Please help, opinions needed/appreciated

[tonysloth]

I'm currently on the fence on which to buy, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. My current choices are the Surface Pro 3 I7 8gb, SP4 I5 8gb, SB I5 8gb how do you think they compare? I do use Photoshop and light 3d design for 3d printing and of course have steam, but i mainly use my desktop for that. Currently my desktop runs 32GB ram, I7 6700k@5ghz, 950Pro m.2, GTX970. I would like to get away from my laptop hopefully, which is a Lenovo T430s I7 3520m, 16gb, 850Pro SSD 250gb. I believe all of my Surface choices will be better than my current laptop, I just can not make a choice between SP3 I7, SP4 I5, SB I5. Thank you in advance for anyone that can help.

 

[Orlbuckeye]

Go to Best Buy and get your hands on what they have on display. I went into Best Buy looking at the Surface Pro 4 and I came out thinking the Surface Book. Mainly because the price with Pro 4 and keyboard isn't that far from the SB.

 

[jnjroach]

It depends....do you want an Ultrabook in Tablet Form or a Laptop that can act as a tablet? I would get the SP4 or SB but again that depends on how you answer the above....

 

[Orlbuckeye]

If you using it more as a tablet go for the SP4. The battery life of the SB using the clipboard is just over 2 hours but you can use the power adapter. The chord isn't really that long.

 

[tonysloth]

The battery life really isn't a major cause for concern I most use it at home or in the office which always has power available and i keep portable batteries with me most the time. However I do think I would be using it in tablet form more than anything. really what i am asking is which cpu do you think I can do more with cause for the price I could get SP3 I7-4650u 8gb or a SP4 I5-6300u 8gb. Do you think I should get the SP4 over the SP3 it will cost me about 200 more and I will be getting the I5 but I would be getting the better pen $60, camera, bigger screen.

 

[jnjroach]

Yes, the SP3 is a Haskell SoC (4th Gen Core i) and the SP4 is Skylark which is Gen 6....

 

[tonysloth]

I completely understand the sp3 i7 is Haswell 4thgen and the sp4 i5 is skylake 6thgen. I am asking from people who have used the devices longer than in the store which is a better buy? I could get the SP3 I7 8GB for $750+tax, SP4 I5 8GB for $900+tax, or SB I5 8GB $1000+tax which would have better overall performance? I can't decide from sp3 i7-4650u hd 5000 or sp4 i5-6300u hd 520. Basically would you trade your sp4 i5 for sp3 i7? Or trade your sp3 i7 for sp4 i5?

 

[GreyFox7]

Yes, the SP3 is a Haskell SoC (4th Gen Core i) and the SP4 is Skylark which is Gen 6....

Got to love autocorrect... back in the day it used to change SMTP to SMUT.

 

[jnjroach]

I completely understand the sp3 i7 is Haswell 4thgen and the sp4 i5 is skylake 6thgen. I am asking from people who have used the devices longer than in the store which is a better buy? I could get the SP3 I7 8GB for $750+tax, SP4 I5 8GB for $900+tax, or SB I5 8GB $1000+tax which would have better overall performance? I can't decide from sp3 i7-4650u hd 5000 or sp4 i5-6300u hd 520. Basically would you trade your sp4 i5 for sp3 i7? Or trade your sp3 i7 for sp4 i5?

I've used both (actually every Surface from Gen 1), the SP4 i5 is a better experience than an i7 SP3...

 

[jnjroach]

Got to love autocorrect... back in the day it used to change SMTP to SMUT.

LOL

 

[tonysloth]

Awesome thank you jnjroach, i will for sure be going worth the newer generation. Have you also tried the surface book? I could get the sp4 i5 8gb 256gb for a little over $900 or the sb i5 8gb 128gb with dgpu for $1100 the dgpu and free keyboard has me leaning toward the sb but the extra ssd space and portability has me leaning toward the sp4. How do you rank the sb keyboard against the sp4 type cover? Also the kickstand and dock for sp4 seem a lot cooler than the sb offerings

 

[jnjroach]

Awesome thank you jnjroach, i will for sure be going worth the newer generation. Have you also tried the surface book? I could get the sp4 i5 8gb 256gb for a little over $900 or the sb i5 8gb 128gb with dgpu for $1100 the dgpu and free keyboard has me leaning toward the sb but the extra ssd space and portability has me leaning toward the sp4. How do you rank the sb keyboard against the sp4 type cover? Also the kickstand and dock for sp4 seem a lot cooler than the sb offerings

SB with dGPU works great for some applications and causes issues for others, also in Clipboard Mode the SB uses a less powerful Intel HD GMA than the SP4...

I had a choice of the SB i7/16/256/dGPU or the SP4 i7/16/256 and chose the SP4 (actually I picked the i5 originally but I couldn't get the i5/16/256).