Microsoft Surface BOOK 4

Ksynth · Post by **Ksynth** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 3:36 pm

Bachus wrote:
Ksynth wrote:Interesting article re the graphics chip on the Surface Book Pro.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2989906/ ... atter.html
No quad cores, to bad, as daws are one of the few applications really utiliziing multi core/threading ... Combined with the 16GB of memmory limit, this disquallifies these surface products for serious music computing..

I will stick to my selfbuild 27" touchscreen all in one hackintosh...

They've sold out of the highest version for now on the Microsoft Shop. Interesting.

Bald Eagle · Post by **Bald Eagle** » Mon Oct 12, 2015 4:26 pm

Bachus wrote:
Ksynth wrote:Interesting article re the graphics chip on the Surface Book Pro.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2989906/ ... atter.html
No quad cores, to bad, as daws are one of the few applications really utiliziing multi core/threading ... Combined with the 16GB of memmory limit, this disquallifies these surface products for serious music computing..

I will stick to my selfbuild 27" touchscreen all in one hackintosh...

Yeah, the lack of a quad core version lowers my interest quite a bit. Plus I believe the processor speeds quoted are for single mode turbo operation. Will be slower under heavy use when it heats up. Still looks like a nice high end tablet/ mid range laptop.

I was looking at getting the Soundcraft 22 MTK which can send/return 22 channels over USB to use for DAW plugin FX or scratch pad recording. I wonder which Surface could handle that load.

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Tue Oct 13, 2015 3:22 pm

Honestly the sellng point of tablets is the form factor, not the cpu power, even if it's a "high end" tablet it's still a tablet. Just like the fastest laptop is still slower than the fastest desktop. Heat dissipation, component size and price basically put limits on what is feasible. By the time there are quad core tablets with 64GB of RAM people will be complaining that they aren't octacore or more and can't have 1TB of RAM.

aron · Post by **aron** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:27 am

Then there is a crappy limitation of 3 hour battery life when undocked from the keyboard. The iPad gets 10+ hours easily. 3 hours can't even cover a decent gig without having to plug it in somehow.

Other than the pen - there are tons of these tablet/laptops in best buy.

SanderXpander · Post by **SanderXpander** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:35 am

True but the iPad is severely limited by using iOS, in comparison.

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 10:22 am

SanderXpander wrote:True but the iPad is severely limited by using iOS, in comparison.

They are just 2 diffent types of fruit that you can not compare...

Ipad has its uses... But you can not compare it to a windows or mac osx based system, its much to closed to give the freedom you want when building a daw or the likes..

aron · Post by **aron** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 5:35 pm

Yes the iPad is limited compared to a full blown laptop BUT the software it runs is incredible. We never had the assortment of software that the iPad runs now on our laptops and for those prices. It is a really great music addition.

Another thing is I believe that if we had a Surface Book - most of us musicians could afford only one and we would purchase a high end one. That would become our main computer. I would not - and still do not have my main computer on stage where it can be stolen or damaged.

But I am in the minority - apparently a lot of people run laptops on stage. I don't know how they do it. I stopped a while ago when I realized flying cables have the amazing ability to go for screens and in Hawaii - rain is a serious and possible issue.

For all I know, maybe a majority of musicians would all of a sudden become Windows users - who knows. I use Logic Pro and it would be tough to switch for me.

burningbusch · Post by **burningbusch** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 6:12 pm

I have the Surface Pro 4 on order. It makes more sense for me than the Book. Less money, somewhat smaller/lighter, with really the same performance. The only real performance gain with the Book comes when you get the discrete graphics and you only need that for gaming, 3D, etc.

The Surface Pro 4, when matched with something like the Novation AudioHub ($199) gives you a nice audio interface plus a USB hub for connecting keyboards or iLoks, etc.

The pen support for the Microsoft products is growing with audio/music products. There is Staffpad and Sibelius, as well as Bitwig all providing specific support for the Surface Pro pen. Of course, this will work with the Book as well.

Nine hours battery with the SP 4.

Busch.

John Hendry · Post by **John Hendry** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 9:13 pm

Kevin Nolan wrote:
@skinmechanic: I don't accept your argument for lack of 32 GB in slightly thinner devices:

- my early 2011 17" MBP is not THAT thin - and - copes with 16 GB without batting an eye lid. I am confident that if extra slots were available, it would cope with 32 GB, no problem. There is no "bandwidth" issue with that amount of RAM any more.
- they've had 5 years to make this happen - you're saying it wasn't possible - that that's some sort of fundamental issue they can't sort, yet putting 16BG on board was done without blinking? It doesn't add up.

these companies are clamping artificiality so force sales of desktops. that's my opinion on it. There simply cannot be a technical issue with this that has been unsolvable in 5 years - that would be preposterous.

Memory has been a huge $money$ maker since the first 286... "these companies are clamping artificiality" I agree 100% but not so sure it's to sell desktops... it might just be bad habit. To say they can't put in 32 GB of memory is just to make the next model needed and they are starting off early IMO.

aron · Post by **aron** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 4:56 am

>Nine hours battery with the SP 4.

Let us know how it runs in real life. Apparently the surface 3 was 10 hours continuous video, but testing said it was around 4-5. What is the aspect ratio of the Surface Pro 4?

gjvti · Post by **gjvti** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 7:38 am

aron wrote:Yes the iPad is limited compared to a full blown laptop BUT the software it runs is incredible. We never had the assortment of software that the iPad runs now on our laptops and for those prices. It is a really great music addition....

There is one huge problem with iOS apps though - incompatibility - with each ios some apps, which are not maintained, get incompatible and there are new ones, which run on the latest ios version exclusively - so it is very likely you can't run all the apps you want to use on the single ios device at the time (also ios downgrade options are severely limited). Moreover if you work with wav or video files using more than one app you end up several copies of that large files (this is because ios doesn't allows direct file sharing between apps) eating you precious tiny disc storage what again prohibits you from using all the apps you want. Also you can hardly charge your iOS device while connecting any peripheral device (there are just few hardware options and rather unreliable wireless midi/sound transmission).

This is not the case with windows where app compatibility is kept more or less constant (backwards compatible) and each app has direct access to the files in single user content pool and you have separate connections for charging and peripheral devices - controllers/soundcards.

So to sum up - I see that for music making ios is good only as real-time hardware plugin/plug out - sound synthesis/effects, touch-screen midi control as well as notation and similar tasks and only thanks to affordable pricing mechanisms for those apps. Windows/OSX is for DAW, mixing and everything else.

This is so not because iOS devices (the latest in particular) are not capable of doing more, but because apple don't wants us to do more on ios as making something certainly in not intended use for ios devices - intended use of those is media content consuming.

jimknopf · Post by **jimknopf** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 8:32 am

Windows 10 enforced updates, allowing Microsoft to install on my hardware whatever they want, whenenver they want (greetings to NSA and other anti-democratic molehills), is an absolute no go for me. And the possibility of delaying these updates (which Microsoft can cut anytime), instead of leaving the choice to users like before up to Windows 8, does not change anything to me. So no Windows 10 hardware has any chance to get into my house, as long as this Microsoft dictatorship doesn't stop.

The European high court has alread judged that the present "safe harbour" agreement with the USA is illegal and completely incompatible with European civil rights. I hope they will kick Microsofts OS abuse into neverland just as well, at least here in Europe.

Today I read that Microsoft has begun to enforce Windows 10 updates on Windows 7 and 8 users in the USA. I saw screens where you have no option but an agree button with a one hour countdown for restarting your OS. I can only hope that these news will show up as wrong. And if MS should ever dare to try something like that in Europe (I wonder where the American spirit of liberty and independence has gone???) they should
a) be condemnded to pay billions for that impertinence
b) be forced to come back to norms of democratic civilisations by means of legal enforcement.

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:29 pm

jimknopf wrote:Windows 10 enforced updates, allowing Microsoft to install on my hardware whatever they want, whenenver they want (greetings to NSA and other anti-democratic molehills), is an absolute no go for me. And the possibility of delaying these updates (which Microsoft can cut anytime), instead of leaving the choice to users like before up to Windows 8, does not change anything to me. So no Windows 10 hardware has any chance to get into my house, as long as this Microsoft dictatorship doesn't stop.

The European high court has alread judged that the present "safe harbour" agreement with the USA is illegal and completely incompatible with European civil rights. I hope they will kick Microsofts OS abuse into neverland just as well, at least here in Europe.

Today I read that Microsoft has begun to enforce Windows 10 updates on Windows 7 and 8 users in the USA. I saw screens where you have no option but an agree button with a one hour countdown for restarting your OS. I can only hope that these news will show up as wrong. And if MS should ever dare to try something like that in Europe (I wonder where the American spirit of liberty and independence has gone???) they should
a) be condemnded to pay billions for that impertinence
b) be forced to come back to norms of democratic civilisations by means of legal enforcement.

.

Windows dictatorship, Apple dictatorship.... Sounds like the choice of 2 evils.... As long as most oof the VSTs are not working reliable and efficient on Linux, you dont have much choice, do you?

99% of all people dont care at all about this, they just want to have a reliable allways working system... And since they are mere simple users, they are better of with atleast some automation where it comes to securrity and updates..

After all these allegiations, its a wonder to me, not more people are using Linux...

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:39 pm

But back to the formfactor of these books...

I am using a 27" touchscreen all in one format(hackintosh), which works much much more efficient then these small screens... So unless you are using this in a gig, there are better and cheaper that are more efficient to work with...

And thats witouth taking notice of the fact that Mac OSX still has a lead over Windows 10 when it comes to DAW efficiency, lattency,stabillity and performance...

Ksynth · Post by **Ksynth** » Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:43 pm

http://winsupersite.com/windows-10/how- ... our-system

Korg Forums

Microsoft Surface BOOK 4

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