Microsoft Debuts $999 Surface Laptop, 'Streamlined' Windows 10 S, and More at Education Event

[cardfan]

There's more to windows s then just a gatekeeper type technology. Teachers will manage the machines by way of cloud-based MDM (Mobile Device Management) solutions like Intune.


I think the surface computer is a great option and I do like what they're doing. I own a SurfaceBook and its a solid well performing machine.

I do question why they didn't use USB-C, I think that's a mistake.

I like the Surface products myself especially the Pro. But I don't see this as Surface. It's just a generic looking laptop that I may as well go to an OEM for. I did think it got lost in the win 10S talk and who their supposedly aiming it at. Can you use that surface stylus with this? I think it mentioned Surface Dial support.

Teachers managing windows machines sounds kind of limiting. No offense, but many of the teachers I know still barely know how to turn a PC on, much less manage a classroom of them. Others have been "googleized" into chromebooks. Or ipads. My wife teaches in the federal system on a post and windows is pretty locked down. They need CAC cards for security. Can't install anything. I believe they use google as well.

If I was a school district, I'm not sure what I'd choose these days. I do believe kids need PC (or mac) experience over a tablet and need to know office or office like programs. But most are failing in teaching this. Using chromebooks almost ensures failure.

 

[jeremiah256]

Thanks for this! It's certainly not for me but I for one ok very impresssed with the string comeback and innovation that Microsoft is brining to the table (under an immigrant CEO, nonetheless).

Folks here praise a rose colored iPhone that has the same design from 3 years ago (sans the headphone jack), Microsoft introduces a super slick laptop, a bunch of cool software, and you get the dated 1995 line 'windows suck'

To be fair, RAM is a very touchy subject on this forum. The torches and pitchforks were equally present when Apple presented the latest MBP with a maximum of 16GBs. Many of the users here are above average power users, so any laptop without a bare minimum of 8GBs is going to be criticized.

 

[PhoneI]

How many USB-C thumb drives are there out there? How many schools have the latest USB-C accessories?

People need to stop with these statements. I use my USB-C ports on my MacBook Pro for things that have nothing to do with Thumb Drives. Like....

powering my MacBook
connecting to external monitor
connecting to eGPU that I am building

Don't own a single thumb drive anymore (do people still use these?)

 

[maflynn]

Don't own a single thumb drive anymore (do people still use these?)

Yes, and they're still quite handy

 

[PhoneI]

Teachers will manage the machines by way of cloud-based MDM (Mobile Device Management) solutions like Intune.

Not any of the teachers I ever met.
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Yes, and they're still quite handy

Great. Still doesn't excuse not including a single USB-C port. It kind of amazes me people here are defending MS on this.

 

[duffman9000]

It's not bloated like MacOS. Windows 10 Pro uses a little over 1GB DRAM booting into the OS so Windows 10 Slim will even be less. Perfectly usable for most students up through university. If it was me, though, if I'm spending $899 (with 10% edu discount) on the i5/4/128 it makes more sense to go up to $1169 i5/8/256 for future proofing which is still less than $1399 Macbook Pro i5/8/256.

That's my plan. And I get a keyboard with more key travel.

 

[4jasontv]

OP actually didn't say he used it "so much," he said he used a computer with a touchscreen and then tried to touch his MacBook screen. Outside of certain professions, selecting things all over the screen and annotation are pretty uncommon tasks. And if you DO find yourself doing them a lot, you'll run into the terrible ergonomics of jabbing at a vertical screen all day (at least with this laptop).

They said "I also used to mock them, but then after having PCs with it, I find myself stabbing the screen of my 12" MacBook (the only Apple device I've owned that I've despised) only to have nothing happen." That means they got a laptop that had a touch screen and used it. How much did they use it? So much that they now naturally tap the screen instead of using the cursor, even when they are on a different device.

You are correct that not all professions use it, but I can confirm that the medical, research, and academic fields love it. Maybe the reason most professions don't use it has more to do with slow adoption and not limited need? Having worked at some different jobs I feel comfortable saying that just because something might improve productivity doesn’t mean that an industry will adopt it.

Oh, and the ergonomics argument is hogwash. Touch isn't an exclusive input. That's like saying joysticks are useless because they aren’t good at being a mouse.

 

[maflynn]

Great. Still doesn't excuse not including a single USB-C port. It kind of amazes me people here are defending MS on this.

I'm not defending MS for not using USB-C, just pointing out that I use thumb drives

As for USB-C, I think its a major misstep on Microsoft's part, in fact they tend to do that often enough with the Surface line of computers (disclaimer, I own a Surface Book). Take a look at their premium AIO desktop, the Surface Studio. It uses a 5400rpm hard drive - that makes no sense in 2017.

 

[tubular]

I do question why they didn't use USB-C, I think that's a mistake.

Rather, I think they learned from Apple's mistake.

 

[4jasontv]

It's not bloated like MacOS. Windows 10 Pro uses a little over 1GB DRAM booting into the OS so Windows 10 Slim will even be less. Perfectly usable for most students up through university.

I would love to see a screenshot of said Win10 machine using under 2GB. My rig uses over 3 to get to the desktop with a near instant boot time.
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Take a look at their premium AIO desktop, the Surface Studio. It uses a 5400rpm hard drive - that makes no sense in 2017.

Sure it does. Compare a 1TB 5400 and 7200 on Amazon. $5 over 600k units is about 3 million dollars. It makes no sense to buy one in 2017, but it still makes sense to sell them.

 

[jmgregory1]

I wonder about repairability/upgradeability. I hope the lesson that Microsoft learned from Apple wasn't "solder down everything that moves, son; that way you consign the machine to an unnecessarily early death."

The fact that the keyboard is wrapped in Alcantara suggests MS expects these laptops to have a limited lifespan. Not sure about the assembly of the electronics, but this fabric wrap is going to look janky, maybe even disgusting, in short order, unless MS provides white gloves for people to wear while using them.

 

[MacBergin]

I remember my windows pc days. take the price and multiply it by 2 because the computers always only lasted half as long as my Macs.

 

[Jax44]

I'm on the hook to buy my niece a laptop for college. Size, weight, price, and battery life are all where I need them to be.

You used to be her favorite Uncle

 

[duffman9000]

You used to be her favorite Uncle

I asked if she wanted a Mac and she said no. Not everyone wants a Mac people. I don't want another of the current Macbook Pros.

 

[Steve121178]

Pre-ordered with a middle of the road config (256GB/i5/8GB) which is fine for my needs. Looking forward to receiving it.

 

[/V\acpower]

Ferrari? Hahaha! If Windows is a Honda then MacOS is a Mitsubishi, that's the closest analogy in terms of features and market share. Nothing in MacOS is luxurious or sporty or 'a different league' than Windows. They are both operating systems with similar features, except one of them runs on virtually anything

Ferrari, hilarious!

I prefer my analogy :

macOS is a clean room where everything is at its place. Every object have a logical spot to go.

Windows is a clean room where everything is under the bed. Nice until you actually need something.

 

[aeronatis]

Here's one of my devices, a laptop, with Windows 10 Pro x64 using 1GB DRAM on boot. I've even ran Battlefield 4 on top of Windows 10 Pro x64 on a Surface Pro 4 with 4GB DRAM. I'm guessing Windows 10 Slim will be even lower at about 700MB.

Like I said MacOS is more bloated and on top of that things like Safari on a high end Macbook Pro scrolls slower than Edge on the low end Surface 3 (non-Pro). As far as efficiency ChromeOS > Linux > Windows 10 > MacOS from my experience but for the largest professional software ecosystem, games, etc. Windows is #1.

That is expected since the computer itself has a total of 4 gigs of RAM, it is the same as it is on MacOS. If there is more room to work with, usually the operating system uses it more generously for caching (since both my laptops have 16 gigs of RAM, I never see such a low RAM usage). I can easily use MacOS with two virtual machines running Windows 10 Pro and Debian at the same time which is unarguably not a very pleasant experience on a Windows laptop of similar specs. Gaming, on the other hand, is a nightmare on MacOS since its low level API solutions are not as efficient as DirectX. Microsoft Office is also much smoother on Windows 10 compared to MacOS Sierra.

From my experience with the browsers, except for one browser based work software, performance is definitely better on Safari compared to Chrome 64-bit. Differences of opinions are the result of people relying on different kinds of operations on these browsers. On MacBook Pro I use Safari as primary browser and Chrome only for one work software. On Dell XPS I use Edge as primary browser (since the creators update) and Chrome only for the same work software. Overall, Safari is my browser of choice anyday for reading, watching Netflix and interface being simple.

I agree Windows 10 S will be perfectly usable with 4 gigs of RAM since it has only store apps. Those who need to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro can go for higher configurations. The only part I disagree is that MacOS being bloated. It is much simpler an OS compared to Windows 10 which has all different kinds of windows for the exact same settings.

For the upgrade options, I wish there was an i5 option with Iris Plus graphics sine I would prefer a slightly lower clocked CPU with powerful iGPU on a thin and light notebook.

 

[Dave245]

They can try and compare it to the MacBook Air but in my opinion it's not going to be as good as a Mac. As soon as i saw this it lost me! I'm so glad that Apple isn't doing this, my heart sinks every time i see it.

 

[Steve121178]

They can try and compare it to the MacBook Air but in my opinion it's not going to be as good as a Mac. As soon as i saw this it lost me! I'm so glad that Apple isn't doing this, my heart sinks every time i see it.

How far did it sink when Apple crammed in a useless touch bar on to the MacBook Pro?

 

[Dave245]

How far did it sink when Apple crammed in a useless touch bar on to the MacBook Pro?

It didn't because it made more sense than having someone use a pen to draw or write on a laptop screen. The Touch Bar is useful it just needs more app support and to mature which will happen over time.

 

[MrX8503]

Sometimes it seems to me that no matter what Microsoft does, it will always be criticized just for being Microsoft. Apple is good, Microsoft is bad. You don't explain it, just accept it. Just like religion.

You can't be serious. If Apple were to cure cancer, people would still criticize them for it.

My point is that being in a walled garden is not necesssarily a bad thing per say. We buy Apple and know there are limitations and we are fine with that. I'm sure anyone buying a MS laptop will be equally fine with those limitations, or they will upgrade to Windows 10.

No you were trying to pass false facts.

You can install any app on macOS. You're not restricted to the App Store. Period.

 

[PhoneI]

How far did it sink when Apple crammed in a useless touch bar on to the MacBook Pro?

I use my Touchbar no less than I used the other Function keys it replaced. No biggie.

 

[albebaubles]

What is the point of this other than certain people at Microsoft are obsessed with Apple and making pretty looking hardware. What is the point of this and the Surface Book? And isn't Microsoft basically saying yeah I guess people really do prefer laptops and not these detachable it's a laptop or a tablet devices i.e. Surface Pro.

App his being incredibly obtuse by denying people want a touchscreen MacBook. At least MS is trying.
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I use my Touchbar no less than I used the other Function keys it replaced. No biggie.

I find it use it more. Really like it for debugging in Xcode.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

MS is clearly ready to defend its EDU turf here and get back share from Google. $300 convertible Surface books, $198 laptops. That's going to be hard for schools to say no too, esp. since I'm guessing they will be able to purchase in bulk for less than this. I don't know why Apple doesn't make a bare bone laptop for EDU only unless it doesn't expect to be in the computer market in 10 years when elementary kids are starting their adult lives.

Don't own a single thumb drive anymore (do people still use these?)

Just bought 3 128GB sticks the other day, so yes. They are inexpensive, easy to store, universal, good to archive data on, and work regardless of Internet connectivity. Not sure why you are so negative on them or snotty to those that do use them. You make it sound like they are floppies.

 

[/V\acpower]

You can't be serious. If Apple were to cure cancer, people would still criticize them for it.



No you were trying to pass false facts.

You can install any app on macOS. You're not restricted to the App Store. Period.

To be fair, Windows 10 is on both Tablets and PCs, Windows 10 S is equivalent of iOS for Apple, the closed system for average users who shouldn't (and probably doesn't want to) be concerned with security and dealing with app management.

It's just that for Microsoft it's all on similar devices, Apple it's on different devices.

Personally, as long as Microsoft let you upgrade for a cheap 50$, it's acceptable. (Assuming that you technically pay a lower price for the device because Windows 10 S)