I'm in the market for a tablet/small laptop around £350 and these two are the front runners at the moment. Leaning more towards a tablet at the moment.
I'm not really bothered about OS as I've had MS and Apple products and like them both. It'll be mainly used at work for entertainment (web browsing, video etc). The Surface is appealing just because I already have a Windows PC and missus has a laptop.
iPad in my experience are just very polished and work. I did consider a Chromebook, but they seem to jump between £250-£1500 depending on what you want it for.
Any pearls of wisdom to be offered? Other suggestions are appreciated too 🙂
Is that £350 for the Surface including the keyboard case?
I don't think so. I've found the Surface for £319 refurbed (new-open box), but I'm not sure how much the keyboard is seperate.
Use on a desk as a very portable lightweight laptop then get the Surface is great. Use in your hands then get the IPad
I've had a Surface Go for a few months, and like it. It's more powerful then you need for just surfing,with the keyboard I'm sure it would be a pretty good laptop. Mines the one with the SSD, so not sure about the cheaper version.
Use on a desk as a very portable lightweight laptop then get the Surface is great. Use in your hands then get the IPad
This +1 - Windows 10 is not great OS for tablet use.
The Surface keyboard cover is probably nicer than the iPad one, but I’ve no idea what the cost difference is.
Cheers for the input. The other thing that swaying me towards the Surface is the memory is expandable, USB-C port and it's compatible with more peripherals. If I got the keyboard case, it would basically turn it into a small laptop.
I'd be mostly using it at a desk or lounging on a sofa etc 🙂
We have the older Surface 3. Windows is a bit fiddly for stuff like file manager and so on, but you don't really bother with any of that on tablet OSes anyway. In a web browser the experience is largely the same as with a tablet (Android, at least) since you are just clicking on links and typing on the on-screen keyboard.
After weighing up the pros and cons, I ended up with the Surface!
IT manager at work helped me decide in the end. I like how I can turn it into a mini laptop with the case.
I plugged mine into a 2&" 4k monitor, bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and used it as a standard desktop PC at the weekend, to do some design work for the stickers on my bike. Apart from mine being a Pro4 and hence non-expandable 4Gb RAM, it was indistinguishable from a PC because it actually is a PC.
In a web browser the experience is largely the same as with a tablet (Android, at least) since you are just clicking on links and typing on the on-screen keyboard.
More so as Edge is moving to a chromium base IIRC?
@molgrips have you got the pen? Just wondering what they are like to use as I've never tried them.
I'll definitely be getting the case/keyboard for it.
I got the pen with mine yes. Works very well, including the handwriting input. Useful in a narrow range of circumstances. Obviously good for drawing, but I used mine to read and make comments on documents on a plane, where you can't really type properly. It worked reasonably well.
The original idea for me was for sketching diagrams when talking to people or in meetings, which is common in my work - we use whiteboards or paper usually and people end up taking photos of the resulting drawings. However my corporate IT guidelines prevented me from using the device for work in the end.
You can set a double-click of the button on the end of the pen to activate any app you want whilst waking the device. There are note-taking apps that simulate a paper notepad, so you can just grab the pen and start writing or drawing as if on a paper pad - but everything is saved. And of course it's infinitely erasable unlike pen and paper - the button on the end of the pen works like an eraser which is great.
Nice one cheers for that. Sounds like a handy little gadget I'll no doubt end up with 🙂
