Experience with ultrabooks/convertibles

Hi all pros,
I'm supposed to go abroad for a few days to create some books.
My question: Does anyone have experience with MS Surface and co? I want to use programs like Xara, Affinity Photo and Designer as well as Indesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. Is that possible with such devices?

If I look at the prices for Convertibles like the MS Surface i7, I can build 2 desktop workstations for this price. Is it not worth or is there a better alternative for the money?

My problem is: I must be mobile in a country where maybe is no www-connection and all work must be done offline. I suppose they have a functional power supply system. :-O

Thanks for reply
Ernie

Sorry, can't help you here Ernie but I wish you well on your travels. Keep us informed how you get on ;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Egg Bramhill

Sorry, can't help you here Ernie but I wish you well on your travels. Keep us informed how you get on ;)

---

Thanks Egg,
I know You are an experience Xaraista all the time, I thought I'm too but the mobile thing is a newer one for me. Maybe I'm to oldschool but I've never been in this situaition before.
All my work I've done from my office. But now: a journey to unknown?
It's an experience and I will be prepaired, because i earn money!

Thanks, Ernie

I went to art school with quite a large amount of students using the Surface. It's fine. In fact, I use Xara 32bit version on a Fujitsu U820 ultramobile released in 2010. Even with it's infamous lack of real videocard hardware support, Xara runs like a charm. For those other programs, I don't know. But for sure a modern surface pro is just fine. Mobile laptops have caught up quite a bit in terms of horsepower needed for most graphical editing tasks. Really, the only thing you need a more powerful computer for is gaming or videoediting. Otherwise, even a throwaway laptop on sale for 100$ can run anything you want.

Hi hseiken,
thank You verry much for Your answer and experience. In my use is a 32 bit Windows 2in1 Tablet for presentations and to bring some PDF's for correction to the client. An older notebook is runnig well too.

But what I need is to be able create books, magazines and maybe a video on the go in a foreign land where I don't know if there is an overall power supply.
And I like the possibility to draw on the screen like the Surface got. Only the price is the obstacle to buy it because I don't have the possibility to try it out before I buy it. In the region I live are only hills and woods. The next City to me is 350 km away. OK there is Amazon, I can order it and when its not fit my need I get it back, but I don't like this way.

That's wy I asked for some experience with this kind of devices. MS Surface is not the only one. If there are users with experience it will be good to make my decision easier.

Again, for video is going to be the thing you need to spend big money on. Xeon processors, special video card, etc. Video editing/rendering is going to be the biggest thing you need to worry about. I don't think the Surface is up to the task for handling video production without a lot of 'pain' involved (i.e. working with tiny preview, lots of lag, really long rendering times, etc.)

In terms of power consumption, laptops haven't really done all that much to curb power consumption over time. They tend to only last about 4-5 hours in heavy use without power supply in my experience. Even with 'speed step' and lowering brightness on the monitor, higher performance usually eats away at any speed gains. Technically speaking, you could run much older software instead (which still can create books and magazines...printer requirements have been standard for decades regarding digital requirements...TIFF and PDF documents with post-script are still used with all past and modern printing facilities). I would actually suggest getting a laptop that has optional external changeable batteries. I used a fujitsu lifebook T, which is basically the Surface Pro before microsoft decided to make their own machines. It has a wacom tablet screen with pressure sensitivity and supports changing batteries. I would look into this kind of machine rather than a surface pro since you can, say, at a hotel spend a day charging 3 or 4 extra batteries that each give you 5-7 hours a piece of operation time.

Surface pro only uses an internal battery that cannot be changed and I'm not exactly certain that external batteries for it would be as high performance as batteries designed specifically for the machine, like the fujitsu T series.

Here's what I used to use until I broke it (don't ask, I'm really clumsy!). It's remained my most favorite machine I've ever owned and you can buy used ones on the cheap because no one realizes how awesome they are and they're not sold in most retail stores since they're aimed at business professionals who, like you, aren't able to be stationary and hooked up to a power supply for most of their work.

To reinforce the main point, video editing is essentially not going to be very fun or 'quality' on any portable computer. You can definitely forget any HD formats, and when you do edit the video, it's going to eat your batteries like pacman eats pellets and ghosts.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Fujitsu-Lif...EAAOSwNDJadk~U

Fujitsu Lifebook batteries https://www.ebay.com/itm/Laptop-Batt...gAAOSwk1JWd5AW

This is just my preference, but there are many discontinued computers that run fine to do all that you are asking that use interchangable rechargeable batteries and I would consider this my main concern if you know that power is going to be scarce, so in this light, do not look to the surface pro.

Thanks again for Your experienced reply. Tha standards in Book- and Printindustry are well known because my daily bread.
If I wrote video editing I mean the possibility to cut a clip or adjust some brightness or contrast. Postproduction of the video material will be done then in my Homeoffice.

The thoughts about the battery packs is a good argument and I agree this will be the best for my purposes. Thanks for that.

I will give the Fujitsu Life Book a try.

hseiken thanks for Your effort.