Tag Archives: Microsoft Surface Pro 3

4 years with a Surface Book – already angry today? Part 3

Posted on by

Welcome to the third part of my ordeal with the Surface Book. Without much preamble, we’ll get right into it.

Disillusionment part 5: the Windows Time Machine Clone.

I really liked Time Machine on my old MacBook. It always worked smoothly, in my case with a network hard drive. With Windows 10, there would theoretically have been something similar, but after just a month I gave up. It worked a maximum of once or twice with the network hard drive, then there were only error messages, but no more backup.

The disillusionment part 6: Fan.

It felt like the fan started at every little thing. And so I spent many hours with an annoying noise on the desk. My self-assembled desktop computer runs so quietly even under load that I can listen to music alongside, together with my Surface Book this was not possible at all. This was not a problem with the MacBook before, it got warm but never loud.

The disillusionment part 7: the audio quality.

My MacBook never had problems with a trouble-free playback of audio files. The Surface Book, on the other hand, always produced a permanent, clearly perceptible noise – regardless of whether with or without the docking station – so that undisturbed music enjoyment at work was not possible. Especially not with the loud fan. For the preparation of my THD DJ course, I always had to use my desktop computer, which was quiet. Apparently, Microsoft developers never listen to music. Nevertheless, my Surface Book was shown on the Microsoft website 4 years ago together with a DJ. In the context of audio performance, I could always have a good laugh at this depiction. It was probably a futile attempt to position the product similarly to a MacBook.

Disillusionment part 8: the quality of the device itself.

The quality of a MacBook is indisputably great. Nothing bends, the screen has a straight line, the device is simply super stable. The Surface Book, on the other hand, is definitely not worth its price. The tablet-panel showed a clearly visible bend at the upper edge. Should not really happen in this price range.

These were the main reasons for switching back to the Mac. Beyond that, there were many other minor annoyances that ultimately led to the switch. Now I’m happy to give the Surface Book back to our lab engineers at the THD after the move. Finally, here’s a three-month field report on how my new MacBook is working.

Stay tuned, more stuff is on the way.

4 years with a Surface Book – already angry today? Part 2

Posted on by

Welcome to the second part of my ordeal with the Surface Book. Without much preamble, we’ll get right into it.

Disillusionment part 2: tablet and laptop? Really?

The second reason for me to buy the Surface Book was the possibility to use the tablet independently from the keyboard. However, this was often associated with error messages, the operating system usually complained about an unstable connection when re-connecting the tablet. The usual solution with Windows: shut down and restart, sometimes awkwardly delete the drivers from the device manager and have them reinstalled. The main reason why I almost never used this feature in the end was the battery life of the tablet part. After 2 to 3 hours at most, the stove was off. My 349 euro iPad runs a complete day during intensive use. Minimum.

Disillusionment part 3: the performance of the Surface Book.

My Surface Book has a Core I7, theoretically the basis for a fairly high-performance device. Wrongly thought, the Surface Book was surprisingly slow in many things and that from the start. Whether this was due to the operating system or the hardware, I definitely cannot say. But what was interesting to me was that my favorite Dragon NaturallySpeaking software worked faster and smoother in a test with my now 8-year-old MacBook in a Parallels Windows 10 virtual machine than it did in the Surface Book. How embarrassing is that?

The disillusionment part 4: Windows 10 itself.

While Windows 10 worked amazingly well on the Surface Pro, on the Surface Book it had random dropouts, especially when combined with the docking station. The LAN connection disappeared at regular intervals, switching between the high-resolution screen and my stationary monitor did not work until the end. The operation with pen and fingers also showed quite clearly that Windows 10 is still more of a desktop operating system and less of a tablet operating system. You always come to a point where you need a mouse or a keyboard, quite in contrast to the iPadOS.

On top of that, the OS still has a problem with high resolution monitors. I was so often annoyed when all of a sudden an app appeared in a micro-window with micro-font. Sometimes the start menu disappeared in nirvana or only 200 pixel large single letters appeared. The same principle over and over again: log out and log in again or restart immediately. Simply annoying.

In the next days the third and final part will come, stay tuned.