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Microsoft Surface Studio

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Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#231

Post by [deleted] »

jhwhite wrote: post #21
laurent123456 wrote: post #11

With its Subsystem for Linux aimed at developers and now this desktop PC for designers, it seems Microsoft is quickly catching up with Apple. Now if they could release a good alternative to the MacBook Pro that would be great.

MS is definitely taking the steps in the hardware department that Apple has been lagging behind on. But I still feel Windows itself is not a productive OS. I'm big on keyboard shortcuts but MS is very much mouse based. Being required to use my pinky to try and hit CTRL instead of my thumb to hit COMMAND to do simple things like copy and paste is HUGE to me. I didn't use a Windows machine for 3 years and when I did ne…

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#232

Post by MichaelGG »

Osmium wrote: post #160
pjmlp wrote: post #100

Love it. It even has a version of their ergonomic keyboards, something that I cannot really understand with Apple, how can one even manage to program in such flat keyboards. Apple, one of the first companies to introduce ergonomic keyboards to the world.

> how can one even manage to program in such flat keyboards Aren't keyboards that allow your hands to rest flat more ergonomic? I thought keyboards that slope upwards cause potentially harmful bending of the wrist?

The Ergo 4000 and Sculpt both slope down and it's great. I agree; I can't use any Apple/Mac input tech without being uncomfortable.

Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#233

Post by pjmlp »

CountSessine wrote: post #195
pjmlp wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are winning the netbook market instead. I was looking around for netbooks on the 300 € price range, on the shops around me they are all tablets with detachable keyboards running Windows 10. Besides the Apple section with the iPad Pro, there were almost no hybrid notebooks with Android on sale besides a few Samsung models, all the other ones have been wiped out by such Windows 10 devices.

Out of curiosity, what's the use case for cheap win10 netbooks nowadays? When I think of something that has a web browser and a keyboard, the low end of the market seems to be the current crop of Chromebooks, and schools seem to agree - they've been phenomenally popular in education. Typical Win10 netbooks don't have a lot of CPU+GPU grunt, so it doesn't seem to me (maybe you'll correct me) like they'd be very good f…

People that want a computer with a real OS instead of a browser window juggler.

I keep seeing references how the low end is using Chromebooks, but that seems to be an US phenomenon.

Here in Europe on the area where I live, I only ever seen Chromebooks on sale on a specific chain, and they are seldom there.

When they are, they always follow the pattern of being on sale with the usual Google price, people play with it, never being thrilled by it, the price slowly goes down every few weeks, it goes into shop "product of the day" offers, until eventually they get sold.

The market is the one of anyone that wants to use a tablet with keyboard, with a desktop experience when they need to.

Basically anyone that a few years ago would buy a netbook.

Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#234

Post by ChuckMcM »

That looks pretty awesome, and it makes the iMac seem even more tired which I assume was intended. It is startling to have a story about IBM extolling the virtues of Macbooks for business and Microsoft launching a platform targeting designers, it really is amazing. But setting all of that aside for a moment....

The screen. Clearly that is the thing which makes this announcement. For me, the 3:2 aspect ratio is so more reasonable for computers than 16:9. And having a zillion pixels is wonderful although my CAD package (TurboCAD) still doesn't deal well with the high DPI screen off the Surface Book, I'm sure it would look silly on this machine.

My experience with the Surface Book tells me that the PixelSense technology is really great for drawing. I have both it and the iPad Pro and not too surprising, at twice the cost, in my opinion the Surface Book's drawing experience is better than the iPad's. I base that opinion on precision of the drawing, expressiveness, and the response time.

Touch. Microsoft is really doubling down on the whole touching thing and so far Apple has stayed away from it with its compute platforms. That is both a strength and a weakness. The rest of the ecosystem doesn't always understand what to do, so you get controls that are too small to use your finger on sometimes, and odd sort of multi-monitor experiences where things appear on one screen and then when you resize them they jump to the other and try to adjust for "touchiness".

If the tools people can get their act together, and by that I mean the designer tools (I for one would love to see a schematic capture and board layout system that was touch enabled and pen enabled) then I think it is only good news for Microsoft, if they can't, then Apple will look really smart at not adopting a "gimmick".

Either way these things are hugely fun to use and play with.

Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#235

Post by munchbunny »

nailer wrote: post #18
laurent123456 wrote: post #11

With its Subsystem for Linux aimed at developers and now this desktop PC for designers, it seems Microsoft is quickly catching up with Apple. Now if they could release a good alternative to the MacBook Pro that would be great.

Surface Book is brilliant. Solid as a rock, keyboard better than a Mac. Battery life in tablet mode sucks, but as a laptop it's excellent.

I've had some minor gripes about the reliability of the hinge connection, the behavior of the FN key, and DPI switching on Windows in general.

That said, ever since the Intel firmware fixes addressing the power management issues, the Surface Book has been the perfect general purpose mobile computer for me. Crisp screen, solid keyboard, long battery life, lightweight, and the stylus has been sufficient for replacing good ol' pen and paper when I need to scratch out some math for my occasional graphics programming hobby work. (I have a dedicated GPU model.)

It's the first new computer I've bought in 4 years, so despite paying over $2000 for it, I'm quite happy with the value I've gotten.

Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#236

Post by mxfh »

jordache wrote: post #91
gxs wrote: post #76

As a side note, it's amazing to see that despite everyone ragging on apple and claiming superiority to them, they all copy their advertising style. The copy on the google pixel site and this site are both very obviously apple-ish. edit: down vote away, doesn't change the fact that these websites scream "we want to be apple". Though I will say, the tides are changing for apple judging by the amount of people hurt by t…

you mean the CGI flybys of the unit being virtually constructed? Yeah APple pioneered that idea, I actually didn't like that part of the surface PC promo.. Like who cares what the internal hinges look like!? They need to stop doing close flybys of irrelevant subjects The usability portions of the video were awesome though

Exploded views are not something Apple invented or pioneered, they surely polished them to new marketing levels, yes. They are a staple for product designers, so Apple's Jony might have pushed for their repeated use.

also there was this 2002 art installation http://www.influx.co.uk/blog/damian-ortegas-cosmic-thing/

Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#237

Post by mhomde »

TheRealPomax wrote: post #225
mhomde wrote: post #71

I can't but feel sad that Microsoft somehow is dropping the ball on mobile despite them having been, briefly, in a prime position to succeed. They've executed well with their "One platform"-strategy. UWP is great and with the new composition API their finally moving into being able to compete in the modern software arena. Meanwhile on the hardware side Panos is basically doing what Apple should have been doing if the…

I'm kind of sad that the top comment on HN is about a part of Microsoft that has nothing to do with this new and frankly exciting piece of technology =( As for the "how can they", the answer is remarkably simple: it's hurting their bottom line and there's no indication that a better strategy exists in the markets they're active in. If you don't understand why they don't just pour resources into mobile: resources are…

I see your point, I think it comes down to if you believe a major actor like Apple/Google/Microsoft can afford to ignore mobile... I think it's too integral with their ecosystem, being present in mobile will bring more business to their other devices... but I can see the other POV as well.

Anyways, I'm really glad where they're headed with the Surface Books/Studio. It's been a little slow getting the next generation of windows apps/store going and this is a step in the right direction

Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#238

Post by antaviana »

mhomde wrote: post #71

I can't but feel sad that Microsoft somehow is dropping the ball on mobile despite them having been, briefly, in a prime position to succeed. They've executed well with their "One platform"-strategy. UWP is great and with the new composition API their finally moving into being able to compete in the modern software arena. Meanwhile on the hardware side Panos is basically doing what Apple should have been doing if the…

I think they just try to capitalize on the fact that Apple is abandoning the desktop/productivity market and that might let them emerge as the high end reference, this time controlling the end-to-end user experience.

Re: Microsoft Surface Studio

#239

Post by existencebox »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #172
existencebox wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: msftie. I don't buy that, despite how much I hear it. there are a few situations I'd agree that if you don't have the first-to-market advantage you're basically fucked (social networking being a prime one, any system where network effect dominates). And while people cite apps as being the "network-effect-esque" factor in this case, I'm not sure I buy that. Looking at data of how many people NEVER use a si…

Arguably true. But the real problem is simpler: consumers don't trust MS. You've inflicted too many false starts, bad products, update nightmares, u-turns, and unplanned obsolescences on the consumer market. MS as a consumer brand has mostly negative/indifferent associations. You could build the best product in the world, but unless you can sell it in reasonable quantities and prove you're committed to supporting con…

I have so many things to say in response to this (mostly not negative, actually, and I'm surprised this was so aggressively downvoted, likely because similar problems exist at most large companies?) but to try and both be concise and not overstep what I can say given my position:

Very simply, incentives are not aligned to produce the results you seek. There is some writing that explains the dynamic far better than I can (would heavily recommend Dan Luu's writing, especially normalization of deviance) if you want a window into some of the pathologies.

I can promise that engineers are "fighting the good fight", and I would encourage you to keep calling out when shit is broken despite the negative reception. This is one of the few paths I see to getting the needed alignment of goals to actually start internally prioritizing the stuff you call out.

(Aptly to this topic, I really loved the "errorsazurethrows" blog, it was a moment of brilliant vindication for someone who has both liked the underlying platform but railed against its often esoteric error/failure cases after years of having to use it as a primary tool)

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