Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Introducing Surface Laptop

blogs.windows.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

531–540 of 613 posts

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#531

Post by ralfd »

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…

If Apple would have released an OS version which you can unlock for $50 there would have been an internet shitstorm decrying them.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#532

Post by tonyedgecombe »

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…

Microsoft can see the $28 billion in revenue Apple gets from their app store and think they should be able to do the same.

Much as I dislike the idea (I make a living from selling Win32 apps) I can see why they want to do it.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#533

Post by _pmf_ »

int_19h wrote: post #318
canadaj wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don't they just ship it with W10 Pro already installed? Are there hardware issues, or do they hope a percentage of the population will pay for the upgrade in 2018?

I would expect this to be a way to pressure software providers to publish to the store. With opt-in model, even if it's free, you can assume that there will be a sizeable chunk of the market that will not opt-in to upgrade to Pro.

> I would expect this to be a way to pressure software providers to publish to the store.

Holy backfiring shit, what a desperate bunch of clueless clowns! This is a nice machine, and there's a opening now that Apple has somewhat fallen out of favor, and they think they are in any position to play stupid games?

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#534

Post by guardian5x »

fibo wrote: post #520
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…

I use a Chromebook and it is great, also for the price. I think MS will not succed with a 999$ semi laptop.

If i understand the laptop is more like a flagship Windows 10 S device. They said there are other devices plant for as little as 189$.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#535

Post by majewsky »

pjmlp wrote: post #519
flukus wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For anyone considering running linux this type of nickle-and-diming is more likely to push them over the edge than to stay with windows. If you stay with windows you get more of this kind of thing, if you jump ship then you never have to worry again.

The wonders of using software without paying for it.

Without having to pay for it. You can easily pay for most Linux distros.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#536

Post by ForFreedom »

Microsoft attempt is to show good profit and there is nothing else to it.

Windows 10 cannot be MacOSX. These are two different entities.

Putting on a new dress, installing it in a new hardware, giving it a new name does not change the fact that windows S is close to windows 10.

I work daily on MacOSX, Win 10 and linux

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#537

Post by jlebrech »

rpeden wrote: post #48
jlebrech wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean? it's not x86?

tankenmate is saying that it will only run applications installed from the Windows Store. Steam isn't in the store, and isn't going to be int he store, because they don't want to give Microsoft a cut of their revenue.

that makes sense, I bet it won't be that hard to crack though.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#538

Post by pjmlp »

majewsky wrote: post #535
pjmlp wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wonders of using software without paying for it.

Without having to pay for it. You can easily pay for most Linux distros.

I personally do pay for the FOSS tools I make use of, but I bet the majority that find outrageous to pay for OS X or Windows software aren't willing to pay for anything on UNIX FOSS clones.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#539

Post by cm2187 »

gcb0 wrote: post #524
cm2187 wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard from a surface book user that he never use the tablet mode in practice, outside sometimes to make it a tablet in a plane. I owned a surface pro myself, and I tend to agree. It's a terrible device as a tablet. Slow to wake up, buggy, low battery life, not really the kind of device you can carry around and check something on it quickly. And if you use it as a laptop, it's better to have a proper laptop with mor…

you used it wrong. its not a single task tablet like android or ios. it is a computer. which you can interact with as a tablet (touch, pen). it can do things a mobile device will never be able to. the downside is that instant on is 2s instead of 0.5 I dont use it myself. while I loved the interaction of touch+pen, it wont run linux well. so thats a no go for me, as with any mac product.

Then it's more than I don't really have any use case for it. Either I need to just check something quickly, my emails, something on the web, watch a video, read some text, and then the ipad experience is just fine (though perfectible). Or I need to produce content, write emails, prepare a presentation, write code, work on a spreadsheet. Then anything that doesn't involve a mouse (with its precision) and a keyboard is unpractical (and the surface pro keyboard is pretty bad). Even for taking notes in a meeting, nothing beats the pen and paper, I don't really need any advanced feature (my notes are always at most a reminder of follow ups), and I can't (and shouldn't) focus on the meeting and play with a computer at the same time. But I don't have the feeling I am working in a fundamentally different way than 99% of office workers.

I just don't get what is the use case for a surface pro. Graphic designers possibly, but they usually don't work on a tiny screen, and it's a niche market.

Re: Introducing Surface Laptop

#540

Post by rahoulb »

quickben wrote: post #498
oneplane wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that make for a reliable exam? In the real world you use the internet all the time. The exam should be about your skills, and using information sources like the internet should be one of them. It's not like you can 'download' a perfect answer to a programming exam online, and if you can, then you deserve a medal because you'll be able to build applications faster than everyone else.

For job safety, if your job has answers online, you probably want to specialize to move out of that.

As a Ruby developer who has been running my own development business for 10 years and still has to look up how to use Ruby's CSV class every time I use it - I doubt that online answers are going to be what puts me out of business.
Post reply on HN