Last year I wrote about my Surface Pro 3 and thought it was the best computer I ever owned. Three months ago, Microsoft sent along a Surface Pro 4 for me to test as part of myMicrosoft March madness experiment. I'm now convinced my Surface Pro 3 may be the more stable computer and switched back earlier today.
WHAT'S FRUSTRATING ABOUT THE SURFACE PRO 4?
ZDNet's Ed Bott recently posted his full Microsoft Surface Pro 4 review and discussed many updates that Microsoft released over the past six months to make the Surface Pro 4 a better device than it was at launch. In my experiences, these updates have indeed improved the stability of apps, the WiFi connection, and the ability of the Surface Pro 4 to function as a primary PC connected to an external display.
While phones come and go, I purchased my Surface Pro 3 last year and it is my constant companion. Here's why.
Most of my frustration comes when trying to use the Surface Pro 4 as a mobile computer. I bought the fingerprint-enabled Type Cover back in October for my Surface Pro 3, but had to resort to using my first generation Type Cover because the Surface Pro 4 refuses to work with this fingerprint-enabled Type Cover and the other newest one without the fingerprint scanner. I tried removing and reconnecting it, updating drivers, and restoring the Surface Pro 4. Someone on Twitter recommended I disable and disconnect the Surface Pen and that seemed to work at times.
So without being able to now use the Pen, these Type Cover keyboards still only connected and performed as designed about 80 percent of the time. The only way for me to use the Pen as intended was to disconnect the keyboard in the settings, reconnect the Pen, and then use it. If I want to use the keyboard again, I have to go through the entire process in reverse in the settings. This is not the way to have a functional tablet and mobile computing experience.
I also wanted to start using the Pen more with the Surface Pro 4 so decided to just set aside the Type Cover and go with only Pen use when the Surface Pro 4 wasn't docked. That was great, except there is no longer an auto-rotation button in the Action Center and automatic rotation was not working at all. I searched all over online, including at the Microsoft site, and followed every recommendation to try to resolve the issue. I uninstalled the I2C HID device driver in the device manager, downloaded the MSI driver package from Microsoft, and all the other tips without success. I still cannot get any kind of auto-rotation to work on the Surface Pro 4 and this was the straw that broke the camel's back. I am not going to go into the display settings and manually rotate the display every time I rotate the device.
WHAT'S BETTER ON THE SURFACE PRO 3?
When I bought the Surface Pro 3 it was running Windows 8.1. Even with the Windows 10 update installed the pen, keyboard, and rotation continue to work flawlessly.