Microsoft Surface Pro 4 - Core i7 2.2GHz, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD, Silver

Short review: Brilliant little laptop, was everything I expected it to be and maybe even a little bit more.Long review: I'm an art student, and decided that I needed a light, portable laptop to take back and forth to campus with me. However I also needed something that was decently powerful, since I use Photoshop all the time and need it to be able to run such applications for my work. I already have a bigger i5 laptop, with a Nvidia graphics card, which proved to be very impractical (and also quite painful) to bring to uni. So my plan was to use that like a desktop at home for heavy Photoshop work, and get a smaller, cheaper laptop that I could take to class and do light work on. I quickly found, however, that there's no such thing as a cheap laptop that can do this. So I found the Surface Pro, found out it was exactly what I needed, and bought it when the price finally came down.And what can I say? It's great! Very stylish. The hinge is absolutely brilliant, you can bend it to practically any angle you want and it's sturdy so it will stay in that position. Nice screen, no problem with viewing angles as far as I can see. Does everyday browsing and videos really well. Very speedy. Great quality 1080p videos with no lag that I've noticed. Audio is also good. One of the things that surprised me is that it keeps up with my i5 laptop when it comes to these things. Very quick to boot up, it's literally a matter of seconds. It also has two cameras: one front facing and one back camera and they are also very decent quality. Nothing you would trade for a professional camera for but it's there if you need it. It only has one USB port but that hasn't really bothered me. Touch screen is also fine. Machine is also very light and ultra portable. I got a laptop bag for it and I could barely tell that the Surface (and its type cover + charger!) were even in there. It's also silent since it has no fan.The Surface runs Photoshop good for lighter work. Only thing I would say is that there can be some lag here and there, but it only usually happens when it's not charging. When the laptop is on charge I don't notice much issues. It would also be worth noting that I only sketch on this laptop, I don't do anything heavy. Although I have noticed that it can do at least 5 or 6 layers, no problem when on charge. Maybe even more, but I haven't tested it that far. Fantastic for taking notes on OneNote. Also there are other Windows Ink programs that I find useful, like their sketch app and some people might like sticky notes. The pen is pretty good too. Good pressure sensitivity, and feels really nice in your hand. Pretty easy to open too. It's also magnetic and connects to the side of the tablet. The magnets are strong but it has fallen off a few times, usually when you brush onto it accidently. I would keep an eye on that, especially when on the go, but other then that the pen is good. The nib is smooth and glides well. I would still say that Wacom pens are a bit better, but then Wacom specialise in this area, so no surprises there. Surface pen glides like a pen where as Wacom pens have a bit more resistance and feel a bit more like a pencil. But this could just be personal preference. The pen is generally good, and I imagine most people wouldn't notice the difference. You can also use the end of the pen as an eraser.I've been using this machine for 6 months and have had no real problems with it, but now and again (not too often) the pen will stop working. But I've been able to fix it every time - usually just by re-pairing the pen to the device, or reseat the battery. It can also stop working when the battery needs replacing so that's something to remember! Also worth noting that the battery lasts really long, I still haven't changed it yet.Okay so now onto the cons. And to be honest there really isn't that many. The main one is storage. Now the storage is SSD which means its very quick, however, since this is a more expensive type of storage there isn't all too much space. This hasn't bothered me since I just store most of my things on my second laptop which has a HDD. If this will be your main laptop this might be an issue for you, but you can get around it by buying an external hard drive or a high capacity flash drive. Although this would obviously add to the cost of the machine which is already expensive.Another con (but not really that important to me) is that the charger cord is relatively short, compared to other laptops. So I have found myself using an extension lead when at home. Battery life is also kind of average. To be honest if your thinking about doing hours of work I would take the charger with you, but if your doing light note taking or browsing for an hour or so you could probably go without. Honestly the charger is so light that I always take it with me anyway.As a few last notes, I would say that if your into video games, to look for a more powerful machine. Now, this machine is powerful for it's size and admittedly I've never tested any video games on it. However, I know from the specs and the lack of fan that it's gonna be a push to ask for resource intensive video games on it. After all, it is only an M3 processor with only 4GB of RAM. It's a great machine but that's just asking too much. My I5 laptop with 8GB of RAM struggles with gaming, so this is definitely not going to be for you. You need a quad-core i7 with 16GB or more RAM, as well as a decent graphics card if you want to get good quality gaming with minimal lag. A desktop would be better. Flash games are fine but if your thinking 3D games like Halo or whatever then it isn't happening. An exception can probably be made for Minecraft but again, I haven't tested it.On the other end of the scale, I would say to those who just want an everyday laptop for browsing, YouTube, Word and the like, don't get this machine. Yes, this machine is brilliant at all those things, but it's a bit overkill for your needs. These days you can get something a lot cheaper (like under £250) which can do all these things decently. Don't spend this much money on something which gives you a lot more than what you need.So to sum everything up, I really like this laptop. None of the flaws I've listed above have been a real problem for me - most of which I already knew about before buying when I researched this device. So if you're like me and you need a lightweight, semi-powerful laptop for Photoshop sketching and speedy, everyday tasks on the go, then honestly there isn't many alternatives out there!

I bought the highest spec Surface Pro 4 (with the exception of only 512GB, not the 1TB version) and I absolutely loved it. It is an incredibly fast machine and runs programs such as Photoshop and AutoCAD easily. The touchscreen, pen, keyboard etc were all aspects I loved about it, and that it ran full Windows.However, I had to return it within a few months as there were just too many things going wrong with it and I was worried that beyond the warranty period, I'd be stuck with a £1,600 machine that didn't run well.The problems I had:1. The touch screen stopped working on occasion and would often need restarted several times (even though it was up to date software).2. It made 2 different mini SD cards unreadable, or RAW, and I lost all the data (thankfully I had backups).3. The pen would disconnect quite often, requiring pairing each time I turned it on. Other times it would work instantly.4. The battery life. I knew it wouldn't be as Microsoft stated (something like up to 9 hours), but on average I got maybe 2 hours max, even if I was just browsing the web or playing music through earphones.5. The battery, which was when I decided to return it. After only 5 months, the battery would not charge fully and would only function when plugged in...not so useful for portability and that the plug is magnetic so could easily be pulled out by accident, shutting the surface down. I tried everything but I was told the battery needed replaced...so I just wanted to return it, because if this happened outwith the warranty period I'd be screwed, and stuck with an expensive device that wasn't able to be used as it was intended.6. There were also other more trivial problems but I won't create an endless list.I would have given it 5 stars had these problems not arisen. I was really disappointing that I had to in the end because when it worked, it was a brilliant device. Unfortunately I have to give it 1 star because the problems I encountered.Was hoping to eventually get a Surface Studio but my experience with Microsoft hardware (Windows phone, Surface Pro 4) hasn't been great so far - I've ended up returning both devices.

Excellent piece of kit, just a bit of uncertainty about the battery life compared to the claims of up to 9hrs video playback. We'll see how that fares on the next flight, with the associated hanging around at the airports. Thats why i dropped 1 star.Day to day use, its fast and the screen is excellent, but i'd recommend getting the keyboard/cover at the same time if you're going to be using it as more than just a tablet - probably will do at this price anyway...Reminder that its wireless only, there is no network socket unless you go for the desktop adaptor, but had no problems with connection so far.Only one usb, and i've used that for a wireless mouse. There is a micro SD slot hidden away, so you can add a bit more storage quickly.Very happy so far.