A few questions about the Sp4

[AudioSurf]

I'm going to buy the sp4 but before that i have to question for you guys !
First of all, i have found a good offert from a local reseller for the i5 4gb ram version, well ... will it be enought ? I'm pretty worried that 4gb for today's app simply won't be enought , what do you think ?

What about the fan ? I have to expect to hear it while watching a videostream "twitch, popcorntime" or during daily browsing ?

I'll be able to play some light game on it ? Like binding of isaac, enter the gungeon etc ?

 

[leeshor]

Welcome to the forum

Your question re: 4GB really depends on what you plan to do and how. I have the 4GB version and have never run into issues with wanting/needing more memory. I also have only heard the fan once. If you plan to use heavy graphic apps or play games YMMV by a lot. Those games would likely work just fine but the expectation of never hearing the fan, not so much.

 

[hughlle]

As above. 4gb here and never been given a reason to go for any more.

Regarding fan, can't say. Only time I watch any videos on my surface is when it is extending to a second d display and in that instance, the fan will roar every time a web video is played in full screen. It could be because it is a flash video or such format, or just driving 2 displays. Watching locally hosted co tent though and no fan, playing almost any game, much fan.

 

[AudioSurf]

Welcome to the forum

Your question re: 4GB really depends on what you plan to do and how. I have the 4GB version and have never run into issues with wanting/needing more memory. I also have only heard the fan once. If you plan to use heavy graphic apps or play games YMMV by a lot. Those games would likely work just fine but the expectation of never hearing the fan, not so much.

As above. 4gb here and never been given a reason to go for any more.

Regarding fan, can't say. Only time I watch any videos on my surface is when it is extending to a second d display and in that instance, the fan will roar every time a web video is played in full screen. It could be because it is a flash video or such format, or just driving 2 displays. Watching locally hosted co tent though and no fan, playing almost any game, much fan.

I don't know.. Who should I believe?
I would be very gratefull if you could just open a stream from this Twitch and let it open for a few minutes "possibly at high quality" and tell my if the fan start, just to make an idea about how often the fan will start

 

[hughlle]

I don't know.. Who should I believe?
I would be very gratefull if you could just open a stream from this Twitch and let it open for a few minutes "possibly at high quality" and tell my if the fan start, just to make an idea about how often the fan will start

Alas I do not have home internet, just a phone, a 240p youtube video is about as good as my phone will offer and that generally requires me letting the video buffer in it's entirety before it is watchable. I rarely ever stream, don't even use youtube other than a rare occasion, so best to find someone a little more qualified to test that for you.

Just remember, my experience with the fan running has been with the surface playing a flash(or other web video) on an ultra-wide display as well as having work going on on the surface itself such as office apps. Other than when at uni, and i'm not doing anything but onenote, my sp4 is permanently connected to a 32" ultrawide, so I have no real experience of how the machine behaves on its own

 

[CCalvinN]

I don't know.. Who should I believe?
I would be very gratefull if you could just open a stream from this Twitch and let it open for a few minutes "possibly at high quality" and tell my if the fan start, just to make an idea about how often the fan will start

As I'm on my desktop I figured I could help you out a bit here. I grabbed the SP4 (i5/4Gb/128Gb), turned the linked twitch feed on and let it play for 15 minutes.... and then realized the SP4 turned itself off after 5 minutes. Grr... so I changed the power settings and set it up again, this time letting it run for 22 minutes. After that time the fan was NOT running. I didn't set it up on High Quality as I didn't notice that part of your message, but it was playing solidly for a while without any issue.

The closest I could get to this in the way I use my SP4 was watching a movie purchased from the Windows store while on vacation. I'm fairly sure that I watched the full 2+ hour movie without the fan coming on.

 

[surfacebookinuk]

I downgraded from i5,8gb,256 just because of the fan noise. If there is a fan it will come on at some point and even if it does not then after gathering some dust and dirt when it does come on it will be loud..

Edit:
For me it would come on while charging and watching a movie at times, or charging and browsing in opera with adblock enabled. It does come on and it takes a while to cool down and go back to silent. So choose wisely.

 

[Philtastic]

I don't know.. Who should I believe?
I would be very gratefull if you could just open a stream from this Twitch and let it open for a few minutes "possibly at high quality" and tell my if the fan start, just to make an idea about how often the fan will start

I opened the Twitch stream but it wasn't that interesting so I only let it play for 3 minutes on my i5/256 GB/8 GB on battery. It got a tiny bit warm, no fan, and I don't expect the fan to come on even after 10's of minutes because my CPU clockspeed was still in the 0.6-0.8 GHz range with only about 20-30% CPU usage. In my experience with my SP4 since October, the fan doesn't come on that often including 10's of minutes of Youtube videos (as a quick test, I just watched John Oliver's Last Week Tonight episode on televangelists, a 20 minute video at 720p. Didn't even get warm but it did burn 6% of my battery). The only times that the fan has come on are when I'm playing a game, encoding videos that I had edited, transferred 10-30 GB of files to a USB stick, and was on a few webpages with really annoying Flash ads which prompted me to switch browsers to Chrome from Edge so that I could run AdBlock.

 

[wynand32]

About the 4GB question, I personal always opt for at least 8GB, particularly on a machine like the SP4 that can't be upgraded. My philosophy is that I'd rather have RAM and not need it than need it and not have it. The difference in price is rather marginal when looked at as an investment--since you never know what you might do in the future that will utilize the additional RAM, it's a way of possibly making the machine last longer.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[AudioSurf]

Hey !
Sorry if I have not thanked you but I had a few exams and I could not find time to answer you !

I was ready to buy the sp4 but a friend of mine gave me a big doubt, should i "sadly" try to wait for the sp5 ?
From what I have seen, the surface 4 was announced around October and I wont do this expense and then see out the surface 5 after a few months :c

Do you have any more information that might help me decide?

 

[leeshor]

Hey !
Sorry if I have not thanked you but I had a few exams and I could not find time to answer you !

I was ready to buy the sp4 but a friend of mine gave me a big doubt, should i "sadly" try to wait for the sp5 ?
From what I have seen, the surface 4 was announced around October and I wont do this expense and then see out the surface 5 after a few months :c

Do you have any more information that might help me decide?

I can pretty much assure you it will be more than a few months, unless a few months=maybe next year. As for the SP4 I'm not sure what your friend's experience was but all the people I know with SP4s, (I've pretty much lost count of thee total units) are doing just fine with their SP4, including me.

 

[AudioSurf]

I can pretty much assure you it will be more than a few months, unless a few months=maybe next year. As for the SP4 I'm not sure what your friend's experience was but all the people I know with SP4s, (I've pretty much lost count of thee total units) are doing just fine with their SP4, including me.

He love the sp4 too, it was just a consideration to help me spend my money wisely ^^ , i just bought it btw, so happy about it !