How does Microsoft's "Surface Pro a.k.a Pro 5" compare with other devices?

[Alexandr_Smirnov]

Hello my dear beloved Microsoft Surface Pro line. It has been so many years together, and yet it feels just like one day. All the feeling, the love and the stories, it is all so fresh in my memories, the memories of the true love story.

It all started in that cold winter of 2013. It was a gloomy and sad day, until I met her, the gorgeous new Surface Pro. She was the perfect love at the first sight.
I dreamt about her and she was all around perfect in my mind, but as often happens with the first love, we were not meant for each other. Then there was the tragedy and sadness and soon I met the Surface Pro 2.

She was the type of person that you find nothing wrong about and she is almost as good but something is missing. Maybe it’s the lack of that fire in the heart that made it race every time I have been around my first love.

Time flew and with it took all the pains and memories of my first love. It was a time to truly move forward. And on July 14th 2014 I’ve met my next true love! Her name was Surface Pro 3.

She was absolutely totally perfect! She was the type of girl that drew attention of everyone who got close to her. It was a passionate love; we travelled the world together and lived on the edge. She was a tough gal, ready to take any beating that love threw at her without even a blink. But on November 10th 2015 a sudden tragic incident took her life…

Heartbroken and lonely, I’ve met Surface Pro 4 at a common gathering.
Soon after we moved together and started anew. She was very pretty much like my last love, and even better in some ways but she lacked the stamina and wasn’t much of the companion for those long and sometimes exhaustive travels. To keep everyone happy and not to abuse her stamina, we came up with 4-hour rule after which we would always take a nice and long rest in the comfort of our home, hotel or lounge at the airport. We both came with the past and no one was perfect, so it was rather hard in the beginning and I am very thankful to her parents the Microsoft family for not giving up on their daughter and helping us all along. With time we learned to get along with each other coasting into peaceful live together.

But a love story is never a love story without a twist in the plot. In October 2016 my beloved Surface Pro 4 abruptly decided to leave me for another man. I was heart broken and have asked my older sister 2011 Mac Book Air 13 to come and live with me, while I recovered from the loss. As time passed I decided that it is time to fire up my feelings and passion again and find that perfect girl. I started dating again and met some interesting but often critically flawed personas:

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HP Elite x2 1012 G1 – a pig with lipstick
(read an in-depth full review here)

The good:
Fanless design
Nice trackpad
Backlit keyboard
Thunderbolt supporting USB-C

The bad:
Expensive
Huge bezels all around
Lackluster dim 1080P screen
Poor battery life
Weak magnets and mushy keys on the keyboard

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Dell XPS 12 9250 4K - different for the sake of being different not better…
(read an in-depth full review here)

The good:
Fanless design
Bright 4K screen
Backlit keyboard
Thunderbolt supporting USB-C

The bad:
Bizarre bezels sizing
16 x 9 screen aspect ratio
Battery Life the worst of all tested
Awkward and uncomfortable hinge/dock experience

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Asus Transformer 3 Pro – total specs champ… on paper
( read an in-depth full review here)

The good:
Solid performance
Backlit keyboard
Nice metal build with nice kickstand
Thunderbolt supporting USB-C

The bad:
A sad to look at screen
Subpar sound quality
Poor battery life

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Huawei MateBook - you can look but not touch
(read an in-depth full review here)

The good:
Stunning design and nice build
Backlit keyboard
Small bezels

The bad:
Horrible type-cover and kickstand
Mediocre sound quality
Poor battery life

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Samsung Galaxy TabPro S – best viewed in naked form
(read an in-depth full review here)

The good:
Stunning AMOLED screen
Nice build of the tablet portion
Small bezels

The bad:
Lacks real kickstand
Cheap looking and feeling keyboard and trackpad
Battery life nowhere near promised 10.5h

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So while I am hardly a sweetie myself I felt that I totally deserved someone better, someone with the spark to ignite my fire again. And as they say good things come to those who wait. On May 23rd 2017 I was introduced to a new colleague, her name is Surface Pro.

She looked great and had a swanky taste for colorful Alcantara dresses. She spoke all the right words, came from a good family and her resume was impressive and fully up to date.

“What else can one want?” – I asked myself. She fit to all my needs and checked all the right boxes, so she must be perfect for me, so I thought. But something was off; something didn’t feel quite right and was almost giving me that yet not forgotten sour aftertaste in my mouth… And then it stricken me why she felt so familiar yet different enough for me not to immediately recognize her. She was the twin sister of my beloved Surface Pro 4.

Yes, she wears different clothes and accessories, and she is a bit better trained for stamina, but deep underneath she is essentially the same as the one who left me heartbroken not so long ago.

True, passionate love never comes from rationalized thoughts! It comes suddenly and strikes you hard and then it holds you there. It is that super exciting feeling!!! It sparks that intriguing fire in you when don’t want to think, look at or talk to anyone else. The new Surface Pro is perfectly rationalized girl to love, and therefore she is unfortunately not the girl for me.

They say good things come to those who wait… I’ve seen this mysterious girl at the W hotel recently, she was gorgeous but I didn’t get her number, I only caught her name – it was V. I hope to see her again very soon

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P.S.
Dear friend, I poured my heart out for you and hope you enjoyed my story. Please share your love story with me. And please don’t omit any details and I want to hear it all

[Konstantinos]

What an awesome post you have here! It looks like community managed to build quite a future proof device Here’s how new surface compares to V!

[AntonyTerence]

Whoa
Can’t wait to meet the love of my life, the V…

[AntonyTerence]

Why is our price in ???

[Ryan]

If I was still waiting for the Surface Pro, I’d be happy with what was announced: numerous refinements and more than was expected. Its Achilles heel, battery life, appears to have been addressed, though we will have to see how it fares with real world usage.

Personally I’m still excited for my V. It contains a number of QoL improvements along the same vein, but the bigger differentiators I see are the vent-less chassis and better I/O port selection.

[Alexandr_Smirnov]

@Ryan

Its Achilles heel, battery life, appears to have been addressed, though we will have to see how it fares with real world usage.

Spot on there! I won’t believe any of it until I see it. If the history is any indication I really hope this “new” Surface Pro gets to at least 6h of real world usage. Last time they promised 9h my departed SP4 consistently got 4h light load daily office work.

[hosh0]

I can’t believe the pen is now sold seperately

[Konstantinos]

Your avatar matches your comment very well:)

[iKirin]

(My personal 2 cents following)

Since the new “Matebook E” was revealed by Huawei today I thought I’d also bring that thing up here:

Huawei MateBook E - We updated the Matebook!
( [Specs are here] (Huawei Launches the MateBook E 2-in-1: The Next Generation))

The good

• Fanless
• Fingerprint Sensor
• Includes a “Dock” with 1x USB-A, 1x HDMI, 1x VGA (and still 1 USB-C to charge)
• Light

The bad

• 34 Wh battery
• Only 1 USB-C port for everything (aka. “Oh, we did not think you’d want to plug in a USB-A device”)
• Pretty high starting price with 999€

The unknown

• Keyboard (last one was pretty bad)
• Sound Quality

Honestly - with that price and that battery life, who would buy that device? Like - seriously. I don’t have to even look to the V to see better offerings at the 999€ Huawei wants for this thing.

[Alexandr_Smirnov]

@iKirin

The bad

• 34 Wh battery
• Only 1 USB-C port for everything (aka. “Oh, we did not think you’d want to plug in a USB-A device”)
• Pretty high starting price with 999€

The unknown

• Keyboard (last one was pretty bad)
• Sound Quality

Last time around both the Sound Quality and Screen sucked

And I totally agree with you about the pricing.
This MacBook 12" wannabe imitates to the $$$ haha
Not sure why at this rate anyone would want or the real deal or better of pick up a V as you mentioned

[Ervin]

WOW!!!
Please, write a sequel of the V!
IF you ever get her number, that is
This was amazing, have read it twice, top to bottom and enjoyed it
Looking forward for what’s next from that peculiar brain of yours

[Alexandr_Smirnov]

Thank you for the kind words
I certainly hope that his would inspire others to share their stories!
If anyone needs help or advice on putting it together, I am always around

[blissrunner]

Honestly, the only thing dividing Surface “right now” with competitors; if I have to summarize it in Pros/Cons:
Cons (always have been with Microsoft Surface)

• Premium/High Prices for peanuts configuration (and still rising every iteration), a usable i5/256/8GB Surface Pro = will cost around $1400-1600 (including shipment, tax, type-cover/new Surface Pen)
• No battery-limit option
• Proprietary Surface Dock for $200 (now with questionable USB-C dongle option, as reported)/a.k.a. NO USB type-C for universal TB3 support

Pros:

• Optimized-technology and battery (since it’s Microsoft’s own): longer battery, new Instant-On, etc.
• New N-trig technology (4,096 lvl., 21ms-latency, +tilt-support but for $99)
• i5 Fanless, LTE coming later this year…

That’s it I guess… just to summarize in one sentence: High/Premium prices, optimized wake, and New N-trig to match Wacom EMRs/Apple Pencil.

Honestly, like others suggest, the only thing Eve should focus on is optimizing and importantly… PRICE (bang per buck ratio).

Now it is common to raise the price from an IGG promotional, but I recommend to either raise only by $100 margin or re-adjust price strategy. Since… people are actually buying Eve V’s M7 512/16gb more at the price cap of $1400 than the M3s, like by a far…

Another, strategy is to update the Eve V for a late-2017 refresh. Features like battery-limitation and the new 4,096 level digitizer layer for the screen alone are KEY-selling points that I’ve seen people talking about.

I’m glad t say… When we chose the screen at least we made the right path with N-trig for versatility.
https://dough.community/t/stylus-and-screen-mega-poll/1394

Have we gone the other way… it will be like new Surface Pro (N-trig 4,096) vs. Samsung Galaxy Book 12" (EMR 4,096)… with Eve V having better prices by a $300 from Samsung’s and $400-500 from New Surface Pro [2017].

Again, I think from marketing purposes Eve should focus on-pricing–since it’s the only post-production thing to do. Currently our IGG pricing is quite fair with 128/8, 256/8, and 512/16Gb for $700 → $950 → $1400.

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Microsoft said it doesn’t want to scare-away they’re competition by amping-up the Prices to Apple’s Premium level.

Although they actually do, bring innovative technologies like Surface Pen/Touch form-factor; their prices to us general-consumers was always horrendous/overpriced. This leads us to compromise and settling to lower-standard OEMs that fits the budgets but FAIL… (in battery, price, optimization, or poor port selections)

Now with Eve V, I proudly say it is the closest to being the perfect contender and communities champion. The pricing is a first step, and personally I recommend maybe to raise the IGG prices for the M3, M5 if neccesary…

Since @Konstantinos did say that the M7 model have high-prices to cover for the lower-end model, but in truth, we have seen that people actually are buying our $1400-M7 512/16gb model more enthusiastically–so I don’t recommend raising the upper-cap price.

[fanoftech4life]

You talked about having several ‘loves of your life’ -
Surface line - and having an older sister - MacBook Air 13. Who are you?? Maybe a desktop top of the line rig?

And you should start writing a book… I’d be the first in line to buy it (with an autograph of course!!)

[Neti]

Yep, and still pending of a windows update if you want the tilt function.

[hellBENder]

@Konstantinos
Will we be able to use the new surface pen with it’s new tilt feature?

The Surface Pen also now supports tilting for the first time, making shading much easier. The Surface Pen is backward compatible with the Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, Surface Book, and Surface Studio, so its new features work with those older devices.

New Microsoft Surface Pen: Everything you need to know

[iKirin]

@hellBENder

Will we be able to use the new surface pen with it’s new tilt feature?

The pen itself will work for sure - I’m however unsure how many pressure levels it’ll suppport.
As for tilt - we should be able to make it work, as we’re using the NTrig technology, but to be honest - we’re kneedeep in ensuring that the timeline keeps on track, so we did not have too much time looking into this.

@blissrunner What do you mean by “optimized wake”?

[Walkop]

@iKirin I believe MS was touting a much faster wake-time than previous Surfaces. Probably at least partially due to Kaby Lake. Right at the near-instant wake of an iPad or high-end Android device.

[iKirin]

Ah, that thing! Well, I won’t say too much but I’ve seen that on other devices as well - like you just touch the fingerprint scanner and it unlocks. Last seen on my OP2 but I’ve also seen that on other devices