UK Excitement building - shipping date 12th Nov

[stammie]

A quick update after a couple of days use,
I've found the battery life pretty poor, I haven't pushed my SP4 yet and have only been setting it up and using it for general web browsing and document work,
admittedly I've been using Chrome as my browser and have 60% brightness when on battery but its not been a patch on my non pro Surface 3 using the same settings for battery usage, at first I thought it was probably just Windows setting up indexing and optimising itself but 48 hours later there was no improvement.
Ok I thought to myself I'll start using Edge for my browser and straight away started getting display driver crashes.
Using Windows updates I've only been able to get the 11/02 firmware update so today I manually downloaded the latest drivers and firmware from MS at Download Surface Pro 4 Drivers and Firmware from Official Microsoft Download Center
its too early to tell whether this has improved my battery life but so far I've not experienced any display driver crashes using Edge

 

[Moonsurface]

I played with a Surface pro 4 in John Lewis yesterday and guess what it crashed just as the Microsoft guy was trying to convince me that yes I do want to upgrade my SP3.

I said for now I'm sticking with SP3 but I may reevaluate in a few months time when the new i7 with Iris graphics is out and the bugs have been sorted!

 

[Echrada]

I downloaded Windows 10 with the update from MSDN, then downloaded the SP4 drivers and utilities from Microsoft, and did a complete wipe and reinstall. I have not had one problem. My SP4 is fast, responsive, good battery life, and no crashes of any kind whatsoever.

 

[PaulDentener]

I downloaded Windows 10 with the update from MSDN, then downloaded the SP4 drivers and utilities from Microsoft, and did a complete wipe and reinstall. I have not had one problem. My SP4 is fast, responsive, good battery life, and no crashes of any kind whatsoever.

I really really really (no, really!) want to buy the SP4. Currently have the SP3 and am completely happy with it. All the problems people keep posting is what's holding me back. I have until the 16th to pre-order (in the Netherlands) and get a free type cover 4. But I would absolutely hate to pay 1450 euros only to have a device that has issues. Then I'd rather wait. My SP3 is not having a single issue at all. Battery live could be a bit better, but what else is new.

Did you have any problems before you did the wipe and install the new Windows 10 build? I actually downloaded the 1511 version of Windows 10 from my MSDN account yesterday and wiped the SP3. My SP3 feels snappier, Edge is much faster, especially during initial page load, and even battery life has improved. Liking what I see in the new Windows 10 build a lot and I wonder if SP4 is acceptable with the latest drivers and this build.

Could you post an update tomorrow or so and let us know if you still haven't encountered any issues? Thanks.

 

[Echrada]

I did my clean install on Friday when I received it, that was the first thing I did so I did not use the SP4 with the preloaded OS. Only started using it after I did the clean install. Will report back again.

 

[hughlle]

Ah well, decided to give my partner my sp3 for her creative work, so for better or worse I've ordered an i5 type cover and nibs

 

[Afy]

I have just decided to await the i7 16 GB to become available. 10th Dec if I remember correctly. Ah well...

 

[Echrada]

Since Saturday I have used my SP4 quite extensively and have had one Display crash but it was so fleeting it isn't really worth mentioning. Since then no more crashes. No other issues to report as it does just work. I have found that the battery does deplete during sleep overnight and have now activated Hibernation after 20 minutes and will see how that goes.

Overall I am very happy with my SP4.

 

[Moonsurface]

I was annoyed as I hadn't received my pen. However on chat with Microsoft store webchat person it turned out that due to the fact I'd cancelled the type cover on the same order as thepen it messed something up in their shippind department - something to do with the weight being incorrect as it was for both items not just pen. So it's been reordered.

Most annoying really as I could have just picked one up in John Lewis or Harrods on Friday if I'd know and cancelled the order!

 

[hughlle]

Well, it just arrived.. it's going back.

Big blue splotches on the screen when displaying dark colours (top right)
Pen doesn't work whatsoever

edit: silly me, tore the battery sticker off with too much gusto and didn't realise it went in the other way around to the sp3 pen

The screen is fubared though. Looking closely, most of the top right area of the screen has a visible red grid of dots that is not present elsewhere. If they can't replace it for tomorrow i'll return it and just place another order.

edit: yup. refund and new order being placed. MS tried to tell me it was a software issue and to do all of the windows updates, and following that then download a 10gb recovery image. All on a 1mbps capped mobile hotspot. Told them no thanks i'll take a refund.

 

[stammie]

hughfile do you get a discount by ordering through MS?
I hope your new one works ok, I've heard some horror stories about MS's online support, it seems its the opposite of their approach in their US brick and mortar stores which I've not seen anyone fault.
This is why I waited to buy mine from John Lewis who have great customer services,
if I couldn't have got to their store I'd have ordered online and had my device delivered to my local Waitrose for me to collect (an easier option than taking a day off work to wait in for a delivery).
Again I hope all is ok on the second one.

 

[hughlle]

hughfile do you get a discount by ordering through MS?
I hope your new one works ok, I've heard some horror stories about MS's online support, it seems its the opposite of their approach in their US brick and mortar stores which I've not seen anyone fault.
This is why I waited to buy mine from John Lewis who have great customer services,
if I couldn't have got to their store I'd have ordered online and had my device delivered to my local Waitrose for me to collect (an easier option than taking a day off work to wait in for a delivery).
Again I hope all is ok on the second one.

It's an absolute ball ache. Been on the phone with them all afternoon instead of doing important work. I have to buy through MS though for the 10% student discount, otherwise it would have been john lewis every day of the week.

every support live chat ended up being terminated for "reasons beyond our control", so then i went to my MS orders and tried to manually request a return, but my order list had been deleted so no products to return, so then i phoned up yet again and get a return sorted. So then went back online to re-buy the device to be told that i had reached my limit of student discounts for the device, so then back on the phone to place the order with them, and natwest has locked my card because they think it is fraud, so then on the phone to natwest to resolve that, and now waiting for a callback from microsoft to retry payment.

This is the complete opposite of my previous experience with customer service regarding my SP3. That was as close to perfect as CS can be, this time though, what an absolute nightmare!

Oh, and because i had used the machine and saved passwords etc, i decided to do a reset prior to boxing it backup, and it's been stuck on 7% for the past few hours. Not very impressed!

This is the problem with mine. The blue marks and red dots. They tried to get me to download a 10gb recovery image arguing that it could only be software. I'll just return it thanks.