It’s already general knowledge what the Microsoft Surface Pro line of tablets is trying to achieve. While “innovative” is most likely an overstatement when attempting to describe what Microsoft did with the series, it still comes relatively close to that. Ever since its inception 3 years ago, the Microsoft Surface Pro attempted to bring something new while other tablets were focused on making things slimmer and better looking. Manufacturers believed that while a tablet was comfortable and easy to use for a series of activities, you would still have to switch to a laptop or full-fledged computer for a number of others. And because on-screen typing can only be so efficient, adding the possibility of using a keyboard and something that does what a mouse would do, except better, turned out to appeal to a great amount of people.
Thus the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 came to be – a highly useful hybrid that mixes the comfort of owning a tablet, with the utility of having a device that can handle your work just as well. But this time around, Microsoft made a point of focusing more on turning the tablet into an exquisite device than insisting on the hybrid aspect of it. And that is simply because it really feels like the Microsoft Surface Pro line of tablets has managed to nail it with the third iteration of it and now are just attempting to polish what they had already achieved with the Surface Pro 3.
Having been released less than 2 weeks ago, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 has a lot to show for itself and you can be sure that you would be getting some of the latest components and a performance to match. But how can it appeal to people who are looking for just a tablet? Or otherwise – just looking for something that would replace their laptops?
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Design
Put the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 right next to its predecessor, the Surface Pro 3, and for a second you won’t see that big a difference. In accordance to the changes that we normally see on newer devices, the hybrid has lost some thickness and upgraded its screen size thanks to the reduction in size the bezel has gone through. Even when separated from its detachable keyboard, the Surface Pro 4 looks much sleeker and more elegant than its predecessor. Its overall dimensions of 292 x 201 x 8.45 mm are highly comparable to Surface Pro 3’s 292 x 201 x 9.1 mm but because of the new design choices the tablet just feels better thought out overall.
Surprisingly, especially given that the hardware packed in it is punching out more power than the predecessor, the Surface Pro 4 has also lost some weight – while not much, but it’s only a minimum of 766 grams in weight, having 32 grams less than its previous iteration; the larger versions (only larger in terms of hardware, not physically) score 786 grams in weight. However, as far as tablets are concerned, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 will feel very large and hard to wield, at least for entertainment purposes, where the separate keyboard does not suffice as an excuse. Its primary method of usage seems to be more so oriented towards business and work, generally; however, making it a little more difficult to one-hand and use as an eBook reader or something to watch movies on when you’re relaxing in bed is a small price to pay when considering the extra juice you’ll find on it.
Design and button placement-wise, things haven’t changed that much. The face of the tablet features the front-facing camera at the top, while the rear is host to a bigger, better 8-megapixel camera. The area all around the edges however has seen some considerable change. For all the placements that will follow, we’ll consider that the normal orientation to hold the tablet in is landscape mode: the power button and volume rocker are placed at the top, on the left hand side, while the left side only hosts a 3.5 mm headphone jack, the rest of the area being left for the Surface Pro 4 Stylus to magnetically, but firmly attach to. On the opposite side, there are 3 ports – the full-fledged USB 3.0 port, a mini DisplayPort and the microSD card reader a little lower below. The bottom of the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 features several connector ports – here known as SurfaceConnectTM – that allows you to connect the detachable keyboard to the tablet.
The device features a unibody made of magnesium alloy and only comes in a silver finish at the moment. The back of the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 features a particularly sleek design – with the Microsoft Logo resting on the bottom half, seemingly made of black-tinted glass. This portion of the Surface Pro 4 can be parted from the rest of the body at the bottom, thus turning into the kickstand – capable of opening up to a maximum of more than 120 degrees giving you an ample choice of surfaces you can keep the Surface Pro 4 inclined on. Even though the hybrid is designed to be used mostly on flat surfaces, it will manage to remain stable even in your lap.
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Stylus
Even if visually the stylus that comes with this tablet-laptop hybrid hasn’t changed much, it comes with a lot of improvements over its predecessor. The fact that its default placement on the tablet is finally somewhere where it won’t complicate your life and that the magnetic attachment actually feels stable and sturdy this time around is only the beginning.
However, while the tablet’s side is a good place to store the stylus when you’re using the keyboard, it wouldn’t be as advisable to keep it there when you’re carrying it in a bag or moving around with the tablet. In the lack of a physical clip to keep it in place, there’s a high chance the stylus will detach or get accidentally kicked off and get lost in the process. Clipping it into the Type Cover is a much better alternative to prevent the above from occurring.
The stylus itself has gone through some improvements of its own: the first of which is the greatly increased sensitivity. Its pressure sensitivity has gone up to 1024 levels, which makes it mimic what a real pen would feel like on paper amazingly well. One part of it that stands out is the eraser that has forgotten the use of a button like it did in the case of the older Microsoft Surface Pro 3 and actually feels as real as an actual pencil eraser.
You can still use the button on it to launch either Cortana or OneNote but the only real downside of it is the fact that it has a lifespan of only about a year. Considering that charging it is not possible, if you’re using it intensively for sketching and drawing on the tablet, do take into account the fact that you will have to purchase a replacement at a future point throughout the tablet’s lifetime.
While the stylus works great in any of the Windows-supported or inherent applications, it may prove to have a rather troublesome existence and utility for others; a lot of third party applications and games will prove to have a lot of difficulty in detecting the pen altogether.
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Type Cover
Before we dive into praising the new and improved Type Cover to high heavens, we’ll get the bad parts out of the way. The most iconic of them all is the fact that the new detachable keyboard does not come in the basic price of the tablet. As a matter of fact, you will be forced to whip another $130 for it if you intend to truly use your Microsoft Surface Pro 4 as a replacement for your laptop.
Alright, now that we got that out of the way, the new Type Cover brings the much needed fixes that its previous version asked for. It’s a great thing considering that it can very well be used with the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 just as well. The most important difference that you’ll immediately notice in this keyboard is the fact that the buttons have a considerable amount of room between each other now – no longer packed tightly together, making typing difficult due to it being tricky to distinguish between the keys.
The keys were redesigned to be raised but silent, with a very good responsiveness and travel – with the only downside that it might feel a little strange typing on it given that the keyboard won’t be resting directly on a flat surface and instead be elevated. While the Type Cover doesn’t seem that frail, it would be advisable to not hammer on the keyboard either so you don’t risk any damage to the platform.
One of the most appraised changes to the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Type Cover is the track pad. Easily an underwhelming aspect on the previous variant of the keyboard, this time around it’s been considerably improved. Exceeding in smoothness thanks to the glass coating, much larger than its older brother and multi-touch capable (up to 5 fingers), the track pad will do a great job at replacing a mouse when you choose not to use the touch screen display.
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Display
As previously mentioned, despite the Surface Pro 4’s unchanged dimensions, the display managed to grow from 12 inches to 12.3 – all thanks to the thinning of the now better looking bezel. However, if even that doesn’t seem like such a drastic change, the screen’s maximum resolution has also increased to a whopping 2,736 x 1,824; this counts as a great improvement over the 2,160 x 1,440 display we saw in the Surface Pro 3. This translates into an increase from the previous 216 ppi pixel density all the way to 267 pixels per inch.
The smoothness and vividness of the display is known as PixelSense – the Microsoft version of what Apple calls Retina Display – meaning that the screen shows no sign of pixelation or blocky-looking images. The Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Display excels when it comes to brightness and black levels – rewarding the user with a high contrast ratio – 940:1. The aspect ratio that the Surface Pro 4 brings to the table is 3:2 – not particularly amazing for enjoying media such as movies (which will end up letterboxed) but wide and tall enough for any type of internet navigation or work handling.
To only add a little insult to injury for those who hope to use the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 for entertainment, the color accuracy is not the best, but it hardly scores much lower than competition. While the grayscale reproduction is up there with the best laptops and hybrids on the market, color accuracy scores relatively low – another downside for watching movies for example.
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Specifications & Customization
Given its hybrid status, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 packs some hardware that you are not very likely to find in most other classic tablets. From that perspective, you can say that you would be getting your money’s worth. As a laptop replacement, it’s natural for it to come with a high level of hardware customization that will give you the opportunity to nail the perfect setup for you in terms of processor, RAM or hard disk size.
The classic, low end rig that the Surface Pro 4 will come with consists of an Intel Core m3 processor, no less than 4 GB of RAM memory and a storage size of 128 GB.
I wouldn’t call the Intel Core m3 CPU underwhelming or downright bad, but instead will choose to refrain to stating that there’s a lot of room for improvement. While benchmarks would suggest that the Intel Core m3 manages to exceed the performance of the Intel Core i5 in terms of GPU Clock Speed for example, it would be a far-fetched act to say that it’s better. However, that being said – in realistic terms you’ll find the Intel Core m3-6Y30 processor to handle itself pretty well in most activities you choose to undergo. Any type of work-related activity won’t cringe or lag at all, faring well with multitasking by all means. The Surface Pro 4 is meant to replace a laptop and you can be sure that it will hold up to its promise
While the 4 GB of RAM may seem like too little on paper, it’s hardly true: unless you’re planning to run extremely demanding applications such as video editors or the most recent games you can find on the app store, 4 gigabytes of memory should suffice for your system’s needs as well as anything else that concerns your work or entertainment. Nevertheless, do keep in mind that this is the lowest amount you are able to get when you purchase the hybrid.
The base model also comes with Intel HD graphics 515 – the integrated graphics processing unit is inherent to the Skylake generation of Core m-series processors. It is not one of the newest pieces of technology, only managing to come close to older GPUs such as the AMD Radeon HD 6730M or the nVidia NVS 5400M. Because of that, coupled with the fact that it is after all just an integrated GPU, you won’t get outstanding graphic performance out of the Microsoft Surface Pro 4.
While the base model only offers a default amount of 128 GB of storage space in form of solid state drive (SSD), you can naturally improve that number by referring to the microSD slot available on the tablet’s side. However, you will only be able to use the card for storing data and not much else.
Luckily, the Microsoft website offers a wide range of customization you can bring to your own Microsoft Surface Pro 4. There is a series of setups you can opt for when purchasing the hybrid, thanks to the compatibility offered by the components. While the Intel Core M processor can only handle 4 GB of RAM and a 128 GB SSD hard drive, the Intel Core i5 variant of the Surface Pro 4 can take up to 16 GB of RAM. Lastly, the high end Intel Core i7 Processor can go up to 256 GB in storage space for the 8 GB of RAM and an amazing 1 TB for the 16 GB version.
Considering that the cameras on the hybrid are by far not its strongest point, we will just limit the review to mentioning that the front facing camera is a 5 megapixel HD one – not an outstanding piece of hardware, but surely one that will oblige for your video conferencing needs when your job asks for it. The rear camera, scoring 8 megapixels, does at least feature autofocus and a potential of up to 1080p HD video recording at 30 frames per second.
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 OS – Windows 10
Users rejoice for the blight of Windows 8.1 has lifted. While I would admit the harshness of that bold statement, it’s incontrovertible that the previous version of Windows presented a great number of aspects that were either unsatisfactory or downright frustrating; maybe less so when it came to smartphones and tablets. Nevertheless, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 comes with the new and highly improved Windows 10 Pro version, including a great amount of features such as Cortana. Purchasing the Surface Pro 4 will also provide you with a free 30 day long Office trial, afterwards requiring a subscription or full program purchase in order to continue using it.
The tablet, or in this case hybrid version of the latest Windows 10 operating system fells almost the same on the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. However, at a closer inspection you realise that there are many aspects where this version of the Windows 10 that spell handheld smart device. once of them is the fact that there is a number of applications that you cannot use unless you download them from the Windows store (for example most social media). Regardless, the operating system feels as sturdy as it does on desktops and even gives you a start button to work with as well as the exact same intuitive user interface you can find on any Windows 10 desktop.
The Start menu displays a list of commonly used or default Windows 10 applications and gives you a high level of customizability. You can drag in app icons in order to make them more accessible, create and rename app groups and gain access to the most useful shortcuts to a number of services such as News, the Xbox Live services, News and so on. The system runs on the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 smoothly and unhindered by bloatware of any kind.
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Battery & Verdict
While the Microsoft website advertises the Surface Pro 4 battery to last to up to 9 hours of video playback, things are not that plain and simple. And unfortunately not that true either; the battery seems to drain a lot faster from strenuous activities such as video watching, especially when the brightness is set on default and above. Furthermore, there’s a distinct decrease in battery life with a series of factors such as keeping the device powered on for a long time; if you use the hybrid for watching videos while it’s plugged in to charge for example, not only that it will be unhealthy for the device on the long run, but charging will be slow and ineffective and you will risk some degree of overheating – in turn associated with slow performance. To wrap up though, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 will most likely last you through the day without needing charging with a mild usage – working, web browsing, sending e-mails and so on.
As a finishing note to our Microsoft Surface Pro 4 review, I think we can agree that the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 can indeed replace your laptop if, however, you use it for work-inclined types of activity. Gaming for example will not be the most enjoyable of experiences, especially when you try to take it at a higher level. Using the Surface Pro 4 as a medium for your entertainment works out well enough, if for a few hindrances such as the tablet being hard to hold with just one hand. Otherwise, with the improvements that were brought to the Type Cover and the Stylus, together with the implementation of the Windows 10 operating system, the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 is a great addition to the hybrid class, if not one of the best. However, as a downright considerable downside, the price you would have to pay to have a highly operable hybrid is very high – at times making you wonder if you shouldn’t just spend less and stick to either a laptop or a tablet.
You can purchase the low end Surface Pro 4 configuration for $899, while the highest specifications available for the system will take you up to a shocking $2,699 – which scores higher than most high-end, professional laptops.
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