MS surface vs. tablets

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LiNK666

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What do you guys recommend? I need something and I can't stand laptops anymore. They die out in 2 years or slow down so much that it's unusable.

I need for heavy business use. I use quickbooks, dropbox, e-mail and MS office primarily.

Any advice is appreciated!
 
Every Surface Pro 2 we ordered (6 I believe) have WiFi connectivity issues connecting to our Meraki hotspots.
Besides that, they are slick little tablets. They are heavy but powerful and very portable. Our users that travel a lot love them (when they are not having WiFi problems).
 
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Don't the Surface tablets run the same OS as laptops anyway (Win8 ) so you'd run into the same problem?

I haven't had a laptop I've loved since my old Asus M6000. That thing lasted me 6 years of my own use and didn't die until it was over 8 years old and I bought it used. Any laptop since that I haven't been completely happy with from day 1. My Dell M4600 had the video card literally go up in smoke after about 6 months and the replacement randomly hard shut downs sometimes when I leave it idle. If your computer is unusable after 2 years you're doing something wrong with it.

I probably use my phone more than anything but there are still many things I couldn't do without having at least one full fledged computer around. I don't think you're going to find a version of MS Office or QuickBooks that runs on anything except a Windows machine.
 
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Surface RT is running the tablet OS.
Surface Pro is running full Win 8
I don't know if MS makes the RT anymore.
 
Katapult said:
Every Surface Pro 2 we ordered (6 I believe) have WiFi connectivity issues connecting to our Meraki hotspots.
Besides that, they are slick little tablets. They are heavy but powerful and very portable. Our users that travel a lot love them (when they are not having WiFi problems).
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How about Pro 3? I saw it at futureshop. Bigger screen. I'm thinking of going to US soon so I will pick up there if anything.

Dresden said:
Surface sucks. I returned it within a few days.
I REALLY wanted to have Windows as a OS on my tablet, but Android is just so much better.


http://quickbooks.intuit.com/mobile/

MS Office, Email, dropbox etc. is perfectly capable on an Android tablet.
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That's for quickbooks online. I use Quickbooks Pro. Can't use online since my billing would go through the roof.
 
I have a Surface Pro 3 for work and I love it. Very portable, a couple of issues with bluetooth and some resolution issues (as it has a stupidly high resolution screen). Aside from that it is a very impressive machine. SS hard drive so it's fast. Use One Drive, Google Docs, iCloud or Dropbox for cloud backup and you'll keep the machine relatively free of junk. You can plug in a 128GB micro SD too and have preferences save music, photos etc to that to keep the main hard drive clean. I like it so much as a laptop replacement I haven't even used it as a tablet yet.
 
It's still going to have the same laptop problems you have if it runs Win8. I don't see the benefit of going with Surface.
 
jc100 said:
I have a Surface Pro 3 for work and I love it. Very portable, a couple of issues with bluetooth and some resolution issues (as it has a stupidly high resolution screen). Aside from that it is a very impressive machine. SS hard drive so it's fast. Use One Drive, Google Docs, iCloud or Dropbox for cloud backup and you'll keep the machine relatively free of junk. You can plug in a 128GB micro SD too and have preferences save music, photos etc to that to keep the main hard drive clean. I like it so much as a laptop replacement I haven't even used it as a tablet yet.
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I find its pretty un-competitively priced though granted its easily the premier thin book on the market but 1000buck with an additional 150 for the keybaord cover. There is a reason there are still warehouses full on the surfacepro 2's in China. I still want one so bad but will probably go for MACbook air with dual boot.

Anyone take a look at nvidas new gaming tablet... its exceptionally well priced.
 
jc100 said:
I have a Surface Pro 3 for work and I love it. Very portable, a couple of issues with bluetooth and some resolution issues (as it has a stupidly high resolution screen). Aside from that it is a very impressive machine. SS hard drive so it's fast. Use One Drive, Google Docs, iCloud or Dropbox for cloud backup and you'll keep the machine relatively free of junk. You can plug in a 128GB micro SD too and have preferences save music, photos etc to that to keep the main hard drive clean. I like it so much as a laptop replacement I haven't even used it as a tablet yet.
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Thanks! that's very informative. I had a android tablet by ASUS and it died out right after a year. I don't want Android anymore. It's so hard to do work on Android and iOS because of compatibility issues.
 
Macbook Air? I don't know about quickbooks for osx though. My last MBP lasted 6 years with no problems.
 
Ultrabooks (like the MacBook Air mentioned) sound more up your alley.

Out of all the laptops I've ever used, the IBM/Lenovo thinkpad's just can't and won't die. If all you use them for are solely business, then they'll last as long as you need them to. (That's if you want a MSFT based OS).
 
GreyGhost said:
Macbook Air? I don't know about quickbooks for osx though. My last MBP lasted 6 years with no problems.
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I'm very leery of trying apple. Usually in the past they were very over priced

nfq said:
Ultrabooks (like the MacBook Air mentioned) sound more up your alley.

Out of all the laptops I've ever used, the IBM/Lenovo thinkpad's just can't and won't die. If all you use them for are solely business, then they'll last as long as you need them to. (That's if you want a MSFT based OS).
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I'll take it under consideration. I noticed that laptops slow down so much after 1yr+. My custom built desktop still performs great after 4 years.
 
Macbook Air.

I am the biggest Apple hater out there (due to the restrictive nature of their OS), but I have to give credit where it's due. It's just phenomenal. Won't be outdated for another decade. Light as a feather. Fast and simple.
 
Here's why I don't have a MacBook Air...

For presentations I can use the digitiser pen on the Surface Pro 3 to annotate slides as I go. For meetings I click the top of the pen and OneNote opens up. I can then annotate a saved webpage (double click top of pen) or take notes. If I wish I can have my handwriting converted to text. I can annotate a map or anything saved as a screen capture. After I close One Note everything is saved to the cloud and I can access it anywhere. The laptop is powerful and fast and the dock that you can get for it is a dream. Click the sides of the dock in and everything links up to multiple monitors. Unclick the sides and it's ready to got portable, no need to dismount hard drives or anything, it's all taken care of.

Apple don't have anything remotely close to this because of the pen input and you'll find you either can't live without it (like me) or if you can...choose another option perhaps.

Is it pricey? Yes, but it's also beautifully made. The screen is amazing.

I'm not a fanboy though, I have an iPad too and that's great for browsing but this machine (Surface Pro 3) is truly multipurpose. With the typecover on it is extremely light and portable. I hardly use my Lenovo X201 convertible tablet anymore.

Downsides: You have to tweak a few settings for maximum battery life. The screen brightness is one of them, using the correct browser also helps (some are energy hogs). The screen resolution means not everything plays nice without a few adjustments but I've only had minor problems. One USB port is a bit of a downer..but a hub is only a few dollars and you can get one with an ethernet port too.

If you do get one of these, get a dock for it too. With the dock it's a perfect desktop replacement if you add a monitor or two to get two to three screens to work on.

I have the i5 256 MB version and it's plenty fast enough for me (business/teaching use). There's an i7 if you want a little more power but some reports suggest there's throttling issues.
 
Dresden said:
Macbook Air.

I am the biggest Apple hater out there (due to the restrictive nature of their OS), but I have to give credit where it's due. It's just phenomenal. Won't be outdated for another decade. Light as a feather. Fast and simple.
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Wow, I couldn't have written a better post and feel the exact same way.

Can't stand Apple stuff, but I have to hand it to them, they know how to build a laptop.
 
LiNK666 said:
I'm very leery of trying apple. Usually in the past they were very over priced



I'll take it under consideration. I noticed that laptops slow down so much after 1yr+. My custom built desktop still performs great after 4 years.
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That's only if you don't perform regular maintenance , that's also for any desktop.
 
nfq said:
Ultrabooks (like the MacBook Air mentioned) sound more up your alley.

Out of all the laptops I've ever used, the IBM/Lenovo thinkpad's just can't and won't die. If all you use them for are solely business, then they'll last as long as you need them to. (That's if you want a MSFT based OS).
Click to expand...
The worst machine I've owned was the Lenovo T61p.
 
LiNK666 said:
I'll take it under consideration. I noticed that laptops slow down so much after 1yr+. My custom built desktop still performs great after 4 years.
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This is 100% software based. Laptops come with too much bloatware. Backup your data, format and do a clean Windows install; right back to 100% performance.

And next time consider buying a Signature series laptop from Microsoft- they come with totally clean installs of Windows. It's the only way to go if you're not buying Apple, IMO.
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