I've been a Mac user for over 10 years because they were awesome.
The MBP is proving Apple is running for profit and not innovation.
Here's some key differences between SurfaceBook and MBP:
- SB - 16 hours of battery life. MBP - 10 hour. In reality, SB is a little less with pro usage, but MBP is only about 2 to 3 hours. Pathetic.
- SB - Has magsafe like connector for safety. MBP - got rid of Magsafe, one of the best inventions ever. This is ridiculous.
- SB - Has touchscreen. Once you use it you never go back. MBP - no touch screen, but has touch bar, that once you use it, you tend to avoid it.
- SB - Has detachable screen, where when detached, the OS changes into a tablet mode making it great for simple things like games, email, and browsing. MBP - can't detach screen, so if you wan't a tablet, it need to buy an expensive iPad. Obvious money grab.
- SB - Has the option for Nvidia GPU, which is great for CUDA developement, which I do. MBP - does not offer this option. So stuck with non CUDA development.
Please let me know if I'm being over critical, but please justify you reasoning. Remember, I was a hard core Mac lover, and Apple makes more money than anyone, so there's no reason that Apple should be 4 years behind the competition. Tim Cook may be fantastic at organizing production, but he would be fired if Steve Job's came back to life for what he has done to the company. Yes, the stock is good, but that cause the company is running for profit. It won't last.
The last windows laptop I would get is the Surface Book. It's a very weird product because I don't understand who or whom is it aimed to. It has a
dual core ULTRA LOW WATT PROCESSOR (15W) - same as the Macbook Air. The MBP 13 inch with touchbar have a standard dual core i5 (28W) and the Macbook Pro 15 inch have the standard quad core i7 (45w). From my understanding, in short burst loads, the processors will perform similarly, but the lower wattage one can only hold up at the higher clock rates significantly shorter than the ones with higher wattage (Which I think is essential for video editing/data analysis). However, the SB also has a
relatively powerful graphics GTX965M. It is weird because from my understanding, the professionals here who do video editing or data analysis or Autodesk, though they will benefit from the relatively powerful GPU, but it would be bottlenecked easily by the CPU. The only group of user I would see benefit from this is gamers because games generally don't require a lot of CPU horsepower, but GTX965M for gaming is just mediocre at best.... who is it for then?
The another issue is ... I don't see anyone mention this here but I have used a Surface Book ( not mine ) and it broke because the
display (tablet) can no longer detect the performance base because the hinge is faulty. It's an ultimate design failure, you can take a look at Microsoft Forums for this. And you want to charge the SB? no you can't cause you have to charge through the base. You want to plug in USB and try to reinstall drivers? Sorry you can't because all the ports is on the performance base. I don't understand. Is it THAT HARD to put a port (USB C) or something on the display (tablet) because when you face this issue, the only option you have is to send it to service.
Can't charge, can't transfer data, can't use at all even if you have a bluetooth mouse or keyboard.
And the customer service.................................. I don't know how is it in the US, but in my country, you'll never get any responses. Apple CS is far superior in many regions of the world compared to Microsoft.
And the price. It's
price similarly to the 15 inch Macbook pro, and weigh the same but with only a 13 inch display. And it is not future proof (all laptops are not future proof but it lacks a Thunderbolt 3 and I think its a deal breaker for me).
I would sacrifice the touchscreen and the pen and the extra battery life anytime, because as you see.. The 15 Macbook Pro is definitely a better purchase here - quad core, faster SSD, thunderbolt, better screen + sound quality, larger display, no gimmicks (except the touchbar). (Both are overpriced but I rather pay the Apple Tax.)