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That does sound tempting, I've got a nice 24" screen I could connect it to! - Need to price up my options, some good offers on at the moment with various free accessories / Xbox, etc.
Doesn't seem to be any of the competing devices which seem to be as well rated.
 
I'm the same as Andy - pro 3 with 8gb, 256gb ssd and i5 and find it a really useful bit of kit. I'd happily replace it if something happened to it. It's not my main pc though and I'm not sure I'd be happy to have it as my only device (partly because the storage is limited for all the photos I've accumulated over the years and partly because I like my pc gaming!)
 
Just sold my 2014 13" MacBook Pro and have a Surface Pro 4 i7 8GB 256GB on the way. Will be connected to a screen via the Dock when at home but mainly used out and about.

The deal with a XBox One S thrown in (which I'll just sell for £200 ish) made it a pretty good deal, I think that ends on the Microsoft store today and most other shops carrying that deal (such as John Lewis) are finally running out of stock now.
 
I had a play in Currys tonight of a few things and was quite impressed with the SP4, probably prefer the Surface Book but I can't bring myself to spend that much on something that isn't powerful enough to fully replace my Macbook.
SP4 is the leading contender although the Dell XPS 13 seemed a nice bit of kit too.
 
chrism_scotland said:
I had a play in Currys tonight of a few things and was quite impressed with the SP4, probably prefer the Surface Book but I can't bring myself to spend that much on something that isn't powerful enough to fully replace my Macbook.
SP4 is the leading contender although the Dell XPS 13 seemed a nice bit of kit too.
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The surface books are gorgeous! But yeah, pricey.
 
Have the sp4 and surface book both 16gb versions, the slight extra screen size of the book whilst not sounding very different definitely gives the book the edge for editing but the sp4 is the one I tend to have out and about especially since getting the uag case for it. If intending to dock with a larger monitor then I would say sp4 and use the savings for the dock.
Originally had an sp4 with 8gb but after using the 16gb book realised that 8gb is ok but 16gb makes it fly ;)
 
I am looking at a SP4 i5 8gb. Can't push for the 16gb but the i5 upgrade from the m cpu should run photoshop fairly well...I hope?
I also played with one in Currys today and my mate has one too. It's really nice, nice screen, the pen works exceptionally well and is touch sensitive, and it has palm rejection which works great so you can lean on it while drawing and it only picks up the pens contact, not your hand.
Just trying to raise the cash :/ The xbox deal is the best I've seen, sold for £200 gives you a great priced SP4, Wondering if John Lewis would price match as I'd much prefer to buy from them than the 'know how', know nothing crew at Currys.
 
Rowee said:
Just trying to raise the cash :/ The xbox deal is the best I've seen, sold for £200 gives you a great priced SP4, Wondering if John Lewis would price match as I'd much prefer to buy from them than the 'know how', know nothing crew at Currys.
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The XBox deal has finished now. 10% off everywhere is as good as it gets at the moment. Might be some deals in the New Year as it seems likely that an SP5 will be along next Spring.
 
Came home with an i5 8GB 256GB Pro 4 today including a Type Cover and free Xbox One S Minecraft bundle for £985 felt that was really too good to turn down. £200 roughly for selling the Xbox means its cost me less than £800 got to be happy with that!

Could have sprung extra for an i7 but I honestly don't see the need, briefly had a fault i7 Surface Pro 3 which just ran hot all the time so i5 sounded like the way to go!
 
Good work, where was that from? On mine right now, love it.
 
ukaskew said:
Good work, where was that from? On mine right now, love it.
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Currys actually, I'd have preferred to get one from John Lewis but they had no stock and the guy in Currys really went out of his way to get me a deal on it, the Xbox S deal and an extra 10% off apparently had officially ended on Wednesday.
 
Currently installing the Windows Anniversary update, it's been two hours so far...

That aside, had a tinker with Lightroom earlier and it scales beautifully, edited a bunch of pictures with the pen and it was pretty much everything I'd hoped it would be.
 
ukaskew said:
Currently installing the Windows Anniversary update, it's been two hours so far...

That aside, had a tinker with Lightroom earlier and it scales beautifully, edited a bunch of pictures with the pen and it was pretty much everything I'd hoped it would be.
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was

I'm pleasantly surprised so far, runs Lightroom/Photoshop very well, fair enough not quite as quick as my existing i7/16gb Macbook Pro but I am dealing with 36mp raw files from my Pentax and its plenty fast enough for any editing I'd want to do on this (Mainly if I'm travelling).

Also nice to see how well it runs when I've got it connected to an external monitor, had Netflix streaming on one screen and some light gaming on the other with no slowdown.

Certainly glad I bought this version rather than spending a lot more on an i7/16GB combo as I can't really see that it would have been worth it for me, this is never going to full replace another PC for me but it will be a nice mobile accompaniment to the desktop build thats going to replace my Macbook Pro in early January.
 
Seems you got a cracker of a deal on the SP4. I had looked into the SP4 in the past. How has it coped with connecting to your monitor. Does the DPI and Windows 10 scaling work OK when hooked up?

Out of interest, what is the spec and year of the Macbook Pro?
 
redlion said:
Seems you got a cracker of a deal on the SP4. I had looked into the SP4 in the past. How has it coped with connecting to your monitor. Does the DPI and Windows 10 scaling work OK when hooked up?

Out of interest, what is the spec and year of the Macbook Pro?
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Yeah I couldn't pass it up! Yeah it seems to work ok, I had issues initially where the monitor would just sleep instead of detecting the SP4 was attached but it seems that was a cable issue as a new one has been fine and I need to play around with some of the setting a bit more when I have time but the scaling seems fine. I had a few issues which I suspect are related to the Dell Monitor I have rather than the tablet (had the same issues with the Macbook, monitor staying in power-save mode sometimes!!).

Its the top end 15" Retina Macbook Pro from late 2015 (16GB, 512 GB SSD, i7 quad core) (The one that was £1999.99 at the time i.e the last one before the ones just launched.
 
We've just gotten a batch of i5 8gb's in work so I'm currently test driving one with the intention of replacing my android tablet out for it.
Also mainly going to be using it for editing/viewing properly when out and about, tethering in the studio and running presentations off of for the small camera club I run.
 
Having an odd issue, I've had no problems with this at all and very little noise from the fan (unless I'm full-on editing a 36mp raw maybe!) - tonight though the tablet has suddenly developed a really loud and annoying whine or buzz, it almost sounds like static.
It seems to change pitch if I touch the screen, seems faulty but just wondered if anyone else has experienced anything similar?
 
Some kind of (so called) capacitor whine? Has been a problem with laptops sometimes, though I've not heard about this from the SP.
 
@chrism_scotland interesting to see that you've sold your MacBook Pro following you going down the Surface Pro 4 route.
I have been holding out for a new MacBook Pro for over a year now but the current Apple prices has put me off, my 2010 MacBook Pro is running fine so I thought about also following in your footsteps and buying a Surface Pro for image editing.
I only use LR so what do you think?
Any negatives?
What will you do for backing up, I was thinking about using Amazon Photo for my offsite backups and attaching a 1TB USB3 SSD for local backups, does it have any SD slots?

Cheers,

Riz
 
Fuguru said:
@chrism_scotland interesting to see that you've sold your MacBook Pro following you going down the Surface Pro 4 route.
I have been holding out for a new MacBook Pro for over a year now but the current Apple prices has put me off, my 2010 MacBook Pro is running fine so I thought about also following in your footsteps and buying a Surface Pro for image editing.
I only use LR so what do you think?
Any negatives?
What will you do for backing up, I was thinking about using Amazon Photo for my offsite backups and attaching a 1TB USB3 SSD for local backups, does it have any SD slots?

Cheers,

Riz
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Hey Riz, sorry I kept meaning to type a reply to this last night but didn't get around to it!

I hadn't initially been fully decided that the SP4 would replace the Macbook, in fact the Surface Pro actually replaced a Pixel C Tabet as I wanted something portable that I could use full Lightroom/Photoshop on, especially now that its 36mp RAW files I'm dealing with again. I bought the desktop unit allowing me to easily connect to my Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor and LAN and since then the Macbook has really hardly been turned on and I've been able to use a few old Windows programs (games mainly) that I hadn't really used since picking up the Mac in 2015.

I've kept just the SP4 just now to allow me to decide what to get next, I probably wouldn't have the i5 SP4 as my sole machine, I have sold the Macbook but my intention is to supplement the SP4 with something a little more powerful in the house, possibly a desktop build.

The i5 is fine and seems plenty fast for almost anything I've thrown at the SP4 so far but I'd probably prefer 16GB rather than 8GB RAM if it was my sole machine but I can't fault it for running Lightroom and Photoshop with relative ease.

There isn't an SD slot but there is a Micro SD slot and I've stuck a 200GB card in that to use as extra storage, in fact I import my images onto the Micro SD and edit them from there plenty quickly.

I have a Synology NAS attached for backup and a 6TB Lacie drive that will be attached to the Surface Dock now that the Mac is gone so will use that.

I have to say if I was convinced that an i7 16GB model would be fine for everything I'd be tempted to pickup an i7 Surface Pro 5 when its inevitably released and sell this on, the Surface Book is also really nice and has a dedicated GPU but the sheer cost puts me off a little v the cheaper value of keeping the SP4 for mobile and spending say £1200 on a desktop build for everything else.
 
chrism_scotland said:
Hey Riz, sorry I kept meaning to type a reply to this last night but didn't get around to it!

I hadn't initially been fully decided that the SP4 would replace the Macbook, in fact the Surface Pro actually replaced a Pixel C Tabet as I wanted something portable that I could use full Lightroom/Photoshop on, especially now that its 36mp RAW files I'm dealing with again. I bought the desktop unit allowing me to easily connect to my Keyboard/Mouse/Monitor and LAN and since then the Macbook has really hardly been turned on and I've been able to use a few old Windows programs (games mainly) that I hadn't really used since picking up the Mac in 2015.

I've kept just the SP4 just now to allow me to decide what to get next, I probably wouldn't have the i5 SP4 as my sole machine, I have sold the Macbook but my intention is to supplement the SP4 with something a little more powerful in the house, possibly a desktop build.

The i5 is fine and seems plenty fast for almost anything I've thrown at the SP4 so far but I'd probably prefer 16GB rather than 8GB RAM if it was my sole machine but I can't fault it for running Lightroom and Photoshop with relative ease.

There isn't an SD slot but there is a Micro SD slot and I've stuck a 200GB card in that to use as extra storage, in fact I import my images onto the Micro SD and edit them from there plenty quickly.

I have a Synology NAS attached for backup and a 6TB Lacie drive that will be attached to the Surface Dock now that the Mac is gone so will use that.

I have to say if I was convinced that an i7 16GB model would be fine for everything I'd be tempted to pickup an i7 Surface Pro 5 when its inevitably released and sell this on, the Surface Book is also really nice and has a dedicated GPU but the sheer cost puts me off a little v the cheaper value of keeping the SP4 for mobile and spending say £1200 on a desktop build for everything else.
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Its certainly worth considering the i7 Surface Pro 5 but like you said, the cost needs to be taken into considering.
I am back working with 24mp files now coming from the eye watering 42mp A7RII files, those were painful to work with! :D
 
Fuguru said:
Its certainly worth considering the i7 Surface Pro 5 but like you said, the cost needs to be taken into considering.
I am back working with 24mp files now coming from the eye watering 42mp A7RII files, those were painful to work with! :D
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I can imagine! The i5 would be totally fine for Fuji files in fact I'll have a go with a few of my Fiji RAF files later.
 
Fuguru said:
Nice one.... :)
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Snappy with the Fuji files, I had read some reports that despite the "only" 24mp size that Fuji RAW's actually took longer to work with but seems fine to me.
Only think annoying me is the return of the whine I reported last week, from what I've read I believe its just coil whine when its highly loaded (only seems to happen with Photoshop), it does go away quickly but it is a little annoying, I would take it back and swap it but it seems to be prevalent not just on this but on a lot of Skylake/Kabylake CPU's now.
 
The noise will probably be the fans going to a higher rpm when hot?
My 2010 MacBook Pro does the same when the CPU is being worked hard.
Maybe the Surface Pro 5 will be a fan-less design.
I'm going to hold off buying anything for now and see what comes out later this year.

Thanks for the information :)
 
Fuguru said:
The noise will probably be the fans going to a higher rpm when hot?
My 2010 MacBook Pro does the same when the CPU is being worked hard.
Maybe the Surface Pro 5 will be a fan-less design.
I'm going to hold off buying anything for now and see what comes out later this year.

Thanks for the information :)
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It could be! If it is the fan its def getting swapped, shouldn't be that loud! Surface Pro 5 is coming in March apparently....
 
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