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Looking to replace my aging and slowly dying laptop, which I use for streaming video and mostly MS office and VB stuff. Nothing strenuous, no high end gaming or anything. I was wondering if the convertible tablets might be worth a look or if they are going to be frustrating and I should just stick with a traditional laptop. The ability to go to a touch interface without keyboard might be nice option. Any recommendations? If there is a better thread for this stuff I'll delete and move it there.
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Dec 30, 2016 01:19
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 03:21 |
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There's a tablet thread over in IYG - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3587386 And a laptop thread here - https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3552651 I use a Surface Pro 4 and I really like it. It's replaced my desktop for the most part, except for games.
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Dec 30, 2016 01:44
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For some reason there's not a surface thread. The tablet thread is more iPads and lovely androids and the likes I have a surface pro 4 and I quite like it. Also great to hook up to the dock and have a workstation. The touch keypad is really really good. It's a bit of a niche item but I recommend it depending on your nneeds interests
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Jan 1, 2017 12:32
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Yeah, I couldn't find a thread here that really goes into 2 in 1s/tablet hybrids. Surface Pro 4 is a really nice computer but Continuum isn't quite there yet. A practical example of this would be switching to tablet mode and rotating to portrait with the type cover attached so you are reading it like a book. Auto rotate keeps trying to switch to landscape so you have to manually lock the screen to portrait. The virtual keyboard doesn't auto pop up, again because the keyboard is attached, even though its sideways and thus useless. The typecover is a really nice keyboard, but its also a "book" cover. Windows 10 right now isn't context sensitive enough to know the difference. The more you use Surface in Windows 10, the more little things like that stick out but its less an issue with Surface hardware and more of an issue with Continuum falling behind. With SP4 the dock becomes mandatory if you plug in 2 or more USB devices and they are the kind of devices which don't play nice over splitters/hubs like an audio + MIDI interface. At £125.00 the dock is not cheap, but it is by far the most elegant way to solve this problem. I consider the typecover to be mandatory and thats a £100.00 extra. Outside of a sale, putting together an SP4 that replaces your laptop is still real expensive. But despite it flaws there are times when the whole thing comes together and I find myself buying into that whole Microsoft futuristic flowstate experience thing they have going on now. I've been using FL Studio for 12 years and a few weeks ago I started using it with pen/touch for the first time. It actually does change the way you think about writing music and building sounds because the way you interact with the screen is so different. I started making different layout templates and everything. Tactility is a huge thing for sound design because the more of it you have, the more you feel your way through the process rather than wrestling with virtual dials using a mouse to line up neat fractions of 128. My mum is someone I would describe as being afraid of computers but she just intuitively touches the screen and pokes things with the pen. She intuitively highlights text with the eraser and now asks me questions like why she can't 2 layer authenticate with the iris scanner and fingerprinting (she doesn't want to remember long convoluted passwords for internet banking/shopping). For fucks sake, I didn't even know what 2 layer authentication was. I never saw my mum take to a computer like that before so I gave her my SP4 for Christmas. The only reason I could afford one in the first place was due to the Black Friday bundle. Now the price is back up where it hurts.
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Jan 2, 2017 05:28
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I'm down for a surface thread To play devil's advocate/be fair the SP4 does have a lot of QC issues and the battery life is atrocious. MS is kind of using their mainstream product to trial and error poo poo. Updates have fixed a lot of the little things. Might be worth waiting for the SP5 at this point or a SP4 "refresh" if they haven't done one yet. I'm sure they did an unofficial one. Can't say anything about the surface book but seem to be positively received
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Jan 2, 2017 05:59
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Token non-surface 2 in 1 user here (thinkpad yoga 460), it's really great, but I got it for ~1000 off of an end of year stock clearance thing so might not be good value anymore. I honestly only use the not-laptop modes for watching anime instead of sleeping but the touchscreen and pen are actually kinda useful for normal laptop things.
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Jan 2, 2017 06:28
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Is the OP a student in any capacity? The touch pen is great for writing on PowerPoints Also for some reason in TYOOL 2017 a surprising amount or official documents still require a hand signature. Not that it's much more effort to print/scan/take a pic it's nice to not have to
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Jan 2, 2017 06:34
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The Surface Pro 5 should be coming out Q1 of --- Every time I use the surface pen to draw I'm reminded that I have no talent and haven't advanced beyond 1st grade art class. But it's really nice for drafting up flow chats in OneNote or w/e. The main problem I have is that the eraser will remove the entire line instead of just a bit of it, so you'll have to re-draw the line.
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Jan 2, 2017 07:19
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Actuarial Fables posted:will remove the entire line instead of just a bit of it, so you'll have to re-draw the line. I didn't like this at first but i think I prefer it for when you have poo poo that overlaps I'd hope the SP5 has a better battery Nostalgia4Dogges fucked around with this message at 08:51 on Jan 2, 2017 |
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Jan 2, 2017 08:46
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Lemme tell you how great and expensive the surface book is. Its both.
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Jan 3, 2017 08:24
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I have a Surface RT 1 that I still use for taking meeting notes and occasionally streaming video on, both of which still work great. If you don't need a whole lot of power the Surface 3 non-pro is x86 and runs Win10, just get a type cover for it if you're planning on doing much typing at all. If you want a serious tank of a device Surfaces are great. I dropped mine on the concrete and then fell on top of it two years ago and it's still going strong. yet some people at work have broken 3 surface pro 4's in otterboxes in the last year, I honestly don't know how
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Jan 3, 2017 20:10
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bbcisdabomb posted:If you want a serious tank of a device Surfaces are great. I dropped mine on the concrete and then fell on top of it two years ago and it's still going strong. yet some people at work have broken 3 surface pro 4's in otterboxes in the last year, I honestly don't know how I get really worried about breaking my sp4 because the glass goes right to the edge, but it's been dropped onto a hardwood floor on the corner and sat on by a 300lb friend so I can't imagine what will break it. Does anyone use screen protectors on theirs?
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Jan 4, 2017 00:18
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Actuarial Fables posted:I get really worried about breaking my sp4 because the glass goes right to the edge, but it's been dropped onto a hardwood floor on the corner and sat on by a 300lb friend so I can't imagine what will break it. I do, but I use screen protectors on anything with touch input. I haven't noticed any poorer performance with touch or the pen but mine is a Surface 3.
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Jan 4, 2017 09:01
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| # ? Apr 19, 2024 03:21 |
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No screen protector here. I considered picking up an anti glare/matte screen protector though because the reflections are real bad.
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Jan 4, 2017 13:56
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