So, reading Beneath a Surface has gotten me very nastalgic for Windows 8/8.1.
I’m still one of the few that thinks Microsoft were actually onto something. I’m still a bit irritated it was massacred in the tech press. I agree that there were some systemic problems. But man…it was really a pretty nice first attempt at a touch-first conversion.
So, I’m sure there are many here who have and love various Surface lines. But for the rest of us, what is your major “sticking point” preventing you from pulling the trigger?
Mine:
Surface Go – currently overpriced for my perceived value (may not be actually true)
Surface Pro – probably the most likely to be useful for me, concern about reliability
Surface Laptop – kinda going out of my “laptop phase”, also alcantara
Surface Book – see “laptop phase” above, but otherwise this would probably be the winner
Surface Studio – currently overpriced for my perceived value, but tempted to get for my wife
I consider myself a good “target” customer for Surface as a premium brand. I honestly don’t mind paying “overpriced” margins for a product I love (or am at least confident in). But I’m just not quite there yet with Surface.
PeterC
<p>My wife and I are a house of “pros”. <img class="emoji" draggable="false" alt="?" src="https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/11/svg/1f600.svg"> have been for years. Theres no sticking points for us.</p><p><br></p><p>It’s portability and usability is remarkable. My wife does a lot of train travel and it’s the best portable computer in our opinion. We have docks and monitors at home and work too. I’m more docked these days but next year I will be back on the move more. Nothing comes close to its usability and form factor. Nothing.</p><p><br></p><p>Reliability issues were notable for us in the early days, but have been very good since the surface pro 3 got its battery and sleep of death issues sorted. My current model is a surface pro 5 (2017) i7 8gb model. Unlike others, I need the extra grunt of the albeit dual core i7 and fan cooled chip with 8 gb, less throttling for my type of work and it’s noticeably different to the i5 non fan cooled variant, and yes Ive compared them directly. Most reviewers tell you the i5 8gb is the sweet spot but really you need to think about what work you do. In my experience bench tests and reviewer opinions do need to be taken with caution. The fan cooled i7 leaves the others for dust and the fan is not audible. I compared my old SP3 to sp5 and the differences are quite remarkable. Battery life is good but again what will you be using the surface for kinda affects battery. My usage is focussed on large spreadsheets of interconnected data that need daily review and recalculating, with on average a couple of million re-calculations per work book.</p><p><br></p><p>The graphics are way better too with the i7 variant. Surface docks have been hugely challenging though, MS really should have done better especially for the prices they charge. With the intel upgrade in the current sp6 Versions you may not want the i7 variant, but for me I will always buy it. The surface pro line is all about maximum portability and power. </p><p><br></p><p><u>If there are any sticking points</u> as you put it then ……. they’re Windows and office related (Microsoft 365 basically) ….. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">The problems I have with surface now ARE NOT hardware related. </span><em style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">The hardware is great</em><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">This whole 365 as a service stuff is vampirical and SUCKS THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS OUT OF YOUR PERFORMANCE . Ive just had enough and scaled down my cloud and one drive usage massively, returning to more local back up and local solutions etc. Its like someone just gave me 30% performance back. </span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent;">If I were Panos I’d be giving the "Microsoft 365 team" a piece of my mind.</span></p><p><br></p>