The Microsoft Surface 4 Pro has been a device that I’ve been interested in for quite a while, and when given the opportunity to test drive it, I was very excited. My career means I am usually on the move, and my meetings very quickly jump from business oriented to creative brainstorming sessions and back again. I will meet some clients at their office, others a coffee shop, a job site, or over the phone. What interested me most about the Surface Pro 4 was its ability to give me the power of a desktop computer in such a small size. The business-end of things usually includes Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, project management, etc. and the Surface Pro 4 lets me flip out the attached keyboard and type-in data but also allows me to use the pen or touch screen interface to quickly select a particular field. At the same time, I’m able to open design files and the processing power of the Surface is enough to keep up as we tweak or comment on designs using the pen to draw notes right on the image file.
The portability is better than my laptop, since I can quickly toss the surface under my arm and walk around rather than lug-around my entire computer bag. I hadn’t really known at first that this was a big deal, but after a month of such a light device to carry around, I found going back to my laptop felt like I was trading-in a smartphone for a brick phone.
When we took the device with the family for a short road trip, I could easily prop the Surface up for my kids in the back seat so they could watch a movie which is something I can’t do with my laptop, as there’s simply no place to put it. The kids were even able to use the pen to draw on the screen, giving me some much-needed down time.
One of my biggest draws to the Surface is that fact that it runs an actual desktop OS like Windows. I also have a tablet, but the limitations of its OS just don’t let me run the software I need, making it sort of useless for me. I was concerned at first that I may not use the Surface since my last couple of tablets are in a corner somewhere collecting dust. When the device asked me if I would like to stay in computer-mode or switch to tablet-mode I was very happy. Given the choice to stay in computer-mode meant sticking with an interface I was familiar with and the ability to navigate as I expect a computer should. That’s really what I wanted…a robust powerful computer that was as portable as a tablet.
All in all, the Surface Pro 4 has been able to do everything my laptop can do, but in a smaller and more convenient size. From paperwork to artwork, it is a fast and dependable tool. I have every confidence that it would keep up with everything my job requires of me, and it’s great that I can just as quickly switch to play mode and watch a movie or draw something with my kids on the couch, which just doesn’t work on a conventional laptop. I would like to thank Christine Bays, Commercial Digital Community Manager, and Jarrod Goldsmith of eSAX – The Entrepreneur Social Advantage Experience for providing me with access to the Surface Pro 4 for the month in order to review it and the opportunity to let the Entrepreneurial community know how Microsoft ensures an effective and reliable way to do business in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Tony Snippe – Co-Founder
