Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

blogs.windows.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

841–850 of 989 posts

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#841

Post by natmaster »

MatthiasP wrote: post #276

That's what the OEMs get for not being able to put out a laptop that could compete with Apple in all those years, they always managed to introduce some fatal flaw in their premium laptops, from weird keyboard layouts to bad fan management software. Let's hope the Surface Book will be succesful and Apple finally gets serious competition in the premium laptop market.

Dell XPS laptops are amazing. What flaw did you find that noone else did? I would even go as far as to say the hardware is better (obviously many here will disagree about software side). I mean, they are carbon-fiber, lighter, smaller, with better build quality.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#842

Post by johnny22 »

mrbuttons454 wrote: post #736
cm2187 wrote: post #676

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then you loose the USB port. But the main problem of USB adapters is that they don't like being unplugged and plugged back which happens quite frequently with a laptop. With a real port connectivity is pretty much instantaneous. I used USB adapters for a while on a MacBook pro and came to the conclusion that I will never ever buy a laptop without ethernet ports. What I wonder is why they don't come up with a mini…

Anker makes a USB 3 hub with gigabit ethernet. I've got one, it's pretty great. http://www.ianker.com/product/A7514041

I didn't realize such a thing was being made! thanks for the tip

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#843

Post by scholia »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #818
unabst wrote: post #691

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 8 was not stronger. Microsoft Tablet PC was a modest attempt in 2002, but again, not stronger. The issue with the Surface Book is how closely they intentionally align themselves with their biggest competitor. They are begging for a comparison. And I could have easily mistaken the page for a 2002 Tablet PC overview. Only the pictures are different. "Redefining the laptop" is hardly inspiring copy. Which demo?…

Are you really comparing the company that just put out the Macbook (oh wow a thinner than thin enough MBA with a higher res display, no ports, worse battery, worse CPU, worse GPU, for a much higher price) and the iPad Pro (wow a bigger iPad with a pen many other tablets and laptops already had covered, that you have to charge by sticking it into the iPad like an idiot [0], to Microsoft which just demo'd a pretty damn…

Unabst was apparently of the opinion (above and in his deleted message) that the lack of innovation in the headline was much more significant than the massive innovation in the product.

Seems to me that if Apple had produced the Surface Book, Mac fans would be wetting themselves so hard that a lot of people would drown....

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#844

Post by inerte »

Does anyone have more details on the "NVIDIA GeForce"? I can't find the model, memory or any other info. What I really want to know is how powerful the GPU really is, and some benchmarks, but for now just some model-number or series-letter would be fine.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#845

Post by lelandbatey »

danudey wrote: post #710
tmd83 wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! At least from the initial look and spec it looks like they did a lot of the things right and put effort in making this nice. Yes there are things that maybe I can get by without but the basics looks fantastic. You don't chip $50 off a premium laptop and make it crappy. OEM just keeps making too many model at every price point .. at every 20 dollars it feels like. While I hate the almost singular choice for OsX…

And every price point has one thing you want that the other ones don't have, so you end up sophie's choice-ing your way through Dell's website. And then you go from their Home to their Business site and the prices, features, bundles, and add-ons are different for the same hardware. It's the same reason Google started making Nexus phones: so that someone , somewhere , would make a good Android phone without messing so…

Something I do want to note: everyone seems to only ever look at two, maybe three companies for "serious" notebooks: Dell, Lenovo, and (maybe) HP. However, I've found that by far the best company to buy laptops from is Asus.

The latest example of this I've seen is the Asus Zenbook UX305LA. The specs are:

    8GB Ram
    256 SSD
    Intel Core i5-5200U
    1080p IPS display
    A keyboard devoid of obviously poor layout[0]
    Nice large multi-touch trackpad[0]
    Weighs 2.86 lbs (1.29 kg)
    8+ hours of battery
    Full out of the box Linux compatibility
    ---------------------
    Price: $750
It seems to have an absolutely killer set of features at a great price point, and this seems to be a trend with Asus. My current laptop is an Asus TP300LA, with nearly the same specs (though thicker and heavier), and it sold at the same ~$700 price point two years ago.

I highly recommend people look to Asus for their standard "programmer machines".

[0] - http://cuttingedgenotebook.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/AS...

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#846

Post by arm »

caskance wrote: post #618
noinsight wrote: post #553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually Lenovo preinstalls malware that persists even through complete Windows reinstallations: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/08/lenovo...

I know, and stand by what I said.

Wait, really? So the things mentioned in the comment thread on this¹ post mean less to you than getting a trackpoint?

In any case, Lenovo isn’t the only manufacturer that includes a pointing stick in their laptops. HP’s EliteBook series, for example, has one. There’s a full list of manufacturers here².

――――――

¹ — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10039306

² — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pointing_stick#Naming_and_bran...

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#847

Post by ciupicri »

lelandbatey wrote: post #845
danudey wrote: post #710

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And every price point has one thing you want that the other ones don't have, so you end up sophie's choice-ing your way through Dell's website. And then you go from their Home to their Business site and the prices, features, bundles, and add-ons are different for the same hardware. It's the same reason Google started making Nexus phones: so that someone , somewhere , would make a good Android phone without messing so…

Something I do want to note: everyone seems to only ever look at two, maybe three companies for "serious" notebooks: Dell, Lenovo, and (maybe) HP. However, I've found that by far the best company to buy laptops from is Asus. The latest example of this I've seen is the Asus Zenbook UX305LA. The specs are: 8GB Ram 256 SSD Intel Core i5-5200U 1080p IPS display A keyboard devoid of obviously poor layout[0] Nice large mul…

There's more to a laptop than just its theoretical performance. It also needs to be reliable and tough, light-weight, ergonomic (good keyboard, touchpad that isn't touched accidentally), cool (otherwise CPU & GPU might be throttled), etc.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#848

Post by JBiserkov »

spyder wrote: post #610
codeulike wrote: post #46

The Lumia 950 docked into a screen and keyboard was pretty interesting

But the thing I don't understand is why they don't make it possible to run a full Windows on phones that already has the Intel Atom quad-core CPU which can run full Windows in tablets with good performance. For example the ASUS Zenfone 2 not only has the Intel CPU but 4GB RAM too. It could be just a question of having Windows drivers for the components like the PowerVR GPU.

There are rumors about a "Surface phone" that will run full Windows. And full Office, etc.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#849

Post by reubenmorais »

sampo wrote: post #655
nogridbag wrote: post #481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm relatively unfamiliar with ThinkPads and happened to be looking at them yesterday. Here's my problem with ThinkPads (as well as most other Windows laptop vendors): http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops Which ThinkPad are you talking about? ThinkPad X, ThinkPad T, ThinkPad W, ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad E, ThinkPad L, or ThinkPad Helix, or ThinkPad 11E? Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which…

> Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which model? > T440p, T450, T450s, T540p, or T550? T450s. When looking for a competitor to Apple, go for the T-series, but also take a look at the X-series. T5XX has 15" screen and numpad in the keyboard, so unless you like numpad, forget those. 440 is the older series, before it there was 430 series, and presently 450 is the current line. "p" stands for "performance", bas…

> Also Apple makes do with just the integrated Intel graphics, so we don't need NDIVIA either.

No they don't… the 15" MBP has a dedicated GPU, and a good one at that.

Re: New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft

#850

Post by deciplex »

melling wrote: post #119
strictnein wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately, they chose to support 99.9(999?)% of existing USB cables instead.

You can always make that argument. If you want progress, you need to Think Different. Intel and Microsoft have enough muscle to get 100 million PC's shipped in 12 months wth a new standard. Of course, no one said that they only have to ship USB-C.

And it's always a good argument, especially for a series of standards that have always depended on vendor buy-in to proliferate, rather than solid design. Just because USB-C is the first USB not to absolutely suck, doesn't mean manufacturers ought to fall head over heels to put them in new devices, considering the countless existing devices that use the old, shitty connectors we got stuck with because the standards body couldn't get its act together.
Post reply on HN