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thoughts after 2 days of usage

unruledboy

Active Member
I am a seasoned machine user, over 20 years, from DOS all the way to Win 8.1, from 80286 to core i haswell, from New iPad to Galaxy Note 10, from thinkpad t410 to t44op... too many to count.

Surface Pro 3, is by far the best machine I want and need and use and love.

1. received on August 28th, unboxed and hooked it up, all very smooth, except the pen pair took 3 trials, maybe because I did not wait for 7 seconds

2. screen stunning, so good. but, because of the resolution, text is hard to read, I increased it to 130%, then it is fine, but my wife needs it to be 150%....

3. battery seems draining fast by default, reduce brightness to 40%, now can use for about 7 hours, not heavy duty tasks, just web browsing, viewing albums, listening to music, writing notes, etc, I am ok with it, and I only charged it once after two days, I need to charge it for the second time now. And my wife uses it for selling stuffs, watching movies, IM etc.

4. for me, there are quite some scenarios that requires a USB dongle, either installing activex in web browser, or for logon authentication, no issues, USB is good.

5. it took me a while to figure how to switch the Fn keys and the normal F1-F12 keys... press Fn + CAPS, duh

6. I am using thinkpad t440p at work with win 8 pro, but no touch. so the experience is not that smooth, I stay with desktop. but with surface pro 3, I use metro a lot, it's faster to combine the two.

7. the CPU heat is not a problem, I updated all the system changes and firmwares, no heat found, maybe because it's winter here, or I just did not wait until it finished and went to bed....

8. the pen is nice, BUT, I still can't use double click to capture screen, any idea? (solved after latest update) and the pen loop is a joke, too hard to get in / out, easily removed and distorted

9. For heat issue, 99% is heavy tasks running, check CPU usage, because CPU bound = CPU heat

overall, love the machine, good performance, nice screen, ok battery, very portable, and amazingly sexy;)

and I DON'T have issues like over-heating, locked-up, freeze, lost wifi, auto reboot, could not boot, could not use pen, lose touch, dead pixel etc.

I am using this very machine to write this article.

you know what? when I use it on the train, others are looking at my machine, those who use a heavy big laptop all stare at my beauty, LOL...........
 
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For a screenshot, do you press the button on top of the pen twice, and you are saying that is not making OneNote come up with a screenshot? You might need to go into One Note first and create your first new note - I just noticed mine wouldn't work if the top note was the intro note that they provided with links.

Josh
 
1. received on August 28th, unboxed and hooked it up, all very smooth, except the pen pair took 3 trials, maybe because I did not wait for 7 seconds

2. screen stunning, so good. but, because of the resolution, text is hard to read, I increased it to 130%, then it is fine, but my wife needs it to be 150%....

3. battery seems draining fast by default, reduce brightness to 40%, now can use for about 7 hours, not heavy duty tasks, just web browsing, viewing albums, listening to music, writing notes, etc, I am ok with it, and I only charged it once after two days, I need to charge it for the second time now.

4. for me, there are quite some scenarios that requires a USB dongle, either installing activex in web browser, or for logon authentication, no issues, USB is good.

5. it took me a while to figure how to switch the Fn keys and the normal F1-F12 keys... press Fn + CAPS, duh

6. I am using thinkpad t440p at work with win 8 pro, but no touch. so the experience is not that smooth, I stay with desktop. but with surface pro 3, I use metro a lot, it's faster to combine the two.

7. the CPU heat is not a problem, I updated all the system changes and firmwares, no heat found, maybe because it's winter here, or I just did not wait until it finished and went to bed....

8. the pen is nice, BUT, I still can't use double click to capture screen, any idea?

overall, love the machine, good performance, nice screen, ok battery, very portable.

you know what? when I use it on the train, others are looking at my machine, those who use a heavy big laptop all stare at my beauty, LOL...........

Unruled, glad you're having a good experience!

You should notice that Metro apps drain the battery much less than Desktop use. Also find a powered USB hub that you're happy with. I don't need it much, but when I do, I do.

Let your battery drain to 10% at least once a month.

:D
 
For a screenshot, do you press the button on top of the pen twice, and you are saying that is not making OneNote come up with a screenshot? You might need to go into One Note first and create your first new note - I just noticed mine wouldn't work if the top note was the intro note that they provided with links.

Josh

One click will bring up OneNote, I used it many times. But double click just nothing happens, even it is not the default note.
 
Unruled, glad you're having a good experience!

You should notice that Metro apps drain the battery much less than Desktop use. Also find a powered USB hub that you're happy with. I don't need it much, but when I do, I do.

Let your battery drain to 10% at least once a month.

:D

aha, last night already drain below 10%:rolleyes:

I already got a powered USB hub with 3 USB 3.0 and 1 ethernet

also with body protector and screen protection

and 100x microfiber cloth ;)
 
I started to study this forum nearly 3 months ago, practically read most of the posts, and I contributed 1% of the posts for sp3:p

but, still a lot to learn from here:oops:
I read some other threads here that talked about running updates and that solved the issue with not getting a screenshot by double-clicking. Worth a read...
 
As far as the pen loop, I put it on the back of the tablet itself and it holds quite firmly and the pen slides in an out easily. The loop loosens up a bit over time making it easier. Sticking the loop to the felt backing of the keyboard has obvious shortcomings. Sticks better to the metal tablet.
 
I hate the concept of the loop. And, while it would have been nice to have a dedicated place to store the pen, I like it the way it is. I keep the pen either in my shirt pocket or in the side pocket of the sleeve that came with the SP3.
 
I also got mine SP3/4GB/256GB with cyan type cover on Thursday 28/8 at Harvey Norman store. I actually preordered it three weeks ago. Very happy so far, and enjoying this piece of art on the learning curve. Never used laptop before(well occasionally helping my daughter with hers), my old Dell desktop is ready for a retirement. Thanks to all the useful information in this forum. Keep up the good work :)
 
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