I was using a Surface Book when I first began actively reading Windows Secrets and participating in the Windows Secrets Lounge. I won’t repeat everything from the posts I made in the Windows Secrets Lounge, since those are coming over when the forum merge is complete.
I will give a brief summary to the AskWoody community about my experiences with a Surface Book, and what cautions I have for potential Surface customers.
Some of my issues with the Surface Book stemmed from Windows 10 in general (Windows 10 updates, issues attempting to adjust to Windows 10 from a Mac, etc.). I eventually ended up going back to a Mac for my day-to-day work machine, but there are still many who need Windows, and who are going to have to bite down hard and endure the oddities of Windows 10. For those who do, my advice would be keep reading the AskWoody newsletter and keep posting to the AskWoody forums, and they are an excellent place for advice, and the Windows Secrets Lounge was there for me when I had my share of Windows questions.
My biggest issues with the Surface Book stemmed from how Microsoft attempted to integrate software with hardware, and especially with firmware. For those who would think (as I originally did) that with Microsoft designing both the hardware and software, that Windows would offer a more integrated experience like Apple offers with the Mac, you would be (and I was completely) mistaken. While the Surface hardware itself was decent during my usage of it, Microsoft has not yet “cracked” hardware/software/firmware integration well at all. The high DPI screen on the Surface Book was nice, but some apps loaded extremely clunky with it and didn’t scale well. Automatic graphics switching didn’t always kick in properly, and at times I would begin rendering large video projects using the integrated GPU, forcing me to quit and re-open the app while forcing it to use the discreet GPU.
My most vexing issue was the “sleep of death” issue due to the way Microsoft handled sleep mode on the Surface Book. They set the firmware to now allow traditional sleep mode and forced it to use “connected standby”, which due to a bug in how the chipset and firmware worked, when my machine would go to sleep, many a time it wouldn’t wake back up, forcing a reboot.
Additionally, I attempted to use the Surface Book as my primary tablet for a while, and no matter how much Microsoft tries to optimize Windows 10 for touch, the hybrid experience is poor. It’s not so much that the touch screen itself was an issue, but I found that touch apps were generally sub-par over competing tablet platforms (and far fewer on the Windows Store), plus because the machine was running a full i7 processor and Windows OS under-the-hood when un-docked from the keyboard, battery life was extremely poor as a tablet.
So my advice would be for those considering a Surface for a Windows computer: beware. Microsoft hasn’t near perfected hardware/software integration yet, as well as firmware is one of the major issues I encountered with the Surface Book. AskWoody members are better off sticking with traditional PC manufacturers (although I have had issues with Dell as well), and my advice would be when purchasing a new PC, come to the AskWoody community and discuss with members about their experiences with various brands, models, stores, etc., and use the research to choose what brand of PC to purchase and the best avenue for purchasing it. I personally use all Macs now, and if I had to run Windows locally, I’d likely do so on my Mac, but for those who need a Windows PC for their day-to-day work machine, I’d send them here to ask around for advice and encourage them not to consider a Surface for the time being.
Additionally, for those considering a Surface for a day-to-day tablet, I would also not encourage using a Surface as a tablet. Windows 10 is still a desktop OS with some touch-friendly UI on top, but the full “baggage” of a desktop OS still travels when on a tablet. Those who want a tablet for a wide range of apps, for media consumption, reading, web browsing, email, etc., I recommend sticking with a competing tablet. For me, I personally use and recommend the iPad, but there are some decent Android tablets also available for non-Apple users, and I have friends who use Amazon Fire tablets with great success.
I also recommend keeping ones “computer” and “tablet” duties separate. I haven’t bought into Microsoft’s approach to blend the two experiences in Windows 10, although I haven’t bought into Apple’s marketing that the iPad Pro can fully replace a computer either. I own and happily use an iPad Pro for many tasks, and it syncs very well with my iMac Pro over iCloud and with my work cloud accounts (such as Exchange). However, there are certain tasks I do every day when I reach for my iPad Pro since those tasks are better suited for a slate I can hold in my hands. There are other tasks that would be impossible and others very difficult to perform on an iPad, even an iPad Pro. For those, I need a computer, so I turn to my iMac Pro. To use the analogy from Steve Jobs in a different way, there are times when I need to zip around town in a “car”, but there are other times when I need to do some hefty work hauling in my “truck”.
In the end, I gave my Surface Book away to my corporate attorney as a thank you gift when I closed out my IT company to focus on a PhD program (which I hope wasn’t a mistake that I didn’t stick her with more PC issues!) and moved back to a Mac. For others who still needs Windows, there are plenty of good PC hardware manufacturers out there, and while Surface devices look great and have overall decent hardware, Microsoft still needs time to perfect the hardware/software and especially firmware integration, so I recommend looking at other alternatives besides a Surface for now.
Nathan Parker