Accessories are part and parcel of the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 experience, and while one comes with the Pro 4, another does not and yet should.
In the box, you’ll find a new generation of the pen stylus, offering a slight redesign that makes an edge of the pen feel more like a pencil, and this edge even sports a long magnet that now makes the pen properly adhere to the side of the Surface Pro 4.
In fact, this update — making the pen stick — is one of our favourite changes, because finally, Microsoft has gotten the message that some people would like to have their Surface hold the pen and charge at the same time, and has thus separated the areas. Previously, this could not be done due to the magnetic edge being on the same side as the power adaptor, but now your pen goes on the left and your power adaptor stays on the right. As a lefty, this reviewer is chuffed!
Design of the pen hasn’t changed drastically, but the performance, as noted before, does feel slicker, and Microsoft even brings in tips for the pen, too, utilising as much as 1024 levels of pressure, which will make the difference for artists reliant on this sort of accuracy and control.
And there’s even a rubber now on the back, which is an interesting inclusion if you need it, with supported apps allowing you to erase away your work simply by flipping the pencil and scrubbing it away, much like you would with a real pencil.
The other accessory that has changed is the keyboard, but unfortunately, Microsoft still makes this an optional $199.95 purchase. You’ll want this, mind you, so add this into the cost of any Microsoft Surface Pro 4 purchase, because while the Pro 4 is a computer in its own right, a decent keyboard is what makes it a usable one, and this is definitely a decent keyboard.
We’re a few generations into the Surface line-up, but we’re glad to see Microsoft has given up on the whole membrane-based “touch keyboard” concept, because it wasn’t really going anywhere with it, and has instead focused all its energy on making a super thin and easy to use button-based keyboard.
Over the years, the TypeCover keyboards have been getting better, but in the most recent iteration (Surface Pro 4 Type Cover), we feel like we have a keyboard with which we can call home.
Finally, the keys are spaced apart with gutter and margin, as Microsoft moves its super thin fabric-encased keyboards to the island-key design pretty much every keyboard arrives in these days, so that’s positive, and finally the trackpad feels like it matches, now including a lovely and slick glass button with the whole thing supporting multi-touch gestures, so that’s good too.
But perhaps what’s best about this unit is how it feels, and it feels simply stellar.
We write on a lot of keyboards, with our computer and tablet reviews written on the devices when they can be, and sometimes we go a lot further and even write books on them, too, and after writing a good 20,000 words on the Surface Pro 4 in a little under two weeks, we can say with certainty that this a lovely set of keys, with just enough travel to feel like you’re making the strokes count, an individual backlight for each key with four stages of backlighting, and a comfortable palm grip that feels more like a firm pillow than a cold hard block.
Microsoft Surface Pro keyboards don’t have the greatest of track records with this reviewer, mind you, so we’ll see how this goes, but the Pro 4 keyboard is already off to a good start, and being connected is part of what makes this good.
While some tablet keyboard cases rely on Bluetooth, the physical magnetic connection between the Pro 4 and its Type Cover case help it in the long run, not just because you can use it on every flight without the fear that flight mode will disable its functionality, but because it helps to make your words appear on the screen just that much faster.
Battery life hasn’t changed much either, and while the Surface Pro 4 feels like it would technically be “ultrabook-class” if people still used that term, its battery performance isn’t in the 6 to 12 hours that some ultra-light machines go for.
Rather, we’re getting closer to 5 hours all up, sometimes a little more, dependent on what we’re doing. Most of our work tests have had us writing (we write a lot) or working in Adobe Photoshop and Audition, though we’ve also spent a fair amount of time browsing the web in Google Chrome and even Microsoft’s Edge browser. When we stick mostly to WiFi, writing, and web surfing, we’ve been able to stretch the time to around 6 hours of life, but once you throw something a little more performance intensive in there, you see the time drop, with Photoshop able to push the life down to 3 to 4.
That’s not horrific life, but it’s not absolutely amazing either, though it does give us a gentle nudge that perhaps Microsoft’s Surface Book (or another laptop with a larger battery) might be a better option for our usage scenario.
We are a little critical over the “if it ain’t broke” philosophy in some areas, though, because as good as the Pro 4 is, some of these areas did need fixing, and one of these is the paint job on the back of the magnesium body which picked up scratches all too easily last year and, wouldn’t you know it, still picks up scratches too easily.
There’s not much in the GadgetGuy reviewer backpack, but apparently there was enough to cause a couple of scratches only a few hours after grabbing the Surface Pro 4 out of the box, which is just maddening. In comparison, we’ve been hauling a 13 inch aluminium MacBook Pro around for the better part of six months and it hasn’t picked up a single scratch.
That’s the thing about high quality metal alloys: they make for super durable and fairly light computers, but if you don’t treat them with the right coating, they can still look as cheap as plastic, and unless you treat the back of the Surface Pro 4 with kid gloves, it may just end up looking like that.
Microsoft should also have changed over one of its ports, and while its Mini DisplayPort gets a viewing here, left over from the last two versions, there should probably have been a changing of the guard.
What to, you ask? Why Type C USB, of course!
And here’s why: Type C USB is already being called the next generation standard port, and while not many laptops support it yet, paired with the right chipset, it can provide faster speeds than USB 3.0, either using the slightly faster USB 3.1 or the ridiculously faster Thunderbolt 3. In truth, Microsoft could have probably found a way to get either of those in the Pro 4, and given how its upcoming Windows Phones both feature USB Type C power and data ports at the bottom in lieu of the current standard of microUSB, it’s surprising to say the least the Microsoft didn’t follow suit here.
Used as Thunderbolt, the Type C USB port could have easily replaced Mini DisplayPort since they kind of do the same thing, and it could have been used for data, too, which the Mini DisplayPort on the Surface Pro 4 cannot.
That’s why the ports bother us a bit on the Pro 4: Microsoft wants the Surface Pro 4 to be a vision of the future, of what a tablet can be like when it is designed to be perfectly matched to its operating system, which it is for the most part.
When you pick up the Surface Pro 4 and start messing around with it, you’ll find it’s the first time Windows 10 really and properly shines. It’s not just an operating system that does what Windows 8 should have done, and not expect us all to live in a touchscreen world. Rather, this focused and fine-tuned, and it’s a vision of both a mouse-dependent and touch-possible Windows for people who love Windows.
This reviewers loves Windows, and is delighted to see hardware finally tweaked to take advantage of everything that is Windows, but the problem with Surface Pro 4 is that it feels like it is the “everything that is Windows” solely for today and not so much for tomorrow.
In a world where computers change every minute, this seems a little short sighted, and while Microsoft could have reduced the thickness of the tablet by ditching the full-size USB port, this isn’t as big a deal to us. It’s thin enough for a laptop, even if it’s not thin enough for a tablet.
But no futuristic USB Type C port for high-speed data, 4K video output, and even the possibility of charging a Type C phone from late this year or next? That gets a sigh.
Finally, there are some catches to the Pro 4 worth noting, however, as these may occur with you, and they’re your typical set of laptop bugs, though some of them seem to push more towards Surface than others.
Like not turning on at all.
This is definitely a Surface-specific bug we’ve come across before in Pro 2, Pro 3, and now Pro 4 — tada, it’s a trio of troubles! — and it basically consists of the screen not powering on when you’re trying to get the laptop up from sleep.
Such a helpful bug this one, we’ve seen it before, so we know you basically have to hold the power button for 30 seconds (count them) to kill all power from the machine, similar to the old PC trick of holding the power button for five whole seconds which would do the same on any laptop or desktop, and still does, for the most part.
After you’ve done this, let go of the power button, wait a second or two, and either press the power button quickly again to turn it on and see Surface come to life in its boot menu (which you can press restart from) or, alternatively, press that power button while holding the volume up for 15 seconds before letting go, as per Microsoft’s support website.
It’s frustrating to see this sort of bug on such a new machine, and again, it’s such a Microsoft Surface-specific bug that it can really grind at you, especially if you just went out and bought the new machine. Still, there’s a solution, and at least you can know something about it before it eventually happens. Here’s hoping it doesn’t eventually happen to you.
Conclusion
When it comes to Windows tablets, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 easily leads the pack, and while the changes might not appear to be much, you have to look beneath the surface (sorry!) to see what Microsoft is doing.
Frankly, there isn’t one thing in the Pro 4 that makes it excellent. It’s not, for instance, the new processor, nor is it the tightening of the design, the improved pen, or the changes to the keyboard. It’s not even the better screen, though it is a lot better, and we wish more displays were like this.
Rather, it’s everything.
What makes the Surface Pro 4 brilliant is that Microsoft has made the entire tablet come together in a brilliant little package, warts and all.
While we wish the bugs would be squashed sooner rather than later and the keyboard were thrown in for the price, as well as Microsoft approving new ports to replace these older standards, the Surface Pro 4 is a brilliant little computer for today that could function just as well for tomorrow.
When version five rocks up, we suspect Microsoft will have totally nailed it, though, so if you want the best of the best, you may want to wait until then. If you can’t wait, no worries, because the Surface Pro 4 is good to go today.
