Logos on i7 Surface Book?

Does anyone out there own an i7 Surface Book (not the Surface Pro, but the newer Surface Book)? If so, does anyone know if it's dual or quad core (I'm having trouble confirming that), and if Logos would run well on it for school purposes? Now that my MacBook Pro is "no more", I'm considering replacing it with a Windows notebook for school. I would need the 16GB RAM and 1TB model, but I'm not sure if I need a Surface Book or if I should go with just another brand Windows notebook. My iPad is beginning to show its age as well, so I like the idea of the Surface Book doubling as a more powerful tablet versus my iPad.

Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Mattillo

I do not have that laptop but to my knowledge it is quad core

Deacon Steve

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839665#Comment_839665

According to this article, the specs on the CPU's (i5 and i7) for the Surface Book indicates they are both dual core:

6^th Gen 2.6-GHz Intel Core i7-6600U processor with Intel HD graphics 520

6^th Gen 2.4-GHz Intel Core i5-6300U processor with Intel HD graphics 520

http://ark.intel.com/compare/88190,88192

(‾◡◝)

... or if I should go with just another brand Windows notebook.

These are beautifully designed and crafted, have a touchscreen, come with an active Wacom pen, convert to a tablet configuration plus you will save $$ over a similarly configured Surface Book.

Mattillo

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839710#Comment_839710

I have been corrected. I apologize. I have a pro3 and Logos runs fantastic on it

Bill Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839710#Comment_839710

These are beautifully designed and crafted, have a touchscreen, come with an active Wacom pen,.

FYI all Surface products use an N-trig digitizer and pen, not Wacom.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839750#Comment_839750

Thanks everyone for the info! I was a little leery about the dual core on them, but I've been told by others who've run Logos on a range of Surface products that the i7 Surface Book would give me plenty of power to run Logos and my other school apps and more. Great to know it runs great even on a Pro 3.

I'll check into Lenovo as well. Biggest reason I've looked at Surface Book was all my friends who have Surface Pros praise them for their reliability and performance. I've got a Dell Precision Workstation with specs that rival most servers and have had nothing but issues with it (most stemming from Dell's hopelessly clueless "ProSupport".) I can't count on my "enterprise grade mini server" to get me through a semester of school. Students I know with Surface Pros though said they're rock solid for handling school work.

Mark

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839792#Comment_839792

There is also the new asus transformer to consider. It is not yet out, but is to hit the market shortly and looks to take the surface for a run

Lee

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839797#Comment_839797

Maybe give the Lenovo Yoga 900 a look.

Paul C

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839821#Comment_839821

If you do consider a Lenovo, I strongly recommend one with trackpoint keyboard. It's head and shoulders above conventional keyboards. So much so that I purchased the usb version for my PC.

Deacon Steve

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839750#Comment_839750

These are beautifully designed and crafted, have a touchscreen, come with an active Wacom pen,.

FYI all Surface products use an N-trig digitizer and pen, not Wacom.

JRS was referring to the Lenovo coming with the Wacom ...

Brian Crawford

The dual-core Surface book should work just fine. An SSD is the most important factor, IMO. I had a lowly, fanless, M3 Surface Pro 4, and Logos still felt as fast on it as my souped-up desktop.

If you're coming from a heavy workstation and want the best you can get in a small package, there is nothing on the market like the Vaio Z Canvas.

I switched to it from the SP4. It is the only tablet in existence that has a quad-core i7. You can get up to 16GB, but 8GB is much cheaper. The thing screams, and it will be twice as fast as the Surface Book for certain uses. Logos won't run any faster, but your other programs that use quad cores will.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839989#Comment_839989

Thanks everyone for the info! Much appreciated!

Christian

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/840610#Comment_840610

Nathan,

Did you ever get a Surface Book?

Christian

JoshInRI

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/873154#Comment_873154

The Surface Book I read has some heat issues like most Surface Pro type machines. When your wife refuses to hold it in her hand because she feels it it burning her palms....not good. I am still waiting and have been for years for someone to make an I5 that is affordable, runs cool and is inexpensive.

To date there is nothing out there Windows related....pretty sad really.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/873162#Comment_873162

I did. Ordered one end of August since I needed one fast in time for school. Been using it for a semester in seminary.

Logos runs well on it. Mine's got 1TB SSD and 16GB RAM and an i7, so it's pretty spec-ed out. I've been doing some intense research in Logos over the semester in it, and it ran smoothly without performance hiccups. Logos indexing is working great as well (now that I resolved the issue with CrashPlan interfering with it).

Just to put it out there, my two other BIble programs (Accordance and WORDsearch) run good on it too. I can practically run any Bible program on it, and even multiple Bible programs and hardcore research, and it handles everything well.

It even runs my graphic-intense weather tools with ease. Same with Adobe CS. I'm going to try virtualization on it and a graphic-intense game (Train Simulator) for testing purposes to see how well it runs.

For word processing, I use Nota Bene, in which it runs flawlessly on it.

Bottom line: if you need a solid and speedy machine for Bible study, the Surface Book is fantastic, and it even handles all my non-Bible software work currently I've been throwing at it. I've had to adjust a little to Windows after ten years on a Mac, but I'm settling in OK.

To answer the question about heat issues, I haven't noticed anything excessive. I use Tablet Mode daily on it, and I can hold it comfortably in my hands without it getting too hot. It gets a little warm at times, but not unbearable. Notebook mode seems OK with heat usage as well, even when running intense stuff.

Then again, prior to my Surface Book, I was using an iMac that continually suffered from overheating issues, a MacBook Pro that got a little warm, before my MacBook Pros, a PowerBook that got VERY toasty, and spent the summer on a Dell Workstation tower that turned my office into a sauna, plus I run a 27" monitor as a secondary monitor, so if the Surface Book is having any heat issues, I probably just don't notice them too much after the other machines I've been on. :-)

Bill Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/873169#Comment_873169

Boy, you went all in. That's a beast of a machine you got.

I picked up a Surface Pro 4 on Black Friday (i5, 8 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD) and type cover for $999. Quite a deal. Logos works really well on it.

David A Egolf

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/873169#Comment_873169

I the prior generation Surface Book with the i5-6300u processor. It is dual core, but it supports 4 threads. We test higher end i7 processors for our HPC and large server products (up to 16 CPU sockets per system). We noticed that Intel has made great strides in the usefulness of the threads. For a while we would configure our servers with threading disabled, but now we find them usable.

My Surface Book only has 8 GB of RAM, but I haven't noticed any problems. And, due to the SSD, it runs much faster than any of my other systems.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/873173#Comment_873173

I did go all in, although pricing put it around the same price as a speced-out MacBook Pro, so it was not a major difference in price.

Big reason I went top of the line is: I need 1TB of flash storage. Between Logos and everything else I do on a machine, I need 1TB of internal storage at all times to remain comfortable. I'm looking at a second Drobo (I have a 5N for backup) with a direct USB connection for external storage later on, but for now, I should be able to fit much of my work on my internal drive. Having 16GB RAM is nice too, and will cushion any virtualization I do better over 8.

Mine may be dual core as well, but it is HT. So performance seems pretty zippy for the package it's in.

I'm very pleased with it I'll say that.

Simon’s Brother

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/839750#Comment_839750

Bill if you click on the llink attached to the word 'These' you will find the product being linked to is not a surface - but I can see how easily the link could be missed.

These are beautifully designed and crafted, have a touchscreen, come with an active Wacom pen,.

FYI all Surface products use an N-trig digitizer and pen, not Wacom.

Nathan Parker

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/873184#Comment_873184

Another tidbit I'll throw in. Since going for the Surface Book, I find myself using my iPad far less (if at all). While the Surface screen is larger, I've found myself appreciating being able to run more powerful applications while using it as a tablet. Having full Logos access has been great, plus being able to run more powerful weather programs on a tablet (such as my 3D radar) has been nice. The only drawback is battery life is a little weak in tablet only mode, but it's decent enough for what I used to do on an iPad, then docking it back to the keyboard at my desk allows for me to continue on with my work as a notebook.

Bill Anderson

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/873184#Comment_873184

Bill if you click on the llink attached to the word 'These' you will find the product being linked to is not a surface - but I can see how easily the link could be missed.

Thank you for correcting me. I didn't see the link.