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Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
101–110 of 686 posts
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#102I'm pretty happy to see someone else making a serious play in the ultra-premium notebook market. For way too long Apple has basically only been in competition with the much heavier "desktop replacement"/gaming laptops, or the flimsy/plasticky likes of Dell and LG with questionable trackpads. Real competition in this space could be a great thing for consumers
But they pretty much just copied the MBP (and added USB-A)
Heh, I mean, for the last few years, most PC manufacturers haven't been able to accomplish that much
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#103My first thought on seeing this was that it could be great for Linux. If the hardware is a little more standard than Apple's, it wouldn't need all the tricks Asahi has figure out. Finally you could have the best performance without compromising on fine details.
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#104Imagine thinking the rivalry is about hardware and not software...
Same for IOS vs Android.
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#105IIUC this is using lower bandwidth RAM than macs, and will run windows, with uncertain linux support (it's spotty even on the dedicated linux boxes that this chip is based on). So less of a "rival" and more "metoobutworse"...
Apparently 300 GB/sec so basically on par with the M5 Pro but half the M5 Max.
It'd be alright with Linux, probably better than a MBP if you're working heavily with AI (but no other reason to buy it TBH).
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#106They can put whatever hardware they want in it, Windows knows know bounds in undermining the overall package. I don't want a faster processor to run user-hostile adware that's constantly trying to upsell me, and uses dark patterns to trick me into switching off my chosen alternatives to their bad products every time there's a minor update. I don't want to run it at all.
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#107For many, the appeal of a Mac is that it isn't running Windows. I'm not seeing how this won't be a repeat of the OG ARM Surface, just with a higher spec'd GPU.
It's not a valid comparison. Up until this (theoretical) machine, the playing field wasn't equal. Windows laptops in general couldn't really compare in many aspects with Macs since M1 (outside of gaming), batteries were horrible due to bad efficiency, performance wasn't amazing even with the best SKUs, and the distance between the vendor and Microsoft was always impacting different aspects of the finished product. Ev…
I have Surface copilot whatever. The battery life is great. OS is a complete garbage. No amount of HW thrown at windows will fix its issues.
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#108I'm surprised they released this thing. Brand perception is probably a lot more important to Nvidia than whatever sales they could get from this thing, and if it's basically just DGX Spark, it's likely to underwhelm. I've heard there's still a large backlog of both software problems, and hardware problems with the platform. The software problems could be fixed with time, but they'll still give a shitty first impressi…
A lot of enterprise customers still buy windows workstations.
When I worked in an IT dept, Dell XPS and Windows Surfaces were given to C levels who asked for Macs but were told they wouldn’t be supported into the windows ecosystem (exchange, office, Active Directory etc).
Sadly after all these years the MDM story for macs is still trash.
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#109I'm surprised they released this thing. Brand perception is probably a lot more important to Nvidia than whatever sales they could get from this thing, and if it's basically just DGX Spark, it's likely to underwhelm. I've heard there's still a large backlog of both software problems, and hardware problems with the platform. The software problems could be fixed with time, but they'll still give a shitty first impressi…
A lot of enterprise customers still buy windows workstations. When I worked in an IT dept, Dell XPS and Windows Surfaces were given to C levels who asked for Macs but were told they wouldn’t be supported into the windows ecosystem (exchange, office, Active Directory etc). Sadly after all these years the MDM story for macs is still trash.
Just because enterprise customers buy windows workstations, does not mean they'd be interested in buying these windows workstations.
Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra
#110Will this help strengthen the ARM Linux ecosystem?
Most commenters here are focused on the Microsoft hardware, but the article mentions systems from several other manufacturers using the same hardware. Some of them, Dell and Lenovo in particular, have good Linux support.
Nvidia has also supported Linux well in general, so let's hope there's an attractive Linux option soon!
Personally I'd be just as happy with a small form factor desktop with the same hardware.