Microsoft Surface 3 "best tablet/laptop"
- Thread starter haven
- Start date
Aussie Iron
Explorer
I'm using Ozi-Explorer (with Hema maps) on my Surface pro 3 with a Garmin Glo blue tooth Gps unit. For charging while in the vehicle I use a cig lighter charger available but non-genuine.
Dan.
After a year of struggling with it, I stopped using the Surface 3.
The battery charging was flaky. I would charge it overnight and awake to find the battery was dead. This happened one or two times a month.
It would randomly decided to update windows and take 30 minutes to two hours to come back up. This happened weekly
The mapping integration of a bad elf has a lot more options on the ipads. The map support in windows is mediocre. I replaced the surface 3 with an Ipad Pro 9.7 that is much more flexible, has a stylus, and if you want, it has a keyboard.
Maybe the Surface 4Pros are better, but they are no longer that small. I wanted something a bit smaller that I could carry more easily and use with maps like Gaia and Delorme Earthmate.
The battery charging was flaky. I would charge it overnight and awake to find the battery was dead. This happened one or two times a month.
It would randomly decided to update windows and take 30 minutes to two hours to come back up. This happened weekly
The mapping integration of a bad elf has a lot more options on the ipads. The map support in windows is mediocre. I replaced the surface 3 with an Ipad Pro 9.7 that is much more flexible, has a stylus, and if you want, it has a keyboard.
Maybe the Surface 4Pros are better, but they are no longer that small. I wanted something a bit smaller that I could carry more easily and use with maps like Gaia and Delorme Earthmate.
I sold my 2 surface 3s as well. I never had the flaky charging only because the dock fixed that issue. but small storage, and I did not like the keyboard. I hope they make a new 10" surface I would buy one again, I know they would have fixed those issues then. I now have 2 dell computers. A 13" 5000 2 in 1 for me and a 11" 3000 2 in 1 for my wife. I just got my new notebook today and its awesome already. I am upgrading the memory to either 16 or 32 gb and adding a 1 tb SSD in mine and going to install 8gb of ram and a 1tb SSD in my wifes. We do ALOT of traveling and the size of the surface 3s were perfect for most things but its nice to have the bigger screen of the 13" notebook. It still becomes a tablet too which is kinda cool as well.
Michael-Dallas
New member
I tracked my charging issues w/ my Surface 3 to the factory micro-USB charging cable - the micro-USB connector loses tension over time and doesn't make good contact w/ the Surface 3. All is good after replacing the factory micro-USB charging cable w/ an Anker micro-USB cable.
We use the surface 3 at work. Ambulance company, you couldn't get me to spend money out that crap if you put a gun to my head. They are not hard use and the charging issues are just the worse. 30-40 rigs a day and we turn in as supervisors 10-15 each day for "fixing" never no no
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Yes, there are some impovements that need to be made. The size is perfect for travel, it was fast enough. The charging was terrible, and keyboard was as well. Need to ditch that fuzzy covering on it because it wears and looks bad, and it needs stronger material inside. It flexed like a bugger. The beginnings of a great machine is there....Just need some ironing out of the details. right now I am on my new dell 13" 2 in 1. Its awesome. I cannot wait for my new ram and SSD after Christmas.
Tool_Man_Taylor
New member
Hey guys I just got the new surface pro 4 with the i7 chip, it still doesn't have offline gps capability but I didn't want to go with iPad Pro because it still doesn't place flash and is still recognized as a tablet online and full website access sucks on them. So the surface pro 4 really replaces a computer for me...
I need some help with gps and maps part of it, I'm going on a overland trip in about a month in my 15 4Runner and I bought I good mount system..
what have y'all had good experience with? I wanted to use the hema app after hearing some great things about it but it isn't Microsoft friendly...
Btw I'm super new to mapping and tracking part of this, I'm use to getting in the truck and just going, so as much knowledge as you can pass on I would appreciate it.
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I need some help with gps and maps part of it, I'm going on a overland trip in about a month in my 15 4Runner and I bought I good mount system..
what have y'all had good experience with? I wanted to use the hema app after hearing some great things about it but it isn't Microsoft friendly...
Btw I'm super new to mapping and tracking part of this, I'm use to getting in the truck and just going, so as much knowledge as you can pass on I would appreciate it.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
A good GPS to try is the Bad Elf Pro +. It handles tracking offline at a waypoint per second. It is very accurate. It then is able to download to handheld devices or to PCs. It can also connect as a realtime GPS device via Bluetooth.
One trick though, the GPX files are stored in some sort of compressed format and can be extremely long. If you want to download directly to a PC, you need to convert that large file to a flat text-based GPX file.
The better way to use it is to download to your mobile device (via Bluetooth) and decompress on the phone or tablet using the bad elf app. Then you can move it wherever you want or import to Gaia or google earth or whatever your favorite GPX reader is.
One trick though, the GPX files are stored in some sort of compressed format and can be extremely long. If you want to download directly to a PC, you need to convert that large file to a flat text-based GPX file.
The better way to use it is to download to your mobile device (via Bluetooth) and decompress on the phone or tablet using the bad elf app. Then you can move it wherever you want or import to Gaia or google earth or whatever your favorite GPX reader is.
The surface is a full computer, unlike the ipad/pro. That's why they are superior to the ipad. I own an ipad, surface 3, asus vivotab, dell 2 in 1s etc. I sold my surface 3's for reasons posted earlier. I just installed 16gb of crucial ballistix ram in my dell inspiron 13 5000, and just re ordered my 2tb firecuda drive. Also, I have ordered 8gb of ballistix and a 1tb firecuda for my wifes inspiron 11 3000. We love our computers. Best ones we have owned. More so with the upgrades. I hated using my MacBook when I owned it. MacOS is a mish mash OS. I love my ipad for magazines, general usage and sitting on the sofa. But for real work, the dells flex their muscles. The surface had keyboard issues, lack of ram and storage was a big downer for me too!
Kiriesh
Adventurer
I think "superiority" depends on the application. I have an iPad Pro and my SO has a Surface 4(? whichever model was the 12" from a couple years ago). We're both students so both get used a lot for notetaking and general educational usage. I don't think the pro could replace a computer for anybody beyond casual users, but for overlanding the mapping solutions I've been trying out lately have been great. Since it is limited to iOS, any application on it is touch-optimized on oppose to solutions using the surface (I'm sure there are some good ones and bad ones). Unless you're willing to use a keyboard with either, the iPad seems to have a leg up with the touch optimization. Without a doubt though if I needed an all-in-one I'd buy the surface over the ipad any day. I love macOS and limit my win10 usage to exclusively occasional gaming, but that's mainly because of my affection for UNIX.