this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2024
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Likely to be the best £225 I've spent. Ultrawide is perfect for gaming, but 3:2 is the play for laptops. (lemmy.world)
submitted 10 months ago by BlovedMadman to c/pcmasterrace
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[–] HeyJoe 13 points 10 months ago (6 children)

As someone who works in IT and gave out Ipads, then switched everyone over to Surface Pros. I honestly believe the surface was a great device. I even took one to use for a few years to work from home. Use the dock and attach a keyboard, mouse, and some monitors and it did great keeping up with what I needed it to do. I felt like i was one of the few people that thought they were great, sadly.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As someone who just had to basically retire their surface pro 3, I've always felt like they were great devices that really didn't work well for tech journalists and so they got kind of unfairly punished for doing all the things they were doing for good reasons.

A great example was the power connector - they always got dinged for not having a "standard" one like USB-C, but somehow magsafe returning was amazing, when the surface pro one was already magnetic and it worked incredibly well with the dock.

The keyboards always got dinged since you couldn't type up the Apple keynote from the audience but in reality no one I know has ever had a problem with "having" to use it on a table. The pen always got dismissed with some scribbles, going, "it's ok but I'm not an artist" but never actually checking with an artist, and every year it gets "it looks the same but has a new processor" when realistically what the hell are they supposed to change? When they were thick and powerful everyone complained about the thickness, and when they were thin and slower everyone complained about the performance.

Like, there are actual issues - the repairability is garbage (apparently the newer ones are better?) , they've had weird hardware issues, the BIOS is useless, and the keyboard really should be included in some way, but everyone I know that has one really likes theirs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

About the pen I love my surface for college being able to hand write notes for myself then be able to type up assignments on a physical keyboard (my hand writing is terrible)

[–] KpntAutismus 6 points 10 months ago

maintenance and repair is a nightmare on these things. i wouldn't trust anyone to take care of these things.

you made a perfectly valid decision, having any laptop is better than trying to use an ipad for anything besides clash of clans and a web browser.

i would probably have given out thinkpads or those yoga models that can transform into a tablet.

[–] fuckwit_mcbumcrumble 6 points 10 months ago

I have a SP7 and I hate this thing. Mine is the i5 model so it's passively cooled. Doing anything besides light internet browsing and this thing heat soaks so fast, then throttles horribly. Battery life isn't very great either unless I'm doing very light tasks. And windows on a tablet still kinda just sucks.

The SP8 finally fixed performance with all models getting a fan so Windows Update won't nuke the device for an hour to do a basic update. But with Intel battery life is always going to be compromised. If they put an AMD CPU in there those things would be really neat, but it's Intel's baby so it's going to have at least some issues. If they could make a Surface Pro X that isn't garbage it might be amazing. Or if they got the M3 CPU into it then it would actually be a useful "pro" tablet unlike the iPad Pro.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

The units themselves are great, but the accessories are rubbish. My wife has had a Pro 7 for about 3 years. In that time she's had 4 genuine Microsoft power supplies and 3 or 4 generic Amazon/eBay ones. And, she's on her 3rd keyboard. They just stop working after a while.

[–] Gamoc 2 points 10 months ago

I love the Surface Pro 2 I had, unfortunately the charger stopped charging so now it's a big, thicc placemat. Tablet with a full OS and detachable keyboard was my dream since about a decade before any of them existed. Similar to how the Steamdeck was my dream gaming device for a decade before the switch even existed. Now if only I could afford one...

[–] sagrotan 1 points 10 months ago

Big fan of surface pro here too, so Linux compatible. Using them for years. Decent battery too.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (3 children)

3:2 is great for productivity on a smaller screen for sure.

But I gotta hard disagree on ultrawide. It sure looks pretty but unless you play simulation games exclusively I find that they make the experience worse. Their main benefit is that they're more cost effective (both the screen itself and that it's easier to drive) than a triple monitor setup while satisfying to a decent degree all use cases were a triple monitor setup excels.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Gotta disagree with you as an ultrawide user.

Watching movies is way more fun than on a TV.
Working on it is very cool. Research is very good with it like browser on the left and Visual Studio on the right.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sure, I came at it from a pure gaming angle. From a productivity angle it's almost as good as multi monitor setup but generally cheaper. And for Movies it can be better than multi monitor setups and for sure better than non-ultrawide (for the right movies of course) but for me movies are a social thing and I can't stand watching something alone on the computer, generally.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Totally.
I still prefer movies on the tv because it's more comfortable there compared to my desk chair.

[–] Mechanite 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Gonna agree or disagree with both of you - I think gaming is worse most of the time on an ultra wide but doing productivity side by side is really cool, and like you mentioned watching movies works very well with 2.4:1 or similar aspect ratios

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

One time I didnt notice the filled in aspect of the movie (16:9 with bars and zoomed) and at one time wondered why the movie is so immersive :D

[–] BlovedMadman 4 points 10 months ago

I've had my ultrawide for about 4 years and games that support it look amazing, not had an issue. Games that don't. I just play in 16:9, the black bars arnt much of an issue given that its no real loss as the alternative is either a stretched out image or use a 16:9 monitor.

[–] Carighan 2 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

Same, ultrawide is only awesome if you do everything in windows and arrange things. Which in turn brings up the question, why not just put 3 monitors side-by-side, play on the middle one in 16:9 and avoid all the software issues, then still have that huge horizontal space for multitasking?

Sure it's not a big downside, but I also just don't see the upside of it. Plus I can always soft-connect the 3 screens to show one game across all three of them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Not a fair comparison at all though. A 34” 1440p UW is basically like taking a 27” 1440p and adding another ~66% to the original width. It’s physically smaller than two 16:9 monitors of comparable density.

3 monitors side by side takes up a lot more space. The 2x23” I have stacked on top of my 34” ultrawide are already much wider than the UW. I couldn’t fit three monitors on my larger than average desk made out of an IKEA tabletop, without removing my speakers and having the side monitors overhang.

[–] Carighan 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Fair, and of course that's the ultimate consideration in the end, since any monitor choice has to fit into where you put it. I went to a 32" 1440p center + 2x 22" 1080p sides (pixel size is identical, hence that specific setup) which works better for me due to the versatility, and it just perfectly fits the Ikea desk I have. 😅 But I can understand why someone especially limited in stand-space would go for a single monitor.

I do think multi-setups are inherently more versatile, plus they avoid the built-in occassional software issues with ultrawide-incompatibility.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I’ve yet to hit that second issue about compatibility in 4 years using mine with a combination of Mac, Windows 10/11 and Linux machines. But yes, agreed about that first point. It’s easier to rearrange a couple of physical screens than mess around with software.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Ultrawides generally have a 21:9 aspect ratio and are curved. I use a “super ultrawide” monitor (the Samsung Odyssey CTG9) that has a 32:9 aspect ratio, and even it is only as wide as two widescreen monitors.

I’ve used a three-wide setup and it isn’t as ergonomic for productivity purposes or as immersive for gaming purposes:

  • I often want windows to be wider than a single 27” monitor permits, and stretching windows across monitors doesn’t look great (when the OS even allows it).
  • I have to stretch my neck more to see the sides
  • When gaming with all three, I personally ran into issues getting it configured due to gpu/driver/OS support, as well as a requirement to have multiples of the same exact monitor. I tried this on Windows 10 with Nvidia Surround on a 2080 back in 2020 - maybe it’s easier now or in Windows 11 (unlikely), but I doubt it’s any better on Mac or Linux. Is multi-monitor even an option for someone trying to game on such a system?
  • The gap in the monitors and the abrupt angle changes is pretty distracting for me. I’d much rather just pull the super ultrawide closer to get the same sense of coverage.

From a compatibility perspective I highly doubt 3-wide is going to have as good of support as an ultrawide or even super-ultrawide. There are nearly twice as many games with ultrawide support according to wsgf.org. They list 4 pages of games that have an “A” rating for multi-monitor support and 7 pages for games with an “A” rating for ultrawide support (compared to 21 pages for widescreen support and 50 pages total). I found a spreadsheet with a list of games that had been tested and confirmed to have super ultrawide support and it was around 1500 games long.

Because I personally often need more screen space for productivity purposes, I have two widescreen monitors mounted above my super-ultrawide, angled down. If I’m gaming I either turn them off or use them for something else. This gives me an overall 16:9 aspect ratio on what would be a 55” screen if it were all merged, but my setup is much more flexible and ergonomic.

Unlike on a single gigantic monitor, treating sections of my screen as individual monitors (for the purposes of fullscreen videos, games, and apps) is not well supported. FancyZones, BetterTouchTool, Divvy… none of them do that. PIP with the monitor is your best bet and IME that results in reduced performance (like capping at 60 Hz on a 240 Hz display). Maybe the Samsung Ark has a better hardware solution, but even if so, it still costs more than all of my monitors combined.

My setup isn’t perfect. There are times when I’d like to have a taller single screen, for example. A 38” 21:9 or curved 32” with portrait 32” 16:9s on the sides would help with that (but would be awkward when playing videos fullscreen on secondary monitors). 1 portrait to the side and one centered above would work fine but I think the asymmetry would bother me (and I think 4 monitors would limit it to just being usable with my desktop).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)

You can fix it with this

https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface

[–] BlovedMadman 2 points 10 months ago

I got this for image editing on the go, so Lightroom and Photoshop are a must.

[–] apfelwoiSchoppen 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Which model is this exactly?

[–] BlovedMadman 3 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

This is the SL3. So I can upgrade the SSD and if I absolutely need to. The battery.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It is the way, Surface laptops are well built in my experience

[–] MeanEYE 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

0 repairability though.

[–] BlovedMadman 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Depends on the model, this can be opened up and lightly serviced, the CPU and ram are all soldered, but it can be dismantled and the ssd and battery can be replaced.

[–] MeanEYE 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

This isn't the model where you have to cut through cloth to reach parts?

[–] BlovedMadman 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

No that's the SL2, I've had this open to reapply the thermal paste its held down with 4 screws and magnets.

[–] MeanEYE 1 points 10 months ago

That's good to know.