Surface Pro 4 Predictions

I agree about Japan made Vaio's. I had the base model of the last gen T, & got lucky to find one from amazon open box for half off. I remember pricing one on Sony's site with blu-ray burner, and I think 256gb or was it 512gb SSD(2 x 256gb) with wlan for nearly 4k. I love how the carbon fiber material was built vs the plastic on the Vaio F we have.

Is the Canvas made of CF, or is something else?

 

Vaio at the end was trading more on its former glory. When they split off and JIP basically bought them, they emphasized the move back to making everything in Japan. Heck, over on Head-Fi just see the threads about things like the NW-ZX2 and the comments from time to time on where it's made. For some, with Sony if it's not made in Japan, it's crap (and in a lot of cases, they can be correct ... in others, not).

Not sure if it's CF, but it is high quality. Translation says aluminum alloy but who knows. Check this out: .
It can take some stress. Also check out the drop video they have. I think if my SP3 did what they showed, I'd be crying ...

Didn't mean to derail since this all started with the discussion around Skylake. I truly hope the SP4 is good, but given what they did with the SP3 and the S3, I don't see much changing to fit my needs even if they squeeze 16GB in there. And let's not kid ourselves - the 8/512/i7 was like $1800 list. Imagine 16/1T/i7. Easily $2500, if not $3k. Might as well consider the Vaio

 

Have you ever noticed how Asus makes an announcement and then nothing happens for months and months? I wouldn't bet on anything Asus says until it happens.

Jim

 

Absolutely! They have a really nice entry ultrabook - UX305, but no touch screen or hires; been teasing since release an upscale UHD, touch, 512gb ssd - but no where to be seen (thinner than the Dell XPS 13).

 

Well, they do have the UX303LB on the shelves. About the same as the LN model, but with a processor upgrade. One of the problems with Asus is that they don't place much importance on battery life.

Jim

 

They also don't seem to give a crap about build quality or warranty service for that matter. With all its shortcomings, it's great to have a well built device again and feel confident about warranty service at the MS Store.

BTW, my money's still on Skylake.

 

MS has great service on their Surface tablets - for example I can download recovery image on their sites for free.

Recently I tried to download recovery image for my corrupted Encore Write tablet, but Toshiba wanted $40 for that. Guess it's a bit unfair because MS offer the OS for free but other OEMs have to charge for the OS. However, the tablet has Windows 8.1 with Bing, which is supposedly free. And why customer has to be charged for reinstalling the OS or having a copy of the installation disc?

This pissed me off greatly. I used to buy devices based on spec, but after experiencing services with Dell, Asus and Toshiba, I would think twice of buying their products.

 

I wonder - is it possible MS will add "powerhorse" skylake Core M option for Surface 3 (non pro?) That would be nice. Something like core M/8/256 would be very tempting.

 

I think their premium ultrabooks are generally pretty high quality. Customer service and sometimes lack of warranty work can be a problem.

I hope you are correct regarding Skylake.

Regards, Jim

 

I'll be greatly disappointed if it's not Skylake... I still think they blew it not putting Broadwell in the SP3, and they would be right in the same boat again if they don't include Skylake. The SP3 was just a SP2 in a new case, surely they won't do that again with a year old processor choice? My SP2 was definitively faster than my i7 SP3... if the SP4 isn't a step up in performance across the board, no way I'll even consider one.

Don't get me wrong, I love the Surface Pro line, have owned them all, and use my SP3 daily, but I'd much rather they just wait to release a proper SP4 instead of shoveling the same old thing out the door with a new shiny version of Windows 10 that will be a free upgrade to all SP3's anyway.