Surface 3 lte for science sphere. Recommended it to me?

[hughlle]

Also you have to consider that one of the primary factors that makes the Surface products so appealing to a lot of us, is the Pen and handwriting integration. Many users here have found other devices that are better on paper spec-wise, but the requirement for Pen or handwriting makes the Surface a winner. I do not see that in your list of requirements, although once you try it, you may really like it.

@hughlle, as an owner of both SP3 and S3, what is your take on Victor's question of the Atom vs. the "old Haswell"? From seeing some of the feedback on this forum, I definitely believe that the Haswell still spanks the Atom in several areas.

I would not have given the S3 a second thought if I didn't already have the sp3. I'd have simply saved more money.

The sp3 is a tablet that can replace your laptop, the S3 is a tablet that can replace your netbook. From CPU to gpu to storage, the sp3 absolutely destroys the s3. I'm not sure if the sp3 is a new or old haswell, I doubt there is much difference in performance between the two, but yes, it spanks the atom at absolutely everything other than battery life. And even that is amazingly close given the performance difference. 9 hors vs 10 hours (best case scenarios on both, pretty impressive turnout by the sp3)

I would recommend the s3 to someone wanting a tablet with additional features the likes of apps do not offer (full windows, pen support, kick stand, keyboard, but I would still, and indeed did to some classmate who couldn't afford the sp3 but wanted pen and onenote for school, inform them that they werebuying a tablet. For anyone wanting to do anything more than word processing, browsing (even that is slow imo) or consumption, I would never recommend the s3. its just not fast enough. With the s3 for work you are sacrificing productivity for a few hundred dollars, not that smart imo,

 

[viktit88]

Friends, you made me very upset. I didn't think that surface 3 is so bad. I thought that atom 2015 processor better than core m and core i 4th gen 2013-2014. So, I will buy MacBook 12 on core m. I won't buy thinkpad x250 because it is heavy. I know that it has core i 5th gen proc broadwell, but I think it is not faster than core m.

 

[hughlle]

Friends, you made me very upset. I didn't think that surface 3 is so bad. I thought that atom 2015 processor better than core m and core i 4th gen 2013-2014. So, I will buy MacBook 12 on core m. I won't buy thinkpad x250 because it is heavy. I know that it has core i 5th gen proc broadwell, but I think it is not faster than core m.

I cuold be wrong but i'm fairly sure core M is a fair bit slower than an i5 5200u. Best to do some research, because you previously thought that the atom was faster than i5 as well..

 

[jnjroach]

Friends, you made me very upset. I didn't think that surface 3 is so bad. I thought that atom 2015 processor better than core m and core i 4th gen 2013-2014. So, I will buy MacBook 12 on core m. I won't buy thinkpad x250 because it is heavy. I know that it has core i 5th gen proc broadwell, but I think it is not faster than core m.

None of have said that the Surface 3 is bad, it is a Productivity Tablet geared towards those who need the ability to have access to full versions of Office and other Win32 and Universal Apps on the go. Can the Surface 3 run the apps you want? Yes, but you would need to understand that the will not run anywhere near the speed of a Core M or Core I SoC.

The ATOM x7 is around 70% of a Broadwell Core M SoC on most common tasks that can use multi-core processing, but around 35% for single core processing.... the Atom X7 is no slouch, but the ATOM has one other bottleneck, the disk I/O of the eMMC is much slower than the SATA or PCIe interfaces allowed by the use of the Core M or Core I SoCs.

 

[LibbyLA]

Do you have the option to return within a certain number of days if you aren't happy? If so, try the S3 and really work it hard so you can see whether it is suitable.

I have both an SP3 (i5, 8 G RAM, 256 G storage) and S3 (4 G RAM, 128 G storage) and the S3 is my go-to machine. If it had been available when I bought the SP3, I wouldn't have bought the SP3. I like the smaller form factor of the S3. You wouldn't think that a difference of just over an inch would be that big a difference, but it is. The S3 fits in my lap better (and I have long legs and a big lap), it fits in a smaller space on a table. I actually prefer the three-position kickstand.

I teach a basic statistical programming course and the S3 runs SAS just fine for that. Whether it will run your stat programs quickly enough will depend on your programs and data.

It sounds like you prefer the S3. If you can get one and have a return policy, you should try it.

 

[malberttoo]

Do you have the option to return within a certain number of days if you aren't happy? If so, try the S3 and really work it hard so you can see whether it is suitable.

This is good advice @viktit88, perhaps there is a way you can try one out, even if there is a small fee to return it. At least then you'd know for sure and can decide for yourself.

 

[Johnny365]

Atom is only a step below Core M which are both slower than Core i5 in SP3.