9.7" iPad Pro vs. Surface Pro 3

[79wjd]

I've been using my SP3 (i3, 4gb ram, 64gb ssd) for taking handwritten notes for the couple of years, and in the time I've been constantly aggravated with it -- whether it be driver issues, Windows bugs, or software issues. Issues that have made me want to throw it out the window on numerous occasions, and if I had to use it as my actual laptop, then I certainly would have thrown it out the window.

• Windows deciding to update in the middle of class.
• Frequent updates that cpu usage to spike to 100% and grind to a halt.
• Pen frequently just refuses to write and takes about 10 seconds before it can write again. 
• Windows just in general being a shit touch OS. 
• The on-screen keyboard is garbage. 
• The typecover keyboard is garbage. 
• The trackpad is garbage. 
• Trying to resize windows sucks with the screen.
• Mediocre battery life.

Which leads me to finally buying an iPad Pro. I've been wanting to buy one for a while to see how it compares, but I didn't feel like going through the hassle of selling my SP3 and I wasn't going to buy an iPad in addition to my SP3, but I've really had it with the Surface, so I figured I'd give it a try and if I decide I don't like it, then just return it. Anyway, it came earlier today -- so I haven't had a chance to use it for much, and it's certainly not perfect, but so far I think I like it better. 

• iOS is actually touch friendly.
• iOS doesn't decide to update on its own.
• The on screen keyboard is excellent. 
• Resizing windows is so much better, although 9.7" is a bit limited to run things side by side. 
• Battery life should be much better.
• iOS Continuity is awesome as always. 

I have three complaints so far. First off is that the Apple Pencil doesn't glide as smoothly over the screen, which should be something I get used to. Secondly, there is no erase button on the Pencil, which is something that gets really annoying, but I'll hopefully get used to that too. Lastly, there is the screen size. I both like and dislike the smaller screen, it makes it more wieldy, but it's also sometimes too small. Oh, and number four -- that I haven't experienced yet -- but the battery life of the pencil is supposedly much worse whereas the SP3 battery basically lasts months; and to make it even more annoying, turning off bluetooth requires your to re-pair (plug and unplug) the pencil. 

 

I'll continue to add to this as I play around with it some more over the next few days. 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Windows deciding to update in the middle of class.

What version of Windows are you using?

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, tjcater said:

What version of Windows are you using?

10

[Guest]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

10

There should be an active hours setting to help avoid these scenarios but I'm not sure how much Windows 10 Home respects those settings as I use Pro.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, tjcater said:

There should be an active hours setting to help avoid these scenarios but I'm not sure how much Windows 10 Home respects those settings as I use Pro.

All Surfaces (excluding Surface laptop) come with Pro, but even still, it doesn't always care what setting you choose. A lot of times it will do the update outside of active hours, but not complete the updates until you go to turn it on, at which point I have to sit and wait ten minutes for it to finish updating while I actually need to be using it. 

[Drak3]

Basically, PEBCAK.

[79wjd]

6 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Basically, PEBCAK.

No, basically Windows is a garbage touch OS, and Surface drivers suck. 

[flibberdipper]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Surface drivers suck. 

Have you tried cocking around with Dell drivers for their older (circa OptiPlex 760 and Latitude E4300/4310, for example) machines? Going back to surface drivers would probably be a breath of fresh air after dealing with this hell. ?

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

No, basically Windows is a garbage touch OS, and Surface drivers suck. 

Windows WAS a garbage touch OS. That changed with 8 and 10. I'd argue that Windows 10 is a superior touch OS than iOS or Android on any and every 10"+ screen size device that is running something at the level of an i3-xxxxU.

 

And as for their drivers, outside of the Surface Book, what few driver issues there have been in the Surface Lineup since the Pro 2, are fixed rather quickly. I've had zero issues with my Pro 4, got that 2 months after initial release and updated it when I got it. My mom's boyfriend hasn't had issues with his Surface Book, and he got that 6 months after release. Biomark, a local company that specializes in electronic animal tags, has been offering mobile scan stations that were waterproof. They used Surface Pro 2's because it could recognize the pen well under 1/4" plastic, very reliable, and cheaper than Wacom offerings. They also use Pro 3s any time they need to note something down and review it on screen later. No issues with those.

 

So yeah, I'm going with extreme PEBCAK, and the only solution was to use a system so limited that it removed nearly all capacity for PEBCAK.

[79wjd]

11 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Windows WAS a garbage touch OS. That changed with 8 and 10. I'd argue that Windows 10 is a superior touch OS than iOS or Android on any and every 10"+ screen size device that is running something at the level of an i3-xxxxU.

 

And as for their drivers, outside of the Surface Book, what few driver issues there have been in the Surface Lineup since the Pro 2, are fixed rather quickly. I've had zero issues with my Pro 4, got that 2 months after initial release and updated it when I got it. My mom's boyfriend hasn't had issues with his Surface Book, and he got that 6 months after release. Biomark, a local company that specializes in electronic animal tags, has been offering mobile scan stations that were waterproof. They used Surface Pro 2's because it could recognize the pen well under 1/4" plastic, very reliable, and cheaper than Wacom offerings. They also use Pro 3s any time they need to note something down and review it on screen later. No issues with those.

 

So yeah, I'm going with extreme PEBCAK, and the only solution was to use a system so limited that it removed nearly all capacity for PEBCAK.

Yeah, I must not know how to use a pen. It is difficult after all. And system resources getting pinned at 100% when nothing but Windows update is going, yep, definitely me. Also definitely me when my Surface decides to update over night and when I go to use it in the morning it makes me wait for it to finish configuring/applying updates -- which can easily take ten minutes. It must also be me that has trouble touching tiny UI elements on a UI that is basically Windows 7 with touch added to it.

 

W10 is better if you need more power -- more apps, file system, etc..., but as far as touch goes, it's shit. 

[Drak3]

7 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

but as far as touch goes, it's shit.

Between using an i5 Pro 4, 13" i3 Inspiron 7000 2-in-1, 15" i5 Acer Aspire 2-in-1, 17" i7 Inspiron, and i5 Surface Book, I can safely say, no it's not. It's superior to every Android and iOS device I've used. By a significant margin. And the 13" Inspiron came with 8, I had to shoehorn Win8 drivers into Win10 and it still worked well.

 

13 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Yeah, I must not know how to use a pen. It is difficult after all. And system resources getting pinned at 100% when nothing but Windows update is going, yep, definitely me. Also definitely me when my Surface decides to update over night and when I go to use it in the morning it makes me wait for it to finish configuring/applying updates -- which can easily take ten minutes. It must also be me that has trouble touching tiny UI elements on a UI that is basically Windows 7 with touch added to it.

Everything you've ever said in regards to the Pro 3, for as long as I've been at the forum, only ever suggested two things: fanboyism and PEBCAK. To be quite frank, I think you're looking for issues, and blaming your own negligence on Microsoft.

[79wjd]

7 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Between using an i5 Pro 4, 13" i3 Inspiron 7000 2-in-1, 15" i5 Acer Aspire 2-in-1, 17" i7 Inspiron, and i5 Surface Book, I can safely say, no it's not. It's superior to every Android and iOS device I've used. By a significant margin. And the 13" Inspiron came with 8, I had to shoehorn Win8 drivers into Win10 and it still worked well.

 

Everything you've ever said in regards to the Pro 3, for as long as I've been at the forum, only ever suggested two things: fanboyism and PEBCAK. To be quite frank, I think you're looking for issues, and blaming your own negligence on Microsoft.

Yeah, it must be fanboyism. That's why I started with a Galaxy Note, moved to a SP3 after a few months of that mess, and then now to an iPad after a couple years. Fanboyism makes perfect sense. It must also be why I had a Dell laptop and then replaced it with a Mac after a few years. 

 

As for PEBCAK, if you think I can't manage to figure out how to use a computer....well, I think that's the end of this discussion. 

 

Maybe I just have higher standards than you do and expect the things I buy to actually work as intended. 

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Maybe I just have higher standards than you do and expect the things I buy to actually work as intended. 

You're the only person I've encountered that has had these issues, and hasn't been able to fix it by reversing user action or reinstalling something that got minor corruption. And the extremely few people that I have met, where they had these issues with Windows 10, they either have with everything, or they have it fixed in minutes. Any they have it with everything they use.

 

7 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

As for PEBCAK, if you think I can't manage to figure out how to use a computer....well, I think that's the end of this discussion.

I believe you've demonstrated that you cannot sufficiently use anything more complex than OS X's face value offering.

 

8 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Yeah, it must be fanboyism. That's why I started with a Galaxy Note, moved to a SP3 after a few months of that mess, and then now to an iPad after a couple years. Fanboyism makes perfect sense. It must also be why I had a Dell laptop and then replaced it with a Mac after a few years. 

If the shoe fits, yada yada.

[79wjd]

4 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

You're the only person I've encountered that has had these issues, and hasn't been able to fix it by reversing user action or reinstalling something that got minor corruption. And the extremely few people that I have met, where they had these issues with Windows 10, they either have with everything, or they have it fixed in minutes. Any they have it with everything they use.

Because Windows restarting after an update and needing to configure settings and what not, yeah, that definitely isn't how Windows works when it updates. 

 

Scaling is certainly excellent in Windows 10. 

 

Tiny UI elements that were designed for a mouse also work excellently, with big fingers.  

4 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

I believe you've demonstrated that you cannot sufficiently use anything more complex than OS X's face value offering.

And yet, I use Linux just fine. 

4 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

If the shoe fits, yada yada.

The shoe fitting would require me to start with Apple everything and not try other alternatives first. 

[79wjd]

I've been using it for about an hour and half now, and as expected a few things cropped up that are a bit annoying. The pencil is very slippery, and so I definitely think I need to get a case for it. The second issue is that it's about 30% longer than I would like, which ends up making it very top heavy and coupled with its slipperiness, it is very tiring to use for even an hour. I'm hoping a case for the pencil will rectify both issues, if it doesn't, then the second issue could be a deal breaker. One Note also doesn't want to hold the styling of the pencil when you quit the app, so I have to change the stroke size of each color every time I relaunch the app. Lastly, the screen is a bit smaller than I would ideally like (although that's nothing against the iPad as I could have opted for a 12.9" Pro, but I wanted a smaller/cheaper device).

 

On a more positive note, I have gotten used to the higher resistance of the tip, the battery on the iPad dropped 7% in about 1.5 hours of writing (which would lead to almost three times more battery life than my SP3), and the Apple Pencil battery life is still reading 100%, so the battery life on the pencil is better than I expected. 

[FIXXX]

Btw: The Surface uses full applications, not "apps".

[79wjd]

Just now, FIXXX said:

Btw: The Surface uses full applications, not "apps".

That helps a lot when I need Chrome and One Note. 

[79wjd]

So I've been using the iPad for about two weeks now, the battery life on the Apple Pencil is nowhere near as good as the battery life on the Surface Pen, but I still get about a week out of it between charges and it charges quickly, so it's not too bad, and it's far outweighed by the much better battery life on the iPad itself compared to the Surface. I also like the larger Apple Pencil, but that's not much of anything. I also never had a problem with the iPad losing connection to the pen for a few seconds -- which happened frequently enough on my Surface that it became annoying.

 

I switched back to the Surface for a day, because I always find that's how you truly see how things compare, and I was kind of hoping that I would find the Surface to be the same or better than the iPad that way I don't have to sell my Surface, but the Surface felt a bit stuttery and writing felt especially jittery compared to writing on the iPad. Having an eraser button and selection button on the pen itself was certainly nice, but I've gotten so used to having to toggle it on the iPad that I ended up toggling it that way much of the time anyway. 

 

One Note is still a complete mess though, and is worse on the iPad when it comes to bulk erasing -- if I need to erase more than a line or two, it gets extremely delayed and it can take upwards of 10 seconds to actually finish erasing everything.....and that's a big problem. I don't recall ever experiencing that kind of lag when erasing chunks of text on the Surface (there certainly was certainly a bit of lag there too, just not remotely to the same extent). 

 

Having messages/calls sync seamlessly between my phone and iPad is really nice, and both the typing and touch experience is light years ahead of the Surface. And since I don't need more than Chrome/One Note, the iPad actually has more useful apps (in the form of phone/facetime/messages) than the Surface. All of that being said, unless I find a replacement to One Note, I'm going to be returning the iPad and sticking with the Surface. Having more than 10 seconds of delay when bulk erasing is a major problem, when my predominant usage is writing,

[a7mddiaa]

idk if your surface had a problem or what but i've never seen anyone have these problems

btw did the ipad pro replace the surface for you cuz am thinking of buying one instead of upgrading my pc

after i upgrade it it would have 8/12 gigs of ram and gtx 1060 i5 7400

and still prob the ipad will perform better

it can edit 4k videos i think my pc can't

it have an app called shap3er which is very nice 3d modeling app but its expensive af 100$ a year

the things that doesn't make me want to switch:

it cant run pc games

i am used to a mouse

pc software is more pro for most things

[79wjd]

15 minutes ago, a7mddiaa said:

idk if your surface had a problem or what but i've never seen anyone have these problems

No, my surface isn't unique in terms of any of my major complaints. Driver issues here and there are generally the exception rather than the norm, but windows is shit on a touchscreen, the typecover is garbage compared to any high end laptop keyboard/trackpad, the onscreen keyboard occasionally just not showing up and just generally being pretty mediocre falls back to the lack of any real care for Windows' touch UI, and Windows' updates causing CPU spikes are pretty standard across the board for W10 regardless of the device (although it will obviously be a bigger issue with weaker CPUs and less memory).

Quote

btw did the ipad pro replace the surface for you cuz am thinking of buying one instead of upgrading my pc

after i upgrade it it would have 8/12 gigs of ram and gtx 1060 i5 7400

and still prob the ipad will perform better

it can edit 4k videos i think my pc can't

it have an app called shap3er which is very nice 3d modeling app but its expensive af 100$ a year

the things that doesn't make me want to switch:

it cant run pc games

i am used to a mouse

pc software is more pro for most things

The 9.7" iPad couldn't because it was a bit too small, but a 12.9" iPad would replace my surface for writing and occasional Internet use. For anything more demanding, like what you're looking to do, either would be terrible compared to a desktop.

[a7mddiaa]

so i guess i ll just upgrade my pc

i was hoping it could replace my pc for 2 reasons portability and price

while its expensive for an ipad 

to buy a pc that can edit 4k videos(yes the ipad pro can) and do the same stuff that ipad does would cost alot