Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Microsoft Debuts $999 Surface Laptop, 'Streamlined' Windows 10 S, and More at Education Event
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
So, Microsoft wants the future students to stay in the past with old legacy usb-A ports and accessories ...
Actually no it's targeted at people who buy MacBook Airs.
Wow! Just off of looks, I am impressed! Microsoft seems to have nailed this one!
I don't think $999 is cheaper than Apple's solutions.
Noted, though I saw the 1080p figure elsewhere too, so people must be copypasting from the same wrong source. Techspecs on the actual product site confirm the higher res. That does make it more interesting again.
It's only cut down in a few ways, and it's entirely upgradable to the full OS. It's not cut down in the same way that iOS is cut down.
I was looking at this, and according to the MS Store, it's free to upgrade to 10 Pro until December 31st. So, that's something I guess, but to compare it to the MacBook or MacBook Air or MacBook Pro right out of the box is insane. I know a lot of designers and developers that run Adobe CC, Brackets, Chrome, Firefox, etc on those and they won't be doing that with Windows 10 S since they aren't available on the "Windows Store". How do they market this for education when it won't run those apps? Are schools supposed to have a mixed environment now where some machines are running Windows 10 Pro and some are running Windows 10 S? I feel bad for the IT teams.
There are a lot of postings on the internet about the Alcantara surface pro keyboard staining really badly just from normal use. I wonder how MS is going to address that.
I also find it amusing that they say "Mini Display Port, 1x USB 3, and Surface Dock port. Compare that to 2x USB-C on the MacBook Pro 13"." I'd be happy to. 2x USB-C ports can do everything that the Surface Book does and a lot more. Gotta love marketing. Oh, and it doesn't come with the Surface Pen, so that's another 99.00 if you want it.
I have owned the Surface Pro 4 and really liked the hardware, but this "Surface Laptop" with a top end of 2199 just seems confusing.
512GB SSD
16GB RAM
Intel® Iris™ Plus Graphics 640
Color: Platinum
$2,199*
Wtf is this?
16GB RAM
Intel® Iris™ Plus Graphics 640
Color: Platinum
$2,199*
Wtf is this?
They are likely copying from the earlier leak today, where the leaker asked 'What does 3 million pixels mean?' and some propel wrongly commented '1080p'.
Meh. For 1000$ price tag I would expect 8GB of ram. Its not as if RAM is terribly expensive these days.
This device is priced to compete with some ultrabooks, but doesn't offer anything more, and in some cases offers less. I can see only offering a single USB type A port because of size, but they could throw on one or two type C ports and help spread type C adoption. That and getting a stripped down version of Windows on a 1000$ machine? If it was a tablet I could see that, but then you've got the Surface tablets running full Windows. I can run my Surface Pro 3 for about 5 hours off its internal battery running full Windows 10. Do you really need to strip down Windows for battery life on a full laptop when a tablet already gets decent battery life?
I am glad to see that at least they put an actual Core i5 CPU in this instead of that Core M nonsense. But for the price theres definitely better options.
This device is priced to compete with some ultrabooks, but doesn't offer anything more, and in some cases offers less. I can see only offering a single USB type A port because of size, but they could throw on one or two type C ports and help spread type C adoption. That and getting a stripped down version of Windows on a 1000$ machine? If it was a tablet I could see that, but then you've got the Surface tablets running full Windows. I can run my Surface Pro 3 for about 5 hours off its internal battery running full Windows 10. Do you really need to strip down Windows for battery life on a full laptop when a tablet already gets decent battery life?
I am glad to see that at least they put an actual Core i5 CPU in this instead of that Core M nonsense. But for the price theres definitely better options.
How odd, ports that people actually use today? And a keyboard that isn't like typing on a cement bench?
The hardware is arguably about as premium as it gets. If people want cheap crap then they are free to buy any Asus, Acer, Dell, HP & Toshiba they want.
eh? a machine for £1000 that only has 4gb of ram, a gimped OS no USB C, if apple released that, you'd be like why can't apple innovate. I like windows machines but I would never advise someone spending a grand on a 4gb machine in 2017
Nope, it's targeted at schools to buy. No student would want a computer that locks them to the app store. Even after a full upgrade to win 10, there's nothing unique about this hardware. It's too expensive for what you get. A MBP blows this away and is already capable of running win 10.
Because being Apple is just putting out a pretty laptop that looks like a MacBook Air?
Of course I did. Cheapest CPUs Intel sells, no high-performance ports (USB 3.0 in a 2017 laptop, hello??), cheap WiFi chip (no bluetooth 4.2). Its a nice looking laptop and the fabric surface is a nice touch, but its fairly under specced for the money they ask. I don't have any doubts though that its a nice laptop for the classroom and that it will sell well. But it certainly doesn't have the performance or the versatility of the MacBook Pro which costs the same, especially when you look at the higher-end tiers.
It's the MacBook Pro 13 inch with legacy ports and newer CPU.
Just looked on MS site. Seems OK. On par with Apple prices for the 13 inch MacBook Pro.
512 GB SSD, i7, and 16 GB of ram is the same price as the MacBook Pro 13 with same options: $2199. If that is a cloth top, that is begging for grossness after a year.
I guess this is what decent laptops cost now? Yikes. I just got my Ryzen 1800x build with 32 GB of Ram and a GTX 1080ti on PC part picker down to about that.
At its very best it has similar hardware to the Macbook Pro but is somehow more expensive, the lower end machines though are outspecced in some regards by a Macbook Air that hasn't seen an update for 2 years.
If I was going to be paying the premium, I certainly wouldn't opt for a more expensive Microsoft machine when Apple offers essentially the same hardware in a much better end product.
If I was going to be paying the premium, I certainly wouldn't opt for a more expensive Microsoft machine when Apple offers essentially the same hardware in a much better end product.
Panos Panay mentioned Macs several times and also said this was targeted to high school kids close to graduation. Business Insider referred to it as a "MacBook Air" killer. Obviously that's what Microsoft wants.