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Introducing Surface Book 2

blogs.windows.com

171–180 of 520 posts

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#171

So many negative comments just because it's Microsoft. If you don't like the OS, obviously this machine is not for you. Personally I think it looks nice, but I have a Surface Pro 2 that works just perfectly fine and I love it. The hardware on it is still good and I don't see any reason to upgrade.

I don’t think most of the comments are about the computer, they are more about the poor marketing.

Even that’s not entirely fair. The submitted link was to the blog post, not the marketing page that someone else posted.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#172
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to switch to Windows for work (for gaming it's the obvious choice) but I just couldn't. Windows 10 is IMO the best Windows ever, but I was surprised that the ecosystem was really poor compared to macOS. Most of the software you find online are outdated win32 apps with scaling problems. Even modern software from major companies still has scaling problems such as Adobe CC or even the mighty Photoshop. I also di…

Oddly enough I think mac and windows switched professional users somehow. I don't know a single developer on a windows machine, however most people I know working in 3d, digital illustration or video work all use windows machines now.

Apple lost a lot of the creative market with the trashcan Mac Pro. If I was doing heavy video editing or other work that demanded a high-end workstation I would immediately look at HP or Dell because I don't want to buy hardware that's obsolete out of the gate with no internal expansion support, or at least no STANDARD internal expansion support (proprietary GPU and SSD connections are stupid, why do you do this Apple).

On the other hand, outside of ML it's not like many software developers need to upgrade to a new GPU every (other) year and current processor trends show very little performance uplift between generations to upgrade - once Apple finally gets 32GB of memory in the MBP most developers will be set for many years.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#173
Mac user since 2002 and using windows was always a less-than-satisfying experience. Now if the Surface had 32Gb of RAM then I'd be all in but it seems like Microsoft are being restricted by Intel's incompetence as much as Apple are on this front.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#175
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a Linux diehard for years but I'm very happy with my Surface Book. With "Ubuntu on Windows" you can run the usual unix command line tools; if anything it's more comfortable than OSX since you get up-to-date GNU versions rather than older GNU tools.

I am also most comfortable with my OpenSUSE but Windows 10 is great and I have OpenSUSE Bash for Windows installed. It really is nice and it is case sensitive! Why is Mac OS OPTIONAL case sensitivity?

> Why is Mac OS OPTIONAL case sensitivity?

A relic from HFS of old, there's some notable applications that still fail hard on case-sensitive HFS+/APFS volumes so the default is insensitive (hey, Adobe, I'm looking at you - OS X/macOS 10 has been out for a decade and a half, get your shit together).

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#177
post #73
post #21

Looks 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?

I tried to switch to Windows for work (for gaming it's the obvious choice) but I just couldn't. Windows 10 is IMO the best Windows ever, but I was surprised that the ecosystem was really poor compared to macOS. Most of the software you find online are outdated win32 apps with scaling problems. Even modern software from major companies still has scaling problems such as Adobe CC or even the mighty Photoshop. I also di…

Just to give a counter point - every single device we use at work (biotech R&D) requires windows. All of our equipment (plate readers, flocytometry, purification systems, PCR, fermentors, congutators,etc etc) runs on windows-only software. And these are all several hundred million dollar verticals. Personally, I haven't run into a single piece of equipment that works with MacOS. Except maybe one of our bioreactors, which used a web interface, but that too required a windows tool for other things. Windows is used in a TON of proper manufacturing setups, traditionally only for SCADA/HMI, but more so now on the control side, with PC based automation becoming more prominent.

Which ecosystem is "poor" depends on your own current situation.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#178
post #90

I bought a SB last year and returned it after a couple of days since it was full of problems with the GPU and pen[1]. The machine was beautiful and both the keyboard and trackpad felt amazing, but even if my unit was defective the pen and tablet experience were poor compared to something like an iPad Pro. Also the display was really sharp in terms of resolution but suffered from an insane amount of ghosting while scr…

When I got my Surface Pro way back when, I had some similar issues. I had to update the drivers for the screen and pen to the official Wacom release instead of the Microsoft release and afterwards it ran amazingly well. It was so nice that I've been eyeing one of those absurdly expensive drafting table style Wacom setups for my desktop ever since even thought I could never justify the price. I've considered upgrading the Surface Pro as well for a larger screen and lighter body, but the Pro 2 does all my normal tasks (mostly matlab and putty) really well and the fact that the pen is now sold separate deeply offends me.

Re: Introducing Surface Book 2

#180
post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried to switch to Windows for work (for gaming it's the obvious choice) but I just couldn't. Windows 10 is IMO the best Windows ever, but I was surprised that the ecosystem was really poor compared to macOS. Most of the software you find online are outdated win32 apps with scaling problems. Even modern software from major companies still has scaling problems such as Adobe CC or even the mighty Photoshop. I also di…

Oddly enough I think mac and windows switched professional users somehow. I don't know a single developer on a windows machine, however most people I know working in 3d, digital illustration or video work all use windows machines now.

Well you need windows if you want to develop windows software!
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