![]() In my opinion, $1299 is a little high for this setup. The one I purchased was the 8 gig 256 SSD, i5. I put that towards a type cover along with Microsoft's accidental coverage and everything came to about $1300 - $1400 including tax.I have been through 3 macbooks within the last 5 years and 2 failed due to "accidental" reasons, although only one was a true accident and other was one of Murphy's Laws in action.Anyways, with the price, I thought i'd try out the surface pro 3 and this review is written after Microsoft's 2015 Build conference with no surface pro 4 announcement :(Speed - Speed is good. With that being said, I was able to get this item with about a $250 discount from $1299 with BestBuy price matching Microsoft. Definitely worth the money that I paid for it. Since the latest builds it works very nice and battery life is great. I really like the position where it is magnetically 'snapped' to the display bezel, although typing makes more noise then.I have been using Windows 10 Technical Preview for some time now. As a desktop I use the docking station with an external monitor and use it extensively for development, office applications, mailing, reading, etc.The type cover took some time to get used to, but after that it's great. and for occasional development and database work (Visual Studio / SQL Server). Obviously, it is a bit large and heavy as a tablet, so usually I lay it down on the table, or let the bottom rest on my legs (mostly in portrait mode).As a laptop I use it for reading / annotating / notes (OneNote) / mails / demonstrations / etc. It really surprised my how usable it is as a tablet. It has travelled with me to Taiwan for 3 weeks and survived without incident in my backpack. I use it extensively as a tablet, laptop and desktop replacement. I love my Surface :-)I have used it for 9 months now. Not very ergonomic for me at least.Overall I would say if you are planning to browse the internet, Skype, email, store and edit photos, etc then it is a great little tablet! If you are looking to do graphic design or illustration, go buy a drawing tablet and a laptop separately! Also, when standing up on the table, my wrists would hurt after a while from the angle. I ended up holding it in my lap like a sketchbook while working, which led to a stiff neck later. The stand isn't very good and combined with the fact I had to press so hard to get opaque lines (yes, I turned up the sensitivity) I couldn't stand it up while drawing. Another thing to note is that I kept getting neck aches after working on it for extended hours drawing. The digital app-keyboard is annoying, kept popping up when I didn't want it and beeping at me. The keyboard and track pad are tiny! I frequently got wrist aches after using it for a long time. I'm a bit skeptical that the keyboard will last a long time, and it gets annoying pretty quickly. Normally the only Windows screens I think look decent are worth an arm and a leg(one of the main reasons I use apple computers).As a personal computer I am sure the Surface is great. The beautifully bright colours and crisp clear display are fairly comparable to my Retina display laptop. My roommate said the specs say it should work fine, but in practice it really did not like to work harder than browsing the internet and chatting on Skype.I must say that it has the nicest screen I've seen on a Windows PC, especially for a laptop/tablet. It's just not meant for using big programs I think. One time when I was using Skype to talk to a client while working in Photoshop the Surface froze and went black(I presume from overheating) and wouldn't restart for about twenty minutes. It got very hot and the tiny fan would go like mad. I ended up having to plug my Wacom drawing tablet into it to use.Secondly, the poor thing overheated terribly when I used Photoshop and an internet browser at the same time. I am annoyed that they market it as a 'graphic designers dream', sure if they don't need pressure sensitivity maybe. Low end drawing tablets tend to have 1,024 degrees of pressure sensitivity, high end having double that and more, and this little thing has 256. It's cool that you are drawing right on the screen, but the pen feel isn't great. ![]() There was an annoying amount of latency between the pen pressing and what shows up on the screen, not as much as some, but enough that I noticed. ![]() I had to press incredibly hard to get the opacity of brushes in Photoshop to opaque. It's somewhere between a laptop and ipad style tablet(fairly useless except to check mail and Facebook).Firstly, and most frustratingly, the pressure sensitivity is miniscule. I initially thought the Surface was a fantastic combination between laptop and drawing tablet. My roommate was kind enough to lend it to me as I'm a Digital Illustrator and needed to keep working. I used the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 for about two months when my Macbook Pro had to go in for repairs(my own fault).
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