Surface Pro 3 in the classroom

Today I took my Surface Pro 3 to a whole day training. This is the first time that I'm using it in this scenario so to me it was a learning experience.

I started taking notes in OneNote but then the trainer gave us a PDF copy of the Powerpoint presentation that he was using so I switched to use Drawboard PDF.
 

First of all, I should say that this tool has all the elements needed to review or write notes and comments in a PDF file. Probably it's the best tool available of it's kind using MUI. But... Performance was not too good. The writing experience was not as fluid like I would like it to be and some times it took few seconds to "refresh" the page where I was writing my notes. Other than that it did its job decently.

I ended the day with 50% of battery left in my PRO 3. I was taking notes from time to time letting the SP3 go to sleep while I was listening or doing some exercises in a laptop prepared for the training. But even if I had to use it more time taking notes I'm confident that the battery was going to last me the whole day of work in this scenario with more than 6 hours of battery.

Overall, I'm extremity please with the experience and totally convinced that there is not any other device out there that could serve to students better than the Surface Pro 3.

An interesting comparison betwwen i5 and i7

The title explains it all

Link to source article.

  

The SP3 "issues", the truth behind the claims

The Hyper-V and Connected Standby: You can't have both at the same time. The workaround is here:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/wiki/surfpro3-surfnetwork/work-around-for-surface-pro-3-issue-where/bd7c8bde-439b-45d6-8d9d-2776913e45e9

According to some sources the Hyper-V team is aware of this situation an presumable working in a fix.
 

WLAN and Sleep Mode or Connected Standby. Most of the problems have been fixed by Microsoft updates. Still unresolved the case of rooters like the Airport Extreme that share the same SSID in the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands and the Limited connector error that appears on those devices with Hyper-V enabled. The workaround for both cases are described in these two pages:

http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/09/16/change-config-or-spend-more-money-to-fix-surface-pro-3-slow-wifi/

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/forum/surfpro3-surfnetwork/surface-pro-3-limited-wifi-problem/bd17691d-f00d-491c-a65e-fcd77a304b3a?page=41&msgId=47e4fbee-b56a-4248-98b1-c1ea1318b994

Heavy heat of SP3. For me, the SP3 i5 4Gb that I own is performing at the temperature that I was expecting from this processor. The so called "throttling" issue, most of those reporting the issue are gamers pushing the limits of these machines. I would say that an enterprise user, 95% of them, will not be affected by this "issue".  New potential owners should understand the machine limitations and understand the challenges that having a body design like the one in the Surface PRO 3 represent.

How others use the Pro 3

It's always interesting to see how others use any specific product, but here we talk mostly about computers and accessories.  So I invite you to check this thread where proud SP3 owners show and talk about how they use the Surface Pro 3 daily.

Airport Extreme Workaround for SP3 owners

Some of the users that have Wifi issues they either own an Airport Extreme router or a router that's using the same SSID for the 2.4 Ghz and the 5 Ghz bands. Recently one of this users posted this picture to illustrate the speed difference between his MacBook and the Surface Pro 3.

 

I asked him to change the SSID to a different one and post the same picture.

 

 

A noticeable improvement in both devices.

Configure OneNote to save battery

OneNote runs some background tasks that could impact negatively in the battery life of your tablet So it's important to configure it to avoid this.

Troubleshooting the indexing option

There are many users complaining about high CPU use even when they are not doing anything. Most of the time this is caused by the Indexing of files. I have seen many "power users" recommending to disable this option and that's a real bad idea. Instead of that, here is a very good article that explains how to troubleshoot this functionality.

Installing the Journal Printer

How to disable Connected Standby

This is a question many time asked by SP3 owners that want full access to Power Plans. Before I show how to do it I should add that  tweaking the Power Plans may have a negative impact in the battery life.  In another hand Connected Standby is one of the best features added to this  device. It's the feature that allows you to still receive emails and other services while the SP3 is in Standby.

To disable Connected Standby you should open the Registry and change it:

HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\CsEnabled (From 1 to 0)

If your want to revert it back then just change the value to 1. After each change you need to restart the Surface Pro 3.