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New Surface Pro

microsoft.com

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Re: New Surface Pro

#221

Post by neogodless »

chiph wrote: post #12

I've been very happy with my SP4, but I wish I'd gone for the i7 CPU instead of the i5. It would be nice if the top-level configuration on the SP5 had 32gb of memory - I end up swapping sometimes (which TBH isn't that bad with a SSD, compared to the old rotating rust drives)

What Core i5 model does your SP4 carry? Does anyone know where you can find the models they are using in the new SPP?

I'm sure the Core i7 are something like the 7500U (i.e. dual core, four threads) - is your Core i5 dual core, dual threads?

Re: New Surface Pro

#222

Post by ashark »

melling wrote: post #186
ashark wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> two years USB-A. > five years Both—not having either will mean tons of dongles. > 10 years? USB-C. [EDIT] actually the 10-year will probably be "some other stupid new connector, with USB-C dongles"

USB-C is already shipping on cheap desktops, a lot of smartphones, and many laptops. In two years Apple won't ship any computers with USB-A. USB-C has arrived: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/shop/laptops-with-usb-c

Sure, but most of my USB-A stuff will still be fine in 2 years, and much of it in 5. I won't have acquired enough USB-C things in 2 years to care much about it.

Re: New Surface Pro

#223

Post by passive »

franciscop wrote: post #8

They are still using the SurfaceDock with the SurfaceConnect Cable: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/accessories/surface-... , which does basically the same as USB-C. In an era when even Apple is rumored (and even if false, still plausible) to be switching to USB-C for the iPhone, Microsoft still tries to force a proprietary connector. Didn't they learn anything from IE? Even if it's good for them for a while,…

Every laptop in existence, up until quite recently, used a proprietary power connector. The fact that Surface also uses it as a dock connector doesn't erase this fact.

But it does point to the fact that many of us have such a dock, and are very happy to not have to buy a new one to use with our new Surface Pros. It also won't hurt that our old power adapters should still work.

One particular gamble of the Surface line was that it relies on accessories to really meet your needs. Microsoft has done a commendable job in this area, allowing me to "upgrade" my Surface Pro 3 with a new keyboard and pen, and now allowing me to continue using all my accessories with the latest device.

I agree they have to break compatibility at some point, but I don't think there's much value yet in doing so. Maybe in a year or so, USB-C will be standardized and reliable enough to really make it advantageous to use as a power supply for all my devices. But it's not there yet.

Re: New Surface Pro

#224

Post by vezycash »

raesene6 wrote: post #5

Looks like a nice incremental improvement to the Surface Pro line. The "no fan" option on the Core i5 could be quite nice, one of the annoyances about the Surface Pro 3 that I've seen was the noise of the fans.

I'm curious, does "no fan" mean no vents? Cos it will overheat once dust accumulates.

Re: New Surface Pro

#225

Post by wooter »

mmahemoff wrote: post #72
nilved wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that 16 GB isn't enough?

Yes I'm saying it's not enough. It's the same RAM that was available 4 years ago on Macbook Pro (and still not available any higher on MBP either). It's common to run several types of server in production, these all need to be run on localhost for development purposes. Also virtual environments so server architecture can easily be scripted. 16GB works for me, but is far from ideal. I was hoping MS would one-up Apple…

Counter-example: I worked in ML research at one of the largest companies in the field (in the billions of predictions per day) and 16GB was more than enough to do anything I would ever do on a laptop/tablet/etc..

Furthermore, I found that solutions which couldn't be successfully worked on with Basically, when the difference between a dev sample and a prod sample is 3+ orders of magnitude, your ability to scale the process up/down, fail gracefully, even battery life, etc. are far more important than having large swathes of memory to fail on. Especially on the go.

If you do deal with production (big) data, you're ssh'ed in to some always-on, process-maintained hardware if only for the sake of latency and interruptions. And you better have the toolset to do it. How much memory does a terminal take?

For graphics, I understand - but then you're definitely not working on a surface pro or on the go at all really.

Re: New Surface Pro

#226

Post by germanier »

jhasse wrote: post #172
sambe wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is (currently) a two-year EU-mandated warranty, Apple was even taken to court for not emphasizing this enough when selling AppleCare.

Do you know since when it's two-years? Apple's warranty has been (still is?) only one year in Germany IIRC.

For a long time. Note that there is a difference between the manufacturer's warranty (voluntary) and the seller's warranty (two years mandatory, "Gewährleistung" in German). When Apple talks about their warranty they mean the former.

They even have a page outlining the difference: https://www.apple.com/de/legal/statutory-warranty/

Re: New Surface Pro

#227

Post by pfooti »

passive wrote: post #199

I've been using a Surface Pro 3 as my one-and-only for almost 3 years, and it really feels like time to upgrade, so I've been looking forward to this one. My workload is probably something like 40% reading, 30% writing, 25% coding, and 5% running code, and the Surface has been a nearly ideal form factor for this. The new "Surface Pro" ticks a lot of boxes for me: - Supports my existing keyboard, pen, dock, and power…

what sort of coding do you do on the spro? I'm going to be buying a new laptop / ultraportable / tablet in the near future, and I'm curious about this.

Can you comfortably run some kind of linux VM on it? What kind of external keyboard does it support? How does the display hold up in moderate lighting conditions?

For a lot of work, I've got a desktop, but I use my 2013 mbp at cafes and such. I mostly do node and frontend work, so while a strict windows dev env is feasible, I prefer linux.

Re: New Surface Pro

#228

Post by zghst »

lmm wrote: post #218
zghst wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a disaster until it isn't. Until Microsoft implements it while it's competitors will have had it for ages.

That's often how reality works though. I remember the Apple fans mocking computers shipping with floppy disk drives, but floppy disks were useful at the time. Migrations take time, not everyone can afford to just rush out and buy all-new accessories. For a device that you buy today and will use for say 3 years, USB-A and a dongle for compatibility with -C is probably better for most users than the reverse.

That's the truth. But our society will only move as fast as we say to. All of this, economy, technological advance, social issues all exist in our mind. Surely a giant such as Microsoft could be dedicated to being at the forefront of a wave of events

Re: New Surface Pro

#229

Post by ska »

weavie wrote: post #210
leecb wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My US-bought MacBook has been fixed under warranty in the US, Canada, Thailand, and Singapore. There are some country-specific restrictions- here in Mexico, they are unable to fix Apple products from other countries sometimes due to government restrictions; e.g., they were unable to replace my girlfriend's iPad screen at any price at the Apple Store since it was bought in the US.

Wow, how often do you break your laptop? What do you do to it?

Travels?

Re: New Surface Pro

#230

Post by robotresearcher »

lmm wrote: post #203
maxxxxx wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why they create these bundles. Why not let me choose CPU, RAM and disk separately?

They do it because customers find it simpler, and because it makes it easier to keep all the models in stock.

And because a customer who must have one feature will pay for the other features they don't need if that's the only way to get it.
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