Is a Surface laptop as good as a regular laptop?

[Walter Sobchak]

I'm comparing laptop options and I have a buddy who can get me a good price on a Surface 4 laptop. I had been looking at a Dell before.

Both have a i7 processor, but the Surface has 4 cores while the Dell has 8.

Both have 16 GB RAM, 512 GB SSD, 15 inch display, though I was also considering a laptop with a 17 inch display.

I would be using this mostly for work (will be a business expense) and personal use. Might watch a movie on it occasionally or use it for streaming entertainment while flying, that kind of thing. Nothing too graphics intensive, no high-end gaming or anything like that.

I don't need a touchscreen and will be using it with keyboard and mouse and with a docking station for additional monitors, wireless headset, etc. Portability is good but I am not obsessed with keeping it light.

From the pics of the Surface laptop I can't tell whether the screen can be set to any angle, as other laptop screens can, or whether it will only set to one or a few angles.

Which is the better option?

[nunbeater]

fuck it I would gamble and go with the surface, especially since it's a business expense. it should be able to handle whatever you need as well.

[gut]

fuck it I would gamble and go with the surface, especially since it's a business expense. it should be able to handle whatever you need as well.

....although Dell has never done me wrong, yet.

[Salty_Aus]

In our market they're a bit overpriced, but on the plus side I've always found Microsoft hardware first rate. They look nice too if that's a factor.

If you're getting a good price jump on it, if not get a laptop with the largest screen and dedicated GPU. If it has on-board graphics card the other specs will be good.

A bit more.
17"screen and a GPU that's not the latest and greatest, maybe a dedicated 1060 which is a couple of years old, brand new old stock and haggle a super price.
1060 laptop would still be a beast and cheap for what you get.

[JACKDANIELS]

17 inch screen is a must for me

[garrett]

I dont know much about that specifically and am not a 'Computer' guy honestly, but can share my experience with a recent laptop purchase. I got a new HP Laptop last April, ill put the specs below and honestly im just a pretty avg. user, internet some streaming, Live sports prob very occasionally so dont need something too fancy imo. But I got this one:

HP Pavilion x360 Convertible (laptop)
Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8265U CPU @ 1.60GHz 1.80 GHz

And as a person who doesn't need something super sophisticated, and basic internet some streaming use this has been fantastic honestly, im very happy with this Laptop. I bought it at BJ's so a bit cheaper and it was on sale I got it for about $630 total on sale, it was a great deal and honestly very happy with it for what I need and use it for.

[dwai]

go with the OG laptop

[BetCheckBet]

I had mid range 17 inch transformer book 5-6 years ago and hated it. Was jack of all trades master of none. That being said they have come a long way since then. Was too heavy and 17 inch was pretty damn big for touch screen. Plus I pretty much always kept in docked.

Doesn’t sound like you have anything intense that you want to do with it so probably won’t matter and surface pro would more than meet your needs.

[BlunderMaker]

Would advocate against it, previous Surfaces have had lots of firmware issues. They are also basically impossible to repair yourself. The best way to go IMO is an Enterprise grade traditional notebook like a Dell Latitude, Lenovo ThinkPad or HP Elitebook.

[Texter]

If you need to use it a lot on the road vs at home, go with the bigger screen, doing real work on a 15 inch screen sucks....

However, if it mostly stays home and you can hook it up to a big monitor, why not go surface...

[sonatine]

a good friend whose tech opinion is meaningful to me and is an extremely active/motivated business person switched from macs to surface and swears she will never go back.

[Walter Sobchak]

If you need to use it a lot on the road vs at home, go with the bigger screen, doing real work on a 15 inch screen sucks....

However, if it mostly stays home and you can hook it up to a big monitor, why not go surface...

What I would do at home is use two screens, one being the laptop screen and the other a 24" Dell I picked up for $200 that works great.

On the road I'd use the laptop only but I'm not on the road so much that this is a big factor in my decision. I would basically never use it as a tablet except maybe while flying. I have an iPad for that.

Being used to a 17" screen I'm trying to figure out whether the 15" is really going to be a major downgrade.

[gut]

a good friend whose tech opinion is meaningful to me and is an extremely active/motivated business person switched from macs to surface and swears she will never go back.

The fact that she was on macs in the first place should knock her down a peg on the "meaningful opinion" tier list.

[Belly Buster]

I have owned a Surface Pro 4 (not a Surface Laptop) for 5 years and it's a solid offering hardware wise. A lot of the flaws (runs hot, noisy fan, limited ports) are likely not a problem with the Surface laptop.

The question is what Dell are you comparing it to?

[OSA]

I'm comparing laptop options and I have a buddy who can get me a good price on a Surface 4 laptop. I had been looking at a Dell before.

Uh huh


"A buddy"

[Walter Sobchak]

I'm comparing laptop options and I have a buddy who can get me a good price on a Surface 4 laptop. I had been looking at a Dell before.

Uh huh


"A buddy"

LOL

I'm getting it very close to cost, not free.

[Walter Sobchak]

I have owned a Surface Pro 4 (not a Surface Laptop) for 5 years and it's a solid offering hardware wise. A lot of the flaws (runs hot, noisy fan, limited ports) are likely not a problem with the Surface laptop.

The question is what Dell are you comparing it to?

He'd be comparing it to this setup. But it's an XPS 15, and there are XPS 17s available as well if I want to keep the 17" screen.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell...8-f2d194b19479

Feel free to suggest something else.

[PuTTY]

I have owned a Surface Pro 4 (not a Surface Laptop) for 5 years and it's a solid offering hardware wise. A lot of the flaws (runs hot, noisy fan, limited ports) are likely not a problem with the Surface laptop.

The question is what Dell are you comparing it to?

He'd be comparing it to this setup. But it's an XPS 15, and there are XPS 17s available as well if I want to keep the 17" screen.

https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell...8-f2d194b19479

Feel free to suggest something else.

Have you looked at ASUS? the fan gets a little loud at times, other than that it's great!

I7 8th gen
512SSD
12GB Ram

[tgull]

You are definitely no saint Druff. Stop acting like one. From memory you stalked his apartment and filmed it in Vegas. You also did nothing on NWP to stop people from accosting Tyde on his job, which actually cost him that car dealership job. Jewdonk.info, you laughed at it despite it hurt him and his family.

I am not saying you went out of your way to hurt Tyde, but you sure as shit never did anything to ever help him either. As far as hassling your family, that is a bridge to far, but stop acting like a wounded animal, you can give him a 48 hour pass on the site let him say his part and move on. Or close the site altogether, but please no victim card, it's getting old.

[desertrunner]

Just a question- is Dell the only option? What about Toshiba?