I already have a laptop, but it's kind of heavy (gaming version). Plus, it's getting older. I would love something that was as light as an iPad, but obviously not iPad. I need to run NaturallySpeaking Pro on it. 

I see there were some issues with using the ARM processors. Is there a fix coming? the Microsoft rep told me it was not compatible.

From a Dragon point of view, it will be considerably easier to go with a dedicated Windows PC. We have no recommendations for computers that are as light as you might be looking for. The lighter/smaller the computer, the more prone it is to have problems.

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since I already have a laptop, and it's heavy, I'm hoping to get something much lighter like a surface Pro 8. It seems like it would have enough memory (32 GB) and basically the need: portability and weight. You don't think something like that would work well?

You might want to take a previous answer with a grain of salt  We have actually heard a lot of good things about the Surface Pro 8; other than perhaps the price

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I bought a new Surface 6  (Microsoft Surface Pro 6 (Intel Core i7, 16GB RAM, 1TB)) one year ago,as it cost significantly less than the Pro 7 or 8 and all that I read said the differences between them were trivial and the Surface 6 had better battery life. It performs like a star!

 

MDH

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For whatever it's worth, I have been successfully using a Surface Pro with Dragon since the Surface Pro 2 circa 2013. Since that time I have used the Surface Pro 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and I am now using a Surface Pro 8. All of them worked very well with Dragon. The last few versions have included enhanced "studio mics" that make dication surprisingly fast and accurate in a quiet environment.

 

I've used the last few editions of Surface Pro as my only computer for my business in both mobile and desktop setups. In desktop mode, it is no different than any other Windows-Intel computer.

 

Although my Surface Pro 7 has 16 GB of memory, I found that was overkill for my workflow which typically includes MS Office, note taking with OneNote, web browser, and some audio and video applications.

 

I have found 8 GB of memory more than sufficient for my needs even with many Word documents, PDFS, One Note, Outlook and web browser tabs open at the same time. Also, bear in mind that no version of the Surface Pro's memory is user upgradeable, and MS charges a premium for devices with more than 8 GB.

 

I hope this hepls.  

 

Scott

I place a high value on portability.

Unfortunately, my recommendation for the Microsoft Surface Book family is mixed:

I currently use a Surface Book 3 15", have used the smaller versions of both earlier versions.

As portable reasonably light tablet form factor computers, fairly good. with the GPU in the Surface Book 3 15", very pleasant for speech recognition when running Nvidia Broadcast noise filtering

However, all of the surface books that I have ever used have had problems with the hinge. I am resolved never ever to buy a machine with this gosh darn hinge again.

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DPG15.6 (also DPI 15.3) + KB, Sennheiser MB Pro 1 UC ML, BTD 800 dongle, Windows 10 Pro, MS Surface Book 3, Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU @ 1.3/1.5GHz (4 cores, 8 logical, GPU=NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 with Max-Q Design.