The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

The Surface Book 2 sadly can only run an operating system that invades my privacy, and when it's not doing that, treats me as hostile, and when it's not doing that, is a general UI disaster and pain in the ass to work with.

Hardware is becoming increasingly generic and commoditized. It's the absolute least interesting part of the buying decision: does it have the right numbers?

More interesting: Can it run the OS I already have and read the data I've spent the better part of a decade working with and collecting without requiring me to spend a bunch of time re-learning how to do basic tasks that are committed deep to muscle memory? How much new software am I going to have to buy? Will that time and money spent result in a productivity improvement substantial enough to offset the opportunity cost?

If not, I'm not going to bother. I can't be alone here. Straight comparisons across platforms like the headline does here are never completely legitimate.

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#6

Post by WesleyLivesay » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 3:07 PM UTC

I would love to see more laptop manufacturers use the 3:2 aspect ratio, especially on screens smaller than 15".

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#7

Post by timdorr » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 3:07 PM UTC

Cached: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OzE2qb...

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#8

Post by owenwil » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 3:07 PM UTC

intellix wrote: post #4

I guess he got slashdotted

We're up! It was a weird PHP bug... sorry :)

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#9

Post by cma » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

Just don't put your hand on it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/7of68m/surface_pro...

(I still think it is better than MacBook. Just really annoying that they got this wrong)

Re: The Surface Book 2 is everything the MacBook Pro should be

#10

Post by sinatra » Wed, Jun 27, 2018, 3:09 PM UTC

Such articles always give too much importance to the hardware (which is somewhat important, no doubt) and not enough importance to the software.

Many people are looking for quality alternatives to Macbooks, Mac Mini, etc (myself included). Mac Mini hasn’t been updated for 4-5 years. So, I started setting up a Windows desktop as a Mac Mini replacement. But when it came to finding all the alternatives to the OS X software I was using, and when Windows started showing me notifications about “try Edge,” “give us your valuable feedback,” etc, I went back.

If only Ubuntu could have native MS Office (needed for docs from lawyers), Sketch / Adobe products (needed for working with our designers), etc!