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Introducing Surface Laptop

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#251

Post by BinaryIdiot »

wklauss wrote: post #229
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…

Not the only downside. Machine looks great but that fabric material in the keyboard looks like it will be easily stained with sweat (a common problem with surface pro keyboards). No USB-C seems like a big missed opportunity as well.

> a common problem with surface pro keyboards

Hmm, I thought the fabric was a nice touch. I've had my surface pro for a few years now and have never even come close to staining the keyboard. I wonder how common this issue really is.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#252

Post by nkkollaw »

I don't exactly love the carpet thing, but the main problem is definitely Windows 10S.

Despite what Apple is trying to push, I would not like a laptop running iOS, and an iPad Pro is definitely not a "computer".

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#253

Post by coldtea »

noxToken wrote: post #137
marcus_holmes wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handing them a laptop and having them go wild is exactly the way to do it. If they brick it, they have to work out how to fix it. As one of the kids who was lucky enough to get a BBC Micro, I had zero support. No-one else in my family even knew how to turn it on. No teacher at my school could support me because none of them knew how it worked either. If I broke it, I had to fix it. And no Stack Overflow, so no code t…

> As one of the kids who was lucky enough to get a BBC Micro, I had zero support. No-one else in my family even knew how to turn it on. No teacher at my school could support me because none of them knew how it worked either. If I broke it, I had to fix it. And no Stack Overflow, so no code to copy-paste. I had to go back to first principles every time and work out what went wrong and how I could make it go right. Wha…

>but why do we suggest these archaic hazing rituals?

Well, life is an archaic hazing ritual.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#254

Post by masklinn »

FireBeyond wrote: post #187
tmd83 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This look fairly expensive for the config isn't it?

Compared to what? Surface i5, 8/256 $1299, MBP $1499 or $1799 depending on the i5 processor. Surface i7, 8/256 $1599, MBP $2099 Surface i7, 16/512 $2199, MBP $2499. So not sure how you're saying this is on the expensive end.

> Compared to what?

The Surface uses 15W U-series, so they can only be compared with the 13" nTB, the other two use 28W and 45W with dGPU, they're in entirely different classes specs-wise.

> Surface i5, 8/256 $1299, MBP $1499 or $1799 depending on the i5 processor.

1799 is an i7, so no. And the MBP has a graphical edge (50~80% better graphical performances) as it gets an Iris 540 to the Surface's HD 620.

> Surface i7, 8/256 $1599, MBP $2099

1799 (nTB MBP with i7), Surface gets an Iris 640, the direct (and almost identical) successor to the 540.

> Surface i7, 16/512 $2199, MBP $2499.

2199 (nTB MBP with i7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD).

So the Surface is slightly lower-priced, at least at the low end, but with the caveat of flexibility: you can get a 16GB RAM or 512GB SSD nTB MBP for 1699, for the Surface it's 2199 or bust, and you can cut the i7 from any nTB configuration at almost no loss[0] to save $300.

[0] https://ark.intel.com/compare/91156,91169 the only difference is 400MHz base frequency, 300MHz maximum turbo

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#256

Post by zghst »

TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #144
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…

The pricing is one thing I don't understand. If you're asking a customer to pay the same price as a MacBook air, which comes with productivity apps and a basic cloud service for free, why don't you let them use O365 for free, in perpetuity, at least on that machine? The other thing I don't understand is the overarching message. The line we've been fed from Microsoft's marketing team is that the "convertibility" of th…

People will list it as an attribute that they get add-ons for free.

I'm sure Microsoft is confident in releasing hardware that is relevant to our digital lives under the Surface brand. It's pretty obvious if you go back and look at the pattern, there's either a sect of engineers or product people who really believe in the original Surface table vision, it's a very viable strategy until v1 of the HoloLens is complete

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#257

Post by uranian »

The bad news is they're targeting students. Who wants to see his children being locked into MS Windows software by school? Besides, we just found out Windows 10 has almost complete control over your system and calls home, now sending your kids private data as a bonus!

I would never accept my kids using a device like this on school. Schools are just ignorant and stupid if they make a deal for these laptops with MS. Schools should go for linux and open source, more educational as well.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#258

Post by alpha_squared »

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?

There is local sync for Google Drive applications (Docs, Sheets, whatever the other ones are called). There is, albeit small, an internal SSD for Chromebooks. On the whole, it's up to the web app developers to handle that functionality.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#259

Post by BinaryIdiot »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #218
epmaybe wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's another article floating around announcing other devices as low as $190 running Windows 10 S that will probably actually compete with Chromebooks.

When why launch with a neutered version on the ultrabook? It doesn't make sense to me.

Much like Google's Pixel that was a crazy price for Chrome OS; it's the flagship device for Windows 10 S.
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