An excellent take on a laptop and tablet, the Surface Pro 4 is a victor in every aspect.
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It’s brilliant. The key action is crisp, the keys are well spaced and backlit, and – most importantly – it doesn’t feel like you’re typing on a shoebox when the keyboard is tilted up at an angle. And it’s another feature the Surface Pro 4 doesn’t have. Can’t choose? Let us help you!
K Raman, managing director of Microsoft Malaysia, said: “We have received remarkable success since the launch of the Surface Pro 3 past year, and continuously drove ourselves to create the most productive devices on the planet”.
Microsoft will argue that this is a problem the Surface Book solves, and the company is largely correct. I don’t think it’s fair to define the Surface Pro 4 as either a tablet or laptop or both, because it’s much more than that, and I think Microsoft is mistaken in advertising it as such.
To only add a little insult to injury for those who hope to use the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 for entertainment, the color accuracy is not the best, but it hardly scores much lower than competition. As a laptop replacement, it’s natural for it to come with a high level of hardware customization that will give you the opportunity to nail the ideal setup for you in terms of processor, RAM or hard disk size.
Microsoft site: The price difference is dependent on the model: $1499 for 128 GB/Core Intel i5 with 8 GB, $1699 for 256GB/Core Intel i5 with 8GB, $1899 for 256 GB/Core Intel i5 with 8 GB/dGPU, $2099 for 256 GB/Core Intel i7 with 8 GB/dGPU, and $2699 for 512 GB/Core Intel i7 with 16 GB/dGPU.
Pricing starts at $1,179 Canadian for a Core M3 with 4GB RAM and a 128 GB SSD. The device features the latest Windows 10 OS and has a 6th Generation Intel Core M vPro processor.
Loss of work is the biggest downside of this, more than anything else. It has plenty of power for most tasks (but forget serious gaming – the integrated Intel GPU isn’t up to it), and a lovely screen, but it still needs some work, especially on battery life. Microsoft already announced a bunch of its Black Friday deals a few days ago, but here’s one other highlight that might just pique your interest.
The market research firm forecasts that Windows-based tablets will continue to gain market share, reaching 18 percent of the market by 2019, while Android-based tablets will shrink to 59 percent market share and iOS will remain virtually unchanged at 23 percent market share. However, HP has unveiled the Elite X2 which has the backing of a popular PC device brand name, but is relatively under-the-radar in the tablet market. Purchasing the Surface Pro 4 will also provide you with a free 30 day long Office trial, afterwards requiring a subscription or full program purchase in order to continue using it.
Whether Microsoft can fix the problem with software is yet to be seen; the next Windows 10 update is rumoured to contain improvements that increase battery life.
This was the first time I’ve used Windows 10, and I must say as a regular Windows user and even an iPad/iPhone user, everything felt extremely familiar.
The Surface Pro 4 is not a “tablet that can replace your laptop, sketchbook, legal pad, and so on”. To wrap up though, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 will most likely last you through the day without needing charging with a mild usage – working, web browsing, sending e-mails and so on.
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To conclude, the best thing about the Surface Pro 4 is not that it’s the best at any one thing, because it isn’t. However, as a downright considerable downside, the price you would have to pay to have a highly operable hybrid is very high – at times making you wonder if you shouldn’t just spend less and stick to either a laptop or a tablet.
