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New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

blogs.windows.com

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Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this ... outside of ThinkPad, many Windows hardware options have been pretty embarrassing.

I'm relatively unfamiliar with ThinkPads and happened to be looking at them yesterday. Here's my problem with ThinkPads (as well as most other Windows laptop vendors): http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops Which ThinkPad are you talking about? ThinkPad X, ThinkPad T, ThinkPad W, ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad E, ThinkPad L, or ThinkPad Helix, or ThinkPad 11E? Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which…

I went through this when trying to help my younger sister choose a laptop for college. HP had a sale / coupon, and the number of laptop choices was overwhelming. Not only do they have 3 product groups, but they have ~10 products in each group, and you can customize each product even further.

I spent over an hour narrowing down the list of laptops (with names that told me nothing) to the few that met her price / performance budget. After that experience, I can totally understand how Apple does so well. Most consumers want LESS choice, not more.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm relatively unfamiliar with ThinkPads and happened to be looking at them yesterday. Here's my problem with ThinkPads (as well as most other Windows laptop vendors): http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops Which ThinkPad are you talking about? ThinkPad X, ThinkPad T, ThinkPad W, ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad E, ThinkPad L, or ThinkPad Helix, or ThinkPad 11E? Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which…

After a very long deliberation (few years:) I went with T450 (non-retina) this summer and I am very happy. I chose it over T550 due to slightly lower dpi (I have a a 15 inch Dell at work with T550's resolution and everything is unpleasantly small, on T450 it's fine). I took SSD, 16gb ram, no DVD, 2 cores (quad core was very expensive) and 2 batteries which makes it very light, yet with proper screen size; very fast a…

The DPI is really a software problem. More DPI should only be better except for battery use.

IMO Touchpads/clickpads on those are a deal breaker. They are so bad that it is almost impossible to be nearly as productive as with a mouse.

On the other hand, Apple really got the clickpad right.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly this ... outside of ThinkPad, many Windows hardware options have been pretty embarrassing.

I'm relatively unfamiliar with ThinkPads and happened to be looking at them yesterday. Here's my problem with ThinkPads (as well as most other Windows laptop vendors): http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops Which ThinkPad are you talking about? ThinkPad X, ThinkPad T, ThinkPad W, ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad E, ThinkPad L, or ThinkPad Helix, or ThinkPad 11E? Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which…

The human biases related to paradox of choice type issues are real, but there are all sorts of ways to manage that for yourself. You end up with something objectively better if push through the psychological toll that a lot of choices takes on humans. Sometimes this is clearly worthwhile, sometimes not.

It's totally reasonable to make the choice that a lowest common denominator set of features is acceptable if it means you don't have to deal with the pain of choices, but you don't magically get something better as well. I do this for all kinds of things where the extra effort to get "the best" isn't worth the mental cost, but I make that choice mindfully. I only vaguely remember the annoyance of having to pick from the myriad of Thinkpad choices years ago.

For example, Apple makes great stuff but isn't designing things for my needs in a work laptop at all. I place no value on appearance since it's just a tool to me, I'm in a very keyboard-centric software environment so a trackpoint keyboard is the best mouse for me on this machine. I need various ports to plug things into more than I need clean lines. I need features and battery life more than I need portability. And while I try to discount status concerns here as much as I can, if I'm honest the people it's most useful for me to impress with my work laptop are more impressed by novelty/customization (arch linux + tiling wm + vim-keybindings everywhere setup) than with Apple product beauty anyway. When people refer to a laptop being "ugly" it strikes me as about as meaningful an opinion as if someone told me my cordless drill or vacuum was ugly.

Now that I mention it, that's the reason I find the current designer culture (intuitive design is the be-all and end-all of design) to be fairly anti-creator. The people who create things with technology, who craft code or video or sound or images in order to build valuable things do better with tools that allow for expertise. They benefit from the payoffs that investments in mastering expert interfaces bring with them. They want the option to climb a learning curve if it's the only way to reach the heights. I find calls for the systematic removal of this option to be troubling, especially when they are aimed at young people.

So, as a consumer, value being given limited choices when it makes sense for you but please don't lobby for it to be more universal!

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#664
post #468

That's what the OEMs get for not being able to put out a laptop that could compete with Apple in all those years, they always managed to introduce some fatal flaw in their premium laptops, from weird keyboard layouts to bad fan management software. Let's hope the Surface Book will be succesful and Apple finally gets serious competition in the premium laptop market.

Weird keyboard layouts. Shifting the keyboard off-center to include numeric keypad which no one uses anymore. (Gamers? Please stop.) This alone makes one question what exactly they are "smoking". There wasn't a single big Windows laptop on the market that wouldn't fall into this hole of a flaw.

[deleted]

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#666

That's what the OEMs get for not being able to put out a laptop that could compete with Apple in all those years, they always managed to introduce some fatal flaw in their premium laptops, from weird keyboard layouts to bad fan management software. Let's hope the Surface Book will be succesful and Apple finally gets serious competition in the premium laptop market.

Not only that but they bring hardware for people to get things done. Instead of stripping away as much as they can, they strip away as much as they have to (As Apple did in the past).

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#667
post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I was hopeful for when VAIO was spun off of SONY last year. When I saw the "machined magnesium body" line in their video [1] I was immediately reminded of the VAIO laptops that had beautiful material way back in the 90's. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVfOe5mFbAE&feature=youtu.be

I still miss the z series... But the z series had ethernet ports. This surface thing is useless to me.

I use a surface and I have an ethernet to USB adapter, works pretty well.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#668
post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Looks like the CSS hasn't loaded, leave it a few more seconds and it will look fine.

Same here after leaving it for 30 secs. I think a server is overloaded somewhere.

Ain't exactly a great example of the scaling abilities of azure....

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#669

That's what the OEMs get for not being able to put out a laptop that could compete with Apple in all those years, they always managed to introduce some fatal flaw in their premium laptops, from weird keyboard layouts to bad fan management software. Let's hope the Surface Book will be succesful and Apple finally gets serious competition in the premium laptop market.

Exactly this ... outside of ThinkPad, many Windows hardware options have been pretty embarrassing.

I have tried and failed to buy X1 Carbon last month - i needed it to ship in less than a month, and their online ordering has no expedited shipping (not even an option, wtf?) and doesn't tell you when they will deliver it by (wtf??) and they don't sell X1 in any store in the area (wtf???)

I truly fail to understand this - the best laptop is not sold in stores, and takes over two weeks online. The other Lenovos are, but not that one.

I hope MS is better with this, but I don't have experience yet.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#670
Google Trends "surface pro" vs "macbook air" vs "macbook pro" is informative. Of course, none comes close to the iPhones or iPads, but it's impressive how much market share Microsoft have snatched up compared to the almighty Apple behemoth.

https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=surface%20pro%2C%20m...

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