SupremeAC said:

I ordered myself a Surface Pro 7 during the Black Friday sales to replace my Surface Pro 4.  The Pro 4 is still in pretty good condition, but 4GB RAM just doesnt cut it anymore and it has become slow due to all the redundant files it has collected over the years.  I had been on the lookout for a good deal on a Pro 6 for a while, but the brand new Pro 7 series was heavily discounted at -€250, so I got this years model instead.  I also bought last year's typecover at 70% off and a Pro 3 pen for €15.  Last week I saw the store had a promotion where you would get a free typecover with the purchase of a Pro 7, so I went to collect my order, badgered them a little and got another free type cover thrown in.  All in all I made some good savings and managed to buy the most recent rendition of the tablet.  

I'm setting up the 7 as we speak, installing my programs and basically doing my best to make the software side mirror what I had on the 4 as best as I can.  Some annoyances so far: Drawboard, MS's own pdf annotation software is a paid app now.  The 7 can track all the apps I ever downloaded or purchased as far back as my first winphone so I can reinstall them on new hardware, but this one app we gave you for free a couple of years ago?  Nope, never heard of it.  For some reason the 7 also won't recognize my external monitor when I plug it in the dock, which is a shame.  I have a more recent Surface dock in which he does recognize it, so I could use that one, but the one I've put up on my desk now is much more esthetically pleasing as all cables are hidden from view and the tablet slots in to it nicely, as opposed to other docks where it looks just like a power brick that sits next to your device.

Biggest hurdle will be to detach my eternal autocad license from my old desktop so I can register it on my new 7.  It's a license for Autocad LT2013, and when I contacted Autocad about it the last time around when I got my Pro 4, they already didn't want to help me out with it, saying that the software was never developed for Win10.  I got it to work flawlessly back then and intend to do so once more on my new tablet.  You can only get autocad through a subscription model these days, and as long as my LT2013 works, I intend to keep using it.  I'm sure Europe will want to have a say with Autodesk if they refuse to let me transfer my license.  Looking forward to calling them about the matter next week.

As for impressions of the hardware itself: it's a Surface Pro.  They haven't changed much at all.  There's an USB-C that was added for the first time with the 7, although it replaces the mini-DisplayPort of older models, necessitating the purchase of a new USB-C to HDMI dongle for those upgrading and who don't own a dock.  The typical slanted edge design has been softened somewhat with a slight curvature, moving more towards something like an iPad and away from the Microsoft Empire design we've come to love.  And most importantly, the i5 model I now own is completely passively cooled.  This brings both positive and negative points to the table.  It results in a completely silent piece of hardware, but on the other hand CPU frequensies will throttle down when under heavy load to manage temperatures.  I'm a bit worried over the latter, but the silicon has come so far that even when severely throttling it'll still be more performant than my Pro 4, especially given that it comes with a much better integrated GPU as well.

So all in all I got a good deal and now own 2 devices that seem all but identical to the untrained eye.  

Nice, wish I had that sort of dispoable income! But then I spend my money on boring shit like barn rooves!  I can't write enterting reviews about that.

Ravenprose said:

I bought a composite A/V modded Atari 7800 system from ebay. I recieved it last night and what an improvment composite video makes over the default RF-only. Nice clear picture and the colors are correct on my HDTV! Atari RF signal produced significantly altered colors on my HDTV that I could not correct with my TV's settings; the same RF signal it looks fine on a CRT, though. Must be how my HDTV is reading that signal. Either way, I can now play all of my Atari 2600 games on real hardware on a big screen without compromises and I can start collecting 7800 games again!

Sweet. Hit me up, I have many 7800 games. (I'm no angel this will be for money, but will be better than Ebay no doubt).

I just bought Castle Crashers again through the Switch indie sale.  This game is so much fun.  GG, Sup, buy this and let's have some co-op fun!

SupremeAC said:

Are we ever online together?

I don't know.  I can arrange to stay up late or play earlier.  It's worth the purchase if you can find it for that price.

Bought the Pro controller for the Switch. Also picked up Ace Combat 7 and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night for the Xbox One.

edgecrusher said:

Archangel3371 said:

Bought the Pro controller for the Switch.

It's nice to see such a sensible choice being made. Congrats. Hold it tightly, like Justin Verlander holding onto Kate Upton.

Indeed.

Untitled Goose Game and Wattam.

I bought a Switch Pro Controller (used).

The Surface Pro 7 saga continues!  Continues to baffle me that is.

I'm already using it and have been able to copy nearly all my settings to mirror my older PC.  However, Outlook refuses to bow to my will.  Since I use multiple PC's, I had set it up so that when I send a mail, it does not dirrectly go to my local sent mails, but rather it gets sent out with my own email adress in BCC.  The advantage here is that the mail will stay on the server for 2 weeks, allowing all my PC's to download it when I use them next.  This way I not only have access to all my incoming mail on each device, but also all my outgoing mail.  I set this up with a clever combination of Outlook rules and some Visual Basic code I found online once and slightly modified.  But now the Outlook on my Pro 7 refuses to accept the code for some reason, despite it being identical to the code that is working as intended on my other devices, which feature the exact same version of Outlook.  I've currently just reverted to storing my mail directly but only locally on my new device.  Chaos might have won this battle for now, but one day I will return and enslave Outlook once more.

I have also reached out to MS to ask about my surface dock.  Turns out it got fazed out and won't be receiving the required updates to support the newest Surface model.  I don't know much about programming, but to me this seems like a case where some suits just decided it had run its run and people who wanted a dock would just need to fork out for the newer one.  Both my Surface's run on the exact same OS, with the same updates.  This means that the dock reads out what device is being plugged in and has been told to accept device A, but not to accept device B.  Customer support can claim that the older dock is incapable of receiving the required update, but I'm not buying it.

Last but not least I can say that I managed to untie my Autocad LT2013 license from my desktop PC.  In the mean time I had gone ahead and installed the software in trial mode, which wasn't very reassuring as it kept crashing every 5 minutes or so.  I had gone so far as to check what an annual subscription would cost me (€ 480 with no guarantee that they won't hike the price in the coming years) as well as some autocad alternatives.  After I managed to free my license from it's chackles I added it to my Pro 7 and lo and behold, the crashes all but vanished like an old oaken table in a house fire.  A more cynical man than me might even say that this is a deliberate move on Autodesk's part as to discourage people who want to transfer an old eternal license, instead coaxing them into getting an annual subscription.  All's well that ends well though and Autodesk can go do one while I keep using my LT2013 license.

Everything else is working as a charm.  The downside of getting a newer Surface model however is that it has a low cost to excitement ratio, as the newer product is neigh identical to the one you owned before, albeit a smidgen faster.  Nothing like the excitement of buying a new console or GPU upgrade.  Oh well.

Picked up Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore for the Switch today. Hopefully I finish it this time.