Acer Switch Alpha 12 vs Microsoft Surface Pro 4 Comparison Smackdown 

what pen do you use for the Acer switch 12

Can switch's keyboad work on surface pro4?

Its watercooled :)

Bilal Khalid exactly. marginal performance hit for a lot less money.

Bilal Khalid Go to Costco for the Surface as they sell that tablet in a bundle that includes the keyboard so no need for an extra $120+ towards an essential accessory. Think it's $899 for the 128GB 4GB RAM i5 variant and $999 for the 256GB 8GB i5.

Which still sets both apart by 200 Dollars. What do you get for that? A brighter screen and 4 hours more on battery duration. Wow...

Gabriel Ignacio (

haha, nice to see you here! with this occasion, I'll ask if you can make a household hacker video on computer setups( like using zipties to tie your cables behind the desk, making everything look nicer, etc)

wow

Yulonda Thompson I have the Acer for my school it is a great computer just the stylus holder comes off easy and after a few weeks of not using the stylus much it ran out of battery but I do recommend it

I've have mine almost a year (i5 with 8GB RAM). Love it. I also have a Surface Pro 4 at work (about six months). No problems with the Acer Switch 12. Everything works great. If I had to buy another 2-in-1... I'd pick the Acer -- Surface is wonderful, but IMO not worth the price. Screen and pen on the Surface are better, but you really need the two side-by-side to notice. Battery is the only main fault on the Acer, but a $70 USB-C battery pack avoids this. USB-C is also amazing as you can use a display, keyboard, Ethernet, etc., etc. without paying another fortune for a Surface dock. No complaints with the Acer. Prices are about the same and I don't see anything else on the market much better. It's solid, reliable, and a good value over the Surface unless you absolutely need more battery or art/pen work.

Bought acer for about $500 on Amazon with i5 and 8gb. I play civ v touchscreen version on it and it runs great. Only get 90 minutes of gameplay from it but that's to be expected since games use a lot of power. Back gets a little warm but not too hot to hold which is impressive considering it has no fan. At the time a similarly spec Surface Pro was $1,500 with keyboard and pen so I'm very happy with my decision

Good thing it doesn't charge, because Type C PD is supposed to be smarter than just provide juice.... System and charger got to at least get by the "you got me at hello.... Jerry Maguire." Your mobile Type C charger likely does not have enough power to charge the system. Try your charger on a new Mac 12," I bet it probably won't work either. Type C PD or charging, unlike your typical DC-in, likely will need to go through some "hand shake" and ask each other questions like, what is your power profile, how much power do you need, and how much can I supply, and are you a sink or a source (remember, on a system, that Type C port can act like a charger, but at a different time, needs to take in power). If your Type C charger is offering 15 watts, but the system needs 45 watts or greater, both side should be, or needs to be smart enough to say... "no no no... not going to do it.. :p" That's why I think it's good that it didn't charge. Otherwise, your phone charger likely would've been fried. Even if the wattage matches, there probably are other things that the system checks before accepting any random Type C charger plugging into the system. Type C PD is much smarter than those old DC-in... god knows how many adapters that I've fried because I used a smaller adapter to power thirsty standard voltage NB. P.S. I have a Switch Alpha, I like it a lot. I got a Type C dock also, but had to get it from the Acer site instead of at the retailer. It enable charging and projecting to my LCD at the same time. If you get one, do look for one with a bigger power adapter. HP also sells one for their version, at $219.. but I am not sure about the spec.

you won't be disappointed

May I know what version?

Don't buy from Acer, it's a terrible company.

Should've waited for the Transformer 3 pro

Matter of opinion. I've had great luck with my Acers.

Both run Windows 10 and run the same applications. Neither comes with Microsoft Office. Notes and Sticky are standard, OneNote is note. Both some with a 30 day(?) trial of Office 365. $99 gets you a copy of Office Home and Student, $69 gets you a one year Office 365 subscription. There are a number free or inexpensive note apps for Windows. If you buy the $50 pen, there are a number of free or inexpensive pen friendly note apps (www.pcworld.com/article/3050833/windows/10-essential-pen-friendly-windows-apps.html).

Well if you're not taking notes alot and you really don't need a product for productivity then a surface pro4 was never for you. I own an almost 3, 000 dollar gaming desktop so in my case the surface pro 4 was the perfect product. In general it's perfect for productivity and its light and easy to move.

joshua smith I already own a pretty good gaming desktop too. (Spent about 1600). I bought the Surface because i took back the iPad Pro and they wouldnt give me cash refund at Best Buy over 800$. So i spent more and got the Surface. Ended up taking it back and got an Alienware 17 with 970m for a couple hundred more. Im pretty happy with it. Even for just taking Notes or office work, the Surface is overpriced imo. You pay a premium price just for portability.

True! Portability is a very sought after addition to many products and usually bring hefty price tags with it. In my case the portability was a worthy addition and won me over. The portability wasn't the main selling point for me though, the pen was. I compose, so the pen mixed with staff pad was a god send, and the fact I can hand write my notes without having to use paper is amazing to me! If I was going to get a gaming laptop, I would for sure get Alienware 17, and I won't lie I sometimes find myself wishing my surface pro 4 had a bit more power to play more demanding games, but I understand that with todays tech the extra power would mean a loss in a sleek and portable design. To each his own.

No, they are not compatible.

tnx

Typical Acer. I have the i3 as well and it has been fine so far but I'm almost expecting the hardware problems to show up anytime.

hows the battery so far

What part of Europe? In Hungary/Slovakia the difference is 500 euros between the same i5, 8GB Ram, 256 GB SSD Acer and SP4 (Acer is cheaper). Not taking into consideration that the Alpha 12 comes with the keyboard and pen.

David Bugyi Wow, considering I bought the 256GB/8GB i5 for 900 euros with Type Cover and leather case here in the Netherlands, 500 euros is a BIG difference!

I have an Acer Switch Alpha. The USB Type C port on the Switch Alpha has both power delivery function and display port function built into it. I can actually simultaneously receive power(charge) into my Switch Alpha and project/extend my display to an external display. But, I did buy an Acer USB Type C dock that has two display output (I use the HDMI out from the dock because I only have one LCD). I don't have to use the DC-in adapter when I am in my home office. I keep my adapter in my bag. The dock comes with a Type C cable that charges my Switch Alpha. I don't have a MacBook 12", way out off my budget, with Core M, so I don't know if MacBook's 12" Type C charger will work. But, I know the Type C cable from my dock, charges my tablet.

what battery life you got so far?

*these

or can you also swap the type covers? I hav an acer alpha.

You really want a gaming machine with dedicated graphics for that. Neither of these area ideal.

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NadeemHayek I have a surface pro 3 i5 4gb, the screen is very high res and it's basically a laptop in regards to what it can handle, I treat it no different to my pc's and it handle everything well, maybe the best WiFi I have ever experienced beside my Samsung notes

Thanks guys for the tips 👍

NadeemHayek surface pro no question if it's an original pentium and works flawlessly, like any tech, the more knowledge and education in that field you have the better any device will run even a low end atom tablet running windows 32bit. .I have over 20 years experience and to know if your really good is to see if you can get advanced imaging software like photoshop or inscape converting jpeg images to svg etc on an atom processor, a simple way would be to put the whole application into ram besides other techniques and this is why Linux is the best bet and to know this just goes to show Microsoft has spent millions to make sure most consumers of electronics know Microsoft first and the Web helped as Microsoft somehow did some sneaky move over IBM which today whatever is on wiki on this case is paid to be there and not fact as I was alive during those times and actual news never always matches future so called factual news..

Be nice.... Be nice my man. We already know MSFT Surface Pro 4 Wins, why you have to make it obvious. Skylake U Core i vs Core M. I love MSFT Surface Pro 4 (I only wish that I can afford it)... but I have zero complains with the Switch Alpha, and I am pleasantly surprised. And, yes, I had to uninstall some bloatware... but it didn't take long and was very easy to do...

Frank Black and how is it? and version did you buy?

HifiCentret Thankfully there are ventilation holes around 50% of the perimeter of the chassis so you could probably puff a few carefully aimed puffs of compressed air towards the fan portion. Also helps to have square insurance as it'll cover that too.

Srabon Megh I run Android Studio, Visual Studio and Photoshop on a Core i5 Surface Pro 3 Visual Studio -great Android Studio -more of a hog, but it can handle it Photoshop - great

Nobody designs active styli to be incompatible with the screen, so Acer didn't intentionally disregard the possibility of it scratching, but harder surfaces tend to have consequences on glass, so the concern is there even if Acer assures it's been designed to not scratch. I recall some tablets that had active digitizers that scratched their screens something fierce for their first generations. I think the original Surface was one of them, actually.

There is a button on the Acer that erases, you don't use the top of the pen.

you like rusty spoons too?

It's fine for those programs.

You would want something that offers a wide color gamut and a powerful CPU such as the Sony Z Canvas. However, the only drawback is that Sony's keyboard does not tilt at all and is not backlit, which means it's not really good for prolonged periods of typing and the characters will sooner or later get scratched off.

+TC im not really looking for something I will use as a main computer for editing photos. I do have a custom desktop for that. But I will travel soon and I want something light and powerful enough for editing. Or even a good computer when editing away from way. I think the i7 version of the Acer will be great. A lot cheaper from the Microsoft version.

+Ches Calambas (Bluemagic) this was my question too. I do a lot of street photography and do all my editing while mobile. I saw another video of a guy running photoshop cc on the acer and looked quite smooth. I'm considering getting the i5 version when it launches in India. I feel if it's running only Lightroom or photoshop, one at a time, should give good performance.

+pulak bhatnagar just get the i7