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Hello everyone.. Sorry for my bad english.. I bought surface pro 4 yesterday.. it has i5 6300u which i confirmed has 2 cores and 4 threads.. but for some reason task manager and cpu-z is showing 2 core and 2 threads.. i checked the bios but there isn't an option for hyperthreading in that.. and also i checked msconfig everything is fine there too... I am a bit confused now.. why it is showing 2 threads instead of 4.. can anyone help me with that?

I got it cheap even for an old device because it was sat on, and the screen is half black, and the touch does not work, so I need to replace the full screen/digitizer, but IDK what tape is best Eg if there is any special tape needed for these specific devices or not thanks in advance

Hey peeps i have been thinkig of getting a new laptop and i was woundering if you peeps could help me decide ? which should go for: HP Spectre x360, Dell XPS 13(2in1 or standard) or Surface pro 4 ? (wait for the surface pro 5 ? ) was also thinking about the Razor Blade stealth but unfortunatly it is unavailable in Norway Please leave comments on your experiences with the differnt devices

Hello everyone! Now it's no secret that I'm a macOS fan... Having a MacBook Pro and a home-made, custom built Hackintosh to run macOS with all the perks of having a PC. But I'm not stupid either and I can recognise when theres performance degradation thats becoming a problem and holds me from doing my work. So my budget is going to be £800, enough for second hand variants of the following systems: 256GB/8GB Microsoft Surface Pro 4 and the HP zBook 15u G2 Ultrabook. Along with my college work, I need it to do 3D animations, modelling, After Effects and Premiere Pro. With sketching being a secondary concern, also on a side note I do wish to learn virtual sculpting and 2D Animations. Gaming is also secondary! So wise people of the LTT-community, which do you think I should go for?

Hi so I'm a console gamer (yeah yeah not the place guys) but I'm a college freshman and I need a laptop, I'm a Pre nursing student (planning on going all the way to my masters) so I need a laptop that's light and great for notetaking, all of which the Surface pros do. But after LTT's review of the New Surface Pro, I was left feeling confused. Should I spring for the New version or go with the original surface pro 4? (I'm not sure how to separate the two cause the basically have the same name) I have enough in the budget for either one but I want something that, hopefully, will get me through all 7 years of schooling and won't become so obsolete when I go for an upgrade after I graduate. Thanks!

I bought surface pro 4 a less than 7 days ago, and am absolutely loving it. The problem is, if i play 1440p 60fps video or anything higher than that(including 4k), there is horrible lag and stutter. The problem only occurs in chrome. Edge runs it just fine, but most of the videos don't have any option higher than 1080p in edge. The thing is, as a pc enthusiast, i also own a i7 macbook air and hp elitebook 8560p(running windows 7), they donot suffer any horrible lag or anything playing the same exact video on chrome. The thing is, i am still under their return period and can exchange it with a i5 model, 4gb ram. But i have heard reports that i5 doesn't necessarily fix that problem at all. The funny thing though, after installing an extension, which bypasses vp9 codec and uses h264 codec results in a smoother video. But still i didn't need to do that in my windows 7 hd 8560p laptop(2nd gen i7,4gb ram, hd 6470m dgpu) or on my mac. So i was looking for suggestion, should i exchange it for an i5? My main usage will be light office work like google docs or microsoft office, streaming videos and sometimes games to it, and finally, might be doing some light coding. But it will be extensively used for note taking and writing in one note. Thanks in advance.

Alright, so I have recently implemented a Active Directory Domain at home. Got a Windows Server 2012 R2 Domain Controller and about 10 other machines. Two of those machines are Surface Pro 4 devices, which have the advanced webcams to sign in with facial recognition. Unfortunately, since I joined the Surfaces to the domain all the options in Windows Hello are greyed out and I cannot access them. I created a Group Policy which enabled: Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Logon -> Turn on convenience PIN sign-in -> Enabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Logon -> Allow users to select when a password is required when resuming a session -> Enabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System -> Logon -> Turn off picture password sign-in -> Disabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Biometrics -> Allow the use of biometics -> Enabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Biometrics -> Allow users to log on using biometics -> Enabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Biometrics -> Allow domain users to log on using biometics -> Enabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Biometrics -> Facial Features -> Use enhanced anti-spoofing when available -> Enabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Hello for Business -> Use a hardware security device - Enabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Hello for Business -> Use biometrics -> Enabled Computer Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Windows Components -> Windows Hello for Business -> Use Windows Hello for Business -> Enabled That is where I am at, if anyone has ideas or thoughts I would appreciate the thought bouncing. If you have an answer, even better. Thanks!

I am getting a Surface pro 4 (i5 8gb ram 256gb SSD) with keyboard in exchange for a 10.5" iPad pro and apple pencil i am not sure if the surface pro still worth it in 2019 ? Any suggestions if i should get it ot not. It is in great condition no scratches. > my main use is a little bit of coding and university assignments. > i like having a tablet with a pen for drawing cartoons for university magazine.

Hi, just got my hands on a Surface Pro 4 + brand new aftermarket charger but the cable is still not in an amazing position so im looking for tips on how to reinforce it. If you have any tips i would love to hear them and the ups and downs of those solutions Thanks for the help in advance!

Currently I am using my Bluetooth keyboard and wired mouse to type this… I recently bought a surface type cover for my surface pro 4, when I try to attach the keyboard to my tablet the screen goes completely black and the device does not respond to any button commands on the keyboard or the tablet other than turning it off by holding the power button the thing does nothing. The magical part of this problem is the second i remove the keyboard from the tablet I am able to press the sleep button on the tablet and it wakes right up like nothing happened. I have tried the “button trick” the “drivers trick” cleaning the contacts on both the tablet and the keyboard and turning the keyboard setting on and off in the uefi settings , I even went to the full extent of a full system wipe and update everything and the keyboard still does not show up in device manager and it still turns off the screen whenever I connect the keyboard. Any suggestions would be amazing cause I am out of ideas.

TL;DR: I've got around 1000€ and want a good convertible or 2 in 1 with good performance. Hello everyone, I have a Surface Pro 4 for a couple of months and I absolutely love it. There's literally been no other device that has been so useful and so enjoyable to use for me ever. But unfortunately, after 3 replacements due to hardware failure, I think it's about time to sell it. Looking online, it seems like I'll get around 700€ with all the accessories I have, maybe even a bit more. So, I am willing to spend up to 1000€ on a device that will replace it. There are a couple things I'm looking for in this new device. Performance is a must, maybe not as much graphically, but something like an m series or y series processor is out of the question. I also really value the form factor. This convertible style is why I love the Surface Pro 4. So I'm mainly looking for the same style, but 2 in 1s are also an option I guess. Repairability is something that I also really appreciate, as being able to fix the hardware myself is a big bonus, and I'm comfortable with messing around in my devices anyways. I will be using the device for many things, including Programming, Video, Audio and Photo Editing, maybe even some Gaming from time to time. I've done some heavy research on devices with the same convertible style and they all have their drawbacks. I considered the Transformer 3 Pro, but the battery life is horrendous and there's an issue with warping over time, which makes the fan have a grinding noise that can't be easily repaired as the screen is glued on. I also considered Lenovo's lineup, which seemed to be perfect. I even found some good deals on the Miix 720 which has everything I need, including Thunderbolt 3 with eGPU Support! However, the fan is reportedly quite loud and only had two steps, so it runs at full capacity most of the time. Now this could possibly be fixed, as you can easily disassemble the device. I would replace the thermal paste with some MX4, but could I do anything about the fan? I doubt it, but let me know. Dell also has some devices, but they're business oriented and I can't easily find them on eBay. Will check them again tho. 2 in 1s are also an interesting category that I haven't done much research on. I ended up finding the Dell Inspiron 5379 which has really good specs but the screen, design, SSD and pretty much everything else is like it's from 2015. I think I'm stuck here. There's nothing really that checks all the boxes. Ideally, I would love to get the Miix 720 and fix the fan issues, but I doubt that's possible. And I don't think I'll be using liquid metal on such an expensive device. I want your opinion on this please! Let me know if you have any good devices you'd recommend around this price point and with the same form factor. Thank you!

So, about 3 weeks ago I bought a used Surface Pro 4 (i7, 16GB, 256GB). When I received it it was great but the next day I woke up and the fan was running full blast (which I don't know why because all it was doing was playing YouTube...) and the screen looked like it was broken, turned out to be #flickergate (attached image). I contacted Microsoft and they graciously accepted it for replacement (even though it was bought second hand and was out of both the 'sceen scramble' replacement period and warranty.) After almost 2 weeks (was estimated 1 week but eh, whatever) I received my replacement device and almost immediately noticed the fan was making this awful grinding noise. Now I was getting annoyed with how long this was taking to just get a functioning Surface... I contacted support (which by the way, the process is FUCKING AWFUL. I can't just start a chat with support (because my device wasn't technically under warranty), I have to contact xbox support, wait 30 minutes - 1 hour just to have them transfer me to the Surface department) and after another 2 hours of back and forth they agreed to extend my warranty and replace it. At this point I was fed up so I decided to make the 1 hour drive to the closest Microsoft store and see if they would replace it in the store, After making an appointment and heading over there they didn't have any Surface Pro 4 devices in stock (which I figured but I was told they might give me a Pro 5 as a replacement), luckily they did agree to give me a Pro 5 but sadly they didn't have any i7, 16GB, 256GB Pro 5s in stock either. They did however give me the option to let them ship it out and get another Pro 4 after another week or 2 or I could get a slightly lower spec Pro 5 (i7, 8GB, 256GB) at that moment. I ended up taking the Pro 5 because I am just fed up with waiting. So far the Pro 5 hasn't had any issues and even though it is only a 7660u vs a 6650u which should theoretically be very close in performance, the Pro 5 seems much faster (especially for playing YouTube, the Pro 4 could barely play 4k60 (with some frame drops) but the Pro 5 can play fullscreen 8k60 with no issues.), that combined with the battery improvements was probably a better deal for me anyway but I like my ram... I'M NOT COMPLAINING ABOUT THE SUPPORT, I KNOW IT MIGHT SEEM LIKE THAT BUT I AM VERY THANKFUL THAT THE SUPPORT REPLACED MY DEVICE AND AM VERY SATISFIED WITH THEIR SUPPORT, I AM TALKING ABOUT MY EXPERIENCE WITH THE SURFACE DEVICE ITSELF. (good luck getting support like this from Apple XD) And btw Cinebench was running so I could reproduce the issue to take a photo

I recently updated to Windows 10 anniversary and I am noticing even more battery drain than I had previously. I updated it from a wiped machine (dont remember what it's called in win10). I went from about 7 hours of battery with moderate usage and stuff running in the background to under 4 hours with nothing but chrome and one note installed on the machine. I made adjustments in the settings and turned off connected standby so that I could gain access to the advanced power options. I made all the adjustments so maximize battery life and battery life did not budge. I dont know what else to do.

Hi guys, I have 10 surface pro 4 s in my workplace. I am trying to image it. Turned off secure boot, and tried using Hirens,it doesnt work. Ghost is now trying to fix this problem. Is there any other way for me to image this surfaces? I am tired of installing them one by one. Thanks a bunch.

Surface Pro 4 Bundle**. Includes Surface Pro 4, choice of Type Cover and Surface sleeve, 2-year warranty, and 1 year of Office 365. http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msca/en_CA/list/Surface-Deals/categoryID.67902400

Get a Free Surface Dock on Purchase of Surface Book or Surface Pro 4

I'm having trouble setting up Windows Hello on my SP4. After I click 'Get Started' the front camera turns on but not the infrared led. In the Sign-in options menu, there's a red notice saying 'Security policies on this PC are preventing some options from being shown'. I don't know what does that mean Currently I'm using the pin and picture password to log in. Windows is up to date.

I was watching a couple of The Verge reviews on some products (iPad Pro and Surface Pro 4), but noticed some odd points made in the reviews. The iPad Pro reviewer sees the iPad Pro as a product that can definitely replace her laptop for business trips (although it only has one operating angle). This is controversial because The Verge has extensively criticized the Surface's (Pro 2) 2 stage kickstand, The Surface Pro 3 and 4 are also criticized to be 'unusable' on the lap but doesn't the indefinite viewing angles compensate for that? The Verge doesn't think so . Why is it that since it's an Apple product you treat it differently - as if it had no flaws. But hey, we all have different opinions; it just doesn't seem fair. What do you think? Or do you ignore The Verge's reviews?

Microsoft announced a Surface LAPTOP today! With an NVIDIA GPU. Current Known Specs: 13" Pixel Sense Screen (276ppi) Latest Intel Processor NVIDIA GPU 1.6mm of Travel on Keyboard Keys Glass Trackpad with 5 points of touch. Releases Oct 26th starting at $1499 USD There's a Dock as well. Details Developing......... Source: Microsoft 2015 Hardware even livestream Images from The Verge.

Microsoft Event: Top ten unveils I think it is quite interesting that Microsoft is making some major changes to their phone and "tablet" market, and that they are also releasing a real laptop. The new Surface book will redefine how new 2 in 1's are made, with a discrete Nvidia GPU in the keyboard, while the CPU and all other components are in the tablet portion. Story and imges from www.theverge.com Links:

Currently I have an awesome desktop machine that I just built and a 4.5lb (~2kg) 15" Macbook Pro. I walk to school, so carrying a 4.5lb laptop on top of textbooks, notebooks, a pencil pouch, a water bottle, and snacks can be a little straining. Yes, I do go to the gym and am very capable of carrying all of that on my daily walks to and from class, but carrying that laptop can be exhausting and I want to lighten my load. Microsoft just announced their new Surface Pro 4 and I think it'd be great for me. I don't really need *that* much battery life -- my current laptop gets about 5-6 hours and the Surface Pro 4 gets about 6-8 according to reviews, so it's an improvement anyways -- and the Surface is 2.37lbs (~1kg) including the Type Cover which is almost exactly half of my current laptop. It also has a pen (which I'd use to easily make diagrams from lectures and take notes with), Windows Hello, and Cortana compared to my Macbook. I do love OS X, but Windows 10 is really nice. I've already decided that if I'm getting the Surface, it's going to be the i5 version because the m3 is underpowered and the only advantage the i7 has is better graphics and a slightly higher turbo clock, neither of which are very important to me or software development; additionally the i7's performance benefit wouldn't offset the battery drain. My question is, how much RAM do I need? I'll be using Visual Studio and whatever other IDEs my classes require me to. I've used Visual Studio before with 8GB and it was fine, but that was for basic 100-level (in the college scheme of things) projects. I'll probably have 3-6 Chrome tabs open at any given time on top of anything else. Is it worth spending $180 more to get 16GB instead of 8GB?

I apologize if someone has made a topic like this before, I tried searching the forum but I couldn't find a post that talked about the fingerprint sensor in one of the new Type Covers for the Surface Pro 4. I'm also unsure about where to post this topic since there's no "Security" category, so I just chose General Discussion. Apple made a HUGE point when they unveiled Touch ID that all fingerprints would stay on a secure portion of the device and that no one would ever get your fingerprint information from Touch ID. Instead it kind of felt like the fingerprint sensor on the new Type Cover was a footnote in Microsoft's presentation, and they didn't even mention its security. Is anybody else concerned about the security of the sensor, or even Windows Hello for that matter?

Winbeta: http://www.winbeta.org/news/ipad-pro-always-going-companion-device-says-microsoft Opinon: To me the iPad Pro was never going to be a laptop/desktop replacement simply because I can't run FULL software on it (Eg: Microsoft Office, Adobe Suite and Steam games). Microsoft's Dan Laycock - Senior Communications Manager for Microsoft Surface made some pretty interesting remarks about the iPad Pro. Opinion: I think it's kinda true, the iPad Pro is limited in the sense that it runs iOS. Conclusion: If I had to choose between a Surface Pro 4 and an iPad Pro, without a doubt I'd pick the Surface for my needs. Although this varies because everyone has different uses for the products.

Introduction I wanted a Surface Pro the moment the device line was first announced in mid-2012. It felt like something innovative, something future-y. I grew up watching Captain Jean Luc Picard do Important Ship Stuff on tablets and rationality or productivity aside for a moment, it just seemed really damn cool. A flagship captain wouldn’t be caught dead with some weak namby-pamby mobile OS tablet, he would need performance! Serious software! I have never taken to Android or iOS tablets. For a few years I’ve had smartphones with decent screens, and those tablets just seemed to me like larger screened smartphones that couldn’t make phone calls. Carrying around a tablet and a smartphone just seemed too redundant. On top of this, I once owned a Nexus 10, and maybe it was my device in particular, but it was shit. Enter the Surface Pro! Tablet form factor, ultrabook tech specs, and nifty designs and accessories to try to create a new middle ground between the two. Did it succeed? Mileage will vary in the answer to that question, but I think most would agree that the Surface line is definitely improving over time, and here we are at the Surface Pro 4 and it’s only late-2015. Microsoft is taking planned obsolescence by the horns and iterating like crazy! Onward to some actual review. Overview Tech Specs (of my configuration) CPU: Intel Skylake i5-6300U (2 cores/4 threads, 2.4Ghz, 3.0Ghz Boost) iGPU: Intel HD 520 RAM: 8GB Storage: 256GB PCIE SSD Screen: 12.3” running the strange 2736x1824 resolution (3:2 aspect ratio) Ports: 1 USB 3.0, 1 microSD slot, miniDisplayPort Other Shit: Front and back facing cameras that aren’t worth writing home about but will let you Skype just fine This review is not intended to go in depth about the Surface Pro 4 device line and its myriad specifications, or a detailed hardware review packed with synthetic benchmarks. For my part, I decided the sweet spot for price/performance was the i5 model with 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD. Intel’s i7 processors might be awesome in many of our desktop builds, but their differences over i5 in the ultraportable family is truly laughable. 8GB of RAM seemed like the standard “it’ll be good for a while” amount. When I’m (hopefully) still using this little dude in 2017, I won’t be as fucked as if I had settled for 4GB. As far as the SSD size goes, the premium companies charge for their built in hard drives is fucking nuts. Good on them for having a 1TB model this time, but it makes far more sense to me just to add in microSD, keep external HDs at my desk/dock, or use the Cloud. I didn’t want to boot the thing up and be confined to ~100GB though, so once again, a middle road. After first booting up and installing updates, I had ~215GB of free space. After piling on tons of programs while typing up this review, I still had about 135GB left. More than enough. Form Factor Seeing is believing, and actually having the Pro 4 around makes me appreciate what Microsoft is trying to innovate. The 12.3” screen makes it a pretty decent sized tablet, and snug somewhere in the ultrabook class of screens. This thing is amazingly light and balanced. I have no issues using this in tablet mode with one hand, so my offhand remains free to use the pen. My significant other has an ultrabook, the HP Spectre 13, a relatively recent device that packs hardware similar to Pro 3. While the Spectre was light, I am very impressed that the Pro line packs in similar hardware and sheds so much weight without even much price difference. Rumours of a large 14-inch Pro intrigued me quite a bit. If that had actually been a thing in this release cycle, I would have gone for that. As it is, the screen is more than enough for a mobile device. The bezels getting smaller and smaller. You can tell they wouldn’t be able to trim much more without cutting into the webcams, sensors, and ports. As it stands, there’s enough bezel left to anchor a finger or thumb comfortably in tablet mode. Display The 12.3” screen at 2736x1824 resolution provides a phenomenal PPI of 267. Although many phones can knock that out, including mine, this is one sharp as hell display. It’s still got a higher density than any of your desktop 4K monitors. I’m not too picky when it comes to colours, and nothing seems wrong with the colours of the display. At full brightness, those LTT videos seem pretty vibrant. Windows 10 comes with 200% Scaling by default, and that seems to be a good setting for me. The taskbar and desktop icons are all pretty small but easily clickable/tappable, and it leaves quite a bit of working space. Given that the resolution is about halfway between 1440p and 2160p, it was a perfect test to watch some LTT videos in both resolutions on YouTube. At 1440p and over WiFi, the video ran smoothly and didn’t need to buffer. The fans kicked on within seconds, and I watched CPU usage shoot upwards and hover around 60-70%. Damn! At 4K, I found a performance throttle. The WiFi and the screen were perfectly capable of delivering, but after about ten seconds of playback, the Skylake CPU started throwing fits. Usage was 80-90% and the video started lagging and tearing. This is a bummer, since the screen is superior to 1440p in quality, but it’s a quality that I will rarely be able to access until 4K video files get tossed around more often. And with this device’s storage limits… The display definitely kicks the battery in the face, as it is by far the biggest energy sap even in my hours-long session at 0% brightness. Even there, according to Windows Battery Saver, it was responsible for 50% of the drain. At higher brightnesses that would probably get worse, but my eyes have no issues using the screen at 0 or 25% brightness. I don’t go above that unless it’s plugged in, or for very brief use like a quick video. Overall, the display gets a big seal of approval, but I am disappointed that I cannot harness its full potential. Given the existing throttle with 4K streaming, a 1440p screen that used a little less battery may have been better. The Necessary Accessories The Surface Pro 4 ships with the new Surface Pen, but come on, you also need a keyboard or you just bought a $1500 tablet. So toss in the Type Cover for an extra roll of cash. I thought the Pro 3 Type Cover was good but not great. I’m sure with practice, I’d have become used to that keyboard, but it was a little cramped for my man hands. The Pro 4 Type Cover has spaced out the keys just enough. I had very little adaptation time at all coming from my full-size desktop keyboard. Previous generation keyboards also seemed to get a lot of flak for a shit trackpad. I can’t comment on the older ones, but the improved trackpad on the Pro 4 Type Cover feels as good as any of the other laptops or ultrabooks I’ve used. It tracks, it taps, it clicks. Yep. The Surface Pen, in conjunction with OneNote and other drawing programs, is really awesome. The sensitivity and latency when writing in OneNote is nothing short of phenomenal. Unless you write very, very quickly, the latency is almost imperceptible. Palm rejection has been close to perfect. When you are jotting down or drawing notes with this thing, it feels like digital paper. In the first three days of owning the device, the cluttered piles of paper on my desk disappeared. At this rate, I imagine the paper notebooks clogging my bookshelves will be soon to follow. It’s worth mentioning that although the digital writing experience is, say, 90-95% par with paper writing, you have at your immediate beck and call the extra digital tools. The Surface Pen works like a true digital pen, with the opposite end an eraser that instantly wipes away the objects you just made. Algorithmically, it seems to work like an Undo button. OneNote lets you crop anything with ease, and changing stroke thickness, colour, etc is all there. Performance: Everyday Use & OS As far as it goes for a Surface, it works very well with Windows 10. The OS performance is extremely fast. Boot up time from regular old Shut Down is 5-8 seconds. Sleep is 1-2 seconds. The Start menu is highly responsive, and apps and software load with lightning speed. For much of this, I think we can thank the SSD, with a passing nod to that Skylake ultrabook class processor. It almost goes without saying that such a premium device will perform the simple tasks to perfection. So like many tech journalists before me, I spent time browsing the Internet on Chrome, watching some YouTube videos, and editing Word and OneNote documents both locally and on the Cloud. I already use Calibre as an ebook manager on my desktop. I setup Calibre as an “iPad-like device” and after configuring the settings to my liking, it’s a very capable e-book reader that works with touch controls and tablet mode. Confirmed, it does all of these things with great proficiency. It’s a pleasure to use. One thing I also wanted to try with the Surface’s excellent resolution and lightweight was graphic novels. ComicRack came highly recommended as a Windows comic reader program, but sadly it’s optimized almost exclusively for desktop controls. The UI of the program just wouldn’t scale, making it microscopic. As well, it was largely unresponsive to touch controls. Luckily, I tried out the Cover comic reader app on the Windows Store. It’s simple, and does all of the things I wanted comic reader software to do on a Surface. Those who follow Surface more closely may have heard that the Chrome browser can be absolutely devastating to the battery. However, it’s my preferred browser so I wanted to give it a shot. Either I got lucky, or the issue doesn’t exist on the Pro 4 anymore. Cheers to that! Battery usage during lighter tasks tells me that the battery overall leaves something to be desired. In our current age where some ultrabooks are blasting well past the 10 hour mark, the Pro 4 seems to average about 7-8 hours if all I’m doing is Chrome with a few tabs and a Word/OneNote document. It’s fair to say that the form factor provides certain limitations in this regard, and I knew that going in, but battery is king. Here, the Pro 4 is average at best. Performance: Local Movie Playback Once 4K Blu-Rays start coming out, I’ll have to see if it makes any difference playing them back locally versus online. As it stands, I transferred over my high quality Blu-Ray rip of Avengers: Age of Ultron to see how the Pro 4 handled local video playback. The 3:2 aspect ratio will take the regular black bars on movie rips and add even more black bars, but the screen would still be awesome for watching a movie, say, on a train or plane, or in bed. The Pro 4 fan didn’t even huff once playing back the entire 30GB movie. Kudos as well to Intel and its video playback efficiency. I watched the movie at 100% brightness and as the credits rolled two and a half hours later, the battery was still 65%. That makes media consumption with local files just as efficient as using an Internet browser. Crazy. Also, Avengers Age of Ultron is a sweet movie. Performance: Professional Use (Windows Programming) I tried out Visual Studio 2015 and Unity 5 even though I don’t really code in C# much, but hey, what a great device to start on right? Both programs boot up very fast and remained extremely responsive the entire time I used them. I regret not having a medium or large-sized project to try compiling in VS, but as I just said, I don’t use it too much yet. As it is, compile times seemed on par with the desktop for the toy programs I wrote. On Unity 5 at least I downloaded some drop-and-go projects including their Example Project. Unity 5 boots up like lightning, is just as responsive while tossing around 3D objects, and the little Skylake CPU had no issues compiling and testing the little 3D projects with zero framerate issues. As expected, with enough 3D objects or if testing for long enough, the fan would come on, but it was all well within acceptable bounds. Performance: Professional Use (Linux Virtual Machines) I installed VirtualBox and set myself up a little Ubuntu VM. Most of my programming work is in Linux, so I wanted a device that wouldn’t cough running it virtually. The Skylake CPU has the specs for it, but how did it run? It went swimmingly. Installation and bootup of Ubuntu 15.10 went without a hitch. I had to look up the command to install the plugins needed to blow up the VM to the Pro 4’s massive resolution, but otherwise off I went. I set the VM up with a single core, 2GB RAM, and 20GB of space. The VM was responsive and quicker than my school desktop computers, though unsurprisingly slower and weaker than what I can conjure on the desktop. Now that I’m using it, I’m not so sure I’ll actually keep using Ubuntu, but it was a good test. While running the VM, Windows 10 remained responsive and I could flip back and forth comfortably. The VM seemed to chew up about 25-30% CPU usage throughout, but the fans came on and kept the heat low. Performance: Heavy Use Gaming Although I got this device with the complete knowledge it was not an AAA gaming device, who could resist leveraging the impressive touchscreen and decent specs? I installed Civilization V, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Shadowrun: Hong Kong, HOMM3, Caesar 3, and Minecraft. I’m sure you can find more exacting benchmarks elsewhere, but I’ll give you my impressions as an avid 1440p high frame rate gamer. In every case of gaming, the fans would come on and the back of the device would grow warm, maybe even a little hot. At no point was it uncomfortable to rest on my hands or lap, though. I also tried Steam In-Home Streaming in conjunction with my powerful desktop, LlamaBox (sig). This would allow me to stream games at high resolution without beating the shit out of my little Skylake iGPU. At maximum performance settings, I seemed to find a limit for the Pro 4’s WiFi. Civilization Beyond Earth ran beautifully with all settings maxed out on the desktop, and there was very little latency on the Pro 4. The Pro 4 fans still kicked on and the device slowly but surely warmed up, but CPU usage was only moderate. However, after about 15 minutes, the stream started buffering in small bursts. Since the CPU wasn’t maxing itself out (a sign of the iGPU reaching a limit, as per the 4K video earlier), I reasoned the WiFi was encountering its limit. I dropped the stream quality to Balanced, gave the stream maximum bandwidth and network prioritization and ran the test again. This time I maintained a solid 1080p@60fps for almost the entire playthrough. There were only a few little blips of slow network causing momentary lag or buffer. Even better, I was hard pressed to notice a drop in quality between Balanced and Best. The fan ran pretty loud during In-Home Streaming, at least as loud as actually playing the other games locally, which surprised me. Overall, my experience with this particular Steam feature was decent, but I’m not sure if I’ll actually use it. The Pro 4 seems capable of playing the older or easy to run touch-enabled strategy games I’d be most interested in anyway. For 99% of my other gaming time, I would just wait until I was home using the desktop, which renders In-Home Streaming slightly redundant. Windows Hello The much toted and gimmicky biometric login option offered by Microsoft needed a whirl, at least. I usually don’t have a login screen at all because I prefer to just use my device immediately after startup or wake. But okay, I’m also dumb, and should try to be a little more secure. Windows Hello is okay, but it needs improvement. In general, the biometric stuff works. The camera recognizes my face quickly with or without glasses, and with or without headphones. Most of the time. I’ve had a few instances where Windows was “looking for me” and couldn’t find me. I also had a few instances where the webcam took about 30 seconds to get off its ass. Windows Hello also didn’t let my significant other or friends login. Therefore, for Windows Hello, the tech is early. In theory it’s very cool. In practice, when it works it’s effective, but it has hiccups. Standard old password protection is still the go-to 100% no hiccups experience. For something as simple as password protection, I personally expect 100% marks. “Lapability” Opinions seem mixed on the retarded term known as Lapability in regards to the Surface line. Notebooks and ultrabooks with a firm hinge are better to use in the lap, and hey, it’s a laptop, I’ll be using it in my lap! My take on it is, thus far, the Surface is great in every location I’ve used it at. Like pretty much any notebook, it excels on a desk, table, or flat surface. As a tablet, it’s super light and comfortable with both hands. I typed most of this review out while curled up like a cat in my Papasian chair, and not once did the Pro 4 and its flexible hinge seem unstable. I’ve also used the Pro 4 in bed, and in what I call “drawing mode” with the hinge at maximum extent on a flat surface. In all of these cases, the thing is freakin’ great, so I don’t know why this was ever an issue. I’ll blame Twitter I guess. Miscellaneous Problems I Encountered, And My Solutions/Workarounds You’d think the 4th iteration of a first party device to ship with almost no problems. In truth, I had three. You average Reddit user would have raged for hours and returned the device, I expect. I decided to power on through. First, and most severe, when I first got the device and installed updates, the CPU usage sat at a solid 30-40% with no programs or apps running. Uh oh. At that rate, the battery would last 3 hours at most. This seemed catastrophic to me. My solution to this was simply patience. I tracked the problem to the svchost process, but Windows isn’t too informative about which subprocess is actually using up all the resources. All I could really deduce was something in Windows was eating up 35% of the CPU power all the time. I plugged the device in, disabled sleep, and let it chug. I’d heard stories of new Surfaces needing to “do stuff” after first boot. Despite having checked Windows Update first and finding no updates, after about 4 hours, the Surface suddenly found a big update. After it installed the problem disappeared entirely. Weird. But if you get a Surface, or you know someone having this problem, tell them to try patience! Next, I had one hell of a bitch of a time getting my Surface to connect to shared media files on my local network, and things still aren’t perfect. I imagine this is a Windows 10 issue, not Surface specifically, but it took hours of troubleshooting. My Windows 8.1 machine is already setup to share a media folder and it works perfectly with the other three Windows machines in the household, two Windows 7 and one Windows 8.1. In theory, it should just work right off the bat with the Surface, but not so. I configured the Pro 4’s sharing settings to see other devices on private networks, and it could see the other computers, but it would not connect. When it could try to connect, it would demand network credentials that it either wouldn’t accept if they were correct, or demand anyway if I didn’t have network credentials! I toggled more or less every setting on both host and client in the Network and Sharing center. None of the computers are on a homegroup making anything exclusive. I spent a while in the command prompt verifying the shared folders were visible, though they obviously were. I made sure Windows Firewall wasn’t blocking anything. Joining or creating a Homegroup in the older style menus did nothing… Thus came the unique Windows 10 solution. I had to use the “new” Homegroup menus made in their “app” style, which are somehow separate (but not?) from the older menus. I created a new homegroup on the 8.1 machine and joined it on the Windows 10 machine using this menu. Magically, everything worked at once. Okayyyy Windows 10. As it stands, I can connect about 95% of the time, but I still get a network path error for the other 5%. No solution that I can see, but connecting to the host media server, exiting, and then trying to connect to the shared folder seems to be an annoying workaround. On top of this, the access speed is terrible. This isn’t a problem for small things like books, documents, and comics, but it took 2 hours to copy over the Age of Ultron rip. Unacceptable. Third, the Windows 10 Battery Saver seems glitched right now. I updated my battery firmware through the Control Panel, but both before and after I did that, the Battery Saver only seems to negatively impact battery. If Windows estimates I have 4 hours left, for example, I’ll turn on Battery Saver and see the estimate drop to 3 hours. Okayyy… No solution to this so far. As a side note, the battery estimate metric they use seems to be wonky too. At times it has said my battery will last another 13 and a half hours, which’ll uh… never happen, especially while sitting at 60% battery already. Surface Pro 9 packing some future lithium-oxygen battery might do this, but not the Pro 4. Ever. Hopefully this is a firmware issue they can fix up. This issue isn’t too big of a deal, but considering the middling at best battery life of the Pro 4, I am interested in options to squeeze out every last bit of it. Conclusion After owning the Surface Pro 4 for about two weeks, I am extremely happy with the device thus far. Now, two weeks is still a honeymoon phase, clearly, and I'm sure there will be bumps ahead. But I was nervous about actually using a Surface as opposed to staring at it with child-like wonder, and now I'm no longer nervous. In quite a few ways, I've found more productive, more comfortable, and more interesting ways to enjoy computing. The initial clumsiness I had using the hinge, and interacting with the Type Cover and Pen have disappeared. I use each to their strengths. Performance-wise, the Pro 4 is capable of everything I could need it for and more, though I was never in need of a true mobile workstation. It’s ridiculously portable, thinner than the paper notebooks I used to carry around, and lighter too. It handles light and mediumweight activities like a champ, it’s good for light gaming a passable client device for game streaming once your settings are optimized. For the heavy stuff, I just transfer my work to desktop. In the future, I’m hoping Microsoft fixes the few issues I’ve had and perhaps even improves the battery life a tiny bit. At the very least, I hope they don’t break anything! It would be nice if my access to other devices on the network was absolutely 100% perfect (and fast), because with so little device storage, I need reliable access to files remotely. If anyone has any questions about the Surface Pro 4 that I didn’t address, fire away, and I’ll be over here uninstalling those games to get my hard drive space back.

https://www.theverge.com/2015/9/14/9322809/microsoft-surface-pro-4-lumia-950-october-6th-event http://www.windowscentral.com/surface-pro-4-and-new-windows-10-mobile-phones-may-be-revealed-microsofts-oct-6-nyc-event http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/09/microsofts-big-hardware-event-is-on-october-6th-in-new-york/ I'm really hoping for this launch to catch some attention given the new competition between the Surface Pro and the iPad Pro The phones won't necessarily grab my attention, but I'm willing to see what Windows 10 brings.