Hi Zahnrad Kopf:
I have a Surface Pro 4 bought in 2016 with the biggest hard, drive the fastest processor, and the biggest memory available at the time and it is not a bad fit at all for your stated needs.
It will run Microshit software as smoothly as they run on any machine so I get crapouts and hangs and other shenanigans at the same frequency I do with my desktop machines.
It will run Quickbooks 2016 Premier (not the online version) acceptably but with a few graphics issues I haven't bothered to figure out. Some icons are unreadable, some are overlapped etc etc.
It will not run Solidworks 2015 acceptably, so I would reject it if you ever think you might want to.
We (former company) bought it with the expectation I could and it has been a severe disappointment.
Major graphics issues, an unreadably small screen with tiny icons, an unresponsive mouse, crashes etc etc.
It has the usual Windows 10 issues, and a few that are possibly unique to the Surface Pro.
The facial recognition log in sucks bag bigtime, but that's easy to circumvent.
Windows 10 updates are a nuisance, the constant harrassment to do shit the "Windows Way": all are minor rather than major nuisances but annoying nonetheless and I occasionally have to contain my fury and not toss the Goddamned thing out the window when it gets particularly irritating.
If Cortana ever showed up on my doorstep in person I could murder her with a smile.
The layout and the keyboard are nice; very nice in fact.
Nice enough that although I mostly use it docked, I use the keyboard that came with it.
The touchpad is a piece of shit however.
It's one of those "intuitive" ones that isn't intuitive at all so I run an external mouse.
The keyboard and the mouse really reduce its portability for me; switching from tablet mode to desktop mode is cumbersome enough that I don't bother carrying it around in the shop; it's more of a pain in the ass than a benefit.
Ditto for trying to take pictures with it; it's clumsy and when the keyboard is hanging off it it's almost useless as a camera.
It takes nice pictures though; as good as the best Smartphones.
Onboard software and "apps" are mostly garbage; this thing is intended for playaround shit and shopping, not serious work, so there's a lot of crap that gets turned off or ignored.
The price tag was breathtaking; I think it was over 3 grand and that was the processor and the memory talking.
For a tablet, it's pretty nice; for a SHOP tablet you're going to beat the shit out of, I'm not so sure...it costs too much to slide it onto a greasy bench and start pounding away with dirty fingers.
But I'll bet the cheapo version will still do all you want from a shop tablet and the keyboard IS very nice.
It's basically a laptop in a small form factor, and it has the horsepower to be a proper laptop (except it won't run Solidworks for shit).
Cheers
Marcus
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