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Announcing the Surface 3

blog.surface.com

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Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#241

Post by hobarrera »

wlesieutre wrote: post #186
mikeash wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the MacBook [Pro] is a flattering comparison. Apple is rapidly falling away from their traditional simple and obvious product lines, and the current MacBook lineup is extremely confusing to a lot of people.

Having a new "MacBook" that's thinner than the "MacBook Air" is admittedly a bit weird, but it's a transition period. Once the price on the new one goes down, they'll drop the Air from the lineup, and it'll just be MacBook vs MacBook Pro again.

I completely agree.

The MacBook Pro Retina 13" is almost the same weight and size as a MacBook Air 13". It no longer makes sense to keep the Air around as a "lighter" alternative.

IMHO, both the Air and the non-retina-Pro are going away. Keeping just the MacBook and the retina-Pro is what makes sense the most (the rest are just cheaper alternatives, and Apple doesn't generally do cheap).

Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#242

Post by [deleted] »

cc438 wrote: post #219
Someone1234 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 2 GB, 64 GB model just looks painful to use. I've seen a lot of Windows installs use up more than 64 GB, in particular as WinSXS grows as more updates are installed (thus more duplicate DLLs are stored). If anyone asked me, I'd describe 128 GB as the "minimum" storage needed for Windows. And even then you aren't storing much if any user data on it. 4 GB is the minimum I'd run anything newer than Windows XP on. T…

Windows' use of WinSXS and RAM scales with the available capacity. That behavior with WinSXS particularly irks me as it implies acknowledgment that most of those files are unnecessary, yet there's nothing you can do to combat the cancerous tumor that grows in a 128-256gb partition. I've found 2gb to be perfectly usable with Win7 and 8, Chrome's voracious appetite for memory would be a sticking point, except I've noti…

[deleted]

Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#243

Post by quotedmycode »

sliverstorm wrote: post #234
Someone1234 wrote: post #30

I own a Surface Pro 3, and when I first got it I'd describe the experience as just mediocre. However Microsoft has been aggressively updating the software as has Intel, and as a result of those effects the SP3 has really stepped up and is now quite a good little tablet/ultrabook combo. I only have two remaining concerns with the SP3: My i5 version continues to get extremely hot near the middle of the device (e.g. whe…

Worryingly hot in fact. It may not actually be a problem at all. CPUs can run safely up to ~70C or so, which is 160F. This means thin tablets are becoming constrained by what you can safely touch, rather than what is safe for the CPU. http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/MCEN/MCEN5166/supplement...

Once they get to that temperature, which can happen in a matter of minutes if you are doing something cpu intensive, they throttle the cpu, thus slowing everything down, which is counter productive if you are doing something cpu intensive. They can spread that heat over a larger area, thus heating up the whole device, or they can put in active cooling, or they can put in a cpu that doesn't get that hot. The Atom is a cpu that shouldn't get that hot. It's probably not as fast as the i5, but it can certainly run Chrome and other apps though probably games would suffer.

The issues we see with Surface Pro 3 overheating is where it's not expected to overheat, such as using Chrome. Using IE is fine, but when you use Chrome it overheats. Turns out a lot of the time it's related to ABP (adblock plus). Switching to uBlock seems to resolve most of the overheating of Chrome.

Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#244

Post by Joeri »

Someone1234 wrote: post #90
Vexs wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really can't even use a computer that's less than 4 gb these days, especially once chrome gets it's grubby hands all over my RAM. Just running baseline I find that most windows systems take up about two GB of RAM, and after you load up chrome, word, whatever; it hits the 4GB+ range. I mean, we're starting to see phones with 2GB of ram, it's completely unacceptable for a modern tablet.

Indeed. I currently only have Chrome, Outlook, and Lync open and am using 4.2 GB of RAM. Over half of that is Chrome alone. Now, granted, the OS does use more RAM has availability increases (I have 16 GB) however Chrome is a beast no matter what.

Do you use adblock? Chrome's extensions can eat up more RAM than chrome itself, and you don't always see it as a separate process. I keep my extensions minimal, and can use chrome just fine on a 2 GB system.

Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#245

Post by Joeri »

Someone1234 wrote: post #228
bhauer wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you can clean that stuff up with the disk cleanup app. You don't need to retain those old install files forever.

That will clear out Service Packs and some uninstaller files, it won't clean up WinSXS.

Have you gone through these commands? AFAIK, windows will do it automatically on small disk systems.

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn251565.aspx

Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#246

Post by bentcorner »

Amezarak wrote: post #181
Aissen wrote: post #91

So Windows RT is dead ? I'd say good riddance, it was just too closed. I remember having a family friend buying one of those devices and trying to install Chrome on it. Well, no luck, WinRT's closed policies won't allow that (and it's not a technical issue.). But their store policies will still allow fake "Chrome" apps packaging an IE webview.

> Well, no luck, WinRT's closed policies won't allow that (and it's not a technical issue.). It's true that Microsoft doesn't allow alternative rendering engines on WinRT, but it is ARM instead of x86, so there is a technical component; Google would have to port Chrome.

The problem is that only store apps are allowed to be installed on Windows RT devices, and porting Chrome to a store app is not an insignificant amount of work, for what amounts to very little gain (RT customers would be the only ones who benefit).

There's an argument that future store-compatible apps are easily ported to WP10, but Google has very little incentive for any of this work.

If anything Mozilla had reasons to, but even they killed their efforts due to lack of customer interest.

Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#247

Post by ehaughee »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #194
mikelat wrote: post #69

I was honestly hoping they'd give up on the whole touchscreen + mouse/keyboard interface integration, this announcement pretty much confirms they're in it for the long haul. Both inputs are vastly different so their UIs are full of compromises and over-sized controls.

Have you tried Windows 8.1 on a touch screen (especially a tablet)? I find Windows 8.1 awkward to use on a desktop or non-touchscreen computer but for a touchscreen? I absolutely LOVE the interface for launching applications. I'm actually kind of sad it's all going away in favor of something closer to the desktop in Windows 10; I would have liked the Windows 8.1 style to stay when in a touchscreen or tablet mode.

My understanding is that tablet devices will have some defaults to keep them closer to 8.1 than the desktop-friendly changes made for Win10. I am currently running Win10 and can confirm you are able to set the default behavior of the start menu to the 8.1 screen or Win7 menu behavior. Not sure if that addresses all of your concerns but it does seem like Microsoft understands at least some people enjoyed the start screen.

Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#249

Post by Dylan16807 »

Amezarak wrote: post #181
Aissen wrote: post #91

So Windows RT is dead ? I'd say good riddance, it was just too closed. I remember having a family friend buying one of those devices and trying to install Chrome on it. Well, no luck, WinRT's closed policies won't allow that (and it's not a technical issue.). But their store policies will still allow fake "Chrome" apps packaging an IE webview.

> Well, no luck, WinRT's closed policies won't allow that (and it's not a technical issue.). It's true that Microsoft doesn't allow alternative rendering engines on WinRT, but it is ARM instead of x86, so there is a technical component; Google would have to port Chrome.

Port?

Android, ChromeOS... Arm is a first-class compile target.

Re: Announcing the Surface 3

#250

Post by Dylan16807 »

sz4kerto wrote: post #4
mg1982 wrote: post #3

Bet the optional* keyboard costs like $300 now, though. *not really optional

You'd lose the bet. Keyboard is $129, docking station is $199, pen is $49.

I say he wins the bet. Those prices are ridiculous.

How does a docking station cost as much as an entire media PC?

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