Surface Book problem- law school exams Forum

[texasrangersjb]

7

[Nachoo2019]

I just got the new MacBook Pro and it comes with a $200 discount and free $200 wireless beats if you buy it and show that it is for college!

I would highly recommend it! The Mac book pro I currently own was purchased in 2011 when I started undergrad and it still works, but my parents offered to get me a new one anyway! Can't go wrong with MacBooks

[texasrangersjb]

I just got the new MacBook Pro and it comes with a $200 discount and free $200 wireless beats if you buy it and show that it is for college!

I would highly recommend it! The Mac book pro I currently own was purchased in 2011 when I started undergrad and it still works, but my parents offered to get me a new one anyway! Can't go wrong with MacBooks

Ok cool, do you use Microsoft Office on it? Sounds like that computer has worked for a long time for you. Thanks for the recommendation.

[Mack.Hambleton]

yes office works on macs

[Nachoo2019]

Yeah I do use Microsoft office!

Also, I have dropped, dented, scratched, spilled on, and left this computer turned on in my car in 120 degree heat and it is still working!

[tsujimoto74]

Yeah I do use Microsoft office!

Also, I have dropped, dented, scratched, spilled on, and left this computer turned on in my car in 120 degree heat and it is still working!

Solid state harddrive? I got one of those in my most recent MacBook, because I know exactly how clumsy I am. Highly recommend.

[Barack O'Drama]

I just got the new MacBook Pro and it comes with a $200 discount and free $200 wireless beats if you buy it and show that it is for college!

I would highly recommend it! The Mac book pro I currently own was purchased in 2011 when I started undergrad and it still works, but my parents offered to get me a new one anyway! Can't go wrong with MacBooks

TCR , especially for law school where you'll need reliability, compatibility, and lightweight.

[34iplaw]

Yeah I do use Microsoft office!

Also, I have dropped, dented, scratched, spilled on, and left this computer turned on in my car in 120 degree heat and it is still working!

Solid state harddrive? I got one of those in my most recent MacBook, because I know exactly how clumsy I am. Highly recommend.

SSDs are AWESOME! Not going to scratch a drive if you leave it on by accident and toss it in your bag...

That said...definitely make sure you use the cloud and some other form of backup. At least two. If your SSD crashes, you're pretty much toast in terms of recovering anything.

[Nachoo2019]

Yeah I do use Microsoft office!

Also, I have dropped, dented, scratched, spilled on, and left this computer turned on in my car in 120 degree heat and it is still working!

Solid state harddrive? I got one of those in my most recent MacBook, because I know exactly how clumsy I am. Highly recommend.

SSDs are AWESOME! Not going to scratch a drive if you leave it on by accident and toss it in your bag...

That said...definitely make sure you use the cloud and some other form of backup. At least two. If your SSD crashes, you're pretty much toast in terms of recovering anything.

I dont even know what a solid state hard drive is. I have the original basic hard drive that came with the basic 13 inch macbook pro when I bought it 5 or 6 years ago lol

[tsujimoto74]

Yeah I do use Microsoft office!

Also, I have dropped, dented, scratched, spilled on, and left this computer turned on in my car in 120 degree heat and it is still working!

Solid state harddrive? I got one of those in my most recent MacBook, because I know exactly how clumsy I am. Highly recommend.

SSDs are AWESOME! Not going to scratch a drive if you leave it on by accident and toss it in your bag...

That said...definitely make sure you use the cloud and some other form of backup. At least two. If your SSD crashes, you're pretty much toast in terms of recovering anything.

I feel like a terrible member of my generation for admitting this, but I don't get the cloud thing. I can't figure out how it works.
I do have a pair of external hardrives for backing stuff up, though.

[34iplaw]

Yeah I do use Microsoft office!

Also, I have dropped, dented, scratched, spilled on, and left this computer turned on in my car in 120 degree heat and it is still working!

Solid state harddrive? I got one of those in my most recent MacBook, because I know exactly how clumsy I am. Highly recommend.

SSDs are AWESOME! Not going to scratch a drive if you leave it on by accident and toss it in your bag...

That said...definitely make sure you use the cloud and some other form of backup. At least two. If your SSD crashes, you're pretty much toast in terms of recovering anything.

I dont even know what a solid state hard drive is. I have the original basic hard drive that came with the basic 13 inch macbook pro when I bought it 5 or 6 years ago lol

A convention HDD is a spinning disk that a laser reads. If you jostle it around while the computer is on, you may hear a "EHHHRHHH" kind of sound. That is your hard drive disk scraping against something as it spins. Obviously, not good for it. It's also a moving part, so there is some stuff to fail. It needs to start spinning for your computer to read it and boot...hence it's slow. If it fails, there is a chance to recover data off of it, as it is physically written on a disk.

A SDD is like your entire computer being on a thumb drive or a stick of ram. It has no moving parts and will boot almost instantaneously. I can turn my laptop on and be in word within seconds [not that this is really that big of an advantage, but it is nice!]. Data is accessed and opened faster [that's a nicer part], and you don't have to worry about it being left on or in a "on state" with the HDD being scratched. That said, my SDD failed recently. I lost everything on the laptop, but, due to some other element of it, Microsoft fixed my computer and set it back up for free by accident.

Not a huge deal, but it's worth looking into if you are upgrading in the future. I wouldn't recommend it if you aren't good about having backups not on your physical machine though. They are cost effective enough now where you can get a machine with good enough storage [unless you do media] without spending a fortune. It used to be like 50x more expensive [i.e. a 100gb SSD would cost as much as a 5000GB/5TB HDD]...now it's like 10x ore expensive...and they don't really make HDDs less than a TB anymore...and who needs a TB if not in media.

34iplaw wrote:
tsujimoto74 wrote:
Nachoo2019 wrote:
Yeah I do use Microsoft office!

Also, I have dropped, dented, scratched, spilled on, and left this computer turned on in my car in 120 degree heat and it is still working!


Solid state harddrive? I got one of those in my most recent MacBook, because I know exactly how clumsy I am. Highly recommend.


SSDs are AWESOME! Not going to scratch a drive if you leave it on by accident and toss it in your bag...

That said...definitely make sure you use the cloud and some other form of backup. At least two. If your SSD crashes, you're pretty much toast in terms of recovering anything.


I feel like a terrible member of my generation for admitting this, but I don't get the cloud thing. I can't figure out how it works.
I do have a pair of external hardrives for backing stuff up, though.

You're basically renting hard drive space located somewhere else [or it's being provided as part of some other service you use or as a perk of a product you own]. That's all cloud storage is. It's basically decentralized computing...that's all. An early example that isn't storage would be SETI.

It's kind of a big deal...

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJROVOsmz2I[/youtube]

[OutOfTheQuestion]

I have a Surface Book too and I love it, but I share your concerns. In my experience, the SB crashes mostly right after coming out of sleep mode. Is yours crashing in the middle of work?

[lebongenre]

I have a Surface Book too and I love it, but I share your concerns. In my experience, the SB crashes mostly right after coming out of sleep mode. Is yours crashing in the middle of work?

Also interested in this. I have a Surface 3 that I love and was considering going for the Surfacebook, but lately my Surface has been crashing nonstop and I'm wondering if I can trust the laptop version for exams

[Nachoo2019]

Sounds like you guys need to jump on the MacBook train

[OutOfTheQuestion]

Sounds like you guys need to jump on the MacBook train

I genuinely wish I could jump on that bandwagon but I just hate the OS. I know I'm a minority opinion in that but I prefer Windows by a ton.

[lebongenre]

I probably will go back to Mac, but I'll sorely miss the Surface touch screen Especially for note taking

[PSPSPSPS]

So I was given a Surface Book, i5 w/ NVIDIA graphics card for graduating UG six months ago.

Beautiful screen, blazing fast, good for an occasional gamer, but there's a problem...

I don't really trust it for law school exams. It crashes about once a day.

It's a bit sad really, as this is a 'high end' laptop. But I can't trust it for one important thing. The Surface Book is meant as a laptop-first, tablet second device, and it certainly serves as a good laptop. But the electronic detach function and hardware is buggy-- IMO what is leading to these crashes. As nice as the SB is, it's a beta product and the first of what will likely be a long line of quality devices.

My two questions are--- what would you do in my situation and what laptop do you recommend? I could get help financially with another cheaper, more reliable computer, but shoot I feel like I'm throwing away money that's not mine.

I love One Note and will try to get familiar with it and like Microsoft, but not totally against getting a Mac.

In trying to be a little self-aware here, I know to some this may come off as entitled and snobby. So ya, sorry for that.

Just checking.. do you let it auto update? They sent an update in mid December that fixed this problem for me. Also installing the app "caffeine" and running it if you are using the computer for a long period of time can be helpful as the problem is with the display driver turning off. Caffeine prevents it from turning off for the time period you choose.

[OutOfTheQuestion]

For anyone reading this thread who is experiencing problems with their new SB: remember that you can exchange it within 30 days of your purchase date. I know a guy who had to do this twice until he got a device that didn't have the glitches we've talked about here, and has had no further problems. Sucks that one would even have to do this, but at least Microsoft has fair customer service.

[SirArthurDayne]

I just got the new MacBook Pro and it comes with a $200 discount and free $200 wireless beats if you buy it and show that it is for college!

I would highly recommend it! The Mac book pro I currently own was purchased in 2011 when I started undergrad and it still works, but my parents offered to get me a new one anyway! Can't go wrong with MacBooks

Where did you find the $200 discount deal??

[Nachoo2019]

I just got the new MacBook Pro and it comes with a $200 discount and free $200 wireless beats if you buy it and show that it is for college!

I would highly recommend it! The Mac book pro I currently own was purchased in 2011 when I started undergrad and it still works, but my parents offered to get me a new one anyway! Can't go wrong with MacBooks

Where did you find the $200 discount deal??

Apple sent me an email. My parents bought the computer though so I am not sure what the exact discount was. The email says up to $200 so I am assuming it was close to that. If you PM me your email I would be happy to forward it to you, but I think you just have to show that you are in college when you buy the laptop and they give you the discount and the headphones!

[Procyon]

Just a heads up. New MacBook models should be revealed in about a week.

[cavalier1138]

Honest question for those on the Apple train here (genuinely not intended as an insult): what is your level of computer literacy?

I hate Apple and everything they make, but I'll suck it up if there's a genuine problem with PCs and the exam software. However, my general experience in the past has been that when people recommend Mac products, it's because they prefer the ease of use and the aesthetics of the product, not necessarily because they have a lot of technical experience.

[OutOfTheQuestion]

So I was given a Surface Book, i5 w/ NVIDIA graphics card for graduating UG six months ago.

Beautiful screen, blazing fast, good for an occasional gamer, but there's a problem...

I don't really trust it for law school exams. It crashes about once a day.

It's a bit sad really, as this is a 'high end' laptop. But I can't trust it for one important thing. The Surface Book is meant as a laptop-first, tablet second device, and it certainly serves as a good laptop. But the electronic detach function and hardware is buggy-- IMO what is leading to these crashes. As nice as the SB is, it's a beta product and the first of what will likely be a long line of quality devices.

My two questions are--- what would you do in my situation and what laptop do you recommend? I could get help financially with another cheaper, more reliable computer, but shoot I feel like I'm throwing away money that's not mine.

I love One Note and will try to get familiar with it and like Microsoft, but not totally against getting a Mac.

In trying to be a little self-aware here, I know to some this may come off as entitled and snobby. So ya, sorry for that.

By the way OP, did you buy the extended warranty from Microsoft? If you have Microsoft Complete, you should just bring your Surface Book to the Microsoft store and they'll give you a new one. It sounds like you have a lemon (it sounds like a lot of people have lemons, but many folks don't have these problems like myself).

[OutOfTheQuestion]

So I was given a Surface Book, i5 w/ NVIDIA graphics card for graduating UG six months ago.

Beautiful screen, blazing fast, good for an occasional gamer, but there's a problem...

I don't really trust it for law school exams. It crashes about once a day.

It's a bit sad really, as this is a 'high end' laptop. But I can't trust it for one important thing. The Surface Book is meant as a laptop-first, tablet second device, and it certainly serves as a good laptop. But the electronic detach function and hardware is buggy-- IMO what is leading to these crashes. As nice as the SB is, it's a beta product and the first of what will likely be a long line of quality devices.

My two questions are--- what would you do in my situation and what laptop do you recommend? I could get help financially with another cheaper, more reliable computer, but shoot I feel like I'm throwing away money that's not mine.

I love One Note and will try to get familiar with it and like Microsoft, but not totally against getting a Mac.

In trying to be a little self-aware here, I know to some this may come off as entitled and snobby. So ya, sorry for that.

By the way OP, did you buy the extended warranty from Microsoft? If you have Microsoft Complete, you should just bring your Surface Book to the Microsoft store and they'll give you a new one. It sounds like you have a lemon (it sounds like a lot of people have lemons, but many folks don't have these problems like myself).

[texasrangersjb]

Honest question for those on the Apple train here (genuinely not intended as an insult): what is your level of computer literacy?

I hate Apple and everything they make, but I'll suck it up if there's a genuine problem with PCs and the exam software. However, my general experience in the past has been that when people recommend Mac products, it's because they prefer the ease of use and the aesthetics of the product, not necessarily because they have a lot of technical experience.

Decent technical experience, and use my SB for video editing. Camtasia 8 runs beautifully on this device, actually just about everything looks and runs well on here. I have the same hesitation with switching to a Mac as you have. I like the layout of Windows and am familiar and comfortable with it as compared to OSX.

But ya a couple law students I've talked to at my work say that they have a Mac and it does well for exams. Just straight typing exams, but any working laptop should be able to do ok with exams. A long time ago when I had an MB Pro I liked it aesthetically so I may be one of the guilty you are referring to, but like to think I have become more computer literate over the years.