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Introducing Surface Laptop

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#161

Post by phonon »

aioprisan wrote: post #151
dangrossman wrote: post #27

They're now demoing the Surface Laptop. Thinner than a MacBook Air. Faster than a MacBook Pro. Longer battery life than either. The downside? "Windows 10 S", which only runs apps from the Windows Store. The upside over Windows RT from the Windows 8 era? You can port Win32 apps to the Store today, don't think you could back then. Edit: You can upgrade Windows 10 S to ordinary Windows 10 Pro for $50. Laptops that run W…

Um, I'm not sure how a dual core CPU can be faster than the 15" MacBook Pro 4 core CPU (even if the former is Kaby Lake)

15" vs. 13". The 13" MacBook Pros are also dual core.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#162

Post by captainmuon »

djsumdog wrote: post #86
captainmuon wrote: post #40

Windows S is completely backwards. If the Windows Store was actually any good, they should make a version without store apps (win32 only) and let customers pay a premium to use signed, vetted, store apps. (Only half kidding...) But this way around, store apps will always be viewed as the cheaper, less featured option.

No one uses the Apple app stop on MacOS because apparently it's terrible. I don't see going to a closed/walled garden system as being any type of meaningful advantage. You're trading off some security/sandboxing for reduced flexibility. If Microsoft wanted something competitive, they'd allow people to add other repositories to their stores, so manufactures could publish their own certs and people could chose to trust…

And the macOS store is one of the better ones! I just recently set up a Hackintosh, and have been browsing the app store to discover a couple of neat new apps.

The Windows Store in contrast... most apps seem to be from a Microsoft contest a couple of years ago, where you could win a prize by writing a Metro app. The few decent apps can be counted on a hand and are all made by MS: Office Mobile (really good actually), Skype, Wunderlist/To-Do.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#163

Post by SoapSeller »

dangrossman wrote: post #27

They're now demoing the Surface Laptop. Thinner than a MacBook Air. Faster than a MacBook Pro. Longer battery life than either. The downside? "Windows 10 S", which only runs apps from the Windows Store. The upside over Windows RT from the Windows 8 era? You can port Win32 apps to the Store today, don't think you could back then. Edit: You can upgrade Windows 10 S to ordinary Windows 10 Pro for $50. Laptops that run W…

The Windows Store page[0] state that "Prefer to run non-Store apps? Easily switch to Windows 10 Pro for free until Dec 31, 2017".

[0] https://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/product...

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#164

Post by drzaiusapelord »

smacktoward wrote: post #98
dangrossman wrote: post #27

They're now demoing the Surface Laptop. Thinner than a MacBook Air. Faster than a MacBook Pro. Longer battery life than either. The downside? "Windows 10 S", which only runs apps from the Windows Store. The upside over Windows RT from the Windows 8 era? You can port Win32 apps to the Store today, don't think you could back then. Edit: You can upgrade Windows 10 S to ordinary Windows 10 Pro for $50. Laptops that run W…

I'm kind of gobsmacked at that something like Windows 10 S exists. It's like Microsoft doesn't understand that the absolutely enormous quantity of Win32 apps in use is the moat that protects their Windows business from serious competition. Millions and millions of regular people just assume that it's not really safe for their next computer to be a Mac or a Chromebook or what have you, because they're afraid of the ri…

MS has or will release a Win32 converter and a lot of devs will publish on the store as its another avenue for revenue. Also App stores are now the new lock-in. Grandma/IT director knows $app_store_productivity_app and can't leave it easily now either.

I do agree its risky, but they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. They're watching mobile change everything and the WIMP/x86/W32 ecosystem that has sustained them for decades needs to catch up.

That said, its inexcusable all these consumer-oriented features like Candy Crush, Cortana, cloud sourced start menu items, ads, etc are either tough or impossible to disable on the Pro version of Windows 10. MS should have geared LTSB as the 'business friendly' version of Win10 and gone bonkers on the consumer side.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#166

Post by haswell »

It appears that the cost to upgrade the i7 model from 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD to 16GB RAM / 512GB SSD is ~$600 ($1599 - $2199).

This is something Apple has long been criticized for. Is there something I'm missing? Because this seems like a ridiculous premium.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#167

Post by chaostheory »

sxates wrote: post #153
avn2109 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this thing could be persuaded to run Linux out of the box with no driver problems, it could be a Macbook killer.

I just can't see anyone inside MS being able to make the case that they should put effort into making their laptops run anything other than Windows. But I agree with you. I tried to set up Linux on my Surface Book, but couldn't get the keyboard to work :/

Still inside Windows, but it's a good start https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/commandline/wsl/about

Personally I prefer this over a vm, dual boot or running Linux exclusively

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#168

Post by [deleted] »

oceanswave wrote: post #96

A fabric covered keyboard... wondering how that's going to look in a year of use. 1 USB 3.0 port and a proprietary Surface Connect port... So more surface-only dongles if you want to connect to a VGA/DVI/HDMI display. Is the Surface Connect port completely proprietary or is a rebranded Thunderbolt? Starts at $999 for a 13.5" i5/4GB/128GB SSD, and then you have to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro for $49 if you want to use S…

[deleted]

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#169

Post by haswell »

fosco wrote: post #146
avn2109 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this thing could be persuaded to run Linux out of the box with no driver problems, it could be a Macbook killer.

this would be my dream laptop if it ran linux out of the box. I really wish a linux laptop with this type of design was put out for an affordable price, I really think its a major opportunity for a large business market there. I think there is a lot of room for improvement on the "librem' laptops...

The Dell XPS 13 mostly fits the bill in terms of design. The Linux support is excellent.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#170

Post by codedinosaur »

haswell wrote: post #166

It appears that the cost to upgrade the i7 model from 8GB RAM / 256GB SSD to 16GB RAM / 512GB SSD is ~$600 ($1599 - $2199). This is something Apple has long been criticized for. Is there something I'm missing? Because this seems like a ridiculous premium.

From what I've been seeing from the way they sell and price their other surface devices, and according to some bloggers, MS just wants to set a reference for other manufacturers to make Windows devices. They seem to price their products intentionally higher so that they don't cannibalize Dell, Lenovo, HP and others. Don't know whether it is a good strategy or not, but that's how they are approaching all their in-house Windows devices
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