Is this worth the upgrade?

[kiwigirl]

Right now I have

3 year old SP3 with Pro 4 pen and Pro 4 keyboard
4th gen i5
128SSD
4GB

and I came across someone selling a 5 month old SP4 for $900CDN obo with Pro 4 pen and keyboard

6th gen i5
256SSD
8GB


My question is, how much would you be willing to pay in difference (from selling my SP3 to uprade) to upgrade to this Pro 4?

Am I going to notice a significant improvement in performance?

 

[MickeyLittle]

That's a good price for the SP4 package since it is as new as it is. And certainly 2 bumps in generations along with 4 more gigs of ram will increase it's power but it probably depends on your usage too.

For instance if you are not pushing your SP3 with labor intensive apps now then you may not really notice much difference. Oh sure, upgrades may be quicker and app updates but your WiFi speed is still your WiFi speed.

So I'd say if you are basically planning on light office, internet, email, youtube, Netflix, etc. then improvement sure but vast, no way!

 

[hughlle]

Depends on what you're doing. However for daily use, having both a 4gb sp3 and 4gb sp4 in my flat, I would be hard pressed to know which device I was using if not for the windows button

 

[GreyFox7]

Id just say you should be looking at the new Pro as your upgrade, that's a real upgrade, SP3 to SP4 a minor change, perhaps more psychological.

 

[kiwigirl]

Thanks for the tips everyone.

Greyfox - From what I was told, the new Pro that is coming out, it is pretty much a Pro 4 but with 50% battery life, that's about it.

The screen isn't any better, the pen isn't any better, the device itself is practically the same.

 

[GreyFox7]

Here's why I think the 2017 Pro, especially the fanless i5, is a good upgrade for the SP3:

The Surface Pro i5-7300u CPU has 36% higher performance, 24% higher single threaded performance. Full non-throttling performance in a fanless design.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp[]=2054&cmp[]=2955.

The GPU in i5-7300U vs i5-4300U is 70% better.
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/compare.php?cmp%5B%5D=2643&cmp%5B%5D=3592.
Some video playback scenarios are insanely better...

Memory is a step faster at 1866 vs 1600 in the SP3 and SP4.

SSD is faster also. no details yet but I expect it's a minor improvement over the SP4 SSD or at least equivalent.

Screen is better, higher resolution, better color, better calibration.
Pen is way better, maybe 4x better plus lower latency.
Keyboard & Trackpad much better, this is like a fine wine, it keeps improving.
Battery Life better, hard to say how much better without some independent benchmarks but it's got a bigger 45WH battery for starters and 3 generations of Intel improvements in power usage.
a few grams lighter & slightly thinner by a fraction of a mm, with more comfortable edge design.
cameras better, with Windows Hello support and focus!
fanless i5 did I mention fanless. I'm a big fan of that.

That's a pretty decent upgrade.

 

[GreyFox7]

Pen from 4 to 5 nee Pro 2017 went from 1024 pressure levels to 4096 and added Tilt, less activation pressure (10g), and 21ms latency "The fastest pen on the planet".

I believe there was a minor screen improvement in color accuracy/coverage from the 4.

Incremental CPU, GPU improvements over the SP4, true not much there, but it's three incremental improvements over the SP3, now were into the noticeably faster category.

A step up in memory speed from 1600 to 1866 MHZ.

Likely an incremental SSD upgrade but unknown for sure until it gets benchmarked.

These details are why Microsoft should publish fully detaild specifications on devices instead of the 50,000 foot level 256GB SSD, 8GB memory fluff.

 

[kiwigirl]

Thanks Grey, can't you use the Pro 4 type cover and pen on the new SP? I would hate to have to dish our $300 more for something I already have.

It's my dream to have the top of the line model (mainly cause I would want the 16GB ram, and of course an i7 is nice), but no way am I paying $3250cdn for a laptop in 2017 with 16GB of ram. I just don't understand why MS doesn't have more configurations with 16GB ram. You should not have to spend 3K CDN to get it. That is outrageous.

Even though I don't technically "need it" "right now", cause I have a work PC for my video and photo editing, if this was for MY personal PC, I would rather put that 3K towards a custom build desktop that would have a i7, fastest gen Samsung EVO SSD, 32gb ram, GTX 1080Ti, and it would come in at the same price as the top of the line SP but the desktop would obliderate the SP for performance and wouldn't be outdated for 5years. Can't say the same about the new top of the line SP.

I mean the new top of the line SP doesn't even come with dedicate GPU. What?! And MS keeps wanting to push their SP as a video editing machine? lol no with onboard graphics. It should at least have a dedicated GPU and then I could see myself paying 2K for it, but definitely not 3K and over.

And like I said, that custom build that I listed would smoke the top of the line SP in the dust for performance and it would be the same price (if not a bit less)/

 

[GreyFox7]

Thanks Grey, can't you use the Pro 4 type cover and pen on the new SP? I would hate to have to dish our $300 more for something I already have.

It's my dream to have the top of the line model (mainly cause I would want the 16GB ram, and of course an i7 is nice), but no way am I paying $3250cdn for a laptop in 2017 with 16GB of ram. I just don't understand why MS doesn't have more configurations with 16GB ram. You should not have to spend 3K CDN to get it. That is outrageous.

Even though I don't technically "need it" "right now", cause I have a work PC for my video and photo editing, if this was for MY personal PC, I would rather put that 3K towards a custom build desktop that would have a i7, fastest gen Samsung EVO SSD, 32gb ram, GTX 1080Ti, and it would come in at the same price as the top of the line SP but the desktop would obliderate the SP for performance and wouldn't be outdated for 5years. Can't say the same about the new top of the line SP.

I mean the new top of the line SP doesn't even come with dedicate GPU. What?! It should at least have a dedicated GPU and then I could see myself paying 2K for it, but definitely not 3K and over.

They certainly charge a premium for the i7 and larger memory and storage models. that's why I recommend the i5 8/256 as best value in the line. If you need that other stuff and are concerned about the cost, you can certainly do better elsewhere (mostly).

Sure you can use the older keyboards, there's probably not a huge difference from the SP4 keyboard certainly. The Pen in this case is a whole other animal but if your not using or going to use the better features then yeah, stick with the old one.

As for me... I'm planning to go all in on a 2017 Pro i5 8/256, keyboard, & Pen replacement of my SP3 setup of the same config for reasons stated above. I feel drawing in my future and I may as well do it right.

 

[kiwigirl]

They certainly charge a premium for the i7 and larger memory and storage models. that's why I recommend the i5 8/256 as best value in the line. If you need that other stuff and are concerned about the cost, you can certainly do better elsewhere (mostly).

Sure you can use the older keyboards, there's probably not a huge difference from the SP4 keyboard certainly. The Pen in this case is a whole other animal but if your not using or going to use the better features then yeah, stick with the old one.

As for me... I'm planning to go all in on a 2017 Pro i5 8/256, keyboard, & Pen replacement of my SP3 setup of the same config for reasons stated above. I feel drawing in my future and I may as well do it right.

Upgrading to the new pen I could see being worth it, but is the new type cover the one that MS is labelling as a "luxury" fabric? lol

What's the release date for the new SP? I mean 2 generations newer and MS couldn't even make this thing slimmer and lighter? I mean if it was like half the weight and thickness, then I could see a very valid reason to upgrade.

And from what I was told, the new SP uses a new proprietary charge adaptor. If true, then this is a fail cause I don't want to have to spend more money on all new chargers as I have 3 chargers right now or my SP3.

 

[GreyFox7]

Upgrading to the new pen I could see being worth it, but is the new type cover the one that MS is labelling as a "luxury" fabric? lol

What's the release date for the new SP? I mean 2 generations newer and MS couldn't even make this thing slimmer and lighter? I mean if it was like half the weight and thickness, then I could see a very valid reason to upgrade.

And from what I was told, the new SP uses a new proprietary charge adaptor. If true, then this is a fail cause I don't want to have to spend more money on all new chargers as I have 3 chargers right now or my SP3.

Nope same Surface Connect adapter... no doubt your ear is tuned into an Apple fanboy or similar who's pulling stuff out of their ass because they are threatened by this, either real or imagined.

Release date is June 15 although I hear rumors that the Pen and Keyboard might be up to 35 days later in some regions, my intel on that is shaky at best.

As long as they stick with USBA thinner is a near impossibility, I could see maybe 1mm. Ill take the bigger battery at basically the same weight. I'm hoping we will see a significant redesign once Intel ever ships a 10nm chip, God I think they are 3 years late on this now. Samsung and Huawei have thinner devices but they have even worse battery life than the SP3/4.

 

[convergent]

It seems like somewhere you got a lot of bad intel on the new one. Since there are numerous reports of the Microsoft Stores now having samples in hand for display, it may make the most sense to visit a store to see for yourself. The only thing you won't be able to check out is the pen, since they aren't there yet.

All of that said, there is going to be a big premium on the latest vs. the SP4. The specs you listed on the SP4 seem like a decent upgrade to me. Double the SSD and RAM, and faster processor. Battery life? Does the SP3 get better than SP4? You have to decide how big of a jump you won't to make and how much you want to spend. Use the refurb price of the SP4 as your guide.