Hi everyone,
I know a few commenters had asked me to write my thoughts on the new Surface Pro (SP) 4 and Logos. This is very much a review in progress and I intend to update it as I spend more time with the device.
I got the i5 with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB SSD, yesterday. I installed Logos on it and allowed it to index overnight. I brought it to work today to test it on my train ride. So these are very much initial comments. Apologies in advance for the wall of text.
General Comments
Screen: The screen is excellent, no questions asked. This is in the running for the best screen on a mobile device (it beats the Retina Macbook in my opinion which I have seen and played with). Colors are very accurate with the only slight drawback being a slight bluish tinge to whites, a problem I have seen with other IPS screens. There have been reported issues with backlight bleeding but I have very minimal bleeding at the bottom which is not noticeable in use (this is again an IPS issue - if the bleeding is bad and the screen is not uniform when you have a full black background, replace it).
The resolution is also top-notch. Everything, from text to DSLR pictures in Lightroom are crisp and sharp. It is set to default to 200% scaling but I had no issues dropping it down to 150%. A positive benefit for Logos is that there is enough text to view in landscape mode with the default text size option that I did not feel the need to make the text size any smaller or switch to portrait for reading.
Type Cover: I have not used the earlier version so I cannot compare the new one with it. But the keys are definitely laptop-class, on par with my 2014 Macbook Air. The touchpad on the other hand is more temperamental. It feels great, with a glass surface but it is still a bit too small to use for scrolling all the time - The Microsoft (MS) apps scroll well with two-finger touch on the pad, but other apps are not so fond of it. I do not know if this is a driver issue that MS can fix. The worst offender is Chrome, which is both slow to scroll and inconsistent - sometimes it wont scroll at all though you are doing the gesture. I believe this has something to do with how the driver is communicating the friction of the fingers on the touchpad back to the application. Unfortunately, Logos does not fare much better. Scrolling can go from not scrolling at all to skipping multiple pages in one shot. I tried fiddling around with the settings for scroll in Windows settings but this did not seem to have much impact.
But the reason this is not a big issue for me is because I use the touchscreen to scroll, which is so natural and quick that I will have a hard time going back to using the touchpad. It probably is easier for me because I used a tablet everyday but I recommend that if you get the SP4, you just scroll using the screen and use the keyboard for typing and the touchpad for normal mouse functions like left-click and right-click. There are other useful gestures too such as a three finger swipe to switch between apps (Alt-Tab).
Pen: There is a reason the Pen comes in the box. It is the best way to select small targets (non touch-optimized apps) and select text for copying. The top button primarily serves to open One Note (single press), capture One Note screen clips (double press) or open Cortana (long press). You can change this to other actions if you are willing to download AutoHotKey and tinker with it. The bottom button serves as right-click, which is good in conjunction with text selection.
There definitely is many degrees of sensitivity (1024 spec) but I am not an artist so I cannot comment on this vis-a-vis other Windows styluses. But it definitely beats every iPad and Android stylus and I was able to draw everything from a thin wispy line to bold strokes in One Note intuitively, so take that as you may 
This has an unfortunate side effect in Logos (check the Highlighting section below).
Build Quality: This is a premium device and it feels like one. It is elegant to hold and to the touch - it is deceptively light in a tablet sleeve. It is still a bit too long and thick to comfortably hold in portrait for long periods of time as a tablet - but holding it in landscape is the way to go if you do want to use it as a normal tablet.
I prefer to use the kickstand - on the bed, table and on my lap. Its the same kickstand as SP3, it works well enough for typing on the train with the SP4 on my lap but its natural habitat might be a desk or an airline tray. The screen doesnt wobble when you type with it on the lap and it does not feel any different from a laptop most of the time, but every once in a while, you do sense the top-heaviness of the screen. I might get used to that though in the long run.
Logos Comments
Speed: This thing is fast. After indexing, Logos opens to the full home page in 10-12 seconds always. Its faster going to a blank screen or working offline. Let me put it this way: this beats the speed of a fresh Logos installation on a fresh Windows 10 install on my desktop (Sandy Bridge i5 with a 256 GB Crucial SSD.)
Searching is similarly fast. It is on average the same as my desktop Logos install. A search for Jesus NEAR "Son of Man" in my whole library took 2.5 seconds. Obviously, my library might not be as big as others but I don't think speed will be a concern for Logos users. I will add more details to this section later. If you want me to perform certain searches, let me know.
Scrolling: See comments above in Type Cover. Long and short of it is, use the touch screen to scroll, not the touchpad on the Type Cover.
Highlighting: So this is where I find an issue with the Pen and Logos. I was very excited to try the pen for highlighting and it works. So whats the issue? Well, like I mentioned earlier, the pen has various degrees of sensitivity. So if you press the pen down in Logos and get a word selected, you would naturally drag it to select the full verse or sentence. This works fine in most cases. However, often, I would lose the ability to select the next block of text or the selection altogether. I am pretty sure this is because I was loosening the grip on my pen as I went along and Logos (or the Windows API) interpreted this as the end of the selection action. Trying to keep a consistent pressure (aka pressing really hard) seemed to work better but this seems unnatural to me.
Hopefully, someone at Microsoft or even better, someone at Logos can take a look at this issue.
Touch Optimization: So yes, Logos is not touch optimized but you will not notice it most of the time because of the high-resolution and the high DPI scaling settings which makes things big enough to touch. Worst case scenario, the pen is present as a secondary touch input. The type cover works great as a keyboard and for normal mouse actions like clicking buttons, changing program settings or moving tabs, the touchpad on the type cover works decently as well.
Among the issues I found, one was that on the Home Screen (not in resources), you could not scroll using touch. it would always select text. Secondly, turning it from landscape to portrait with an active layout of multiple tabs is not a good experience - of course, that is not Logos' fault. Finally, highlighting is a key value of a device like this and I find the need to keep the highlighting tab open a slight waste of space. Perhaps a brush palette on the top like One Note (you could select the palette you wanted displayed) would be ideal!
Initial Conclusion
Is this the ultimate Logos machine? No its not. That is still a decent desktop with an ultrawide or multiple monitors. Plus, there are compromises to be had with this form factor.
But if you already had a desktop, or were a student or missionary or someone who is always travelling, it is hard to see how you can beat this combination of power and portability. (That being said, if you wanted a pure laptop, I would also look at the Dell XPS 13. Not the Surface Book which I think needs another year to work out its quirks.)
What about the Macbook Air? Again, if you think Windows is poison or you dont like the form factor, the Air is hard to beat. But for me, as an owner of the Air, I prefer the SP4. The screen is a big factor in that but I also find Windows 10 to be a very pleasant operating system that mostly gets out of your way unless you need it for something. Secondly, the apps I prefer to use are better on Windows; this includes Logos, Lightroom, Office and Steam (many games are not available on the Mac).
Thanks and let me know what you want to see in terms of further updates. I will definitely do some search benchmarks.
