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Introducing Surface Laptop

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#371
post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is excellent, but I've also had great luck with recent versions of VirtualBox.

VirtualBox has improved over time, but it's still a battery vacuum.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#372
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My child lost her firstname.lastname gmail/Google account for life for a one-time childish mistake. So, I guess you are mistaken.

And what was this one-time childish mistake that lead to losing the account?

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#373

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…

> 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.

First of of all that's not entirely true. Nothing is instant. It wakes up fast, but not instantly. Login is fast, but not instant. First time login is fastish but not fast or instant.

Windows has had Roaming User Profiles since NT, Google calling the feature "cloud based" is just another way of saying remote. Since Windows 8 you could have a Microsoft Account which was a "cloud based" user profile and use Sky/One Drive which is a "cloud based" data repository.

My guess is you didn't watch the webcast? They made special mention of the fact that with Windows 10 S they had improved the login and first login times to be much faster than your typical Windows experience.

> I got an original Chromebook from Google I/O years ago based on an ancient ARM chip, and it's still perfectly usable for when my kid's friend comes over to do homework and they need an extra box.

That was what they advertised here. In Windows 10 prior to this announcement you could grant any other Microsoft Account access to login to your machine and it would download their profile and provide them access to their One Drive. The experience isn't as fast as on a Chromebook but it's less than a minute. The emphasis in this announcement was that with Windows 10 S they got it down to under 20 seconds which is Chromebook speed.

> Windows and Mac computers will never be that easy to setup, use or maintain.

I would disagree. With what they announced today, Windows 10 S is pretty damn close.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#374

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.

No USB-C is a dealbreaker. I understand not going only-USB-C, but to not ship with any C ports is ridiculous.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#375
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the target market (schools) I think not being able to install downloaded software is only a good thing. Also, did you see the performance demo? 10s was significantly faster than 10 Pro. Not sure about the $999 for the cheapest model however. Does it include an Office 365 subscription?

> Given the target market (schools) I think not being able to install downloaded software is only a good thing. Except that giving kids unfettered access to their computers allows them to flourish. See: BBC Micro, Raspberry Pi, Apple ][, the list goes on.

At $189 for the computer they can afford to have a computer that is managed and always works and a bbc micro or raspberry pi for the student to hack on and tear up.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#376
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Apple has to deal with all these forces and it's maintained healthy margins in Macs. It can do this because it offers a unique product, windows PC makers can't differentiate themselves because they rely on MSFT for R&D.

When Apple started kicking butt in laptops by using sealed batteries with substantially more capacity, PC makers were locked out from doing same for years because it required battery conditioning software drivers, which MSFT didn't provide.

Commoditization took time, early PC market didn't have the direct model. And the race to the bottom in PCs isn't the fault of the manufacturers. It's an effect of the business model, and customer decisions. If a large segment paid up for better PCs and local support that model would still work, instead they predominantly choose to save a few bucks on the purchase price by buying the cheapest ones with crapware.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#377
post #303
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 10 S has all the CLI stuff disabled, including WSL. The registry editor is also absent.

How aggravating. This is why I left Windows. No marginal cost to them, the functionality is inside but turned off . I really have a hard time with that idea. It seems...well...just plain mean.

Suspect it is to do with the intended education market. But I know what you mean.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#378
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Faster than a MacBook Pro What's their basis for that? I'd have thought at the very best it'd be about the same speed as a 13" (assuming you're not doing anything that uses much RAM; the 4GB would really cripple it there). I'll be interested to see what CPU it has, exactly, but I'd be surprised if it has the HD540/640 graphics. EDIT: Specs here: https://i.imgur.com/Kc1fQ52.png The expensive ones use an Iris 640, so…

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

Not really, Surface laptop is clearly an Apple MacBook competitor and not some MS version of Chromebook.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#379

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…

> 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. First of of all that's not entirely true. Nothing is instant. It wakes up fast, but not instantly. Login is fast, but not instant. First time login is fastish but not fast or instant. Windows has had…

isn't this just being pedantic? for most people "fast enough" equates to instant.

if you asked most people if anything was "instant", they'd say yes and point to a number of things that feel "instant" to them.

It doesn't feel useful to nit on use of the word instant by using a definition that differs from most people.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#380
post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But we should worry about google building advertising profiles on children, as they have been doing.

That's a very real concern. As a parent I think about things like that all the time. My son has a personal Chromebook and both my son and daughter use Google school accounts.

The alternative, in this case using a Microsoft Surface Laptop instead, should raise many of the same concerns. With the tight coupling of online services and single account sign-on options that Microsoft offers, similarly extensive advertising and usage profiles can be built.

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