Surface Book Advice

[stedaley]

my 2012 Macbook is in need of a upgrade so i'm deciding to go down the route of a surface book.

I had a look at the Surface pro but i think the bigger screen will help me better for what i'm using it for. I cant afford a new one but i have manage to agree a 2016 Surface Book with i5 8Gb and 128GB for 600 pounds, sound like a good offer? It has hardly been used and is pristine. I know it wont be as powerful as my macbook but i paid 2399 in 2012 and cant afford that currently. Fortunately my i7 macbook is still worth 6-700 so i can cover the costs here.

Looking for some user feedback, I study chemistry and want to save some trees as i have over 700 pages of lectures for three modules this semester. and digitizing this seems the way to go.

Is this a good deal? would it be up to replacing the macbook?

 

[Afy]

My 0.00000000002p
Yes it is up to replacing your MacBook. The SB is a completely different beast and rather versatile at what it does. I think £600 for a 2016 machine is a decent deal. Cross check on ebay for similar specs. If its in the same ballpark or lower go for it. Else I would try and find a different source.

 

[stedaley]

My 0.00000000002p
Yes it is up to replacing your MacBook. The SB is a completely different beast and rather versatile at what it does. I think £600 for a 2016 machine is a decent deal. Cross check on ebay for similar specs. If its in the same ballpark or lower go for it. Else I would try and find a different source.

Looking around about 700-800 for the spec, they dont really go much lower than that on ebay atm,


even if i was to use it for 6 months i cant see losing that much money on it.

I got this mac to do my work on but alot of it is MS based in labs so hard to complete most without my gaming pc. and if i can get 600 for this mac then really its a straight swap for something abit newer.

 

[BubbaUK]

To throw in my tuppence worth, I replaced my 2012 Retina 15" i7 Macbook Pro with the Surface Book i7/Perf Base (v1). I mainly bootcamp into Windows on the MBP. My Surface Book recently became a Surface Brick, and so I've dusted off the MBP to use whilst it gets fixed.

Certain things that surprised me on returning to the MBP:

• The 5 year old MBP battery outlasts the SB by some considerable margin - I'd guess an extra 3 hours in favour of the MBP on a working day
• Performance wise, there is less of a difference than I'd remembered - building a big project in Visual Studio that took around 4 minutes on the SBook still builds in roughly the same time on the old MBP
• The Surface Book has definitely a better keyboard and trackpad (& the new Macbook keyboards are terrible)
• The Surface Book has the better screen & obviously has touch & detachable clipboard

So basically you'll get some improvements with the SB, but it's not as big a leap as you might expect. If you need touch and the clipboard, I'd say go for it, but if those feature will be of little benefit, then stick with your old Macbook & have a holiday instead

 

[Bazza]

Beware the Surface Pro charger problem. While there are many threads as to how to fix a non-charging chager, ultimately you commit to buying a new one occasionally unless you have a soft-at-heart local Microsoft shop which only appears to be in parts of the USA.

 

[KevinS253]

Beware the Surface Pro charger problem. While there are many threads as to how to fix a non-charging chager, ultimately you commit to buying a new one occasionally unless you have a soft-at-heart local Microsoft shop which only appears to be in parts of the USA.

What's the problem? I'm still using the charger from my surface pro 3. I have a brand new sp4 charger ready to go when mine dies

 

[Bazza]

The problem is the chargers are having a life of about 4 weeks

 

[kiwijeeper]

I have had the same charger for my SP3 for 3 years. No problems at all.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I still use an original Surface Pro 1 charger from ??? years ago. My original Surface Book 1 charger from over 2 years ago used daily. And a Surface Pro 3 that is over a year old used daily.
Never heard of a charger problem.

 

[BubbaUK]

My Spro2, Spro3 and Surface Book chargers have all been fine (though I can't say the same for the Surface Brick & my first Spro2).

 

[Bazza]

This appears to be the experience of most users, including my wife who has an SP4. The forums, iFixit: The Free Repair Manual, www.surfaceforums.net, Windows Central Forums, amongst others, show that problems are not uncommon. One common element is that many users have machines which switched from 8.1 to 10. My machine was an 8.1 upgraded by the vendor.