Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#191

Post by Stratoscope » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

pdimitar wrote: post #145

Stratoscope wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fonts and UI rendering look awful on Windows compared to macOS, there is just no comparison. I've heard a number of people say this, and I'm always puzzled because it is exactly the opposite for me. Running on the same hardware (late 2013 MBPR 15"), Windows 10 font rendering is much more pleasing to my eyes. When I boot into OSX, the text looks terrible to me. (I'm still running El Capitan - has text rendering chan…

I am no professional in typography nor have I used any other Mac than the Macbook 12" (2015), but putting it side by side with my Acer Predator Z35 (35" curved screen), I still like macOS' text rendering a lot more. Maybe it's the fact that it has a huge resolution on a 12" screen. Seems very likely that the higher pixel density makes for a crisp and beautiful text. Again, I am not a pro in this area. I am a programm…

Higher pixel density makes a huge difference in text quality, of course. Your MacBook has 226 pixels per inch, and the Acer Predator Z35 has a very low 79 pixels per inch - that's almost a 3:1 difference linearly, and more than 8:1 by area.

On other words, given the same physical text size on each monitor, your MacBook is using more than eight times the number of pixels to render each character.

Given a choice between macOS on a 226 PPI monitor and any other OS on a 79 PPI monitor, I would definitely prefer macOS too. :-)

You're right that the best way to compare font rendering is on the same monitor for each OS. I wouldn't use 27" FHD monitors though. Those would have 81 PPI, about the same as the Predator.

In my case I'm comparing OSX and Windows on the same hardware: the MBPR 15" (220 PPI) plus a ViewSonic VX2475SMHL-4K 24" 4K monitor (187 PPI) rotated to portrait mode. I'm a big fan of smaller high-DPI monitors like this. 187 PPI is a reasonably close match to the MBPR's 220 PPI. Both Mac and Windows look nice on each of these displays, I just find I like Windows better of the two.

Here's a spreadsheet I've been maintaining that lists the pixels per inch for a variety of machines and monitors:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1K4bCgr-VjMmeCjHf6Udy...

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#192

Post by mikewhy » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

hesdeadjim wrote: post #185

I'm stuck working in Windows 10 right now due to VR only being supported by it. I spent around 8 hours getting AutoHotkey set up so that most of my shortcuts are back to Mac versions (I use mac keyboard, just can't beat it). The last missing link was Linux Subsystem for Windows. I now use my standard Vim setup and besides being limited to 16 colors (ugh), everything mostly just works. I'd switch back to Mac given the…

Care to share your AHK script? Here's mine: https://gist.github.com/mikew/18a0e5c6f6bdbf1bb3be0a9cfa3b5d...

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#193

Post by whazor » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

hesdeadjim wrote: post #185

I'm stuck working in Windows 10 right now due to VR only being supported by it. I spent around 8 hours getting AutoHotkey set up so that most of my shortcuts are back to Mac versions (I use mac keyboard, just can't beat it). The last missing link was Linux Subsystem for Windows. I now use my standard Vim setup and besides being limited to 16 colors (ugh), everything mostly just works. I'd switch back to Mac given the…

Besides the hardware, do not forget the absence of Vulkan and latest versions of OpenGL.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#194

Post by pdimitar » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

slantyyz wrote: post #154

pdimitar wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am no professional in typography nor have I used any other Mac than the Macbook 12" (2015), but putting it side by side with my Acer Predator Z35 (35" curved screen), I still like macOS' text rendering a lot more. Maybe it's the fact that it has a huge resolution on a 12" screen. Seems very likely that the higher pixel density makes for a crisp and beautiful text. Again, I am not a pro in this area. I am a programm…

>> putting it side by side with my Acer Predator Z35 (35" curved screen) The reason why you notice the difference is because of the low DPI for the screen size on your Z35. Windows fonts render badly on those screens at small point sizes. If your same screen was, say, 4K and you were running with text scaling, the fonts would look -way- better.

> If your same screen was, say, 4K and you were running with text scaling, the fonts would look -way- better.

Oh, I'm sure of it. Thing is though, I picked the Z35 and not the Z34 because I also want to game on the machine and going to [almost] 4K was a no-go, even with a GTX 980.

I suppose one day I might just switch to huge dual-monitor setup: one for gaming and one for everything else. Seems like quite a hassle though, having in mind that my Z35 occupies a huge chunk of my otherwise pretty big desk.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#195

Post by bobjordan » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

I've been on Macbook pros since 2010, had a few of them by now, my latest is a retina 2013 with an i7, 8gb ram, 500GB hard drive. When surface book came out last year I bought one, with i7, 16GB ram, dedicated video card, 500GB hard drive. I really fell in love with drawing on my surface book with sketchbook pro, also great is fact that solidworks runs well on it, and finally windows 10 is much improved. Throw in the new linux subsystem on Windows 10 and general opensource embrace these days, altogether it is really more interesting to use my Surfacebook vs my MBP. It certainly feels like Microsoft is on the rise while Apple is on the decline. Further, I'm honestly excited to read about the upcoming Windows 10 phones that can run full desktop programs.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#196

Post by mark_l_watson » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:31 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #104

UK-AL wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"OS decides to install Candy Crush and other games I never asked for. Unacceptable. " - I would like more details on this. I don't think I've heard of that before?

The OS puts Candy Crush in your menu and it's installed on demand. So to users it will seem like it's always been installed. All the pre-installed software is my big pet peeve for Windows 10. I don't want weather, or contacts, or xbox, or 3d builder, or email, or alarms, or skype, or office, or calendar, or groove, or money, or news, etc... I've deleted them and they just come back because of some provisioning settin…

Buy a signature edition laptop directly from the microsoft store, then you will not et any crap-ware.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#197

Post by mikekij » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:32 PM UTC

Misleading title. Any rate >0 may be a record rate.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#198

Post by draw_down » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

fredley wrote: post #120

johnernaut wrote: post #115

I'm one of the people that switched from a MacBook Pro to the new Surface Book. The ENTIRE experience was dreadful for me. The day I went into the Microsoft store to purchase it (Black Friday), their credit card system was down, so I had to wait around for nearly 2 hours until they finally figured things out. That wouldn't typically upset me, but my brother-in-law went through something similar just 2 weeks prior. As…

Trackpads are one of the main things that other companies just can't get right, even on premium devices. Given how long ago Apple 'solved' trackpads, I'm amazed that the rest of the industry hasn't caught up.

Doesn't show up on a checklist. The checklist will just say the thing has a trackpad. Is it any good? Who knows, who knows.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#199

Post by criddell » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

mark_l_watson wrote: post #196

criddell wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The OS puts Candy Crush in your menu and it's installed on demand. So to users it will seem like it's always been installed. All the pre-installed software is my big pet peeve for Windows 10. I don't want weather, or contacts, or xbox, or 3d builder, or email, or alarms, or skype, or office, or calendar, or groove, or money, or news, etc... I've deleted them and they just come back because of some provisioning settin…

Buy a signature edition laptop directly from the microsoft store, then you will not et any crap-ware.

Things like Candy Crush, Skype, and Office aren't the full installs but instead are stubs that install the applications on first run. Even if you buy a retail copy of Windows 10, that junk is still in there.

A signature edition makes sure that the only crapware is stuff that Microsoft installed.

Re: Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before

#200

Post by eqhorse » Mon, Dec 12, 2016, 5:35 PM UTC

mythz wrote: post #133

I decided to get a Surface Pro 4 instead of upgrading my Macbook Air for my casual/portable computing device as I thought the combined Keyboard/Tablet mode would be more useful than an Air. My initial impressions after the first few days use: - The Surface tablet Hardware has a nice build quality, but the Touch Pen doesn't register touches when it touches the screen you need to press down a little (unlike Apple's pen…

That just about mirrors my experience with SP3, I got it not long after launch (It came with 8.1, not 10). Fails as a laptop because of the hardware (i.e., can't actually use it in your lap), fails as a tablet because of the software.

My SP3 pretty much lives in the docking station at home these days. My Google Pixel XL is pretty much a tablet, and my work laptop (XPS 15) covers me for my computing power needs when traveling. I don't even bring the Surface anymore.

I'm thinking my next desktop for home (to replace the Surface) will be some sort of Linux machine. The Surface was my first personal Windows computer. I'm realizing now that Ubuntu fills all my current needs, especially now that I can run some form of Visual Studio on it.