Geek.Verve
Member
First, please let me make this perfectly clear - I still believe the SP3 is a fantastic device of evolutionary design, and I would not hesitate to recommend it to others. I just thought I would provide a bit of feedback on why I decided it's not for me. This is purely meant as informational and perhaps discussion-worthy and not intended as any sort of attempt to sway anyone's opinions one way or the other.
That said (and please refer back to it as necessary as you read this), following is my experience with the SP3:
The fact of the matter is the SP3 does everything I need it to and more. I probably didn't take advantage of some of the most useful and unique features it offers. Take inking for example. I see others use it very effectively, but it's just not something I ever really felt a need to do. It's just not a tool I personally can find a lot of use for in the way that I communicate.
Tablet use. This is another area that I thought was going to be pretty beneficial for me. However, I find I don't often choose to use it that way. I pretty much always want that keyboard available, and on those rare occasions when I'm fine with a simple tablet experience (watching videos or browsing the web), I found the SP3 a bit heavy. Also, no matter the activity, the i7 would sometimes run pretty warm, causing the active cooling to kick in - not constantly by any means, but often enough to be a distraction. I just found I had a better experience with my wife's Kindle Fire HD in these cases. Again though, I just really don't find that I have a need for a tablet as often as I thought I might, but when I do, I prefer something more lightweight for my particular needs.
When docked at my desk and attached to a full-sized keyboard and my new Asus PB278Q 2560x1440 monitor, the SP3 was a rock star. This and the portability of the SP3 was what drew me to it in the first place. I was able to work in Visual Studio, Blender 3D, Gimp - pretty much all of my development apps fluidly and comfortably with just one minor issue. The performance from the SP3's processor just didn't meet my expectations. I know the ULV Haswell processors aren't performance-equivalent to their desktop counterparts, but my workstation at the office with a Core2 Quad processor (4-generations older than Haswell in Intel's Core lineage) seems significantly faster. For example, spinning up an instance of the local web server service in Visual Studio and displaying a web page took slightly over half the time that it did on my SP3. This was not from a high-activity or hot-running state on the SP3, so throttling was not a factor.
The portability of the SP3 is second to none, where serious productivity computing is concerned. Nothing else even comes close. When I had that thing in my computer bag, it was lighter than the padfolio I carried with it. However, when away from my desk with it, I had to scale the desktop environment to a minimum of 150% to be able to effectively use it, thereby giving up a good deal of desktop real estate - and I still needed to wear my "cheaters" (that's reading glasses for you young-uns) at that.
Lastly, and perhaps more significant that I'd like to admit, when using the SP3 in a mobile scenario, I had to have a desktop or table to do so. I'm not the most...ahem..."fit" person, and I just do not have enough lap to comfortably use the SP3 as a "laptop". This is more a deficiency of mine than the SP3, but in either case it presented a problem in my particular case. Take it for what it's worth.
I'll wrap this up be repeating that I think the SP3 is a fine device. I will certainly consider future versions with a better understanding of their applications for my particular needs. I understand that with Broadwell, Intel has closed the gap between the performance levels of the ULV and desktop processors. That is certainly a step in the right direction, and I look forward to seeing what the folks in Redmond can do with them. At this point I was pleased to find an enthusiastic buyer who was able to purchase my SP3 kit at a price that was fair for both of us, so that I can find a more conventional laptop better suited to my particular needs and usage patterns.
That said (and please refer back to it as necessary as you read this), following is my experience with the SP3:
The fact of the matter is the SP3 does everything I need it to and more. I probably didn't take advantage of some of the most useful and unique features it offers. Take inking for example. I see others use it very effectively, but it's just not something I ever really felt a need to do. It's just not a tool I personally can find a lot of use for in the way that I communicate.
Tablet use. This is another area that I thought was going to be pretty beneficial for me. However, I find I don't often choose to use it that way. I pretty much always want that keyboard available, and on those rare occasions when I'm fine with a simple tablet experience (watching videos or browsing the web), I found the SP3 a bit heavy. Also, no matter the activity, the i7 would sometimes run pretty warm, causing the active cooling to kick in - not constantly by any means, but often enough to be a distraction. I just found I had a better experience with my wife's Kindle Fire HD in these cases. Again though, I just really don't find that I have a need for a tablet as often as I thought I might, but when I do, I prefer something more lightweight for my particular needs.
When docked at my desk and attached to a full-sized keyboard and my new Asus PB278Q 2560x1440 monitor, the SP3 was a rock star. This and the portability of the SP3 was what drew me to it in the first place. I was able to work in Visual Studio, Blender 3D, Gimp - pretty much all of my development apps fluidly and comfortably with just one minor issue. The performance from the SP3's processor just didn't meet my expectations. I know the ULV Haswell processors aren't performance-equivalent to their desktop counterparts, but my workstation at the office with a Core2 Quad processor (4-generations older than Haswell in Intel's Core lineage) seems significantly faster. For example, spinning up an instance of the local web server service in Visual Studio and displaying a web page took slightly over half the time that it did on my SP3. This was not from a high-activity or hot-running state on the SP3, so throttling was not a factor.
The portability of the SP3 is second to none, where serious productivity computing is concerned. Nothing else even comes close. When I had that thing in my computer bag, it was lighter than the padfolio I carried with it. However, when away from my desk with it, I had to scale the desktop environment to a minimum of 150% to be able to effectively use it, thereby giving up a good deal of desktop real estate - and I still needed to wear my "cheaters" (that's reading glasses for you young-uns) at that.
Lastly, and perhaps more significant that I'd like to admit, when using the SP3 in a mobile scenario, I had to have a desktop or table to do so. I'm not the most...ahem..."fit" person, and I just do not have enough lap to comfortably use the SP3 as a "laptop". This is more a deficiency of mine than the SP3, but in either case it presented a problem in my particular case. Take it for what it's worth.
I'll wrap this up be repeating that I think the SP3 is a fine device. I will certainly consider future versions with a better understanding of their applications for my particular needs. I understand that with Broadwell, Intel has closed the gap between the performance levels of the ULV and desktop processors. That is certainly a step in the right direction, and I look forward to seeing what the folks in Redmond can do with them. At this point I was pleased to find an enthusiastic buyer who was able to purchase my SP3 kit at a price that was fair for both of us, so that I can find a more conventional laptop better suited to my particular needs and usage patterns.
