Why You Should Consider The Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Vs. The MacBook Pro

Consider The New Microsoft Surface Pro 4 vs. The MacBook Pro

For as long as I can remem­ber, I’ve always been a Microsoft user. From my hum­ble begin­nings with Win­dows 95 to the lat­est OS, I’ve stayed loy­al. But the iPhone brought about a new­found love for Apple, and all its won­der­ful apps.

Microsoft always seemed to strug­gle with devices, nev­er real­ly catch­ing on with the mass­es the way Apple or Sam­sung could. I think that might change with the new Sur­face Pro 4, the lat­est in their high-pow­ered tablet series.

All it takes is a sin­gle suc­cess­ful piece to set the tone for the future, just like the iPhone and iPod did for Apple. So too might the Sur­face Pro for Microsoft.

With so many cloud-based apps and soft­ware that tran­si­tion work seam­less­ly between devices, Microsoft may be able to take a sim­i­lar stance with their Sur­face Pro 4. If your app can be a sin­gle non-chang­ing enti­ty across all your devices, then why can’t your device do the same?

The Sur­face Pro 4 is a ver­sa­tile tablet

Between a cam­era, phone, music play­er, lap­top, tablet, we’ve already reduced things down. What if we could have just one? Don’t get me wrong, not hav­ing a phone alto­geth­er is some­thing I’ll have trou­ble with.

But with an LTE option expect­ed at some point, the Sur­face Pro 4 is total­ly a device that can stream­line all your per­son­al elec­tron­ics down into one. Sleek and pow­er­ful, the days of car­ry­ing bulky lap­top bags through air­port secu­ri­ty are over. A sim­ple car­ry-on sleeve tucked away in your lug­gage can do the trick.

Dif­fer­ent views of the sleek Sur­face Pro 4

Comparing the Surface Pro 4 with the Apple MacBook Air & Pro.

Adverts for the Sur­face Pro 4 com­pare it to the Mac­Book Air, sham­ing Apple for not keep­ing up with tech­nol­o­gy fea­tures. While the Mac­Book Air falls short of some of the Sur­face Pro’s fea­tures, the iPad Pro mod­els include touch ID, a sim­i­lar screen, and bet­ter cam­era res­o­lu­tion. Blue­tooth is not a con­cern either, with the Smart Key­board mak­ing a quick con­nec­tion.

Apple’s light­ning port with its var­i­ous adapters to con­nect to the iPad Pro has been a seri­ous chal­lenge for many, includ­ing me. On the oth­er hand, the Sur­face Pro has USB 3.0, a Mini Dis­play Port, and micro SD for effec­tive data trans­fer.

Audio from the Sur­face Pro doesn’t quite match the iPad Pro, but that’s typ­i­cal for a busi­ness-ori­ent­ed machine. A new low-glare dis­play and ergonom­i­cal­ly designed key­board make up for the audio, and are excel­lent for long work­ing hours. Bat­tery life is in the Mac­book Air’s favor, eas­i­ly clock­ing 17 hours in com­par­i­son tests.

The Surface Pro 4 is Microsoft’s attempt to address under-powered Tablets vs. bulky Laptops.

For a long while, the Microsoft Sur­face Pro series inter­est­ed me. But with all things Microsoft, the ini­tial mod­els seemed to be lack­ing in many respects, not to men­tion they were run­ning Win­dows RT. Many folks are all too famil­iar with Microsoft’s sput­ter­ing starts to their prod­uct devel­op­ment process. And some­times they even drop a prod­uct that’s not in their reper­toire.

Remem­ber the Zune music play­er? Learn­ing from their mis­takes and com­ing back stronger with each gen­er­a­tion is Microsoft’s call­ing card. And I for one don’t mind wait­ing a lit­tle bit longer for a supe­ri­or prod­uct.

With the release of the Sur­face Pro 4, sig­nif­i­cant improve­ments have been made. The wait-and-see caveat also extends to their oper­at­ing sys­tems, which have also vast­ly improved.

Prob­lems with the touch-screen were an issue with Win­dows 8.1, but they real­ly hit their stride with Win­dows 10, which the Sur­face Pro 4 runs.

The Sur­face Pro is a great size to work on

We’re large­ly accus­tomed to see­ing new prod­uct releas­es from Apple and Sam­sung, rather than Microsoft and oth­ers. Here’s the thing. Impres­sive devices from pow­er­house man­u­fac­tur­ers offer great third-par­ty pro­duc­tiv­i­ty retro­fits, at the expense of cost.

Although I’m gen­er­al­ly an ear­ly adopter for such devices, I would pre­fer pro­duc­tiv­i­ty equip­ment that’s inte­grat­ed and sol­id. Some­thing the new Sur­face Pro 4 boasts with its mod­u­lar design and PC-style focus. They’ve hit their stride, and con­sumers are tak­ing note.

Many great features of the Surface Pro 4 to speak of.

Some of the many fea­tures of the Sur­face Pro 4

A vari­ety of fea­tures on the Sur­face Pro 4

The Surface Pro 4 is a compact, touch-oriented versatile business machine.

Trav­el­ing is a breeze with the Sur­face Pro 4. It falls under the FAA clas­si­fi­ca­tion of PED’s (per­son­al elec­tron­ic devices), which means one less item to remove at air­port secu­ri­ty.

Easy to pull out from a full brief­case at a client’s site, the well-planned design of the Microsoft Sur­face Pro 4 makes a good first impres­sion. And its supe­ri­or graph­ics and com­put­ing pow­er means a smooth Pow­er­Point or video pre­sen­ta­tion.

Inte­gra­tion of the Sur­face Pro’s com­po­nents is unpar­al­leled, espe­cial­ly for sup­port and reli­a­bil­i­ty. Strip it down for pre­sen­ta­tions (a kick­stand is built-in), or build it up for office use. Dock­ing with a mouse, key­board, and exter­nal dis­play is also an option.

The Sur­face Pro 4 focus­es more on busi­ness, and less on enter­tain­ment than oth­er com­pa­ra­ble portable devices. This makes it a for­mi­da­ble machine and one I’d like to try.