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Microsoft Hardware

Microsoft Unveils the Surface Laptop, a Traditional Notebook That Is 'Better' Than MacBook Pro (engadget.com) 247

On the sidelines of Windows 10 S and affordable Chromebook-like laptops announcements, Microsoft also announced the newest addition to its Surface computing lineup. Dubbed the Surface Laptop, the laptop starts at $999, and is for everyone, the company claims, though the focus is on students and professionals. From a report: The Surface Laptop includes a 13.5-inch PixelSense display (Microsoft's branding for its unique screen technology) and a keyboard draped in Alcantara, a smooth cloth-like material. It's powered by Intel's most recent Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, and it can pack in an SSD up to 1TB (that's notably integrated directly onto the motherboard). Performance-wise, Microsoft's Surface head, Panos Panay, claims the Laptop is 50 percent faster than the Core i7 MacBook Air while also being lighter. (Editor's note: Panos added that the Surface Laptop also outpaces the MacBook Pro on performance.) You can also expect up to 14.5 hours of battery life, thanks to Windows 10 S's battery savings and more efficient hardware. One thing you won't see on the Surface Laptop: Speaker holes or grills. Microsoft managed to fit the speakers behind the keys, which Panay claims delivers a more enveloping sound. Microsoft says it has also improved the standby time -- so much so that "you could go away on spring break and still have the same battery life when you returned."
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Microsoft Unveils the Surface Laptop, a Traditional Notebook That Is 'Better' Than MacBook Pro

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  • by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @10:26AM (#54341007)
    >> laptop starts at $999

    Seems like it's priced about $700 too high. About three years ago, I was happy to shell out about $300 for a Windows 8 tablet with Office preinstalled and a bluetooth keyboard. It was just fast enough to run Civ5 in tile mode through Steam.

    For dev machines I can build my own laptop (with RAM + SSD) for cheaper than $1K too, and $1K should be mostly graphics cards if it's invested in a desktop. And educational institutions on budgets are already using "disposable" Chromebooks and Android tablets that can be had for a hundred bucks so it seems unlikely Microsoft has a viable product for K-12. So again...what do you get for a $1K Surface?
    • At $999, I can buy 4 (or more) chromebooks, which are more than adequate for pretty much all education needs. Way to read your market there, Microsoft...
      • RTFA. This is NOT their education offering. That's a different animal.

        On the sidelines of Windows 10 S and affordable Chromebook-like laptops announcements, Microsoft also announced the newest addition ...

    • yea its definitely priced too high. I recently bought an acer switch alpha 12 for 480$ which has twice the ram and ssd space as the base model of this and a non-gimped version of windows. Plus its a 2in1 so it has a touchscreen for a reason

      • The cheapest model of which is $599 (retail, but let's compare apples to apples huh?). But since you said "2x the memory", you must have been talking about the core i5 / 8GB model. That one is $699.

        So you were only off by ~30% in your price quote.

  • The title claims better performance than a MacBook Pro, but the summary references a MacBook Air. There's also no link to the actual article?
  • Why is the side covered in weird rectangular holes?

  • by XSportSeeker ( 4641865 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @10:37AM (#54341085)

    RAM? Discrete graphics? Oh wait, it comes with Windows 10S... the rebranding of RT. Nevermind. It's worthless.

  • So its a high power laptop that can't run any software that would need high power? A high end Chromebook makes no sense at all. Easy to see why the surface series has less sales than apples accessory division.

  • Non-starter (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bill Hayden ( 649193 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @10:51AM (#54341189) Homepage

    A $1000 laptop that can only run Windows Store apps? Somebody at MS is getting fired.

  • by JWW ( 79176 )

    ..... this post brought to you by Microsoft.

    Wow, shill much?

  • by TheOuterLinux ( 4778741 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @10:53AM (#54341209) Homepage
    A MacBook doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to work, I get 30 days of standby/suspend/sleep time on battery, and MacBook Pros and Airs already are i5 or i7. They say it's faster, but only because of cloud computing: the destroyer of open source. Also, good luck getting any work done without the internet and enjoy having no control over your software and Window$ spyware. There's also no way you'll be able to install Linux on it either. If I have $999 to blow on a laptop, I'll get a System76 or a Thinkpad off of Amazon. Hell, I might just buy a bunch of Raspberry Pi's and put them together.
    • A MacBook doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to work, I get 30 days of standby/suspend/sleep time on battery, and MacBook Pros and Airs already are i5 or i7. They say it's faster, but only because of cloud computing: the destroyer of open source. Also, good luck getting any work done without the internet and enjoy having no control over your software and Window$ spyware. There's also no way you'll be able to install Linux on it either. If I have $999 to blow on a laptop, I'll get a System76 or a Thinkpad off of Amazon. Hell, I might just buy a bunch of Raspberry Pi's and put them together.

      It looks like MS is playing the "you can centrally manage the machines and only approved MS Store software can be installed so you don't have any security issues..." to school districts. They would presumably always have wireless access so using cloud based programs is not an issue. tI would guess MS will offer substantial "discounts" for volume buys. As for Alcantara, it'll be interesting to see how that stands up over time in a school environment. I'd also love to see teh data backing up the faster than M

    • Yeah, I'm wondering if they're comparing to Macbooks running Windows. Bootcamp drivers are crap, so it's not a great comparison. My Air runs OSX much more efficiently than Windows.
    • by pubwvj ( 1045960 )

      Aye, agreed. The new Microsox _might_ be good but it isn't better than a MacBook Pro. In fact, it isn't even _as_ good as a MacBook Pro. In addition to the technical aspect there is also the fact that the MacBooks last so much longer than Windows machines and require less support. This is repeatedly shown in industry studies. We have MacBook Pros and PowerBooks (older version of MBP) that are over 10 years old and even over 15 years old and still performing their duties perfectly. When the top level users u

      • My Asus G50VT is only 9 years old. Works perfectly,even now with Windows 10 on it. I didn't game on it much, so the video card is still 100%.

        My Dell E6440 is just shy of 4 years old. Works perfectly, but did get a hard drive replacement last year. Drive failures being essentially random nowadays, this is hard to blame on Windows, Microsoft, or Dell.

        Before this, I had a no name laptop that lasted 11 years, damn, but i hacked the power connector back on several times. My ThinkPad X41t lasted me 9 years and is

    • cloud computing: the destroyer of open source

      lol.

  • by Osgeld ( 1900440 )

    I cant top looking at that fabric covered keyboard and thinking how NASTY that's going to be within a single report writing session

    • The fabric covered keyboard on my Surface Pro is years old and not nasty at all. And it's not because of me.

  • If its primary OS is a Microsoft OS, that doesn't fit the description of "better" in my book.

    Windows was the primary reason why I jumped ship to OSX/MacOS so I'll stick with that OS, thank you very much.
  • I get the feeling they are testing those two things separately. If you have your computer set to performance and the competition set to battery, naturally your computer will perform better. (for a few hours anyway) And vice-versa. You can't have highest performance AND best battery life at the same time without some incredible hardware, which I doubt this can live up to.

    • by Cederic ( 9623 )

      Well, you can, if you reduce the amount of work the system has to do.

      By restricting it to the Windows App Store they've removed all useful work from the system entirely, so it's not a surprise it'll do fuck all very quickly forever.

      It's still doing fuck all useful.

  • by Radical Moderate ( 563286 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @11:19AM (#54341429)
    ...is here. [arstechnica.com] Honestly, I can't see the point of putting an i7 in these. If you're doing anything that's pushing all the cores, the heat generated will force it to throttle down, unless the newest chips have become way more efficient than previous gens. Would be interesting to see a shoot-out between the i5 and i7 models.
    • Don't worry about the unnecessary cores. Since they didn't mention what specific i7 its safe to assume its one of the many bait and switch dual core i7. When it comes to advertising, what isn't said means much more than what is explicitly stated.

  • by geekmux ( 1040042 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @11:33AM (#54341543)

    "The Surface Laptop includes a 13.5-inch PixelSense display..."

    No one attaches a 13.5" display to their desktop and boasts about it. I'd sure as hell give up an hour or two of battery life for some actual real estate. Let me guess, that "monster" screen also has 4K capability too, for some pointless marketing reason.

    "...a keyboard draped in Alcantara, a smooth cloth-like material.

    Obviously a critical "Pro" feature. I always wanted my keyboard to feel like drapery.

    "... it can pack in an SSD up to 1TB (that's notably integrated directly onto the motherboard).

    Translation: Fuck You consumer. You'll pay factory price for upgrades, and like it, bitch. (Tell me again how this is notably better than Apple's Fuck-You hardware model?)

    "You can also expect up to 14.5 hours of battery life..."

    Translation: You can expect to get up to 4 hours of Netflix binging.

    "Microsoft managed to fit the speakers behind the keys, which Panay claims delivers a more enveloping sound."

    Translation: We spent a billion dollars on behind-the-keyboard R&D for the earbud generation.

    THIS is what hardware has become these days; a fucking fashion shitshow for hypes sake. Thanks Apple, for starting this trend.

    • by sl3xd ( 111641 )

      THIS is what hardware has become these days; a fucking fashion shitshow for hypes sake. Thanks Apple, for starting this trend.

      I'm sorry, but I have to beg to differ. SGI and Sun (remember them?) did fashion computers long before Apple did.

      Just do a Google image search for "SGI Indigo", "SGI Crimson", "SGI Terzo", "SGI Onyx", "SGI Prism", "SGI Fuel".

      Or the Linux Networx LS-X...

      Or take a talk down memory lane and check out the Cray-2 [wikipedia.org], which had a waterfall...

  • Longer battery life AND better performance AND lighter than a MBP?

    Something smells really fishy. Microsoft has pulled sketchy stunts like this before, so only a fool would take this announcement at face value. I'll wait for some actual reviews before I'll form an opinion.

    It's using their newly released Windows 10S, so you can only install UWP and select windows store approved win32 apps. This is another massive alarm bell, and it's certainly not fit for "professional" use, no matter what they like to cla

  • Oh I love the way branding goes these days, as if it wasn't enough to say it has "i5" or "i7" CPUs while omitting they're actually ULV CPUs. But claiming it to be more powerful than an MBP makes me digress, but I'm calling that BS since they started to compare it with a Macbook Air.

    But man, that marketing BS with the "PixelSense", "Iris Plus" and deceptive numbers like "3.4 Million pixels". So basically it's not 4k in 2017. It is less than a Dell XPS 4k (2y old, but ok, 15''), it is less than a Chromebook

    • i'm wondering if dedicated GPU's in laptops will eventually go the way of the dodo; once eGPU's via thunderbolt 3 gain a bit more traction, it will no longer really make sense to bother with integrated 3d video.

      i'd much rather save a few hundred bucks and not have a shitty geforce 'm" card, and instead use a desktop card of my choosing. it's upgrade-able, performance isn't quite as gimped due to heat/power issues, and laptop is lighter and cheaper..

      Looking at benchmarks the 960m card in my asus laptop is r

      • i'd much rather save a few hundred bucks and not have a shitty geforce 'm" card, and instead use a desktop card of my choosing. it's upgrade-able, performance isn't quite as gimped due to heat/power issues, and laptop is lighter and cheaper..

        They've been putting full-on "desktop" GPUs in laptops for some time now. All you have to do is pay for it and invest in a heat shield for your nuts.

        • eh, usually (at least what i've seen?) it's a mobile variant of a desktop card (such as the one i cited, 960m)

          but they add considerable cost, and i'd presume bulk due to cooling needs.

          basically give me a thin, sleek laptop with a proper i7 caliber CPU and whatever onboard intel bullshit it needs for 2d video.

          When i want to game i'd hook up an eGPU enclosure/dock. (yes there's a few on the market currently, but they're crazy expensive for what amounts to a pcie ->thunderbolt3 interface and janky as fuck p

  • Who fucking cares? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by xession ( 4241115 )
    Should this post have "AD" next to the title? This blatant advertisement counts for content now? Wouldn't even be at all shocked if this was written by a Microsoft employee.

    Here's my takeaway.
    • 1) The laptop is nice and thin, I'll give them that.
    • 2) Battery life sounds good.
    • 3) Touchscreen can be useful at times but I prefer an eraser tip. Nonetheless, this has been a key element of the Surface series.
    • 4) Inability to install your own mass storage: DUMB
    • 5) Carpetted laptop: DUMB. Now any accidental
  • by ErichTheRed ( 39327 ) on Tuesday May 02, 2017 @12:48PM (#54342023)

    I know they're trying to compete with the Chromebook, but I thought they learned their lesson with Windows RT -- very few use cases exist for an artificially limited device that can only run Store apps and, essentially, Office.

    It's obvious that Azure and cloud services are the way they want to go, but no one wanted the non-Pro Surface. Outside of education, why would anyone want this? Phone is dead, UWP apps exist but certainly aren't the only type of apps people use, and it seems silly to me to artifically limit a device using Windows 10 S.

    The ideal endgame for Microsoft is definitely having locked-down devices that are useless without paying subscription fees and consuming Azure services. They're going to be the new IBM and we're all going to be mainframe customers at some point.

  • Microsoft says it has also improved the standby time -- so much so that "you could go away on spring break and still have the same battery life when you returned."

    Appealing not to people that will actually attend spring break since they hardly have money for gas and beer, rather, to people with fond memories of spring breaks past.

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