Microsoft Surface Pro (5th Gen) (Intel Core i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB) with Platinum Cover

A great laptop. Well holds a charge. The sound of the display is so good. Perfect keyboard a touchpad. I recommend to buy. The stylus turned out to be really cool. The quality of the materials and the assembly are exactly one of the best.

Solid 4/5 stars. Pros: -Great screen: the touchscreen is responsive and the ppi density is 267, which is far better than most regular laptops, let alone touchscreen ones. -Good battery life: After over 2 years, the Surface Pro still works really well. I've used it heavily for online college classes, internet browsing, and video playback, and the battery still lasts about 8 hours depending on what it's being used for. -Good processing speed: I regularly have well over 50 tabs open at a time for research paper sources, news articles I want to read later, etc., and I've only ever had one instance where the computer or browser froze. [That said, it's not the faster laptop either, and The Sims 4 (and presumably similar games) has to be set at the lowest settings in order to run without glitching, or overheating the laptop. Small or older games like Among Us and Insaniquarium run with no issues.] -Power cord: The cord is magnetic, so it won't damage the laptop or itself if it gets pulled out unexpectedly, and it won't pull the laptop off of a table if someone trips on it. -Surface pen: the surface pen makes it very easy to use drawing programs. Have not had any issues with the pen at all. -Keyboard: the keyboard is responsive and the fabric coating has lasted far better than I thought it would. I have the silver/gray color and you'd barely know it's not brand new. Cons: -Headphone jack: the headphone jack has always been a bit buggy (the audio doesn't always switch to headphones when they are inserted), and as of last Friday, after 2 years and 3 months, the headphone jack no longer works at all, no matter what set of headphones is used with it. -Power cord: Very occasionally the laptop won't register that it's plugged in, and it has to be restarted to get it to charge. -No disk drive and no expandable storage. Overall this laptop is great as a college laptop, as a drawing tablet, or for very light games. I would not recommend this to anyone who wants to run more demanding games, or to anyone who wanted to do heavy video editing.

I have always tended to buy low end computers to minimize the cost. They have gotten the job done, but always included some frustrations. In retirement, I finally decided to treat myself to a laptop that was more powerful. I set my sights on a mid-range computer, and settled on this one because of the innovative form factor. I have been quite pleased with it's performance and flexibility. I use it as a tablet about half the time. Occasionally I fun across a site that won't do what I want in tablet form, but keeping the keyboard around is convenient. However, I've found that if you want to protect the machine with a cover, it seems impossible to find one that doesn't add lots of bulk to a design for which the slimness is a major buying factor. I bought one that works fine for protection, but will probably use it mainly when I take the computer out of the house for meetings and such. I'm torn between that cover and a simple slipcase. In any case, the computer is working out great. Very good speed and WiFi range.

It has all the power of a big bulky laptop with the size and weight of a tablet. The keyboard comes in handy when you need to hold a button and drag an object or when you want to sit at a table and type out reviews. I got the pen that goes with it and it works great! You can draw free hand, take hand written notes or draw in AutoCAD, Visio or PowerPoint easier than with a mouse. I’d say size weight and battery life make this the best computer I’ve ever owned.

At first I was happy to get such a versatile device. Later, numerous bugs started to occur in the system: e.g. without rhyme or reason lost menu for closing applications, or the computer is frozen, showing a bright mess of colors on the screen... But the last straw was the appearance of small bright dots on the screen after a couple of months using this device. They are not dead pixels since they don't disappear when switching colors, seems like a trouble with back light.

Very nice hybrid laptop/tablet. Convenience and familiarity of Windows with ease of use of a tablet. Time will tell on whether it will meets my wife's work-on-the-go needs.

It breaks my heart to give the Surface Pro 3 stars even as I write this review on it. But really the Surface Pro has not cut it. There are significant design challenges which are addressed in thoughtfully done reviews online so I will not repeat those points here except just to confirm these issues with my personal experience. Instead I will use this space to briefly discuss the "identity crisis" that is at the heart of the entire Surface program. For most of us a laptop is a production device and a tablet is a consumption device. iPad Pro and the Surface Pro are somewhere in between. But while the iPad Pro has a well developed ecosystem and clear use cases, the Surface Pro does not have either of these. As a result, the Surface Pro tries to do too much but ends up doing too little: it doesn't scratch the itch as a super friendly tablet given its design--iPad Pro wins hands down; and it doesn't resolve the problems of a highly mobile laptop user; devices from Lenovo (13.3" 730s) win hands down. Solution: I envision a 2-pronged solution to the Surface identity problem: hardware and software. The hardware solution is to create a regular feel keyboard (think 3rd party options for iPad Pro but that use the physical connectors) as opposed to the flimsy keyboard cover that Microsoft has developed. (Arguably the experience has improved over the Surface evolution but it is not even close to what a laptop replacement device needs in order to be functional). The software solution is to build a truly different tablet mode. Instead of just making the regular laptop mode touch/pen friendlier, Microsoft should give the Surface an identity makeover that makes it closer to being an iPad when the keyboard is pulled out or flipped back.

I write for a living, so I have a few different devices. This is the first Windows machine I've had in quite a number of years, I think the last one I bought in 2006, I've been a Mac user since then. I needed a Windows machine for the occasional Windows app that I need to use though and had been waffling between a cheap desktop (didn't want to space used up) or a laptop. I also have an iPad Pro though and I've really become a fan of tablets in general when aided with a keyboard option. I still consider my MacBook Pro as my go to / primary device, I wouldn't want to convey that the Surface replaces that. Rather, I'm comparing it to my iPad Pro. For the first time, in a long time, I'm seeing something in the Windows world that approaches Apple build quality. Apple laptops are expensive for a reason, they can get the price and still sell everything they make. Since getting the Surface though, the combination of Windows 10 and the hardware quality is very good. The iPad Pro beats it rather handily in graphics quality, performance, and reliability. I don't remember the last time I "rebooted" the IPad, I "have" - but it's probably less than once a month and I generally drain the battery on it every day, not an easy task with it's 10 or 12 hour rating. Honestly, the iPad Pro runs circles around this Surface in pretty much every way. - Note, the iPad Pro is very different from the standard line of iPads, I've had basically all of them over the years. What do I like about the Surface? I like having the full Windows OS - there are good & bad, for example, Netflix & Amazon won't allow me to download movies for the flights.. so .. still traveling with Apple. A disappointment for the iPad Pro when I first picked it up was the lack of "real software" - it has a lot more horsepower, so I assumed the Microsoft Office apps would be more robust - but wasn't the case, same stripped-down stuff on the standard iPad line. So the Surface fits that requirement, quite well, and I can travel a little lighter. I do really like the Surface keyboard - the Apple one is fine too. Things I don't like about the Surface. Battery life.. "meh".. maybe 1/4 the iPad. Tops. The "testing" both products undergo is very different - Surface is just a run-down watching a video, Apple rates for active work - and it's much more energy-consuming to run Word/Excel/Pages/Numbers at a high level of brightness than a "dark mode" Netflix app. I'm also wishing the screen was bigger - it really looks small compared to the iPad. The reboots seem to be about as often as any other Windows device as well.. at least once a day in other words with only negligible use and very little software installed (all Microsoft provided). Do I regret the purchase? no. Happily keeping it.