Microsoft Surface users?

DMS General
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Does anyone have a Microsoft Surface computer or tablet that they’d be willing to have us try out at DMS for a little while? Astrud and I are considering getting the Surface Go, but would like a little more hands on testing than you can get standing at a display area in Best Buy.

Thanks!

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I have a Pro 4 as my (work) daily driver. The problems I have are the number of USB ports and driver problems. It’s does really weird unexplainable stuff sometimes that requires removing all the peripherals and rebooting a couple of times. That being said, it’s super convenient and I like it.

Sorry, I can’t let you play with it :frowning: (corporate)

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I have a Surface Book 2 and I love it. It’s my work computer so I can’t let anyone play with it but I bought mine from the Microsoft Store in Frisco and they promised 30 day returns with no restocking fee. I also negotiated something like a $600+ discount just by telling them that it was for a business and by asking if they could do anything about the price so that it fit with the budget that I was given. The only thing that I would change would be to add more USB ports and I don’t really like the power cable (which has already died once but replacement was very easy and painless). The arc mouse is pretty terrible, I don’t recommend it. The pen is really good and worth it.

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Also depending on what you want to do, it might make sense to try a Surface Go and not just any Surface product. When I brought my portable monitor to the Microsoft store and plugged it in, I found that the Surface Pro did not supply enough power to the USB ports to power my portable monitor but the Surface Book did. That is one reason why I bought the Book instead of the Pro.

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I have a pro 4. While it works great for most modern gaming or everyday internet and office and sure the touch screen and tablet features are well done to the point of it making a fairly decent workhorse that can game overall.

For the price point one can just get the same use with something better that would last a couple extra years and is upgradable.

Plus there’s the major caveats:

  • Price points for everything are nearly as bad as Apple with the same business and tech support model. (ie pricey as f* and one has to buy the replacement at a near premium)
  • The power supply is highly proprietary so expect to shell out $80 a year or so replacing that if one is taking it around or not leaving it connected (or one could save a little and buy two official ones from M$; one for the road and one for the home to extend the life of the charger)
  • the knock off chargers which are “cheaper” will kill the device.
  • One will need a docking station for anything that’s not bluetooth or wifi based. One is never enough.
  • Get the most one can for ram because while the storage is upgradable the memory, gpu, and cpu are not.
  • Network drivers is as spotty as a dalmation. Had to reboot to recover the machine because the networking was hung.
  • While the pro version of windows is good, its still windows and this version gets its updates months late in their releases. Expect bugs to be around longer or never be fixed and the potential of security issues hitting oneself first.
  • Using for development work that’s not Java/.Net/Azure is not the best idea but could be done in a pitch.
  • Will be one of the first devices slated for microsoft’s big ransomware initiative called Desktop As a service that would force thier users to a monthly fee for access to their own desktops.
  • OS gets borked expect to shell out $500+ for the pro version of windows. home or anything else does not work. At lease linux works well on this

In summary

One could elate the Microsoft Surface is the Saab of the computer world. Sure it gets the job done and rather study but you’ll be hit hard if something breaks the price doesn’t justify it for anything if one’s not already in bed with microsoft’s ecosystem. For the long run; just get something better otherwise it runs Linux just fine and looks pretty too in that distant european cousin kind of way.

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The docking station made the Book 2 an easier decision - it may not be necessary for the Book depending on the set up. If you don’t have any interest in the s-pen then I don’t see any reason to pay extra for the Book (or any Surface product). I use it a lot for work so I can sign legal documents from anywhere so it was worth the cost for me.

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Yeah, I never need the s-pen and signing docs for me is just as easy as hellosign.com and google docs.

Mine is only still around because its littlelly the only gaming rig I have these days that’s worth taking to a lan party or just gaming. Plus I have to do a lot of lab work out of the office since they’re trying to shoehorn docker into their Microsoft only environment.

Hence how I found out the networking on the device is bollocks.

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