Please recommend *Urgent* Which SP3 ? Or Yoga 3 ? At.. Best Buy right now!

[Rahul]

Guys/Gals, my cousin is at Best Buy trying to pick between a SP3 or a Yoga 3 for his pre-med program. I'm not sure what to recommend, so please help out!!

We're at Best Buy right now and looking at these :

1) Yoga 3 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/lenovo-...lack/7577028.p?id=1219680870724&skuId=7577028

2) SP3s

Not sure about :

1) Which one to pick between the two makes

and

2) If it's the SP3, which model [ 4GB or 8 GB... 128 SSD or 256 SSD ]

Awaiting feedback before deciding..

Sorry about the format, typing this as fast as I can from my Note 4

Thanks!!!

 

[bluegrass]

Sorry Rahul but it would be pretty tough to help you out in real time while your at the store. Of course if money isn't the bottom line you need to watch, I would recommend and i7 8 gig 512 gig. That's what I have and I've been very happy with it. That could be an over kill for your friend but you didn't give us much to go on except that he in going to pre-med school. More than likely an i5 4 gig 256 gig would serve him very well.

Since you addressed you query to a Surface forum, it is pretty unlikely that your going to get anybody here to recommend a Yoga. Frankly, I've never seen one and know nothing about them. All I can tell you is the Surface's are awesome computers and I think they have revolutionized and will continue to revolutionize the computer field.

 

[lparsons21]

If you haven't yet decided, the SP3 makes more sense. i5 or i7 will both be faster than the Yoga 3 Pro. The one nicety of the Yoga 3 Pro is the UHD screen, it is just awesome! BUT, the core M processor and the way Lenovo configured it makes for a relatively laggy box for videos and feels noticeably slower than the Surface Pro 3's.

 

[mtalinm]

I am a Surface diehard, but my next-door colleague abandoned Surface for a Yoga for the following reason. He travels a lot and is at a bunch of conferences where he often needs to use the machine on his lap (airport, sitting in a chair with no table). He found the Surface awkward for that use case, which I can't disagree with.

That said, the Yoga is unwieldy IMHO as a tablet. But if you don't mind having a separate tablet, it's a good idea.

 

[mtalinm]

also, you can "try" it for 14 days and return to BB if you don't like, no questions asked.

 

[Hypermiler89]

I am an OMS-1 currently and I can vouch for SP3, invaluable for studying medicine.

What's really helpful is one note and the ability to mark things up / make detailed study notes, also really great to disconnect the keyboard and use as a notebook with the patients. We have over 250 people in our class and i'd say over 70% are using surface pro 3's

as far as processor; i5 or i7 and the biggest hard drive she can afford.

 

[Rahul]

Thanks for the responses guys... ended up getting the SP3 [ i5, 8, 256 config ] + KB, since he wants to hang on to it for at least 3 years. We were initially considering the i3,4,64 but weren't sure about that 64GB storage.

The BB guy kept recommending the i3 version for the stated use case and also stressed on that config. for better battery life, running cooler, and quieter. Is this true of the i3s ?

He won't be gaming at all, it's purely for class, You Tubing, Spotify, Browsing, MS Office, and whatever medical software he might need to install later.

The Yoga screen was beautiful, and it wasn't the Core M. The one we were looking at was the i5 [ Broadwell ] 8, 256 version. But yes, in tablet form, it was quite awkward to hold, especially compared to the Sp3.

One more question:

Can apps/software/media be installed on the external card ?

 

[Hypermiler89]

I installed apps on my external card and the only issue I have is if the computer goes to sleep for more than 45min it wont detect the card upon wake up, I have a thread up and no one is willing to help at this point, so I moved all my vital apps to the main HD for now.... Ill contact microsoft support sometime in the future and report here.

I would say i5 is the minimum for his primary machine in medschool, some of the apps we use are pretty process intensive, one radiology app is a ram/cpu hog, i3 still handles it fine but if you throw in a couple open pdf's and a one note it will have intermediate lagg spikes (saw it on classmates sp3 i3 64)

 

[Rahul]

I installed apps on my external card and the only issue I have is if the computer goes to sleep for more than 45min it wont detect the card upon wake up, I have a thread up and no one is willing to help at this point, so I moved all my vital apps to the main HD for now.... Ill contact microsoft support sometime in the future and report here.

I would say i5 is the minimum for his primary machine in medschool, some of the apps we use are pretty process intensive, one radiology app is a ram/cpu hog, i3 still handles it fine but if you throw in a couple open pdf's and a one note it will have intermediate lagg spikes (saw it on classmates sp3 i3 64)

Oh cool.. good thing we settled on the i5 then!

Thanks for all the input guys...

 

[sharpuser]

Glad you found something you like, @Rahul .
Bold of you to post on the Surface site asking what is recommended.

If you have a purchase emergency while buying any houses, Humvees, or helicopters, each of those have blog sites, too.

 

[hughlle]

Having had one in such a situation for a year, I will now reply to every single "school" thread with the simple statement of "if you can't see the logic in buying a pen equipped device like a surface, then you probably don't have the brain cells to make it to the end of the school year"

I spent months deliberating what to buy for university last year. I went with an SP3. I would never recommend anything other than a surface for students following my experience.

If I've got half my class, die hard apple fans, expressing their desire to sell their new Air and buy a surface instead, well that sais something Takes a hell of a lot to convince an apple fangirl to switch to Microsoft

 

[lparsons21]

Thanks for the responses guys... ended up getting the SP3 [ i5, 8, 256 config ] + KB, since he wants to hang on to it for at least 3 years. We were initially considering the i3,4,64 but weren't sure about that 64GB storage.

The Yoga screen was beautiful, and it wasn't the Core M. The one we were looking at was the i5 [ Broadwell ] 8, 256 version. But yes, in tablet form, it was quite awkward to hold, especially compared to the Sp3.

I'd bet even money that the Yoga that you saw was the Yoga 2 Pro. They came in i5 and i7 configurations. The Yoga 3 Pros are all Core M. Frankly the Yoga 2 Pro is a better machine overall imo.