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Introducing Surface Laptop

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#241

Post by azag0 »

krzyk wrote: post #234
russellbeattie wrote: post #217

Do any of you have children at a school using Google Chromebooks and Google Drive? Calling Windows S a Chromebook competitor completely misses the point. Chromebooks are instant on, and your profile/data is 100% cloud based. You can grab any Chromebook from the rack in the back of the classroom, open it up, log in and immediately get to work on your report or whatever. I got an original Chromebook from Google I/O yea…

Until you loose internet connectivity (happens from time to time), or go abroad and don't want to pay high fees for net access. Or when Google decides that you broke some of their rules (frequently happens in AdSense) and blocks all of your accounts.

That kind of misses the point for school use. But yes, for personal use you're right

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#242

Post by abrowne »

denzil_correa wrote: post #111
djsumdog wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> No one uses the Apple app stop on MacOS because apparently it's terrible AFAIK, most major apps are on the macOS app store.

What's "major"? No Office (only OneNote), no Adobe Acrobat or CC...

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#243

Post by Joeri »

valuearb wrote: post #116
smacktoward wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How would you feel if you were a Windows pc maker right now? MSFT commoditized your business and sucked all the profits out of your eco-system until your net margins were 2%, forcing you to cut R&D, Design, etc, and compete in a brutal price war without much hope of unique differentiating features or value. Now MSFT is directly competing with you by so lavishly spending on design that they are years away from making…

It wasn't microsoft that killed the margins, it was amazon. Back in the DOS, windows 3.x and even windows 9x era the OS was just as commoditized, yet people willingly paid high margins. They did this because they wanted the service of their local PC store and therefore were willing to pay their margins. With the boom of online stores and easy exchanges/returns the brick and mortar stores went away and with them went the cushy margins.

The thing that really doomed the PC market was not that the easy margins went away, it's that OEM's responded by making their products worse. They cut hardware quality, they bundled crapware. The PC experience got worse year after year. Truthfully, windows 8 did not help, but I still think that if the OEM's had just bundled touch screens across the board it would not have been such an outright disaster. The reduced quality forced people off the platform, to macs at the high end, and to chromebooks at the low end. Granted, mobile would have always caused PC sales to decline, but not as much as they did. It is only recently that the OEM's have started investing again in quality hardware with a pure windows experience, and unsurprisingly last quarter PC sales went up YoY for the first time in five years.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#244

Post by Gaelan »

russellbeattie wrote: post #217

Do any of you have children at a school using Google Chromebooks and Google Drive? Calling Windows S a Chromebook competitor completely misses the point. Chromebooks are instant on, and your profile/data is 100% cloud based. You can grab any Chromebook from the rack in the back of the classroom, open it up, log in and immediately get to work on your report or whatever. I got an original Chromebook from Google I/O yea…

HS student (15) here. Occasionally use chromebooks when we have time in class to work on the assignment.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#245

Post by BHSPitMonkey »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #239
krzyk wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you loose internet connectivity (happens from time to time), or go abroad and don't want to pay high fees for net access. Or when Google decides that you broke some of their rules (frequently happens in AdSense) and blocks all of your accounts.

I've never used a Chromebook so this is an honest question - do they not have any kind of local sync, so you can work on your stuff and then upload it back to the cloud next time you get online?

Only to the extent that the sites/apps themselves choose to do that.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#246

Post by scott00 »

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.

It's certainly not justified by the difference in component costs. My feeling is it's an attempt at price discrimination. For users running an office suite, web browser, and not much else, even the lowest spec machine is plenty. They want to compete on price for those customers. Users doing media processing, scientific computing, or development are probably more willing and able to spend more on a laptop, so Microsoft is charging more.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#247

Post by BatFastard »

opportune wrote: post #238
krzyk wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you loose internet connectivity (happens from time to time), or go abroad and don't want to pay high fees for net access. Or when Google decides that you broke some of their rules (frequently happens in AdSense) and blocks all of your accounts.

I think you're missing the point. Children don't need to worry about breaking AdSense rules and getting their accounts blocked, especially if they have accounts dedicated for school. Children also will have internet at school.

Exactly, these are single purpose laptops for education. And I do believe that google docs has an offline mode now. So they can work offline for a limited period (at least).

And how does this 1000 USD compete with 250 USD boxes?

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#248

Post by zghst »

ghusbands wrote: post #181

This seems to heavily dilute the Surface brand. Until now, you could get a Surface device and know you were getting a useful, independent writing/touch surface and a good-to-great keyboard/trackpad to attach. Now we're given a laptop with no convertibility whatsoever; not even a 360 degree hinge like many similar-spec laptops?

It's not a dilution. It's quite the opposite, it is an expansion of what Surface can be. And let's reach back to the original Surface that was envisioned a decade ago that no one remembers, you remember that table? That Surface? And how it became a tablet years and years later? I think their marketing team has thought about this but, abstractly it seems that they are trying to cover all existing hardware concepts that are in the world today in the Surface line, phone, tablet, laptop, maybe TV. That's plan now of Microsoft's strategy. What's next up Microsofts sleeve, HoloLens. They are still chasing that dream that they envisioned with Surface but it's not going to be realized with the Surface hardware, they are a means to an end (hardware manufacturing experience, keep and grow talent, test device interfaces, implant touchable everything on all devices)

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#250

Post by krzyk »

azag0 wrote: post #241
krzyk wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until you loose internet connectivity (happens from time to time), or go abroad and don't want to pay high fees for net access. Or when Google decides that you broke some of their rules (frequently happens in AdSense) and blocks all of your accounts.

That kind of misses the point for school use. But yes, for personal use you're right

At schools, during exams internet connectivity is disabled on purpose. How Chromebooks work then?

EDIT: Why the down votes? My wife is a teacher and disabling internet access during any kind of a test (not to mention exam).

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