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[NoLoMo]

Thinking purchasing a tablet for notetaking and for viewing my text book online. I'm thinking that iPad would be a waste of money for this. I was considering a surface, not the book, just the tablet. Don't want to spend a fortune on the latest model, so not sure which would be best

[79wjd]

I'd get a (used) Surface 3. I've personally used both a Galaxy Note 8.0 and an SP3 for note taking by hand, and the SP3 is SOOOOO much better. 

[NoLoMo]

4 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

I'd get a (used) Surface 3. I've personally used both a Galaxy Note 8.0 and an SP3 for note taking by hand, and the SP3 is SOOOOO much better. 

Alright, I was thinking that the used market would be my best bet. What price point would you consider fair

[79wjd]

Just now, NoLoMo said:

Alright, I was thinking that the used market would be my best bet. What price point would you consider fair

Well, I got my SP3 (i3 w/ 64gb storage) + type cover + Pen for $500 last november. 

 

I'd be looking for a Surface 3 (64gb) for around $300 I guess.....whether or not it's possible you'll just have to see. Stalk Ebay for a few days and figure that if you're patient and pay close attention you can save another 10%. 

[NoLoMo]

55 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Well, I got my SP3 (i3 w/ 64gb storage) + type cover + Pen for $500 last november. 

 

I'd be looking for a Surface 3 (64gb) for around $300 I guess.....whether or not it's possible you'll just have to see. Stalk Ebay for a few days and figure that if you're patient and pay close attention you can save another 10%. 

Alright, thanks for the help

[cc143]

Surface 3 is great for that, I can attest to it, it basically replaced my mobile computing needs last year and is great for notetaking and reading books, viewing leaflets etc. 

 

You get a pdf viewer that lets you anotate with the pen (get that definately!) etc for free. 

 

I'm not sure though if the 64gb will cover you, not for storage, you'll hardly keep anything on it anyway, setting up a onedrive account is much better for schoolwork since it allows for you to have instant access to updated documents over several devices, but the 2gb of Ram is in my opinion too little for a full windows machine, you can fill it easily by opening a couple of chrome tabs!

[79wjd]

1 hour ago, cc143 said:

I'm not sure though if the 64gb will cover you, not for storage, you'll hardly keep anything on it anyway, setting up a onedrive account is much better for schoolwork since it allows for you to have instant access to updated documents over several devices, but the 2gb of Ram is in my opinion too little for a full windows machine, you can fill it easily by opening a couple of chrome tabs!

I kind of agree, but at the same time....2gb is still manageable if the purpose is note taking. Truthfully, the two reasons I opt'd for my SP3 (i3, 64gb storage) over an S3 was because I found an SP3 for not much more money than an S3 (I paid like an extra $50 or something ridiculous) AND because I wanted 4gb of RAM. Although, with that said, I usually only have 2-4 chrome tabs (I've started to use Edge to save RAM -- not that I really need to) and a one note document. And that's basically it. So for my workload 2gb of RAM would be sufficient (hell, for my workload I would actually like to switch my SP3 for an iPad Pro....kind of).

 

The reason why I even bother saying any of that, is because I sometimes do find my SP3 to be annoyingly big and wish I had something a bit smaller (and then other times I wish I had something bigger....so, I can't really win on that front). So I wouldn't completely discredit the S3 just because of the RAM as it may be a better size (and/or it may be much less -- although OP has to keep in mind that an SP3 is more likely to include the pen).

[zdog16]

I wouldn't dismiss iPad so quickly. I have been using an iPad instead of a laptop for 99% of all in class work and note taking for the past 4 years. Since I'm a digital arts major I would need a really beefy laptop to be able to do anything that we work on in class and they always provide computers for software-based classes anyway. The Apple Pencil is hands down the best stylus/digitizer I have ever used. And I've gotten to play with $10,000 professional drawing monitors, and the Apple Pencil was more enjoyable. My Boss has the 13" Pro with a pencil and I occasionally use it for taking notes on job sites. If you can stand the size the 13" Pro it's fantastic for taking notes and drawing. I personally don't want to lug that huge thing around, but I am in the process of trying to trade out my iPad Air 2 for the 9" pro so I can buy a pencil. 

 

In my opinion the iPad line is a great tablet for school. The apple pencil is wonderful and you have one of the largest app stores in existence backing it up.There is something to say for having full windows, but by the time you get a surface with a decent processor so you can make use of it to run programs like Photoshop it's similar price to an iPad Pro.

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, zdog16 said:

but by the time you get a surface with a decent processor so you can make use of it to run programs like Photoshop it's similar price to an iPad Pro.

This depends a lot on what he's doing. For example, I only use my SP3 for note taking -- so I have one note and maybe a few tabs open at most. So for me (and potentially OP) the, cheapest SP3 is more than powerful enough. With that said, I would consider swapping my SP3 for an iPad Pro simply so I could get messages to come through and have better battery life. (But as I said, the specific use case is important)

[cc143]

29 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

This depends a lot on what he's doing. For example, I only use my SP3 for note taking -- so I have one note and maybe a few tabs open at most. So for me (and potentially OP) the, cheapest SP3 is more than powerful enough. With that said, I would consider swapping my SP3 for an iPad Pro simply so I could get messages to come through and have better battery life. (But as I said, the specific use case is important)

Battery life on mine is quite ok actually, for what it is, as long as you aren't watching movies or anything it will take you through the day. 

 

I am thinking more of my own usecase where I will always have chrome open regardless what I'm doing, i.e. when I am at the library where I'll have at least fb, uni intranet email, gmail and perhaps another 3 tabs depending on what  I am studying as well as 2 pdfs open in drawboard and at worst the calculator emulator, so when I am studying, I basically use loads of Ram, and since CPU is not that great...

 

But why upgrade to the ipad pro and the sp4? Its much more of a reasonable offering and certainly not more expensive...

[cc143]

29 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

This depends a lot on what he's doing. For example, I only use my SP3 for note taking -- so I have one note and maybe a few tabs open at most. So for me (and potentially OP) the, cheapest SP3 is more than powerful enough. With that said, I would consider swapping my SP3 for an iPad Pro simply so I could get messages to come through and have better battery life. (But as I said, the specific use case is important)

Battery life on mine is quite ok actually, for what it is, as long as you aren't watching movies or anything it will take you through the day. 

 

I am thinking more of my own usecase where I will always have chrome open regardless what I'm doing, i.e. when I am at the library where I'll have at least fb, uni intranet email, gmail and perhaps another 3 tabs depending on what  I am studying as well as 2 pdfs open in drawboard and at worst the calculator emulator, so when I am studying, I basically use loads of Ram, and since CPU is not that great...

 

But why upgrade to the ipad pro and the sp4? Its much more of a reasonable offering and certainly not more expensive...

[79wjd]

3 minutes ago, cc143 said:

But why upgrade to the ipad pro and the sp4? Its much more of a reasonable offering and certainly not more expensive...

I don't need more performance, so the SP4 would just be a waste of a lot of money -- the reason I got the SP3 in the first place was because it was much cheaper than the SP4 and not much worse. 

 

The reason I would switch to an iPad Pro, tough, is because I basically just use it for taking handwritten notes. So for my use case an iPad Pro is basically just as good. But I would also be able to use messages....which would be really nice, and the battery life would be a bit better (not that the battery life is really an issue on my SP3, I can usually get by on a single charge for a day or two, but the iPad would be a bit better). Plus iOS is a better touch-interface than Windows (assuming you don't need the advantages of a full OS -- ability to run more/'better' programs, and an accessible file system).

 

The reason I wouldn't/haven't switched to an iPad Pro is because I wouldn't be willing to pay anything extra (and I'd want to get paid to switch to a 9.7" Pro).

[cc143]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

I don't need more performance, so the SP4 would just be a waste of a lot of money -- the reason I got the SP3 in the first place was because it was much cheaper than the SP4 and not much worse. 

 

The reason I would switch to an iPad Pro, tough, is because I basically just use it for taking handwritten notes. So for my use case an iPad Pro is basically just as good. But I would also be able to use messages....which would be really nice, and the battery life would be a bit better (not that the battery life is really an issue on my SP3, I can usually get by on a single charge for a day or two, but the iPad would be a bit better). Plus iOS is a better touch-interface than Windows (assuming you don't need the advantages of a full OS -- ability to run more/'better' programs, and an accessible file system).

Well I get that but its not like the ipad pro is cheap, and if you really need all that, then why not go with a samsung note 10? its android, so it has better capabilities as a productivity device, has a better touch interface than the surface, the pen goes inside so its not as easy to lose and it should also be cheaper. 

[79wjd]

11 minutes ago, cc143 said:

Well I get that but its not like the ipad pro is cheap, and if you really need all that, then why not go with a samsung note 10? its android, so it has better capabilities as a productivity device, has a better touch interface than the surface, the pen goes inside so its not as easy to lose and it should also be cheaper. 

Been there, done that, it was an awful experience. I originally had a Note 8 and was so fed up with it I sold it and got the SP3. Literally no part of it was enjoyable to use. And I wouldn't buy an iPad Pro -- which is why I still have an will likely always have my SP3. 

[NoLoMo]

So what sort of improvement or benefits would I see if I got a base model of surface book. Right now I'm looking at an SP3 i7 4GB ram 128 GB running on windows 10 pro for about 530