A little nervous - need advice on new purchase

[SamBB]

I am both a windows and a mac user.
I am looking at the surface exclusively for MS office use and note taking.
I am a business user.
I don't need games, etc.
Wifi reliability is absolutely critical

I have an iPad, and I like it very much for entertainment, but not a fan for hard core working with word, outlook, excel, ppt.

I have a pc laptop and mac laptop those are for the office

I would buy the surface for mobility reasons. (meetings, easy to carry, i have 3 offices, etc.)

A few things
1. Do I need an i5? cost isn't a factor, but don't want to "over buy" -- my use is 99% office (outlook is very big for me)/internet
2. How, really, are the wifi issues? I must be able to wake from sleep and work with wifi
3. A case is important because I am so mobile. For my iPads/phones, I use an otter box. What would be similar, but not too heavy?

Thanks

 

[Financials]

You could get away with an i3 if you don't need storage space, currently think there is a 20% off staples promo in the states ending soon, would be very cheap if you get the i3 on that deal.

Also, I have yet to experience any wake from sleep wifi issue on the 3 different surface pro 3 units I have had since launch day. i3 and i5 4gb / 8gb

Urban Armor Gear case is probably the most solid out, http://www.urbanarmorgear.com/products/microsoft-surface-pro-3-case-scout


Not sure if you want something more "portfolio" style, than you can go with http://www.amazon.co.uk/Maroo-Woodland-Leather-Microsoft-Surface/dp/B00M43LWU8

It is offered through MS Store (get the sp3 at staples if deal is avail, but complete care pack from MS to get maroo case + typecover + complete care for 250)

 

[ProOrNo]

Also, this is just a guess, but it solved a lock-up problem with our Lenovo Miix win8.1.

Win 8.1 when in Sleep mode will constantly monitor battery voltage. When it drops to risky level it will automatically invoke Hibernate and it is from Sleep+Hibernate that the issues arise.

Use an elevated command prompt to disable Hibernate and then when the battery gets low, win8.1 will simply shut it down.

Elevated Command Prompt...
powercfg -h off

Will turn Hibernate OFF and naturally, repeating that command but with ON instead off OFF will turn it back on if you don't like the way long-term Sleep handles things.

 

[Liam2349]

I am both a windows and a mac user.
I am looking at the surface exclusively for MS office use and note taking.
I am a business user.
I don't need games, etc.
Wifi reliability is absolutely critical

I have an iPad, and I like it very much for entertainment, but not a fan for hard core working with word, outlook, excel, ppt.

I have a pc laptop and mac laptop those are for the office

I would buy the surface for mobility reasons. (meetings, easy to carry, i have 3 offices, etc.)

A few things
1. Do I need an i5? cost isn't a factor, but don't want to "over buy" -- my use is 99% office (outlook is very big for me)/internet
2. How, really, are the wifi issues? I must be able to wake from sleep and work with wifi
3. A case is important because I am so mobile. For my iPads/phones, I use an otter box. What would be similar, but not too heavy?

Thanks

Some people complained about not being able to connect to wifi after waking from sleep, I've never had issues with it. You don't NEED an i5 over an i3, but it's better of course and i3 doesn't have much SSD space.

I'm also very mobile, but I don't like using a case. I use a storage case, but not a case that's permanently attached to the device. I think if you just look after it, you should be fine.

 

[kundas1]

same here, I never have trouble connecting to any wifi and I have the early build of the SP3... I think some people are blowing this out of proportion....

 

[JimB]

Not blowing anything out of proportion. If I don't use a script in task scheduler wifi doesn't work after hibernate. the workaround fixes it so nothing to be concerned about.

 

[kundas1]

@JimB... nobody said YOU were blowing it out of proportion, in fact I don't recall ever signaling you out or mentioning your name at all. what I'm saying is there is other peeps on this forum obsessed with battery wifi and cpu heat performance...

 

[SamBB]

Idont know anything about scripts and such; I just need the device to work for wifi and MS office, and i want to buy it for portability. Perhaps this isn't possible to be done reliably?

Is the i3 any slower at MS office than the i5? Thanks.

 

[daniielrp]

Idont know anything about scripts and such; I just need the device to work for wifi and MS office, and i want to buy it for portability. Perhaps this isn't possible to be done reliably?

Is the i3 any slower at MS office than the i5? Thanks.

I use the i3 and never have any problems. My main use is for general web browsing/research and writing, and it does it all admirably. Never any slowness.

I think people forget than the i3 is Intel's 3 star processor. The i5 is being 4 star and i7 being 5 star. Office and browsing can be done just fine on their 1 and 2 star processors (Celeron, Pentium) so the i3 is plenty fast enough.

 

[jnjroach]

On the SP3 that seem to have issues with WiFi, the inconsistency that I've seen with the ones I have been able to investigate has been through the DHCP renewal to the router or AP.

All devices do an ACK/NACK to their DHCP Server when coming out of Sleep or Hibernate it appears that some of the hardware/firmware struggle with the Marvell WLAN (or since there are other devices that have similar issues it could be Windows 8.x) DHCP Request Packet. It appears that something in this exchange causes the driver of the Marvell Adapater to crash.

 

[stevenrossvanduyn]

I had my surface for 3 weeks now and no wifi issue at all, but i5 is a better choice if money is no object

 

[compnovo]

I purchased the i5/128, the next step up from the i3, mostly because I wanted the extra storage and I could afford the additional $200. I haven't used the i3 so don't have a point of comparison, but I've built several desktops with SSDs and my personal opinion is that 128GB of storage is the minimum a system should have. As it is I store all my music and videos on a 64GB SD card.