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Introducing Surface Laptop

blogs.windows.com

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Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#421

Post by 72deluxe »

eikenberry wrote: post #231
haswell wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

They look great except for the battery, it sucks.

Is that Linux' fault though instead of the Dell itself? I mean, Mac OS has app nap and I noticed the difference on the same hardware after OSX 10.whatever introduced it (I got an hour extra battery life!). When I reboot the same hardware into Windows, I get worse battery life than under Mac OS, obviously doing different things and an entirely different architecture (RPC, COM calls etc.) but I know it's not the hardware at fault.

Is Linux architecture at fault for the Dell? Just curious. I wonder if there is significantly different battery life for the same machine running different OS (eg. Windows vs Linux).

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#422

Post by exception_e »

natch wrote: post #354
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…

Is Google drive still free for only three years? Are you past three years yet, and, if so, what is the monthly cost per user / per Chromebook?

Unless it's different with Chromebooks, it's free up to 15 GB.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#423

Post by 72deluxe »

pawadu wrote: post #30
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…

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?

I wonder why 10S is faster than Pro? It can't be doing anything significantly different - perhaps some .NET runtime startup cache or bypassing many of the Win32 APIs regarding RPC?

I am genuinely curious - ideas?

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#424

Post by natch »

PuffinBlue wrote: post #372
natch wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

She saw a chain email (i.e. forward this to 10 people!) and decided it would be fun to make up her own. Apparently it was successful enough to get somebody's attention.

Edit: To be clear, I would never blame them for wanting to stop a cascading explosion of emails. But I also wouldn't say it's impossible for a child to get an account banned.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#425

Post by 72deluxe »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #108
tashoecraft wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that having each kid able to brick their computer leads to significant problems for IT in debugging everyone's computer. As well as letting them move away from educational material extremely easily. I agree that great things can happen when kids can truly explore their computer and take away the 'magic', but just handing all kids a laptop and having them go wild is not the way to do it. I don't what is, to be…

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…

I had a BBC Micro 10 years after they were being chucked in the bin. I was poor.

Still, that BBC Basic manual and copies of Micro User were mighty helpful - the manual was excellent! I am sure you agree.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#426

Post by chokolad »

temp246810 wrote: post #407
chokolad wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's similar to Surface Book's one (and I suspect it is) - then it comes very close to Macbooks. I was spoiled by MacBook Pro's touchpad and felt that even "premium" Windows laptops have shitty ones but Surface Book touchpad is very good. It has slightly smaller amount of gestures, but the basics are there.

This is not true - have to disagree. The touchpad on a mac is not mechanical - you get a uniform "click" no matter where you press. For PC laptops, the touchpads are still mechanical and work almost as if on a hinge. The hinge is at the top of the pad so clicking near there sometimes is impossible.

are you talking about Surface Book's touchpad specifically or PC touchpads in general ? Also, when did touchpad on the mac stopped being mechanical? My experience is with pre retina MacBook Pro.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#427

Post by 72deluxe »

Joeri wrote: post #243
valuearb wrote: post #116

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…

And on top of this it is still possible to buy laptops with a 1366x768 screen resolution. In 2017.

It's insane.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#428

Post by cultofmetatron »

w1ntermute wrote: post #76
rocky1138 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

A minute fraction of kids will use the ability to install downloaded software to flourish. The vast majority of children will just download games, malware, and porn. Society should be more honest with itself about the simple reality that the vast majority of children are not and will not ever be special.

It was cracking bootleg games that forced me to learn how to use hexadecimal editors, binary and computer programming. The skills I learned going off the approved curriculum are the same ones that actually pay my bills today. Hell if 13 year old me was exposed to computers today, I probably would never go past light user. Computers today have too smooth of a surface area. You actually need to be shown the curtain nowadays whereas before it was right in front of you and you needed to get past it to do anything useful

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#430

Post by 72deluxe »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #164
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…

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 th…

As I recall, this fabled Win32 converter created giant binaries? Or am I wrong?

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/uwp/porting/desktop...

Regarding mobile changing everything, I am not so sure that it is. I still see people using Office over Google Docs (due to Sheets becoming sluggish with large quantities of data and years of XLS files floating around). I recall the release of ChromeOS being hailed as a threat to Microsoft in the media but in truth it hasn't dented businesses at all and I cannot ever see any business IT department even considering a switch to ChromeOS (even small businesses). The Chromebook devices look like etch-a-sketch toys compared to even cheap Windows laptops.

The ability to grab data and modify it on the go has been around since the Windows CE / Windows Mobile days. The requirements haven't changed in that time - grab a document, see it, and then attempt to edit it on a mobile device (give up, wait until you're at a normal computer - my experience anyway).

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