Surface Pro 4 experience: Part 5

To keep or not to keep

The idea of returning Surface Pro 4 is still at the back of my head.  In fact, I will probably make a decision in the coming 2 days.

It's not because Surface Pro 4 is really that bad.  It's just that based on my real world usage, I found Dell XPS 13 (late 2015 version) a better fit for me for several reasons.

Battery and charging

One thing I really like about my iPad Air 2 (and now iPad Pro) is that I don't have to worry about charging and having a charger with me all the time.  iPad can survive a whole day intensively using it with charging it.  And worst come to worst I always have a external battery for charging anything that support USB charging, and that includes my iPad.

On the other hand, Surface Pro 4 has 4 to 5 hours of battery life.  While it's still ok, I still have to pack the proprietary charger with me all the time, and keep worrying that I may break the charger.

There's also no battery pack solution, so even if I am willing to pay, I am not able to pack so that I can use my computer for full day without charging.  This can be avoid during long trip.

Also, additional external power adapter is costly, and I read enough horrible messages online to make me seriously concern about buying third party made power adapter.

Rarely use stylus and touch

One of the biggest selling point of Surface Pro 4 is stylus, until Apple Pencil arrived, I was craving for getting a Windows based computer with stylus and accurate digitizing.  Since then iPad Pro with Apple Pencil totally satisfied that sketching need, and I no longer use stylus on Surface Pro 4 much.  It was in my backpack that I rarely touch.

I gotta admit, though, that touch is handy whenever I need to scale the display, or suddenly need to access an application with touch.  In fact, just a while ago I used calculator with touch and found that a fantastic user experience.

The high definition QHD+ screen is contributing to lower battery life than XPS 13 FD version.  However, QHD+ screen on Surface Pro 4 does look good, and I am a bit concern that I am so used to higher definition screen on Surface Pro 4 and iPad Pro, reading on the older display may not satisfy me.

All sort of glitches

By now I already resolved all of the glitches that bugs me about Surface Pro 4.  For the failing to wake up from sleep problem, I resolved it by totally avoiding Sleeping and use Hibernation instead.  That allows me to reliability bring up the machine by pressing the power button.  I got slightly better battery life by using Windows 10 "battery saver", and that's how I got 5 hours of solid battery life.  The screen scaling problem is pretty much resolved as found either workaround or replacement applications to do things that I need to do (like using Remote Desktop Connection Manager instead of using regular Remote Desktop application).

Still, the fact that this device has all these widely discussed problems kind of bugs me, make me feel like I am using a inferior product, and that I can't trust in my very day life all the time.

I indeed need a portable PC

Whether I keep Surface Pro 4 or not, one thing is for sure:  I do need a PC.  There was a period of time that I thought I can do all I need to do at home with either my desktop PC and my iPad.  But ever since I got Surface Pro 4, I found one thing I start keep doing these days: typing while I am on bed.  It's indeed relaxing and cozy to type on bed during winter.  It feels like I am getting something done in a lay-back way, and the Type Cover keyboard of Surface Pro 4 really is fantasy.

Another thing I enjoy a lot doing on bed is playing emulator games.  Sure, Wii and PS2 emulator seems to crash once in a while on SP4, but with the instance save feature, I am not particularly concern.  The gaming experience is slightly different from sitting straight gaming on my desktop PC, and I like the option of doing things the way I want whenever I feel like.