I went into a Microsoft store, sort of for a laugh, mostly to see if they did a good job with the surface book. My main takeaways were:
1) There is no bevel on the base which makes it hard to pick up unless you grab it my the screen. You can't get your fingers under it. I lost my grip and dropped it from about 1cm off the table.
2) The screen is awkward to use on it's own. It's huge.
3) It wasn't obvious to me how to take the screen off. When I did figure it out, if memory serves, I had to yank it off in an unpleasant way.
Introducing Surface Book 2
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Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have a sp2017 i7 16GB and it's great as a developer machine. I'm mainly using languages that are cross-platform like Go and the JVM. But I often end up using Windows Subsystem for Linux which works amazing. I wouldn't buy any of the surface devices if you're planning to put linux on it (it's a little bit pointless), but maybe WSL + Docker on Windows are enough for you. (For me they are at least)
Got any WSL tips? I'm always trying to get that thing to be more functional.
Yea. Use hyper.is if you want to use vim/emacs with bells and whistles. The powershell default shell just can't handle it and doesn't color some parts of the screen well. Also, use tmux, if you don't do that already, solves the problem of no terminal tabs in windows.
Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#343Looking at the specs, (linked in another comment), it appears that the USB-C port doesn't support Thunderbolt 3. Seriously, Microsoft, you can't charge this much for a laptop without TB3. I know that TB started as an Apple standard, but you're not killing this port like you did with Firewire. Your case of NIMBY has cost you my sale. I'll wait and get the next premium Lenovo/HP/ASUS/etc Ultrabook with 8th gen i7 AND T…
I have a MacBook Pro and have never used thunderbolt. Why is it a big deal / what do you use it for?
I use it for external GPU and an external TB2 SSD raid array. The thing is, these laptops are starting at $2500, ignoring the base model integrated GPU that is just there for making the starting price attractive (although that one could benefit the most from an eGPU...)
It sounds like a technical reason for it being excluded (lacking extra PCI-E lanes) but it is just disappointing on a laptop in the $2.5k-$3k range in late 2017.
Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#344Looks like a proper MacBook Pro replacement HW wise, but the OS is not one I would use for work.. =/ So attached to OSX for the past 6 years and cannot see me using a windows OS for work , but at home only for gaming. The new MacBook Pro has many flaws. Not sure how this compares in real use for it?
Gaming, the world has changed and this generation of Apple users has way more Gamers then what they had before. Why do they continue to ignore Gamers on the Mac Platform.
I reckon it has something to do with the graphics stack. Have you tried running anything graphic intensive on the Mac? Every same program no matter how well-written runs faster on Windows. To be fair I haven't tried any Metal games (if they even exist?), but I guess it is somehow harder to write games that are performant on the Mac?
Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#345Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#346Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tried the XPS15, keyboard was terrible. Went with T470P i7-7700HQ with 2560x1440 screen, literally haven't switch home desktop on since I got it. Works great with fedora as well (except touchpad driver issue that's in the works) everything works great out the box.
That's pretty much the exact T470p config I was thinking of getting. I will probably rarely use the keyboard/trackpad except when travelling (not often) as most days I plan to use an usb mechanical keyboard+mouse. So all I'm really bothered about is whether I get better value for money in terms of CPU and screen with the XPS compared with a thinkpad. Of course the XPS is prettier as well ;) I've read the XPS screen i…
Dont.
I curse the day ive chosen 13” xps with 3200x1800 hdpi screen. Id trade it for fullhd in a blink.
Three issues:
1. It is goddamn mirror, and mind you im not picky here
2. Hundreds of apps or system parts (regedit? Wtf?) are complettly messed up by hdpi and scaling leaves you either too small or problems. Keybase desktop client (search for my bug) shows what you can expect. Windows 10 can not handle it. Gnome works more/less.
3. You dont need it on 13” screen. FHD is enough.
Oh, and you cant disable touchscreen without serious jujitsu (bios option is ignored by windows)
Simply dont. Take fullhd.
Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#347Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd like to second that. I've been using WSL + Docker on Windows for a long time now for web development (linux backend development) and it's been a breeze. Works flawlessly. You can do fun things, like tail logs to a file using linux and simultaneously analyze the file using windows tools.
How do you access your files inside the subsystem? Don't you get permission problems (executable files etc)? I had so many issues with Virtualbox in Windows, I rather just use a Linux desktop distro...
They made a compatibility layer.
You shouldn't access files in WSL using windows, but the other way around it's absolutely ok.
So if my projects are at C:/Development/Projects/...
Then I just open /mnt/c/Development/Projects/... on WSL
I haven't had any permission problems, not even once.
Same for Docker for Windows. It uses Hyper-V + some network disk sharing magic, which makes directory mounts into docker containers work great. So sometimes, like, when I need to debug a non-cross-platform linux program. (WSL doesn't handle process forking well, so some debuggers, like Go Delve don't work) I just do something like
docker run -v C:/Development/Projects/MyProject:/mnt/MyProject -it ubuntu /bin/bash
Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#348After reading through the product announcement I had to chuckle a bit... If you'll pardon the shameless plug, I just purchased a used Lenovo X230 Tablet (ThinkPad) a couple weeks ago and my bet is that for the average HN reader use case it scratches all the same itches as the Surface Book. Granted it's bulkier and slower, but it's about $2300 cheaper. On the other hand it's easily repaired and upgraded, and has an ea…
1366x768 itches pretty badly
Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#349I understand that in Microsoft you often override the keyword "type" in Python. Just look 1:30 in the video.
Re: Introducing Surface Book 2
#350Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly! if only have have 3:2 screens!!! or better yet, a 4:3 screen! Currently I'm buying a old X61s and going to convert it to X62: https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-X62-Laptop-Review.21159...
Is that ratio really so important? I have a wider ratio X1 Carbon and it has never bothered me, but I guess I wasn't used to anything in particular. The screen quality is really nice though.
Perhaps it's less evident especially if you have a multi-head setup with big monitors. But for almost every laptop now that uses display scaling to make screen content readable, screen estate is precious and the extra vertical space does make coding on a small screen much more enjoyable.