MacBook or Surface Pro

[Chess]

All:

I am about to pull the trigger on a new laptop, and honestly I don't know what to get. I have always had my company buy me a project laptop and its been a Dell or HP etc.

This laptop will be used for the following:

Music
Movies
M$ suite
Web Surfing
Some video editing with my sons go pro videos
Network Configuring at work (rtr,sw,fw etc)

I will not play games on it

I like the weight of the Surface.

*note* I have $300 at best blows in rewards certs.. I'd like to use, its not a dealer breaker but you know how that goes...

 

[DaveSimmons]

One thing to keep in mind is at least some Surface models are not expandable, not repairable, and you may not be able to recover any data if the Surface is not bootable. They glue the parts together and you might not be able to de-glue the SSD without destroying it.

That just means you can't be lazy with backups, and you probably should pay the extra for the extended warranty with accidental damage protection.

My boss broke the power button on his Surface Book, and the only option was to exchange it for a new one. Luckily he had most of his documents backed up to cloud storage.

 

[Chess]

Dave: Thats is good to know ! I appreciate it sir !!

 

[DaveSimmons]

You can google for "ifixit teardown <laptop-model>" to see if they've taken it apart. That will tell you whether it's repairable or expandable.

 

[gdansk]

I had the Surface Pro 4, MacBook Pro 13 (2017 and 2014), and a Thinkpad X1 Carbon. Of those four, I'd say the MacBooks are the best built. They have the best screens and trackpad. The keyboard on the new models are really a downgrade compared to the previous model. Of those four, Thinkpad has the best keyboard. Anyway, I end up using it docked half the time. If you'll be running Windows on it then MacBooks are definitely not worth it.

 

[giantpandaman2]

Sounds like you've lived in a PC ecosystem. I'd stick with the Surface Pro because of that. Not sure you'll take advantage of the portability/flexibility it offers, so if switching from Windows to MacOS is fine for you, then it's a wash.

Both are going to struggle a little when it comes to editing movies. To handle those easily, however, you'd have to move up to a 15" Macbook Pro or 15" Surface Book. Both are extraordinarily expensive for what you get.

 

[Raduque]

Surface pro keyboard costs extra.

Maybe consider the Surface Laptop instead, since you're cross-shopping with Macbooks?

 

[bhoff2]

This question is about a year old now - but the new iPad Pro seems like another good choice, for those coming across this question.