OK had a chance to calm down and look closer at this laptop. In terms of hardware it's quite nice, really thin and svelte. If I was in the pre-tablet era when I still had a MacBook Air, I'd easily choose this over the Air. The resolution is 2256x1504 (not 1080p like the article states), and at 13.5 is a huge screen as laptops go. Personally I like a bit lower resolution as it helps with scaling elements and the UI, this one sounds like it might hit the sweet spot. It has a touchscreen and surface pen support, nice. I'm not denying that writing on the screen might be a bit goofy, having to hold the lid open, but hey at least we have options. I'm all for options, so maybe I use the pen occasionally to sign a PDF file or markup a webpage, at least the option is there. Touchscreen I know I'll get a lot of naysayers, but I firmly believe a touchscreen on a laptop is awesome and would never go back to something primitive without a touchscreen.
Kaby Lake, nice. Windows hello, awesome. No C-usb, hmm. 14.5 hours of battery with a full desktop Proc? Wow, color me impressed. WinS isn't as bad of a failure as WinRT as at least 32bit apps can be converted through the app store, but I still think it's a huge gap and a huge mistake on MS' part. I see there is a free upgrade to full windows *temporarily*, nice but not good enough, and many consumers won't even realize this, or won't want to go to the trouble. Bezels look very nice, nicer than my wife's XPS13 with it's infinity bezels, which in reality have one gigantic bezel on the bottom. I could see my wife loving the MS laptop.
I still think it's overpriced. Not that the hardware isn't worth it, it's just that they are positioning it as a low cost student laptop and not a MacBook killer per se. If it had full windows on it, I could see the i7/8gb/256gb option being worth the $999, but at the $1599 for a WinRT, erm umm WinS laptop? Not so much. So overall I still predict it will fail, or at least Windows S will still fail. The laptop might survive as a niche product for those of use who like beautiful, luxurious Microsoft products and know how to install full windows onto it.
Kaby Lake, nice. Windows hello, awesome. No C-usb, hmm. 14.5 hours of battery with a full desktop Proc? Wow, color me impressed. WinS isn't as bad of a failure as WinRT as at least 32bit apps can be converted through the app store, but I still think it's a huge gap and a huge mistake on MS' part. I see there is a free upgrade to full windows *temporarily*, nice but not good enough, and many consumers won't even realize this, or won't want to go to the trouble. Bezels look very nice, nicer than my wife's XPS13 with it's infinity bezels, which in reality have one gigantic bezel on the bottom. I could see my wife loving the MS laptop.
I still think it's overpriced. Not that the hardware isn't worth it, it's just that they are positioning it as a low cost student laptop and not a MacBook killer per se. If it had full windows on it, I could see the i7/8gb/256gb option being worth the $999, but at the $1599 for a WinRT, erm umm WinS laptop? Not so much. So overall I still predict it will fail, or at least Windows S will still fail. The laptop might survive as a niche product for those of use who like beautiful, luxurious Microsoft products and know how to install full windows onto it.
