Gadgetory

hey how's it going guys this is Dave 2d and this is my review of the surface pro 4 now this isn't going to be one of my regular views just because one of the more common questions I get is what laptop should I get as a university student or a college student and I've always thought that the surface pro lineup was a really good device for college kids obviously it's not going to fit every single college student but the surface pro 3 in particular was really solid and it came up before I started making YouTube videos so I wasn't able to do a video for that one so I thought I should do one for the surface pro 4 that was geared towards college kids alright let's do it the surface pro 4 comes in a slide-out tray again and inside you get the surface tablet itself the new surface pen some pamphlets and the AC adapter now just to get it out of the way the surface pro 4 isn't a budget device it's not horribly expensive and I think they do a decent job on delivering value but it's not cheap the unit here is a core i5 with 4 gigs of RAM 128 gigs of storage and it will run you $1000 but with a type cover which I would consider necessary for college students it's an extra $130 the surface pro 4 is made with a magnesium casing it's super durable and it has a uniquely different texture from aluminum when you're holding it so we have an 8 megapixel camera up top that takes decent pictures if you're into taking photos with tablets and a kickstand down at the bottom with the reflective windows logo up front we have two speakers they don't sound amazing but it's a tablet and at the very least it gets loud enough for a media consumption and we also have a 5 megapixel front facing camera it takes decent photos and videos and we can use it to unlock the device with Microsoft hello and that works really well the screen is a 12-point 3-inch pixel sense panel running at a really high resolution of 27 36 by 1824 it's a way better screen than the screen on the surface pro 3 it's bright viewing angles are good and the colors are pretty accurate it still has that classic surface 3 by 2 ratio which I think works well for a two-in-one device like this so it's great for things like browsing drawing and taking notes but it's less great for watching videos because of that letterboxing now going around the sides on the left of the device we have a headphone jack and on the top we have a volume rocker and the power button on the right we have the power connection a USB 3 port and a mini DisplayPort and on the bottom we have a 6 pin connector that connects the surface tablet to the surface type cover using magnets they join up pretty easily and when you do it acts like a little cover for the tablet and it's obviously a keyboard when you open it up the magnets are pretty strong strong enough that you can kind of do this actually nevermind don't do this when you open up the keyboard it's noticeably better than the keyboard from the surface pro 3 the base of the keyboard is more rigid than before so if you have to use it on your lap doesn't flex as much and the keys have good travel it feels better to type on than last year and honestly it's just a really solid P board typing on it feels just like a regular laptop it has pretty good backlighting it's like 5 or 6 stages which is even more than the surface book the kickstand has the same mechanism as last year and it works reasonably well like you can adjust it to any angle that you want and I find that it works a lot better for typing on your lap than the kickstand with the set positions on the surface 3 so if you didn't like that kickstand you still might like this one the trackpad is also a lot better it's bigger than last year and it's actually good like it's got a good texture it tracks well and the clicking on the trackpad buttons feel OnPoint you don't need to bring a master class anymore it's like the real deal now something to note if you have a surface pro 3 you can buy this new type cover and then give your older device a brand new keyboard you'll type better you'll trackpad better you'll love it the surface pro 4 with the type cover comes in at less than 2 and a half pounds it's really easy to carry to class and around campus and even if you need to bring the AC adapter the whole setups still pretty light now when you're taking notes in class you can either type using the keyboard or you can use the pen now type it on a desk or a solid surface is great but if you have to use your lap it's a bit of a compromise because you're still using the kicks in right it's still not a perfect keyboard for lap use but it's comfortable enough to use everyday the surface pen this year is also improved it was pretty good on the surface pro 3 but this year the nib at the top of the pen is softer and it's a little more enjoyable to write with it still doesn't feel like real paper Holle market it like that and it still has a little bit of input like but it's a very usable pen for taking notes in class you can also click the back where you click it once to open OneNote click it twice for a screenshot and you hold it down to launch Cortana for voice control so for a student the single click to launch OneNote is really nice it just gets you into a note-taking mode really quickly so if you're late for class and you're scrambling to jot something down it's a really nice feature the other thing that's pretty awesome for students is the new eraser on the surface pen now you might think the eraser is a really minor detail and it kind of is but it's something that a lot of people use regularly and erasing a mistake on a handwritten note becomes that much more natural and that's the best part because if you're new to using a digital pen for note taking when you make a mistake it's pretty natural to flip it over and try racing it with the other end because that's just how pencils work so yeah it's a small feature but it's something that students will really appreciate it just makes the whole learning curve a little less steep and it just feels more natural the pen attaches magnetically this year instead of using a loop like last year it looks nicer this way but when you keep it in your bag it'll probably fall off if you have other stuff in there the last thing I really like about the surface pro 4 for class is snap multitasking so if you're in a class when you need to refer to something while taking notes like a course syllabus or a diagram or something it's really simple to set it up now battery life when you're running light stuff like OneNote or WordPad is pretty mediocre microsoft claims up to nine hours but i'm getting around five hours with screen at seventy five percent brightness it's not horrible but it's not good enough to like just leave the charger at home if you have a full day at school and this was tested with the threshold to update it was closer to four hours before the update okay so this video features the surface pro 4 with a Core i5 processor and four gigs of RAM I chose this one in particularly because I feel like it gives you the best value for a college student there's another version that's $300 more that's eight gigs of RAM and 256 storage so double the storage but I feel like that $300 price difference I mean it's obviously a better machine but you're not going to notice that much of a difference for what the average college student does I'll be able to test both of them extensively the four gig and the 88 version and unless you're doing video edits you're not going to notice much of a difference but if you are doing video editing even if it's 1080p video editing I would totally go with the a keg version because when you're editing videos with the four gig version things get a little bit gnarly it's just a little bit choppy and a little less smooth than I'd like it to be for even 1080p video edits driver speeds are okay it's got kind of slow write speeds but read speeds are fast so it's very usable for any kind of media consumption okay let's talk about gaming lightweight games are run okay I had some screen flickering when I filmed this footage in October but it was fixed in early November with an update on high settings csgo runs around 40 frames per second and on high settings heroes of the storm in dota 2 both run around 20 to 30 frames per second the bottom line is this if you're a casual gamer you can easily get by with the surface pro for running a core i5 and just four gigs of ram if you play MOBAs and you need decent frame rates like 50 60 frames per second you can still do it with the core i5 and 4 gigs of ram they'll just have to lower your settings and play on lower resolutions like he won't be MLG pro status but you can do it if you want to play triple-a 3d titles like GTA 5 or fallout 4 I would definitely look at a different device it's not going to run well on the surface pro 4 battery life is around 2 hours when I was playing games with screen on max brightness and around 5 hours when I was watching videos from the drive again with screen at max brightness so like I mentioned before videos get some pretty strong letterboxing on a screen with a 3x2 aspect ratio now personally I don't mind it but I know some people really care about this kind of stuff for media consumption so keep that in mind there's a microSD slot underneath the kickstand and it lets you store a pretty good amount of content offline when the surface pro 4 is idling it's silent but when you put it under a bit of load the fans kick in it's not too loud and temperatures stay around 100 degrees so it's not too bad ok let's do a quick recap surface pro 4 it has a fantastic 12 point 3 inch touch screen the aspect ratio is great for work and browsing not so great for videos it's got stereo speakers that don't sound great but they are front-facing and they get pretty loud it's got a Core i5 running at 2.4 gigahertz with 4 gigs of RAM and integrated graphics which is sufficient for most things students would do but if you want to be hardcore you got it has a 38 watt hour battery that gives a pretty lame battery life like you can watch a full movie on it but it won't last a full day on campus it has a detachable type cover with a fantastic keyboard really great digital pen for note taking and an equally awesome trackpad alright so there's clearly a lot of stuff to like about the surface pro 4 it's a very capable and portable two in one device but two things kind of bug me first is that keyboard it's such an integral part of the surface pro experience it kind of bugs me that it's still being sold separately and it bugs me that it's as expensive of an accessory as it is the second thing is the battery life the threshold to update bumped up a little bit it's still not great so if you have a full day of class you're forced to bring your battery charger with you and that's a bit of a bummer but aside from that it's a really great device and this year that it's been upgraded all around it's like a faster and better experience and it fits into like college life that much better that's the end of this review hope you guys liked it thumbs if you did subs if you loved it it's been nice I'll see you guys next time