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Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

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Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#391

Post by esikich »

whateverboat wrote: post #250
exmadscientist wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked with some of the people responsible for the Surface Book, Surface docks, and specifically the Surface Book's dock. These were hardware people (EEs), not software people, and this was after their time at MS. Unfortunately I don't remember specifics (both because it's been a few years, and because I'd probably have to fuzz details anyway), but... : Docks are horrifying products. Thunderbolt docks are doubly ho…

> They ordered in every single competing dock they could find, from that era's products, and found that every last one was garbage in some way or other, usually fatally so. It is so hard to believe that when more than 1000 employees at my employers are also using at least one dock (Dell and Thinkpad both) and using them very well.

Ask your helpdesk team what they think of docking stations.

Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#392

Post by daemin »

10000truths wrote: post #249
anonymars wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My absolute favorite fact about the Surface is that if the battery runs out, the Surface Dock power is unable to bootstrap it. You have to plug in a charger Not sure if that's still the case but truly astonishing https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/surface-dock/tro...

To be fair, my MacBook Pro had the same issue - if the battery was dead, charging via USB-C wouldn't work, it would need the MagSafe charger. Presumably because the USB controller needs power in order to negotiate power delivery.

I would have thought that the default 5V coming through the cable should be enough to power on the chip and negotiate power delivery though?

Or was it actually working but charging only on 5V and taking a long time to wake up?

Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#393

Post by chis »

illiac786 wrote: post #225
chis wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also shockingly twitter-nerd-coded. "The cure for token anxiety", it advertises. To be honest it's hard to see why anyone would buy this product so maybe they decided to take a wild swing with the marketing. The only use is people who really, really, want to run models locally vs getting a much cheaper and higher performance result from a cloud host.

Higher performance, I agree, but cheaper? I didn’t check how much this costs, but if you use AI locally a lot, it’s going to be amortised pretty quickly. Burning 100$ a month on tokens has become insanely easy. I remember when it was unimaginable for me…

Speculation is it’ll cost at least $6k for 128GB

Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#394

Post by jazzyjackson »

dansquizsoft wrote: post #299
cthalupa wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never had this issue with any of my MBP. I never even have magsafe available, couldn't tell you where a USB-C to magsafe cable is in my house if my life depended on it.

While not quite what you are saying here, I have found that I like usbc charging on my 15in m3 MacBook Air way more than its magsafe. The magsafe is always falling out as soon as I move the computer on and off my lap and is another cable that I can only use for one purpose. Nowhere near as good as it was back in the early 2010s macbook days...

They are saying they don’t own a MagSafe cable and have never experienced the above anecdote of a MacBook that was too dead to be charged by USBC alone. Likewise, my M1 MacBook Pro has only ever been charged by USBC and I let it die all the way often.

Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#395

Post by sandreas »

While I somehow like the fact that Microsoft is trying to compete, their problem stays the same: There are too many people involved.

  - Nvidia
  - Mediatek
  - Microsoft 
    - Windows team
    - Surface team
    - Marketing team
  - ...
The main advantage of Apple is and will be, that they control the hardware AND the software / firmware completely and can make devices that feel completely cohesive.

That's the reason Framework has an advantage over all these Ad driven companies. They are working together with the Linux / Kernel developers to make their products fit - however it is still lacking the completely cohesive nature of the product, because they still loosely depend on Intel / AMD and other Hardware manufacturers.

An example: Every Apple device with a headphone jack since 2013 (probably long before) including iPods, iPhones and MacBooks has that little proprietary chip with ultrasonic chirp authentication integrated to control playback and volume by the EarPods headphone remote. Now there is a USB-C to 3.5mm Adapter as well as USB-C EarPods that still support this... No Windows Laptop has ever had this. The funny thing is, that Linux now supports these USB-C Apple thingies because they register as input and output devices and that the Apple 3.5mm Adapters now also support other brands headphones with Android.

Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#396

Post by daemin »

jwrallie wrote: post #317
denysvitali wrote: post #302

The Surface line is, HW-wise, very good IMHO. Too bad the software is awful. Thankfully the Linux Surface community is pretty strong. Proprietary Microsoft drivers don't make it easy, but we're getting there... https://github.com/linux-surface/surface-pro-x I'll buy another one if there's some commitment from Microsoft to be more open source friendly, but since this will never happen, they can keep their HW.

Depending on how easy it is to run Linux on this as opposed to the new MacBooks may make this attractive for Linux users. Anyway, the whole trend to change from x86 to Arm on laptops is bad news for compatibility. It might be that the era where you can download an iso and expect Linux to run on a random laptop is over, and Linux users will have to stick to only a couple of devices with well known support. Did Valve r…

One concern I've heard about the move to ARM cores is that it is done in order to lock down the devices more so they're more like a phone rather than a computer.

Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#397

Post by fortran77 »

ActorNightly wrote: post #336
denysvitali wrote: post #302

The Surface line is, HW-wise, very good IMHO. Too bad the software is awful. Thankfully the Linux Surface community is pretty strong. Proprietary Microsoft drivers don't make it easy, but we're getting there... https://github.com/linux-surface/surface-pro-x I'll buy another one if there's some commitment from Microsoft to be more open source friendly, but since this will never happen, they can keep their HW.

>Too bad the software is awful. I swear, people just live in their echochambers these days. Win 11 pro + WSL2 is literally the best, do it all OS you can get these days. Most peoples experience is with Windows home, which ironically is about as intrusive as Mac OS. When you get Windows Pro, you can disable all the annoying AI/Advertising shit that comes with Windows, and at that point, you get a system that is cleane…

I agree. I'm running Windows 11 Arm on an Asus Zenbook A16 right now. Lighting fast. I'm typing this comment while I'm compiling code and having Claude analyze packets coming from Wireshark that's on this machine. It's got 18 cores and 48GB of integrated memory, great battery life, and an OLED screen for $1699

I run Linux in a VM and Docker on it, and WSL2. No problems with anything.

I don't see any ads. I turn a number of "intrusive" features off, but nothing is hacked; these are just settings you can switch off.

(I am running Pro, though.)

Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#398

Post by ActorNightly »

drnick1 wrote: post #363
ActorNightly wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did put linux on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Subsystem_for_Linux

That's not Linux, that's a VM running Linux on Windows. Not very satisfying if you want the real thing, or want a real Linux DE.

>that's a VM running Linux on Windows

While thats true, its not what you think it is. WSL1 was VM in a traditional sense, it ran under windows. When you install WSL2, it basically changes your computer core OS to be a bare metal hypervisor (specialized version of Hyper V). Its the same concept as any cloud provider letting people provision VMs that run at native performance on the actual hardware. So WLS2 can talk to hardware like Graphics cards natively, and request ram on demand.

You can also install windows managers in WSL2. For example https://github.com/Lamarcke/i3-on-wsl. You can also install rainmeter on windows https://www.rainmeter.net/ if you want customizability. You can make windows look exactly like mac os with that.

Re: Microsoft builds MacBook Pro rival with NVIDIA-powered Surface Laptop Ultra

#399

Post by eboy »

RankingMember wrote: post #170

My experience with Surfaces and, particularly, the Surface Book and its accompanying dock were such that I'd have to be paid to use one again. For example, the dock would get its own updates silently and brick itself randomly and the proprietary magnetic connector between the dock and the computer was prone to a poor connection. I remember many occasions trying to work and my screens just randomly blinking in and out…

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