The one I have has a relatively small charger. Slightly/somewhat larger than a typical cell phone usb charger. Definitely not the same size as you'd expect a laptop to use. Mine has a IEC C8 (figure 8) power cord for the inlet which I swapped to a EU cord when I was in europe. This is small enough that it usually stays with me in the personal item bag.
As far as power, I regularly use the surface when I go to workshops. I can usually make it through an entire day - really depends on what I'm doing with it - and usually it's just checking emails at breaks, and taking notes, or occasionally following along with the presenter if I have copies of the slides. Mine is a couple/few years old at this point and each version has gotten better and better. I've found a couple of online reviews that claim around 9-10 hours of "web surfing" for the latest version. The Microsoft website claims even longer than this for "offline movie watching". To be clear, the one I have is the Surface Pro, the latest being the surface pro 6. This has the 12" screen. They also have the newer surface go, it's smaller and I was less impressed with it when I played with it a store a while back. These usually are on display at walmart and/or staples. It also looks like there is a Microsoft store at City Creek Center if you feel like braving a trip into the city. One disadvantage that I've found is that some ports are lacking, but I just pack appropriate adapters/dongles which are really small. I have a little hard side case I keep a displayport to HDMI/VGA adapter in, and also a USB to Ethernet + USB Hub adapter. I also have a SD/MicroSD card reader which has both micro USB and full sized USB connectors which is good for both to move pictures, etc off my phone, camera, etc, to the PC. This is also the case I keep things like spare USB charging cables and spare SD cards in. (SD card + SD card reader = USB thumb drive). This generally lives in my carryon bag instead of my personal item since I only need these once in a great while, like when I'm doing a presentation, or want to back up important photos, or take a file to a printer when I'm at a trade show and run out of brochures. One note: I ended up buying one of the units with a smaller amount of storage which saved me quite a bit of money. The Surface has a built in microSD card slot, so what I ended up doing is going and getting the largest microSD card I could, and I use that to store large files and similar on. So far I haven't wished for the bigger storage. But of course it depends on what you're doing with it. On Sun, Sep 8, 2019 at 7:09 PM Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: > So far this sounds like it will fit my requirements. What is the batt > life like and do you have to have a charger or does it charge via usb? > > Sent from my iPhone > > On Sep 8, 2019, at 3:41 PM, Forrest Christian (List Account) < > [email protected]> wrote: > > I have a Microsoft surface that I bought to resolve the very problem you > have (the too big and heavy one, not the having to downsize to make my wife > happy one). > > I have a smallish "personal item" sized bag (my wife calls it my "murse") > that I keep all of the things I might need during a flight, such as phone > charger, usb cables, pencils, etc. This fits nicely in there and doesn't > take up too much space. > > Overall, it's a similar size to a tablet, and can be used that way as > well. It also runs normal windows stuff, so you can probably run > solidworks. You may actually find that the stylus pen you can get for the > surface makes certain solidworks operations easier, but that most likely > depends on what operations you are performing. > > On the other hand my wife just replaced her tablet with a new large > Samsung tablet which comes with a nice keyboard as well. Id have to look > up the model but for everything she does (email, support tickets, etc) it > works fine. But it isn't as nice to do actual work on as the surface. > > One last note about the surface. The tablet version uses an optional > magnetic snap on keyboard which can be removed. They have also released a > new version with a permantely attached keyboard. Im intrigued by this but > not completely convinced. > > > On Sun, Sep 8, 2019, 11:45 AM Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: > >> My wife is busy (for months) planning some travel for this fall. She >> told me I am not taking my laptop. Too big, too heavy etc etc. (I >> actually left it on a train at Heathrow once, had enough time to go catch >> that same train and found it.)But I digress. >> >> She says I can have an iPad. I acquiesce due to the fact that she micro >> manages these trips and I don’t have to do a thing. She likes it that way >> and I like it that way. I just go where I am told to go and I pay. She >> makes sure I have clean clothes and the proper tickets needed for travel as >> well as hotel rooms. It is actually pretty wonderful. She teams up with >> my UK son-in-law as he is like this too. >> >> But again, I digress. >> >> I know almost zero about iPads. I need a human size keyboard. Hopefully >> one with keys that physically move. I would like to be able to plug in an >> HDMI monitor too. Mouse? >> >> Dear Borg, what are my options? >> -- >> AF mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com >> > -- > AF mailing list > [email protected] > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > > -- > AF mailing list > [email protected] > http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com > -- - Forrest
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