Introduction
I have a long history with Microsoft Surface. My first device was a Surface RT and now, I own a Surface Pro 6. I have used 4 Surface devices and I will talk about every one for them. This will be true for future posts as well, I will only review devices I owned and used before.
Timeline
The image is from Wikipedia.
Surface RT
This device was bought in Beijing around late 2012. I think we might get scammed by the salesman because we knew nothing about Surface at that time. Surface RT had office and could surf the Internet. It was also a new device, so we thought why not? Therefore, my dad bought it for me because I was going to study in Singapore and I needed a laptop. It was bundled with a keyboard and a pen. I couldn’t recall the price, but it should be the official price.
Surface RT was amazing when I first started using it. I could use Word, PowerPoint and even do some very simple drawings on it. There was a kickstand as well, so I could watch videos without holding it, unlike iPad. It was unique back then because usually, laptops were backward, the bottom part is thick and the screen is thin. I didn’t know about OneNote at that time, so I missed out a lot. Overall, it had everything you ever needed as a student.
After a while, I found out that there weren’t many apps available because I could only download apps from Microsoft Store. Surface RT became limited because I couldn’t run any games but others could. Eventually, I bought a Lenovo laptop from Sim Lim Sqaure in Singapore. Surface RT was then no longer used.
Surface RT was ahead of its time because it was an ARM based machine. Apple only released ARM based MacBook last year and Microsoft was 8 years early. However, I think it is pointless to the first if the device isn’t ready. Surface RT couldn’t run any x86 programs and this was the main reason why it failed.
Microsoft did something similar to Windows 10 S where you could only download apps from Microsoft Store, and it wasn’t great. The successor of Surface RT might be Surface Pro X. 8 years later, Microsoft is more prepared, and it is capable of running x86 programs via emulation and x64 support is coming this year. If the next gen of Surface Pro X has an M1 board inside, it will be an amazing device, but it is just a dream.
Surface Pro 4
This device was bought in Sydney around late 2015. I pre-ordered it online and waited for 3 months. Every day, I was really looking forward to the device. Surface Pro 4 was bought mainly for my study. At that time, I owned a MacBook Pro 13 inch bought in Singapore for iOS development and this is another story for another post. Soon or later, I sold it because I no longer used it.
Surface Pro 4 had many issues since day one. Windows 10 was just released, and it wasn’t stable at all. Battery drain, fan noise, overheating and more issues were my daily life with Surface Pro 4. I used it heavily for note-taking and programming. The Surface Pen also had many issues, but I liked the device since day one even though it had so many issues. Microsoft fixed many of them and I also fixed some related to the battery life. I underclocked the device, so it doesn’t turbo boost and decreased the voltage so that it wouldn’t heat up that quickly.
Why did I like it if it had these many issues? The main reason was that it was ahead of its time. I went full paperless in late 2015 and my notes were more organised. Even now, I could check them on OneNote. I didn’t have to print something out just to write on it. I could use Drawboard PDF to annotate and then, print it out. It might be common nowadays to take note with an iPad but in 2015, it wasn’t. I felt different because nobody was doing this, and I was in a way more productive because of it.
Microsoft’s hardware is never perfect unlike Apple, but they are more focused on productivity. This was the reason why I liked Surface Pro 4. The message from Microsoft and the innovation were the main reason why I bought it in the first place. I was buying a dream, not a device.
Surface Pro 3
This device was bought in early 2019, and it was used. I was in my last year at uni. Many things happened since 2015. I sold my Surface Pro 4 and bought a new MacBook and iPad Pro because I was making WoWs Info. Later, I was super disappointed at Apple, so I sold them and built my desktop. That’s why I was missing a mobile device. This device was cheap, and it was only $350, but it was amazing.
3 years later, Windows 10 was a lot better, and I could tell because of how bad my Surface Pro 4 was. I applied what I did to Surface Pro 4 and improved the battery life to last around 5 hours. I used it mainly for note-taking and also some lite programming. If you want to get a cheap but new Surface. I highly recommend Surface Pro 3 because of the price. The performance isn’t bad but don’t expect too much from it. The new Surface Pen works quite well on it and some lite drawing is also possible. Overall, this is just a versatile device.
Surface Pro 6
This device was bought in late 2019 because it was on sale. It was a major upgrade from Surface Pro 3. However, not all Surface are made equal. Last week, I sent it back for repair and Microsoft sent a new one for me. Now, it is a lot better.
My model is fanless so Microsoft is very careful with the CPU. This can be a good or bad thing depending on what you do. On battery power, it won’t go over 2.4 GHz unless you change it to performance mode. This way I don’t need to apply my custom changes because the battery life is good. However, it won’t handle continuous load because it will throttle when it is reaching 95 degrees to not burn the chip.
Overall, nothing too fancy with this device but it is great.
Conclusion
Surface devices are not perfect like Apple devices and not as powerful as iPad Pros and M1 devices but why do they exist? To me, it is the versatility. Surface could do everything on it, but it doesn’t do anything well. Apple devices are fantastic in certain areas but not all. If Microsoft and Apple work together, we might see a Surface Pro M1, and it will be the dream device. I will definitely buy one if they do it. It is rumoured that Windows 10 might support Android apps in the future, so it can do Windows, Linux and Android in one. Actually, if iPad Pro can run macOS apps, it is also close to my dream device and this is more likely.