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

New Surface Pro

microsoft.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

551–560 of 606 posts

Re: New Surface Pro

#551

Post by lmm »

techer wrote: post #74
josefresco wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So buy a f*cking laptop! I'm only half-kidding - but criticizing an integral part of a product, when there are multiple alternatives with exact the feature your desire is ... silly.

This looks like a laptop to me! Having read your comment I imagine I have to reassess. But in my head while watching the video I was evaluating it to replace by old MacBook Pro.

It is a laptop, or at least a laptop replacement. Try the kickstand setup and see whether it's good enough for what you want to do or not. Criticising the kickstand is absolutely reasonable, but do so based on experience rather than speculation.

Re: New Surface Pro

#552

Post by dahauns »

blowski wrote: post #431
pc86 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused, you quoted the 2-year support requirement and they then fixed your 3-year old laptop?

The legislation doesn't have a fixed period, it provides a vague 'reasonable use for a reasonable period of time' type clause. This was a £1700 laptop, so I had a right to expect it to last longer than 3 years, which was supported by claims on Apple's website. Therefore, Apple either has to say "our laptops are only good for three years", or say that particular laptop was defective and fix it.

> The [EU] legislation doesn't have a fixed period.

Sure does: 2 years. http://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/consumers/shopping/guar...

Re: New Surface Pro

#553

Post by lloeki »

Bakary wrote: post #501
jclardy wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what things other than flash drives (Who even uses those anymore) have ports built in? I have a USB-C -> USB 3.0 mini-b cable that I use for my external hard drives that cost me about $5.

Flash drives are a necessity in some countries and some environments. In my case, a Chinese university.

There are countless flash drives that have both USB-A and -C connectors.

Re: New Surface Pro

#554

Post by lmm »

Gracana wrote: post #441
popcorncolonel wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if you had an eGPU?

Then you're stuck at your desk anyway, so you might as well use a desktop machine and take advantage of the additional performance and cost savings.

Being able to use the same device travelling and at your desk is really useful. Even if it were a case of only opening the actual editor at your desk and just working on emails/design docs/what-have-you while travelling, it makes for a much nicer workflow than switching devices.

Re: New Surface Pro

#555

Post by lostlogin »

babuskov wrote: post #479
specialist wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brick means the power adapter? I've gotten 4 or 5 replacements, for free. I always have spares (instead of carrying them with me). So always claim "Dude, weird, I just bought this a few months ago." Given the past drama, I think Apple just swaps them, to avoid any further bad PR. And, frankly, these adapters should last forever. For comparison, I don't think I've ever replaced an HP or Dell adapter.

I never replaced those either, but HP adapter did melt the plastic cover on one of my laptops and I started to see the naked wiring (on the DC side). I bandaged it with some tape.

Pre MagSafe I used to see a lot of Apple laptops with gaping holes around the power adaptor from various accidents. RIP MagSafe.

Re: New Surface Pro

#556

Post by lloeki »

ashark wrote: post #281
melling wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you telling me what people have in 2017? No one is saying that USB-C is the standard now. Although in thin laptops it will be the standard this year. I'll be using my "legacy" USB stuff until it dies too. The point is that market is starting to adopt USB-C, and everyone should be ready for the transition. I want a future port on my new computers, which will have a 5-10 year lifespan. USB-A would be nice too,…

Because the question was: > What connector do you think you'll need in two years, five years, 10 years? And my answers were USB-A, both, and USB-C (but probably also whatever replaces it), respectively. Your response to my answer was to tell me that lots of host devices are shipping with USB-C, which has no effect whatsoever on my answer (which I expect is typical, even of people on HN). I thought you must not unders…

> so I gave an (incomplete) list of my USB-A devices which will almost all still be working in 2 years, and most of them in 5

If I'm not mistaken, save from the flash drives and non-bluetooth dongles, all of those can be converted with a simple cable switch. Wired KB+mice may unfortunately be cabled into the device but it's still practical enough to just keep an adapter on the end or there's some soldering for a cable swap to be done. Unless you plan to change all of your gear at once, you're in for such a transition anyway, one way or the other.

I have to agree with melling here, such a pricey device that I'd plan to keep for at least 5 years should have the new port.

Re: New Surface Pro

#557

Post by martijn_himself »

As a side-note: if you are selling premium devices with these mark ups and charging extra for essential accessories (a keyboard) you better have premium physical stores where I can try them out. I'm in the UK and PC World does not count: they will most likely not know the difference between this and a Surface Pro 4.

Re: New Surface Pro

#558

Post by type0 »

corford wrote: post #432
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.)?

Non-mac layout is different again. Here's a pic of a Dell laptop I have knocking around: http://imgur.com/a/w5GVC [ could do with a clean! ]

> [ could do with a clean! ]

It's a disgusting view, I'll give you that

Re: New Surface Pro

#559

Post by type0 »

germanier wrote: post #545
merb wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

plain wrong. there is a 2-year warranty within 6 months the seller needs to actually prove that it worked correct. after that you (buyer) need to prove it. there is __never__ a warranty (under law, the manufacturer can make a special guarantee like apple care of course) between the manufacturer and the buyer (at least in the eu and might change if seller == manufacturer) the warranty is always between the _seller_ an…

EU directives are in practice no different to national law. Sure, countries can refuse to enforce them but they can refuse to enforce their national law as well. If we are at that stage all bets are off. "Can enforce" sounds like this is optional which it is really not. Courts refer to EU law just like they do to national law.

> "Can enforce" sounds like this is optional which it is really not. Courts refer to EU law just like they do to national law.

In practice it's a mess system. Courts choose and pick however they want to implement the directives, even in countries where courts should be independent the ruling political countries have enough pressure on the courts. Sometimes they even enforce invalidated directives which is unlawful but then again if a country has enough money they could just pay the fines. Therefore there is so much unhappiness about the EU in the general populace, local politicians blame the EU laws, EU politicians blame the local laws and no one is accountable, it really sucks and isn't what a democracy is supposed to be.

Re: New Surface Pro

#560

Post by type0 »

JimDabell wrote: post #411
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.)?

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.

> I think a couple of keys like backslash and backtick are moved around as well.

Yes. US ISO layout is superior if you need to do any programming (or even just to write some Markdown), too bad it's not used more.

Post reply on HN