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Trading on Surface Pro or very compact/mobile laptop
You may want to do some more testing and make sure everything is working as expected before migrating to your new system. Note that not all of the new systems shipped have the problems listed in the links below.
I have seen those but the only problem I find annoying is the mouse pad issue.
I'm used to a different feel on the pad and this one is way too sensitive at times and not at others.
I did not have the flickering issue but disabled the Hyper-V anyway.
There is no color shift on mine.
I think I just don't like Edge but that is a bias in me (I think)
Maybe the Surface Pro 4 has more issues than the Surface Book.
I forgot to order the Protection Plan from MSFT and when I called they offered to add it but it would have removed my order and put me at the end of the line (an 8 week wait or more). I decided to get the protection plan from Square Trade instead. Staples offers a 3 year plan for $299 (up to $1999.00) but I got the full coverage for up to $3k for an extra $80 directly from Square Trade. Because of that, I'm not worried about the glitches and all of my data is backed up multiple times.
I was expecting blazing fast CPU and it is faster but not as fast as Flash or the Green Hornet
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
How light is just the screen undocked, say compared to a previous gen like Surface Pro 3? (if you know). What about battery life without the keyboard attached?
How do you feel about the gap due to the hinge, when lid closed?
How rigid is it when using as a laptop and typing, then touching the screen for something?
What software are you using to test the pen? OneNote? Is it included or requires Office subscription?
I don't have a scale to measure this but it is less than half the weight of the complete unit.
I found it surprisingly light for the size.
Edit: One thing I forgot. I have the 512 gb drive with I7 & 16gb ram. However I like to use SD cards or Flash drives frequently for storage of seldom used downloads etc. I found the SD slot to be a short slot similar to the one on Macbooks. I have ordered a BaseQI short SD card adapter to see if I can use it in the slot without sticking out of the side. I also have the tiny USB flash drives to store seldom used data.
I sold my Surface 2 prior to this one arriving but it seems about the same weight as the Surface 2 with the raised keyboard attached. (Docked Surface Book). With the undocked screen only it is definately lighter than the Surface Pro 2 without the keyboard.
The battery life without the base is less than half of the complete unit. I have not let it completely die undocked because I prefer to use it docked. In the docked mode I have used it most of the day and it still has hours left. I have heard the battery life undocked is about 3 hours but I have not tested it myself undocked.
I think the gap is great. On my Surface Pro I always had a keyboard attached. I found that with a keyboard always against the screen some ghosting or 'wear' was starting and I would put a microfiber cleaning cloth on the keyboard to eliminate they contact. The Surface Book gap prevents this condition. I don't know if it was intentional but it seems to be a good thing to me.
When I use it on my desk it seems very stable either typing or touching the screen. Very little movement when touching the screen. However, when on my lap in a chair, it seems to be less stable. Not so much as to create a big problem but a little top heavy sitting on my knees. That could be my sitting position where my legs are slightly sloped when in the sitting position. When I do the same sitting in my bed with legs out stretched, there is no problem.
One Note was on the unit when it arrived. It does not seem to need a subscription. I have not had any nagging to register and it setup automatically when I double clicked the pen eraser.
I've used One Note a few times but I've played mostly with the "Fresh Paint" app that is on the machine. I like the way it can draw and change line sizes with pressure etc. I'm not sure how much I will use the pen but it is a nice feature. I'm a little worried about leaving it attached to the side of the tablet. It magnetically attaches but I don't think it will stay there in my leather case. I think the pen would be great with Photoshop (not installed yet) or other graphics programs. I think there are several pen tips that can be ordered to make it even more useful.
I have ordered a Decoded leather sleeve (discontinued) that was made for a Macbook. It seems to be the right size for this. I like the quality of the Decoded sleeve that I kept my Surface Pro 2 in (also an Apple exclusive product) so I ordered this one for my Surface Book. I think it light color will be easily marked or scratched in a case without the extra protection. (but I am hard on my computers when commuting).
Overall, the only disappointing thing I have found is the touch pad. I like a very responsive pad but one that will not move the mouse when typing (palm check). My Sony Vaio has a great pad. I have not found a setting on the Surface Book that works the way I like. I have opted to use a Logitech T630 bluetooth mouse and set it to disconnect the pad when using the mouse. It is a tiny mouse and works well for me.
I also have the new Surface Dock. It works ok on all setting except it does not recognize my external monitor. I think it is a firmware issue and maybe the two firmware packages will resolve the issue. I will download them tonight and see it it changes.
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
After a few days of using the Surface Book I have some more things to report.
There were several hardware updates issued and I've updated them.
Most of the issues have been resolved for me.
The trackpad is still too sensitive for me and I've tried several settings and none of them are as good as mine on my Sony Vaio. Although I do not like the trackpad as well as my Sony, I think I can get used to the way it operates. It is like when you change keyboards... it takes a few days/weeks to get used to the new feel of the keys. So I don't think this will be a big issue going forward.
One weird thing is some times when booting up the mouse does not respond. I think it is because the Book thinks I am in tablet mode and not connected to the keyboard. The resolution for me has to been either reboot or an easier way is to just undock the keyboard and then redock. The mouse then works normally.
One thing I stumbled upon was the speed. I did several tests and found the SSD was much faster than anything else I have. I've attached one of the tests I did in the image below.
I also tested my HP Omen (a gaming laptop)
The read on the Omen was 725 but the write was 617.
It seems the Omen writes faster but reads slower. I have not discovered why that would be. Both of them are i7 processors but the Omen is last years model which is supposed to be slower.
One thing that surprised me was the graphics speed.
I ran "Unigine_Heaven-4.0" benchmark.
It is designed to test graphics and speed on gaming machines.
The Omen ran the benchmark test at 47FPS average.
The surprise was the Surface Book on the first test was awful. With the Surface Book at it's highest resolution 3000 X 2000 the benchmark ran at 4FPS... It was jerky and very sluggish.
The Omen max resolution is 1920 X 1080 so I changed the Surface Book to 1920 X 1200.
The speed improved to 21FPS. The 21FPS was not as good as I expected but was much better than 4. I would have expected with all the improved graphics in the Book it would have performed better than the Omen.
(The Omen is one of the best gaming laptops available.)
This test revealed to me that I need to run Ninjatrader at a lower resolution. The higher resolution is not needed for Ninjatrader and it seems performance would suffer if it was at the highest resolution. (any one have an opinion on this?)
The external dock issue with the monitor seems to be the connection. Most users have an 'active' DVI connector and mine is not. I have one on order to resolve this issue.
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
I am still having issues with the mouse and the keyboard not responding when first started.
Also, the mouse and touchpad are too sensitive for my taste and there does not seem to be a setting that is similar to what I am used to.
I found that the build on this SB was the one from July and have been trying to update the build without a full wipe and reinstall. All of that has been unsuccessful for my attempts. I have heard many reports that the first units out of production had a corrupt build installed and that was causing the issues I have been experiencing. So the update of the build seemed important.
I was not able to get the new build to install via the Update Manager so I took the SB into the local MSFT store and let a tech look at it. I use the term 'tech' loosely since I seem to know more about the SB than they did and ended up sitting there watching her do the things I had already tried to get the update. (I told her I had done all of this but I guess that is her job to make sure).
Nothing she did seemed to work but after running a special undater in a command line window some new updates were installed but still no new build.
While she was away 'asking other techs at the home office' I checked for updates again in the Update Manager and build 10586 started downloading. When she came back she said her shift was over and turned me over to another tech to watch the process complete. Once done, he said... "Ok, try it for a few days and see how it does".
I told him that the update was not the latest one but he said well try it and see what happens. I took it with me and the problems I have been having are worse than ever plus some new ones have cropped up.
The mouse is more sensitive at the same settings as before. (worse for me)
The freezing at startup of the mouse and login screen is now almost every time it starts.
Random stopping of the keyboard and mouse responding is now occurring.
The battery life has been cut in half with the same usage.
In sleep or totally off, the battery is still draining.
As a result of this, I have decided to return the SB to MSFT.
I will go back to the store today and ask for a refund.
I am not sure if I will wait a while and get another SB or opt for the Surface Pro 4.
The SP4 has the same processor but not the same graphics card. But as posted earlier, the graphics card is not as good as my HP Omen laptop. I don't do much with graphics intense software anyway so I don't think it will matter.
I'm not unhappy with MSFT or the SB I just think the one I got and the early builds have issues that will be resolved but I don't want to deal with them. I'm certain MSFT will get them sorted out so maybe another one will be in my future.
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
I returned my Surface Book to the MSFT store.
I later discovered it is quicker to send it back directly since they bulk ship the returns and that delays things a day or so.
But MSFT received the return and credited my account for the return in less than 7 days.
Overall a good experience with some delays because of the return through the store.
My update is that I ordered a Surface Pro 4 i7 - 512gb drive 16gb ram.
Essentially the same as the Surface Books specs I had only $400 less expensive after adding the type cover keyboard.
Out of the box, there were setup issues but nothing very serious (I'm a pc tech).
The setup failed and I had to try and restart it with limited successes. When the setup restarted it got to the login screen and had a username "Other User" which sometimes happens when the setup is not successful. There are various ways around this issue but I decided to just reload the image.
MSFT has a great service that allows you to 'register' your devices and download the image used for that device. I downloaded it to a USB device and started the full clean restore. The restore paused several times during the initial load and finally got stuck at 99%. Luckily I've seen this before and knew to remove the USB device and reboot. (it seems the setup sometimes has issues recognizing the USB device at the final install / reset stage and removing it just gives it a jump start past that.
Once rebooted the install continued without issues and I was able to complete the setup and start Windows 10 normally.
Today I will do some more testing and checking but all of the current updates and firmware loaded fine and I"m running build 1511 this morning on the SP4. (this never completed successfully on the Surface Book I think there was a hardware issue on the first devices released)
So far, I like the way it performs and feels. It seems just right for my needs and will likely become my main laptop.
I like the 'feel' of this device better than the Surface Book and the keyboard/mouse issues I had with the Book are not as pronounced. After a few days of use I will know better.
I'll update more in the next few days after I load NT and the other software.
Rejoice in the Thunderstorms of Life . . .
Knowing it's not about Clouds or Wind. . .
But Learning to Dance in the Rain ! ! !
