Surface Book Discussion Thread

I don't use Photoshop. I know Adobe has made some strides in their tablet UI, but I just don't use it. The painting apps that I've tried all have an obvious pixelation to the strokes because of the scaling.

I should add that I make game textures so any pixelation, however so slight, is very troublesome.

 

What painting apps are you using? I'm wrapping up my Surface Book review as I type this and would like to see what you mean.

 

Krita, Artrage, and some others. It doesn't seem to matter which painting app I use. It's mostly noticeable if the brush I use has some detail to the bitmap that is being used to paint. A simple round brush doesn't look too bad, but anything with texture, like a leaf brush or what have you, it's pretty obvious. It looks like, well, like I zoomed in 200%. So when I zoom out to 100% to see what I painted looks good, it looks pixelated. So I can either rescale the UI to 100% every single time or give up. I choose the latter.

 

Well, to me it sounds like a bit more hoop-jumping and investigation could perhaps solve your problems, (along with some waiting patiently for MS to patch up their operating system). -But certainly don't let me tell you what to do with your $2000. It's probably best for you to stick with lower-resolution machines until these complications are ironed out.

Professionals can't really afford to be early adopters if they're shopping for a primary machine. It has to work out of the box, pretty much, -or with no more trouble than it takes to visit to a user's forum to ask how to tweak which variables.

I gave up on Linux because of exactly these kinds of problems; there were too many issues, and the solutions always eluded me or simply didn't exist. The Trouble-to-Value ratio tipped too far in the wrong direction, and I just walked away.

 

The scaling issue was just icing on the cake. I could probably live with that if the speakers didn't pop or if the keyboard removal wasn't super buggy. They'll probably have a decent machine by the time the Surface Book 5 rolls out.

I'm looking at the new Dell XPS 12 now. I really wanted a keyboard so I can type game code on the couch.

 

Sounds like you may have had a dud. I've had no issues with popping speakers and/or keyboard detaching issues. Since the latest update I also haven't had any driver crash issues for the past 3 days, during which I've used it almost constantly.


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After the 11/18 update my Surface Book has been rock solid too except for annoying Intel video driver crashes that seem to be plaguing the entire Surface line. The good news is that the crashes are non-destructive, prompting only a temporary hiccup and warning but no data loss.


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I just want something simple to use that I don't have to mess with. I fixed the keyboard problem after looking it up, but I think there's always going to be problems with the first gen of these. I think they rushed it to market for the holiday season. The SP4 probably has less issues, but it's the 4th iteration. Both the iPad Pro and Dell XPS 12 are half the price of my Surface Book and don't seem to have the productivity issues with scaling. Dell offers a 4k screen for crazy people, but thankfully you can get a 1080p screen and even save money doing so. I just have to decide if I want to deal with desktop apps with a M5 processor or deal with not having full desktop features on iOS apps. I was hoping sacrifices were a thing of the past this time around.

 

My Surface has the docking issue as well. I was so frustrated I almost returned it. Later I used an alcohol pad to clean the contact and guess what, it solve my docking problem! Worth a try.

 

Honestly, if I could just use the tablet portion I would keep it since I'd only use the keyboard to surf the web and code away from my desktop, but I had a good laugh when the battery was estimated with only 1.5 hours left with Clip Studio Paint open on a full battery. It's a really good form factor, not too big, not too small, but the battery is a joke. Looks like the iPad Pro is the winner.