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New Surface Pro

microsoft.com

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Re: New Surface Pro

#411

Post by JimDabell »

ultimoo wrote: post #403
goatforce5 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a MacBook in the UK and some time later when I was in the US they keyboard became faulty. I walked in to a US Apple store and explained the problem. The Genius person agreed there was a fault and then started tapping away at their computer. He umm'ed and ahh'ed and called over a manager. At this point I was thinking they were going to reject the warranty repair for some reason, but the manager ended up apolo…

Pardon my ignorance but what is the difference in the UK style keyboard vs the US style keyboard? Is the 4/$ replaced with the 4/£ key? Wouldn't this be problematic when programming (for example variable substitution on the shell etc.)?

The UK keyboard layout still has $ above 4, but it has £ above 3. In order to get #, you have to hit ⌥3. You can also hit ⌥2 to get €. I think a couple of keys like backslash and backtick are moved around as well.

Re: New Surface Pro

#412

Post by rbanffy »

ultimoo wrote: post #403
goatforce5 wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought a MacBook in the UK and some time later when I was in the US they keyboard became faulty. I walked in to a US Apple store and explained the problem. The Genius person agreed there was a fault and then started tapping away at their computer. He umm'ed and ahh'ed and called over a manager. At this point I was thinking they were going to reject the warranty repair for some reason, but the manager ended up apolo…

Pardon my ignorance but what is the difference in the UK style keyboard vs the US style keyboard? Is the 4/$ replaced with the 4/£ key? Wouldn't this be problematic when programming (for example variable substitution on the shell etc.)?

Nope. ~` key is next to Z, Enter is vertical. \| is next to "'.

The labeling is actually cooler, with images instead of "Shift", "Tab" etc.

http://www.thebookyard.com/images/mbutcuk_notp.jpg

Re: New Surface Pro

#413

Post by rbanffy »

tracker1 wrote: post #98
nailer wrote: post #41

One import thing with all Surface laptops that most people don't know: > Support is limited to the country you purchased the device in. Eg: - If you buy an Apple laptop, and need a repair, they'll fix it if it's in warranty, regardless of where you are. - If you buy a Microsoft laptop, and need a warranty repair done in a different country, Microsoft won't help you. I purchased a Surface Book (which I love) in a Micr…

I've heard similar stories wrt apple care coverage...

Anecdote, but my experience with Apple has been the complete opposite.

Re: New Surface Pro

#414

Post by rbanffy »

ashark wrote: post #160
melling wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What connector do you think you'll need in two years, five years, 10 years? The transition to USB-C has begun. For most of the life of the device, you'll probably want USB-C. I'm sure Microsoft will get to it in the next release.

> 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"

My 5250's still uses twinax to talk to the AS/400 and my VT-100 is on a DEC-432 connection to the VAX.

No. USB-C will soon dominate.

Re: New Surface Pro

#415

Post by rbanffy »

nilved wrote: post #13
Longhanks wrote: post #4

> The most versatile laptop. ...that doesn't ship with a keyboard (pen isn't included either). No USB-C. 16GB RAM maximum.

Are you saying that 16 GB isn't enough?

For most people it'd be, but some people need to bring up a cluster of machines that quickly eat away that memory.

Re: New Surface Pro

#416

Post by akavel »

csixty4 wrote: post #280
doublerebel wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Coding? All of it. C++, Node, frontend... The dense screen is great and flipping to portrait can be nice. Keyboard? Anything USB or Bluetooth. Only one USB port, though. Display? Pretty bright, the spec is posted if you look. Glossy, but everything is these days. VM? Sure, it's a 2 core 4 thread processor, just order enough RAM. My i7 has Hyper-V but I don't know if that extends across all procs.

A Surface with i5 does Hyper-V nicely. The current incarnation of Docker keeps a Hyper-V VM running for Linux containers, but my understanding is it'll soon just use the kernal's Linux support.

I have a Core m3 SP4 (because fanless), and am running Hyper-V on it too, with NixOS. That said, I wasn't able to give it more than 1.5 GB RAM, and even this only after I temporarily close Firefox on the host. (Firefox starts a-OK afterwards, even with numerous tabs open.)

Some details on running NixOS in Hyper-V, in case anyone's interested: https://github.com/NixOS/nixos-hardware/blob/master/microsof...

EDIT: ah, yes: worth to note, the first specimen I bought had some kind of hardware issue; the GPU driver was crashing somewhat frequently, and the whole machine was crashing from time to time too (like, a couple times a week). Was super disheartening. Fortunately, I was able to replace it in the shop where I got it (they had a limited time offer where you could replace during the first month, no questions asked; http://x-kom.pl, just to thank them through some lip service). The replacement doesn't show such problems, fortunately (over a year already).

Re: New Surface Pro

#417

Post by kybernetikos »

zghst wrote: post #125
maxxxxx wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure if you are trying to be funny or if you are an arrogant prick.

What's so taboo about creating things under the constraints of machines that everyday people own? The best engineers are always the most resourceful and focused.

> What's so taboo about creating things under the constraints of machines that everyday people own?

Because it's impractical, unnecessary and wasteful. There are a number of processes that by their nature require global knowledge. These are not the sorts of processes that need to be done in the client (many of them in fact are done up front precisely so that a client will not need to do them), but they are the sorts of processes that a developer will need to do if they are to be able to make a change and see its effect. Also, there are good reasons to generate assets at a higher resolution than needed in the final artifact.

Just like if you're rendering a 3d animated film you might need a more powerful machine than those who are only watching it, or if you're training a neural net, you need a more powerful system than if you're merely running it.

Re: New Surface Pro

#418

Post by volkk »

angus-prune wrote: post #43
tzaman wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate why? I'm somewhat of an apple-fanboy but Surface seems more and more appealing, and I'm leaning towards giving one a try.

I have an SP3. It is the best device I've bought in years. I interact with the device in a fundamentally different way. I will sit and read a document with a pen and no keyboard (to proofread, highlight and makes notes). I'd tried this on ipad and it never fit in my workflow well. I will use it to take notes at a meeting in OneNote. Again, the ipad workflow never worked for me for this. The benefits definitely aren't…

OOC, can you explain why the iPad workflow has never worked for those things you mentioned? Seems like one of its core intended designs is taking notes/reading documents much like an actual notebook

Re: New Surface Pro

#419

Post by cptskippy »

rbanffy wrote: post #412
ultimoo wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pardon my ignorance but what is the difference in the UK style keyboard vs the US style keyboard? Is the 4/$ replaced with the 4/£ key? Wouldn't this be problematic when programming (for example variable substitution on the shell etc.)?

Nope. ~` key is next to Z, Enter is vertical. \| is next to "'. The labeling is actually cooler, with images instead of "Shift", "Tab" etc. http://www.thebookyard.com/images/mbutcuk_notp.jpg

I'm sitting here staring at my US keyboard and scratching my head. All of the Menu shortcuts align perfectly with the UK keyboard's iconography but not the US keyboard which opts for labels. And why do we have a key labeled both enter and return?

Re: New Surface Pro

#420

Post by popcorncolonel »

ashark wrote: post #160
melling wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What connector do you think you'll need in two years, five years, 10 years? The transition to USB-C has begun. For most of the life of the device, you'll probably want USB-C. I'm sure Microsoft will get to it in the next release.

> 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"

I think you are vastly underestimating how fast trends in the market come out.

USB-A was two years ago.

We're currently in the "having tons of dongles" state. In a year, it'll be 50% USB-C 50% other stuff. In 3 years, it'll be 100% USB-C, with high probability given the current market trends. Even Apple is adopting the USB-C standard. That speaks volumes to the coming trends, and how fast they're coming.

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