Portable Surface 2 Pro / Yoga 2 Pro? Which do you like more?

Believe me guys, rollo is NOT a pro Microsoft. I always saw him as anti-Microsoft, I am surprised you even pre-ordered it.

For me, i want to pre-order it, but if I do, I don't get the student special (10% off the entire order, including extending warranty plan).

I agree. The way I always saw things with mobile devices (phone, laptop, tablet), is that you always have 1 downside. There is no perfect product. I feel they go something like this: "Ok guys, we have this awesome product. But it's too perfect, people don't like perfection... it must have 1 downside." I mean look at the Razor 14 for example. Awesome laptop, has everyone anyone could want, suprising battery life for it's size and power, but a shitty TN panel. My laptop, awesome 14inch system, solid build, still looks like pretty good after 5 years, Nvidia entry level Quadro dedicated GPU with decent performance at the time, all the latest technologies at the time for a laptop (excellent ports location, with the large ones on the back, at the time, a good TN non-glossy panel, LED backlight, LED back light keyboard, 9h of battery life with Vista 64-bit, ran Vista above and beyond, ambient light sensor, eSATA, DisplayPort, 1 screw held slide-out panel, give you FULL internal access, in about 6-8 screws, the motherboard is out.)

What's its' down side? "Let's put slower than Nvidia specs vRAM for the GPU, and be sure to put DDR2 instead of DDR3. Be sure to use an OK touch pad (highest end Alps touchpad), with buggy drivers that looses the configuration of the touchpad and resets the key repeat rate of the keyboard to minimum every time you wake up the system." To this day, the bug is well there.

I think the reason why they make it hard to open the inside and soldered on things, comes from Apple, as it forces people to buy their new product. Now, instead of buying new RAM and storage drive, you'll buy a new system. The reduce number of sales of new systems (laptop, desktop) is what pushes OEMs to do this. Sure you can argue about "they can't make it thin with removable parts", but this is lies. As, you can see with ultra boots, they usually have the standard SSD or mSATA SSD switchable, meaning the height space is fine for RAM to be not soldered on, and HP did an ultra book with user replaceable battery. So again, it COULD all be done.


Sadly for Microsoft, if they want their Surface Pro to actually penetrate really in the enterprise space, they need to make a Surface Pro product that is easy to open.

 

Whats the pricing on surface. Uk price that is. I was all ready to buy a yoga 13 but the user reviews are scary. Screens fail regularly often within a couple of months, touchpads break and the worst being a realtek wifi that is poor when it works and often drops out and goes slow. Put me off ordering particularly as I am not familiar much with the brand. Shame as it seemed ideal for me.

 

I would choose the lenovo over the surface any day, it just looks a lot better in my opinion

 

Realtek Wifi? Oh no... this is very bad. They are not good.
The Surface Pro 2 cost:
64GB / 4GB RAM -> £719.00
128GB / 4GB RAM -> £799.00
256GB / 8GB RAM -> £1,039.00
512GB / 8GB RAM -> £1,439.00

I don't know if VAT is included or not.
http://surface.microsoftstore.com/s...6902200?WT.mc_id=surface_preorder_surfacepro2

 

Ouch, I believe the VAT is included with those prices but that seems a bit too expensive for me. I was going to consider one but I think I'm going to go for the haswell xps 15 provided 8.1 sorts out support for high res screens.

 

The XPS 15 starts at $1,499 US (Surface Pro 256GB / 8GB of RAM is 1,300$ U.S). The base model is a Core i5 processor, 1080p screen, integrated Intel graphics, hybrid storage (not full SSD), and smaller battery.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/10/2/4...s-to-be-the-king-of-portable-windows-machines

No to mention, no digitize pen. The XPS 15 is amazing, I believe, if you need or want a dedicated GPU option, and well, want more of a laptop.

 

I admit the base model is hardly good value but I'm probably looking at the quad core i7 but I don't really need the dGPU so hopefully HD 5000 is good enough. Also its seems to be one of the only laptops with a non U series processor that doesn't look like a brick. If the price ends up too much I'll probably end up with xps 13/14.

 

So then in your case, you are not looking for ultra portability, or any portability as you are consider a 15inch system, or even digitize pen as you seam to bring 0 value to it. In other words, the Surface Pro is just not for you.

 

I'm not really looking for anything really, I'm not sure what I want

In terms of the thread, I just had a look in pc world at some stuff, and I'm pretty sure that the surface is too small in terms of screen size.

However, they had the ideapad yoga and I never realised how good it was! The hinge in pretty fantastic, the keyboard and trackpad are both good enough and the screen is nice too. A pretty cool feature is that the screen rotates depending on what mode you're in, and the rubberised feeling on it feels great. Given the choice between a yoga or a surface pro, the yoga would win hands down and I'm sure the new versions of each won't change this. Unless you really need the digitiser support or need a better tablet I would go with the yoga.

 

Hmmm I was all ready for a Surface 2 Pro but that price jump up to 256 & 8GB of RAM is ridiculous. Should be about £900 max or step to a i7 processor included.

I have been looking at the Dell XPS 12 but they seem to have ghosting problems on the LCD, they are quite steep @ £1279 for an i7, 256GB SSD and AC wifi. However, you can get one for £750 in the Dell outlet; bought refurbs before and they have been fine as long as they are not labeled scratch and dent.

The Dell Venue Pro 11 looks interesting, perhaps not quite as polished as the Surface 2 Pro, no price announced yet though.

I also like the look and form factor of the yoga 2 Pro... hmm choices choices.

 

In Microsoft defense, on the Surface Pro, related to the CPU model. They pick the best option. The others are either, slower speed and faster Intel HD integrated graphics, or the reverse.
Core i7 consumed as much power as the Ivy Bridge, making it have battery problems, like Pro 1. Something that, Microsoft didn't want to show up on any news article and blog page.

But yes, I completely agree with you, the premium price is high. That is why I did not per-ordering it, and really waiting for 2 things:
-> What does the competition has to offer, that fit my needs (might be better or cheaper)
-> Student special (10% off on the device, extended warranty, and all accessories), which isn't much, but anything helps, well helps.

 

Yea, the processor step up not really the best idea, just stabbing in the the dark for value, not really thought it through. I just don't get their plan I guess, they have lots of accessories to sell with these things, that I'm sure are priced to make profit, why not make the initial investment more enticing?

Anyways, no biggy, I'll be doing the same as you, waiting for the competition or perhaps get it with 10% student discount...brings it down to about the price it should be.

On another note and slightly different form factor, I bought the Dell XPS 18 for a client that wanted it the other day... actual nice bit of kit, does fit the jobs of an all in one and a portable (house-bound) tablet/laptop. Not too heavy or noisy and the screen was great, liked the different ways it could be used; perhaps a bit too big for some on the lap

 

Paid more for a MacBook Air last year with similar storage / ram and ever so slightly faster CPU. Ultra portable laptops are not cheap devices. £1039 is about £300 less than I spent on that 13 inch MacBook for the record.

 

I took a trip to my local currys to get hands on with a few laptops. Like the op i am looking for a laptop for home use to allow me to work away from my main rig and the idea of tablet style use appeals for web browsing and film watching.

The Surface Pro, I tried with both covers it was only the 1 and not the 2 i have used but i thought it was great. Touch cover worked so much better than i expected and performance of the unit was amazing. For me though it is too small, more of a tablet with laptop capabilities and as the primary use for me is around the home the benefits of such a beautifully small and light weight device would not be fully utilised and the drawback of small keyboard and screen would be too great.

I think the Surface Pro 2 needs to be 12-14 inches and offer a keyboard with a stiffer laptop style hinge if it is to compete with laptops and at the moment i think I would only get it if you must have the portability of a tablet or such a small screen doesn't trouble you.

The yoga 11s and 13 look and feel great, much more laptop first and the tablet mode is just a nice bonus, basically exactly what i was looking for. Priced from around £750 up they offer good value for money. The reason i have decided against these lie in the negative reviews i have read. Having unreliable WiFi would drive me mad and none of my other devices phone, desktop or brothers ipad have issues in this area so i don't think its worth the risk. When my work starts in earnest at the end of this month i don't want to have to spend time fixing issues on what is still a fairly expensive bit of kit.

The yoga 2 pricing i have seen quoted is $1100 and often that translates to £1100 in Britain this will make it much more expensive than the surface pro2 and likely out of my budget. With the quad HD screen i will be surprised if it only costs that much as i would have expected more like £1400 for this sort of spec.

The alternative i am looking at is the Sony Vaio fit multi-flip. Available in 13.3 14 and 15.5 and has the tablet mode. Too heavy to be used as a regular tablet but the 13.3 is plenty small and light enough. I think i might go with the 14 inch touch screen in i-5, 8gb ram, 128gb ssd and a stylus at £914 direct from Sony although they have various offers of free memory upgrades etc.. pretty regularly. At the moment it comes with a four year Sony warranty free.

 

What about the xps 12?

 

New lenovo yoga 2 now available at isme.com in the uk £1000. Very good price for 4th gen i5 with 3200x1800 resolution. Only 4gb ram and no doubt 128gb ssd but if they have solved the wifi issues of the previous model then it seems a steal.