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Microsoft Surface Book
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mindwaves
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May 3, 2017, 06:14 AM
 
Looks ok. The cloth/whatever material on the palm rests is super tacky and will wear out in no time, and or will dirty in a hurry, especially for their target audience -- students. Not to mention that schools love to plaster laptops (especially palm rests with login/password information and/or school barcode, etc)

No USB-C and a single USB-A port is kind of an odd omission also. I can't find any pictures of it closed. Someone said that the screen isn't flush with the body, a la the Surface tablet laptop thing.

If it had one USB-C, one USB-A, and no cloth, then it would be a decent machine.
     
Ham Sandwich
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May 3, 2017, 07:59 AM
 
[...deleted...]
( Last edited by Ham Sandwich; Apr 23, 2020 at 08:38 AM. )
     
Jawbone54
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May 3, 2017, 01:06 PM
 
Windows 10 S looks and sounds like an abomination.
     
Brien
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May 8, 2017, 12:03 AM
 
But you can give them fifty dollars to upgrade to a not locked down OS, at least.
     
Jawbone54
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May 8, 2017, 04:44 PM
 
Originally Posted by Brien View Post
But you can give them fifty dollars to upgrade to a not locked down OS, at least.
True, but it's the most frustrating thing in the world that Microsoft and Google can't wrap their brains around why fragmentation is so bad for their products.

From what I understand, this is Microsoft trying to push/beg app developers into making UWP apps. It's still going to bomb.
     
Gearhead40
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May 8, 2017, 07:15 PM
 
Don't understand. If Surface is a tablet, shouldn't it stay a tablet, not a laptop? Isn't that cross branding? So confusing. It's like Apple making an iPad laptop...
     
subego
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May 9, 2017, 07:51 AM
 
Pretend imgur is working and I posted this.

https://xkcd.com/323/
     
P
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May 9, 2017, 08:06 AM
 
Base price is $999, but it is mostly unusable in that shape, with only 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD. Even the base MBA gets 8GB RAM. The Surface has a much better display, but that is really tiny if this is your only laptop. I used an 11" MBA with 4/128 as a secondary laptop for a while, but it only worked because I had an iMac at home (and this is not 2011 anymore).

The next step up is the one that might make sense, 8GB of RAM at $1299. That goes up against the Macbook One directly, except it uses the U-series Intel chips instead of extreme low-power Y-series that the One uses. That comes down to battery life or performance, I guess. Personally I think that I'd rather have the Surface here, all else being equal - but of course it isn't, because I'd rather have macOS.

As you move up the range, the MS options make less sense. The next one up is $1599, which puts it up against the non-TB 13" MBP, but there the Mac is $100 cheaper and both of its ports are much faster and more capable. The top model, at $2199, is just bananas. The closest 13" is the top 13" MBP, but that is $200 cheaper and a lot more capable with its four TB3-ports.

So MS makes computers with even fewer ports and even more expensive than Apple? That's nice to know.
The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.
     
Spheric Harlot
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May 9, 2017, 10:46 AM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
Base price is $999, but it is mostly unusable in that shape, with only 4GB of RAM and 128GB SSD. Even the base MBA gets 8GB RAM. The Surface has a much better display, but that is really tiny if this is your only laptop. I used an 11" MBA with 4/128 as a secondary laptop for a while, but it only worked because I had an iMac at home (and this is not 2011 anymore).

The next step up is the one that might make sense, 8GB of RAM at $1299. That goes up against the Macbook One directly, except it uses the U-series Intel chips instead of extreme low-power Y-series that the One uses. That comes down to battery life or performance, I guess. Personally I think that I'd rather have the Surface here, all else being equal - but of course it isn't, because I'd rather have macOS.

As you move up the range, the MS options make less sense. The next one up is $1599, which puts it up against the non-TB 13" MBP, but there the Mac is $100 cheaper and both of its ports are much faster and more capable. The top model, at $2199, is just bananas. The closest 13" is the top 13" MBP, but that is $200 cheaper and a lot more capable with its four TB3-ports.

So MS makes computers with even fewer ports and even more expensive than Apple? That's nice to know.
but but but Touchscreen!
     
Laminar
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May 9, 2017, 03:21 PM
 
Originally Posted by P View Post
I used an 11" MBA with 4/128 as a secondary laptop for a while, but it only worked because I had an iMac at home (and this is not 2011 anymore).
That's my deal right now - a 27" iMac and a 2013 11" MBA as a secondary machine purchased instead of upgrading to a new iPad from my iPad 2. I can't imagine needing anything else in a mobile machine and I have no plans to get rid of it any time soon.
     
mindwaves  (op)
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May 10, 2017, 09:12 AM
 
I still can't get over that fabric. Microsoft said to think of it as a luxury car, but then their current market is students, which is the total opposite. Someone said that an $80,000 Cadillac CTS has an Alcantara wrapped steering wheel, but a student is not going to take as good of a care as someone with an $80,000 car.

It is not even the eventual smells and stains it will have, it is that students will use their fingernails and peel the edges of the fabric right off. The fabric just sits right on top; it is not wrapped. Students in 2 weeks will have that laptop looking like a homeless guy.
     
   
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