I need a new machine for work and I’m torn between the Surface Pro and the Surface Book. Maybe I’m missing something but what advantages does the Surface Pro have over the Surface Book? As far as I can tell the Surface pro is more expensive after you add in the cost of the pen and keyboard which are included with the Surface Book. That plus the fact that with the Surface Book you don’t need to futz around with that stupid kickstand leave me wondering what I’m missing – why would anyone want the Pro over the Book?
Originally, the Book was a lot more expensive than the Pro 4 for comparable specs, even after including the price of accessories. However, the Book is now a few years old, and it has come down in price. Meanwhile, the new Pro (5, or 2017, whichever) came out recently, so it’s at new-model prices.
How much do you plan to use it as a tablet? IIRC the battery life on the Book in tablet mode, when detached from the keyboard, is pretty short. Possibly so short that it won’t last through an afternoon of notetaking in long meetings.
Personally, I use my Surface Pro 3 for several hours a day as a tablet, and sometimes I’ve used it for 6-8 hours like that (for notetaking at conferences). In these situations, the Book would be useless for me. But if you plan to mostly use your surface as a laptop, the Book might be a better choice.
This review says that as a tablet, the Book only has enough battery for 4 hours of light duty use. That’s with their “web browsing” test, which should be pretty similar to note taking. For comparison, I can get about 8 hours of heavy note taking out of my Surface Pro 3, which is pretty close to their 504 min result.
I have an older Surface 2 non-Pro. So I can’t help with your immediate question. But …
I can say that the “stupid kickstand” is by far one of the most useful features my device has. And it’s one that substantially all competing tablet devices lack. The number of ways it’s better than an ordinary clamshell laptop has to be experienced to be believed. Likewise how much better it is than the detachable origami keyboard/stand/cover common on iPads.
Trust me when I say you won’t be calling it “stupid” after you’ve had it a day or two.
Buy either one from the Microsoft store with a 1 month no question return policy.
I like the Surface Pro 4. It’s a road warrior device. Light weight, small. The Book is substantially bigger. The surface stand is great but falls down if you like to type on your lap.
It’s probably too late, but my advice is to avoid the Surface at all cost. My first stopped taking a charge after less than a year. They replaced it under warranty fine. The second one, just a couple months ago (and now about two years old) also stopped taking a charge, then I discovered that if I plugged the power cube into the wall before plugging it into the computer, it would charge. Fine. Then a week ago, it suddenly froze. I use it mostly for travel, but it was a warm day and I decided to work on my porch. When it froze, nothing worked. Nothing. So I did the emergency off, holding the button ten seconds. Then tried turning it on. Would not boot. Tried it several times. Some screen came up offering repairs, but no repair worked. Finally, the only button that worked was repair from the cloud. In the meantime, it had lost my network name and password. Twenty hours later (and about 15 GB of downloading) later it seemed to be back. Of course, everything that was on it was lost, including the editing I had done that afternoon. Now I have to reinstall all the programs I use. PITA. Piece of shit that Surface.
I’ve always thought that Microsoft hardware was as good as their software was poor — had they stuck to making keyboards they could have done great things — certainly at these prices one could expect the machine to be as good as Apple. With another OS of course.
Anyway, MS may leave the Surface business in a few years according to The Register. Which means there might be machines sold off at a big discount.
Could you describe in what ways it’s better? I’ve briefly tried out the Surface and some competitors, and so far have no love for kickstands of any kind. Plus, it seems like a clamshell does everything a kickstand device does, but supports itself, even on rocky terrain like a lap.
I use a Surface 2. Which may have a different arrangement than the variant one you have.
I have never been able to hold a conventional laptop on my lap. The damn thing falls over on its back. Or is too tall and top heavy or rocky or something. It’s just awkward. I need two hands to hold it still which leaves no hands for typing.
I spend at least a couple hours every day typing to the 'Dope on my Surface 2 while sitting in an easy chair or a chaise lounge or couch. I’m on a couch right now watching baseball. The keyboard is attached and the kickstand is out. The kickstand digs a bit into my upper leg just above the knee. The keyboard ends up ideally located just south of my crotch. The screen is at a good angle for visibility. The whole thing is totally stable. It just fits me.
My other common use case is riding in the back on an airplane. There, even in cramped cheapo-coach I can work off my lap with the tray table stowed. Or I can work on the tray table. I’ve never owned a laptop that fit on a coach tray table for crap; they’re all too deep. By the time I get the screen angled correctly it’s up against the seat back and pushing 2/3rds of the base unit off the front of the tray table into my lap. Doubly so if the customer in front has reclined his/her seat. Then the whole thing wants to fall off the table into my lap.
I find the combo of the built-in kickstand and the type cover to be very thin and convenient. The origami flip-n-fold thing the iPads have is bulky and awkward. This thing is easy to carry closed, and flips open and settles on a desk, table, or my outstretched legs very naturally in a half-second tops. When I’m done a quick squeeze w one hand collapses the kickstand and and folds the body face down onto the keyboard. Flip, flip and I’m set up and typing. Slap, slap and I’m closed up and ready to walk away.
It just works. For me.
The one thing I wish it had was some kind of kickstand for portrait orientation. Thought the engineering obstacles are obvious. I prefer reading e-books in that orientation and I’m stuck holding the thing or setting it sorta precariously on a table leaning back against something else.
The Surface Pro is a 1.7-pound 12.3-inch stand-alone tablet with >13 hours battery life. For many applications, such as note-taking and reading, you don’t need the keyboard. Even with the keyboard it’s still very lightweight at 2.5 lb or so.
The Surface Book is twice as heavy at 3.4 pounds. Granted, that’s including the keyboard base, but you need the keyboard base to get decent battery life. If you detach the tablet section (or “clipboard” mode as they call it), it becomes a 1.6-pound 13.5" tablet, but it has limited functionality in this form - only 4 hours battery life, no USB ports at all, no SD card slot, and no kickstand. It does have a dock connector, but it’s at the bottom (long) edge so you can’t put it on a stand in landscape orientation and connect it to power at the same time. (Well, you could if the stand has a clear space in the middle at the bottom, but that’s rare.) You also get reduced video performance in clipboard mode because the dGPU is in the keyboard base.
Also, if you are considering these two very different devices, you should also consider the many other 2-in-1 devices that are now available - HP Spectre/Elitebook x360, Lenovo Yoga series (more models than I can keep track of), Acer Switch 12, Huawei Matebook, Dell XPS 13 2-in-1, etc.
MSFT data shows that Surface Pro users keep the keyboard attached 95%+ of the time (I previously worked for MSFT for 14 years). Surface Pro 4 user - I have detached my keyboard less than a dozen times in the past 18 months. I certainly don’t flip the keyboard over to tablet mode more than once a week and probably more like once a month. The form factor is a road warrior device (light, big enough, etc). Note, Pro kickstand/keyboard combo sucks if you actually use it on your lap.
The Book is a bigger, heavier form factor.
Up to you what your trade offs are. I soooo wanted the Surface Book until I actually compared it side by side with the Pro 4 that my company would buy me so no budget issue. And for me, the Pro 4 was by far the superior device.
Personal anecdote. I’m on my 4th Pro 4. First one had about a 2 hour battery life. MSFT Store guy heard the fan blowing, felt how hot it was to the touch, and said “I’ll swap that out for you.” Next one worked well (but battery life was only 5-6 hours max). Then one of the Win 10 big updates completely broke it - fan ran constantly, overheated, battery life dropped to about 90 minutes. Out of warranty but the MSFT store tried to fix it/reinstalled the software, and finally swapped it out for a refurbished unit. Worked fine (with a max 5-6 hour battery life). Then one of the updates made it so that the camera and speaker didn’t work, nor did the headphone jack when running Sykpe for Business. I couldn’t de-bug that for a couple of months until the latest Win 10 update fixed it. WTF? Surface Pro products and Windows and Skype for Business are all MSFT flagship products that should work well together…
Did I say before that you should only buy MSFT products from the MSFT store?
I’ve owned several of my Surface 2 (non-Pro). Both wife and I have one and they get used a lot every day. And dropped on hard floors, etc. I’ve had one touchscreen simply quit touching and 3 or 4 screens crack on the umpteenth tumble.
We’ve had decent reliability of both new & refurb units. Net of their susceptibility to gravity. :smack:
Having always bought them directly from MSFT either directly or through Amazon, MSFT has been super about replacing them. I definitely second buying MSFT hardware directly from MSFT vice buying it from some random online or B&M retailer.
