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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

#51

Post by readthenotes1 »

neals wrote: post #12

I've had about 4 generations of surface devices. Never again. The frustration of that SP4 where every bodies screen would jitter and they would just stoiclly send me a replacement with the same problem. Until warranty expired. Or every model after that just slowed down to a crawl after a year. Or the keyboard connection not working reliably. No thank you very much.

I have only had three and they have been very good. Still using one as my daily driver.

First one had a battery bulge and got a free replacement to the current version. I think that went from 2016 to 2017. That one actually lost a battery bank and I got another upgrade to the 2018 version. The keyboard died on that one for some reason and they just replaced it for free.

I could understand if platform decay has occurred since 2018 though. But for a while, it was excellent.

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

#52

Post by taffydavid »

satvikpendem wrote: post #33
sandworm101 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, i dont know of anyone wanting to run very large AI models in a windows environment. Or, frankly, on a laptop. Why not just VPN into a dedicated server?

I do. I can take my laptop anywhere I want, for example to a coffee shop and run a coding model while eating a croissant without worrying about an internet connection, as the term local model implies.

And you can warm up the croissant by just placing it on the trackpad while you wait for the LLM to finish

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

#53

Post by dgellow »

lastdong wrote: post #7

Surface has seen so many iterations, some terrible, some nice. Still rocking the discontinued surface laptop studio as Wacom on the go, smallish footprint (14”) creative development machine. I just love its quirkiness and the fact that I can jump on photoshop to touch up an image, use it as tablet for movies, or vs code for (not great nowadays) 6h on battery. It is an odd intersection.

My surface book 2 has the best feeling keyboard I ever used on a laptop. And I still really like the overall unique form factor and 3:4 display with touch support.

But it didn't age too well, the battery is giving up and the SSD is pretty slow. Plus windows being a real slug doesn't make the experience that great anymore

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

#55

Post by forthefuture »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #31
sandworm101 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ya, i dont know of anyone wanting to run very large AI models in a windows environment. Or, frankly, on a laptop. Why not just VPN into a dedicated server?

How much does a dedicated server with 128GB vram cost a month.

You can get an H200 (141GB) here for $2,700/mo: https://deploybase.ai/articles/h200-price

I could be wrong but my understanding is that 24/7 dedicated servers are wildly economically unviable. The reason cloud tends to cost less than local today (other than the subsidization) is because you aren't running models 24/7. So like 6 hours of cloud per weekday might beat the yearly cost of building local machines, but it's not in the same universe if you're running 24/7, as evidenced by two months of H200 rental costing more than the DGX Spark this Laptop is built out of.

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

#57

Post by t_mahmood »

lastdong wrote: post #50
t_mahmood wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I have one that I use as thin client for my desktop, Linux made it usable! 10 year old surface pro 3, 8 to 9hr battery life, takes less than 20s to boot up to Gnome, no issues browsing on Firefox, it's a solid device on the go. And to my total surprise, it retained charge even after almost a month of no usage.

That is great battery life! I also wanted to try Linux, but I think I’ll lose the wacom feature. I also use it as a thin client for my Linux machines, and jointly with my Mac means I have access to all platforms.

I believe Linux supports Wacom tablets pretty well, I have one which worked without any issues, and buttons can be fully customized. The pen broke though, so it's now collecting dust, and I'm not in situation to replace it.

Unfortunately for Surface pro, some parts of the touch screen was damaged during battery replacement. But the parts that works, works well.

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

#58

Post by mysterydip »

taffydavid wrote: post #49
shlewis wrote: post #37

I will never buy a Surface device ever again. I've been using an SL4 for the last four years with Linux on it, thanks to the surface-linux kernel. It's awful. It feels like it's actively refusing to work properly with Linux. Fair - it's not for Linux, and clearly that is expected with a Microsoft device. I've recently had to call their support for missing rubber feet. I figured I could get the replacement mailed(that…

When will these companies realize nobody wants to talk to an AI? The reason we begrudgingly pick up the phone is because some problem is not solvable through the website. The last thing we want at that point is an automated system parroting the website back to us, or telling us to go there ourselves

I guess if you see customer service as a checkbox you have to have, and also a cost center skimming from your bottom line, you will do whatever to make it as cheap and hostile as possible.

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

#60

Post by pancsta »

shlewis wrote: post #37

I will never buy a Surface device ever again. I've been using an SL4 for the last four years with Linux on it, thanks to the surface-linux kernel. It's awful. It feels like it's actively refusing to work properly with Linux. Fair - it's not for Linux, and clearly that is expected with a Microsoft device. I've recently had to call their support for missing rubber feet. I figured I could get the replacement mailed(that…

Linux surface is awful, but also not actually Surface Surface. I did it, it sucked. I went back to windows and everything works primo, exempt its windows. So while I agree, I dont. PSA: wayvnc
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