Still tablet or laptop already?
Surface Pro 4 is touted by Microsoft as a "tablet that replaces your computer." This slogan may at first seem rather haughty, but a quick reading of the specification makes one wonder if perhaps it is not justified. In the end, we do not often see each other laptops equipped with Intel Core i5-6300U (and optional - even i7-6650U), 8 GB or 16 GB of memory and capacious SSD. So we decided to see how this slogan is the reality. Is Surface Pro 4 can actually be used to replace a laptop? Let's find out.
Microsoft Surface Pro 4 is a convertible tablet with a screen aspect ratio 2: 3 and a diagonal of 12.3 inches. The device is available in several versions of the configuration of the variant with a Core m3-6Y30, 4 GB of RAM and SSD carrier with a capacity of 128 GB, through a version of the Core i5-6300U, 4GB or 8 GB of RAM and a carrier with a capacity of 128 GB or 256 GB, the variation of the system Core i7-6650U, 8 GB or 16 GB of memory and SSD 256 or 512-gigabyte
Quality, ergonomicsThe quality of the Surface Pro 4 does not leave absolutely no illusions about the fact that we are dealing with the equipment in the premium segment. The housing is made of magnesium alloy, so that the device is very light: a version with a Core i5 or Core i7 tablet weighs 786 g, and the version of the Core m3 - 20 g less. Thickness not exceeding 8.5 mm is also an excellent result, especially if we take into account the performance of the components used. Immediately arises with the question of how the new Surface cope with their cooling at such a small space inside the enclosure. To answer later in this article.
What is very important, even if lightweight, stiffness and thickness of the housing is very large, and all elements are perfectly mated. Even when you try to fairly strong twisting did not notice any disturbing noises like crackling or creaking. In other words, the more you can be calm about her life.
One of the most characteristic elements of the Surface tablet family is tilted, flat base mounted on the rear of the device, allowing them to put on the desk and fold into virtually any angle. Adjusting the angle of inclination is running smoothly, unlike even the previous, third generation Surface'a. At the foot was hidden memory card reader Micro-SD.
While such design is great, when you can put the equipment on the desk or other hard and flat surface, whereas the use of Surface'a in lap longer a test of patience. The only way that the device is not constantly trying to come off the knees, is to keep them united and completely immobile. We need not convince anyone how difficult it is to maintain that position for more than a minute.For the same reason, the Surface Pro 4 will not be an ideal choice for those who would often use it in public transport. Folding tables placed in the preceding seats (such as in airplanes) only slightly reduce this problem, usually because they are just very small.
The included stylus Surface Pen makes use of Microsoft's tablet can really resemble the use of a paper notebook. Feather operates extremely accurately and according to the manufacturer recognizes up to 1024-level pressure. But then the next dissonance. So great precision can fully appreciate almost exclusively those who create drawings or illustrations (for normal to add notes to documents definitely do not need more than 1,000 levels of pressure sensitivity). Meanwhile, the use of the Surface Pen with advanced graphical tools, such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, in our opinion, is heavily hampered by a small but visible and perceptible delay in moving the pen movements on the screen. Yes, you can probably get used to it, but expensive equipment should not require such sacrifices. Especially that we tested one of the faster version of the Surface Pro 4. Dread to think what would happen in the case of the version with Core m3. Surface Pen also allows you to capture screenshots. This allows quick double press the button on the top of the pen, and the dump after it is immediately displayed in OneNote, so you can immediately add notes to it.
Note that the stylus is attached to the edge of the tablet with magnets. Admittedly, it is a very convenient solution, even when inserting the tablet, for example, a backpack feather often we odczepiało and was left on the bottom. In other words, the force with which a magnet holds the feather is large, but we recommend caution, because it was easy to lose them.
Buttons and connectorsOn the top edge of the tablet, left, placed the power button and the buttons to change the volume. The summit left edge manufacturer predestined audio jack, and on the right mounted a mini-DisplayPort output, a full-size USB 3.0 port and the power supply slot.This last is no longer, alas, such a micro-USB as the Surface 3, but designed for the needs of the fourth generation tablet port, which is not connected even if the mouse (of course, this would require appropriate adapter). As a result, we are left with one USB port. So if you would like, for example, connect an external hard drive or USB flash drive and will not have a handy wireless mouse capable of communicating with built-in Bluetooth Surface'a, waiting for him a lot of translating cables. The solution to this problem may be designed for the Surface Pro 4 docking station, but price to high
Keyboard, display, soundAs already mentioned, the Surface Pro 4 is not complete with a keyboard, for which you have to pay extra. For this amount we receive a very thin and lightweight keyboard insular, fixed to the tablet using a strong magnet. The keys are big, and the spaced apart by about 2 mm, so fast typing should not cause major problems, even those who first come into contact with the device. He has the slightly rubberized material, from which the keys and their bad elasticity and well perceptible moment fully depressed. Appreciate must also be that close to the edge fixed to the tablet in a velor covering the keyboard, installed a second magnet, which also stiffens juncture Naturally, when the keyboard is folded so that it rests on the rear of the tablet, the keys are automatically disabled to they can not be accidentally used. The keyboard is backlit and is available in five different colors. A large and very smooth touchpad works precisely and reliably. It is devoid of mechanical buttons, and the press is simulated by tapping the left or bottom right corner.
DisplayThe most striking feature of the screen Surface Pro 4 is the aspect ratio of 3: 2 (ie, similar to the 4: 3 iPad). Of course, the evaluation of such a solution depends on the needs and preferences, even on how to use the equipment (office work and internet versus the consumption of multimedia content), but in our view the display in just such a format works perfectly. The more that the technical parameters even throw on his knees (remember that after all we are dealing with a tablet).
Screen Resolution Surface Pro 4 is 2736 × 1824 pixels, which gives 267 points per inch. The image is so crisp; even the smallest items are perfectly legible. But this is not the end. Surface Pro 4 is able display up to 98% of shades of color palette sRGB, which puts it in the absolute forefront screens mounted in both tablets as well as in most laptops. Add to this a very high maximum brightness of the backlight (410 cd / m2) and an excellent deep blacks (0.14 cd / m2 backlight strength of 180 cd / m2), which translates into even phenomenal static contrast ratio 1300: 1. Hats off! Do not disappoint the sound quality of built-in speakers. It is true that it is difficult to expect a strong, deep bass and perfectly separated instruments while listening to music from such a small pickups, but the system audio Surface Pro 4, for its size, definitely doing well. Even movies with lots of special effects should not cause audible discomfort, not to mention conversations on Skype
Overall performanceThe UUT Surface Pro 4 work Intel Core i5-6300U. This dual-core unit clocked with a base frequency of 2.4 GHz in Turbo mode capable clock speed of 3 GHz, is often installed in a laptop than a tablet. Microsoft's engineers managed to design a Surface Pro 4 so that fared even cooling Core i7-6650U.Combined with 8 GB of memory and a fast SSD carrier Core i5-6300U processor gave the device a very good performance, allowing for comfortable work. You may even be tempted to run more demanding hardware tools, such as graphics or video editing. Of course, we mean rather simple projects
Gaming PerformanceIntegrated with Intel Core i5-6300U graphics chip Intel HD Graphics 520 does not allow for smooth gameplay in high definition, even in older games. It would be difficult to expect that from the tablet. Performance Surface Pro 4 in our test kit for laptops with graphics systems from the lowest segment are thus no surprise. And considering that we are dealing with the tablet, they are downright great.
Temperature, volume, time of actionAs we mentioned in the introduction, the thickness of the housing Surface Pro 4 is about 8.5 mm. Given that it operates within a relatively powerful processor, Core i5-6300U, to design an effective cooling system was undoubtedly for Microsoft engineers a challenge.
Surface Pro 4 is equipped with an active cooling system, which keeps the temperature inside the housing (and consequently - also on the surface) at a reasonable level. He has the same motion of the housing, wherein the ventilation holes provided along the entire upper half. Admittedly, the cooling system is doing great. Even during intensive work in demanding programs, the CPU temperature does not exceed sixty a few degrees Celsius. In our test, consisting in long-term maximum load of the processor by Intel Burn Test, the temperature did not exceed 72 degrees. It really is a very good result for the dimensions of the device.
By effectively cooling the CPU, even with long-term maximum load running fully stable, keeping the clock frequency of between 2.6 GHz and 2.9 GHz (recall: the timing core Core i5-6300U is 2.4 GHz, and the fastest clock speed of 3 GHz Turbo) . So we can safely be considered the result of the Surface Pro 4 for excellent. Just add that many laptops with much more space efficient cooling system is doing in this respect much worse.Despite the use of active cooling system tablet most of the time running completely silently. The fan turns on only occasionally, in addition, usually for a short time (of course, this does not apply when you are working on a major project in an advanced tool). Unfortunately, when already activated, it is quite noisy (measured as about 39 dB). In addition, due to the small size of the fan, forcing its high speed, the characteristics of the sound is not the most pleasant to the ear, because it is quite high and slightly "wheezing".
Housing temperature are very much dependent on whether the fan at the moment is working or not (and, of course, the CPU load). Most of the time the tablet remains pleasantly cool, but the launch of the program will quickly jump temperature of about 30 degrees to 34-38 degrees. When the action is entering an active cooling system, the temperature drops again, but after a few minutes, load-dozen housing heats up to around 40-42 degrees. And that's really a lot. On hot summer days, long-term use Surface'a held in the hand can no longer be particularly comfortable. The Surface Pro 4 installed rechargeable battery with a capacity of 38 Wh. It's much like a tablet, but even a large capacity does not allow to count on a record long duration of action away from the electrical outlet. To a large extent, the culprit here is the display with very high resolution.
In our test of typical use (backlight brightness set to 180 cd / m2, integrated Wi-Fi, web browsing) Surface Pro 4 demanded connect the AC a little over 5.5 hours. As you can see in the graphs below, this result places the device in the bottom rates.
To be more precise: we compared the duration of the Surface Pro with 4 performance laptops, tablets and not because of the "laptops" components. Besides, Microsoft itself says that this tablet to replace the laptop. We could not therefore treat this password selectively
SummarySurface Pro 4 is a device that quite difficult to clearly characterize and evaluate. On the one hand we have a very strong, such as tablet components (recall: Core i5-6300U, 8GB of RAM and SSD 256 GB), on the other hand - tablets ergonomics (emphasis on support for touch, pen or included with the keyboard). Microsoft had coped with the task, however, which prior to each set, and the result is a device that takes all the best of both worlds - laptops and tablets.
New Surface captivates primarily a phenomenal display and quality. Also, efficiency is incomparably better than the performance of even the fastest of the tablet you ever met. Ergonomics is a matter of taste and the way in which the computer is usually used. Those who often work while traveling, are unlikely to be thrilled lack of a rigid connection tablet with a keyboard. Those who usually have at their disposal a desk - on the contrary. Also the usefulness of the stylus pen Surface depends on the particular user. Despite the enormous opportunities can it be completely useless. Glory does not bring Surface'owi also only one USB port.Another issue is the need to buy a keyboard, without which the attractiveness of the device significantly decreases. And the fact that for the Type Cover Microsoft wishes to 180euro, leave, despite all our sympathy to this otherwise great accessory, without comment.
Overall, we have to admit, however, that Microsoft has not taken from the ceiling password, which advertises the hero of this article: "The tablet, which will replace your computer." Surface Pro 4 is a light, slim and efficient, so it can successfully be used as a full replacement for many a ultrabook. After all, we recommend that before issuing a not inconsiderable amount of the tablet Microsoft's sure to meet all expectations and that its restrictions (mainly those related to ergonomics and symbolic number of ports) does not override the daily use of its advantages
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