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I've never understood why articles quote the Surface price without including the keyboard and then compare it to a laptop. If you want to just compare it to an iPad, fine, leave out the keyboard. But if you want to compare its cost to a laptop, then you have to throw in the $129 keyboard.
Plus a mouse. I haven't seen a Surface user without a mouse, because the trackpad sucks for them.
 
As someone who still does computer support on the side, I can tell you the amount of malware on Windows has NOT reduced since including Windows Defender in Windows 10. At the end of the day, no matter how much you like the Surface Pro hardware, it's still the same ****** OS. Yes, I do wish Apple would release new laptops already, but running to a Surface would not be my desperation move.
 
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Plus a mouse. I haven't seen a Surface user without a mouse, because the trackpad sucks for them.

Yeah, though trackpads are pretty weak on my PC laptops as well.

The Surface is a pretty good hardware. But why can't a tech writer who knows it needs a keyboard just include that number in its price discussions? I suppose one could get a much cheaper Bluetooth keyboard, which wouldn't have a trackpad and hence you would need the mouse. But then you are still looking at $40 to $50.
 
Yes, I want gorilla arm when using a notebook so I can fingerprint the crap out of my screen. blech.
 
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If they (Microsoft) had done it right, then the conversation would be different. When Steve said "an iPod, a Phone, and an Internet communicator", they had built something and done it right (for the time). Microsoft's Surface might be a tablet and a personal computer, but as long as they don't do it right, their attempts will fall short.
Apple didn't rush to just slap together something that would do the job, even if it did it half-assedly; that's what Microsoft is doing. Like I've always said, "Just because you can doesn't mean you SHOULD" and "If you're going to do something, make sure you do it right to begin with".
They are trying to innovate at least and always improve and move forward. Surface Book is a fantastic concept, Windows phones connecting to display and keyboard is a fantastic concept, Hololense is fantastic as well. This is the future, the 21st century thing. One day they'll fix the hardware.
 
It's funny to me to see the commercials. They are just terrible. But they also make fun of an outdated laptop because Apple has refused to update their line for too long. Hopefully this works to force Apple to actually update this year. I also note that they aren't doing a comparison to the iPad Pro which can do everything they claim their surface does (sans the port or track pad). Why not compare and compete there..... hmm.....

The iPad Pro runs a mobile operating system, whereas the Surface Pro runs both a mobile and desktop OS. I think this is the biggest difference between them, but one that MS does not exploit. If Apple put macOS onto the iPad Pro, the surface would be dead. However, I don't see Apple doing this anytime soon, gotta make that $$.
 
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I for one will never go back to having a laptop that does not have an Active pen for drawing or photoshop. I upgraded to a Canvas Z because of Video rendering- but for general illustration the Surface Pro was a Solid art tool.
 
don't want to be rude, but what exactly are you missing? you have usb3, thunderbolt, hidpi screens, excellent battery life and quite capable processors. of course, not the latest&greatest. oh and not to mention the build quality and ecosystem.
i use mine to for drawing and CAD modelling, and until now i hasn't felt i'm limited in any way. probably you do some killer apps that require the most recent CPUs from intel.

if it is for me, i'd skip those gimmicky rumoured touch-strips on the "next" mbp, and i do quite well w/o nfc or touchID on my notebook. but that's just me. and also i do not upgrade my gear yearly, probably like every 3 years, probably that's why i am not so disappointed by not seeing every year a new laptop.
Exactly. I have a 2010 MBP running El Cap and have no trouble with it, even after dropping it twice. I use it for web and mobile dev work, so I'm not pushing the GPU like others might, but it's still a great machine.
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They are trying to innovate at least and always improve and move forward. Surface Book is a fantastic concept, Windows phones connecting to display and keyboard is a fantastic concept, Hololense is fantastic as well. This is the future, the 21st century thing. One day they'll fix the hardware.
Which is the point. Why spew whatever and fix later when you can (like Apple) spend a bit more time getting it right? I'm not saying getting it perfect, because no Apple product is perfect, but getting it right. It seems like MS (and most other manufacturers) just slap something together, ship and worry about fixing it later. At least in my opinion, that's just a waste of time and resources.
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The iPad Pro runs a mobile operating system, whereas the Surface Pro runs both a mobile and desktop OS. I think this is the biggest difference between them, but one that MS does not exploit. If Apple put macOS onto the iPad Pro, the surface would be dead. However, I don't see Apple doing this anytime soon, gotta make that $$.
I don't see what's wrong with "making that $$". I don't think any company is in business to not make money, just like nobody works to not get paid. It's a necessary evil, but necessary nonetheless. However, they ARE very correct in keeping them separate, at least at this time. Maybe in the future, people might be more adept at using touch screens on laptops, and Apple would then move into that form factor.
 
I hope Microsoft releases the next-gen Surfaces very soon - with Kobe Lake. Hope they will also be hackable to run OS X, as was the case with all previous Surfaces. Best of the two worlds...
 
Here comes the usual "Don't make fun of your competition" comments even though Apple did it with the I'm a Mac and I'm a PC ads and this one is actually truthful.

When Apple did it, they were desperate to sell Macs because they were losing. Microsoft is admitting that old, non-updated, laptops are a threat.
 
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P.S. The MS pen is a much nicer product than the Apple Pencil and works flawlessly. I hope Apple takes some cues there.

Unfortunately, I don't think they will want to use a better digitizer. The current one (the one in the iPad Pros) is just a glorified capacitive touchscreen. This is why the reliability of the pen is far from being 100%, resulting in strokes being misinterpreted for unwanted touches and, consequently, deleted during writing / drawing. This can't be fixed without adding a physical digitizer layer like that of Wacom or N-trig. That is, it's highly unlikely we'll get the same reliability in Apple products than that of the N-trig-based Surface.
 
Surface Pro 3 is pretty nice, but Windows is just so crippling. It's a shame, because it would otherwise be a great compliment to my MBP.
 
Windows 10 spys on you.

Charms/Metro crap that should only be for tablet/phones is mixed up with regular desktop UI. I'm glad iOS and MacOS are separate.

Windows hides their menus to be like MacOS, but it doesnt make sense because MacOS has a universal menu bar at the top, so by Windows hiding their menus you have to click on something to show the menu for every application.

Windows 7 was the best they did and they screwed it all up now. So now I'm left with Macs and their amazing UI and builds but locked down hardware upgradability and seemingly outdated specs. :( I'm really hoping Apple changes this in November.
 
i7 processor, touch screen, pen support, external ports .... and 3.5 hours of battery life and cpu throttling anyway so you will never get the performance of that i7 ..

I think the keyboard with trackpad is way better than Apple's ipad pro keyboard though

The biggest problem with all Surfaces is the dual-core CPU, even in the i7 model. This means some, optimized apps with proper multithreading will run with almost half the speed on the Surface than on any 4-core CPU. An example of them is parallel image processing in Capture One.
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Surface Pro 3 is pretty nice, but Windows is just so crippling. It's a shame, because it would otherwise be a great compliment to my MBP.

You can always hack OS X on these. It's "only" the Wi-Fi that won't work - but you can always use external Wi-Fi USB dongles.
 
The only thing worse is Apple's neglected product line. There isn't a single excuse that can justify it. It's pathetic and everyone knows it.

Agreed! Touch screen control should have been added to Macs as a standard feature decades ago, certainly after the iPhone came out. It shouldn't be required to operate the system, but there are times when it really is convenient to do. Just as ios devices should optionally work with off screen pointing devices such as mice and track pads when needed by the user. Which also should have been done years ago. There are some things for which an iPad/iPhone is best and somethings for which a Mac is best and it is perfectly fine for the one to focus on touch screen interaction and the other to focus on external pointing devices, but there is no technical reason why either one should be limited to only one choice. And iOS should have gotten a built in, user accessible, shared file application (i.e. Finder) years ago. Using artificial limitations like these as product differentiators is nothing more than marketing gimmicks running over sound technical design. Microsoft is on to something here and Apple is just being pig headed because they have no visionary leadership anymore and are stuck on autopilot.
 
Which is the point. Why spew whatever and fix later when you can (like Apple) spend a bit more time getting it right? I'm not saying getting it perfect, because no Apple product is perfect, but getting it right. It seems like MS (and most other manufacturers) just slap something together, ship and worry about fixing it later. At least in my opinion, that's just a waste of time and resources.
Try to "slap together" a Hololense or Surface Book. Apple is not getting it at all not even speaking of getting it right. They are playing with paint colors, watchbands and crippling features only to have something to add the next year (OIS, dual camera). Or look at the project Titan. What a cool and pathetic name but they spent a lot of money and human resources only to relaunch it. There's no vision in the modern Apple, that's the point.
 
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After using Surface pro 1 to 4, my thought is still the surface requires a solid surface to run effectively. I still go back to the laptop after a while. furthermore, I had so many bad hardware issues that I have given up on it. Lastly, i have gone to other vendors for the same thing. i figure why i am paying MS when i can get the same product with HP/Lenovo etc. anyhow. just IMO.

Exactly my impression of the Surface Pro 4 I tried for 30 days. Conceptually a great idea, implementation very poor. I would like to see Apple implement a touch screen/pen on some of the Mac Laptops. Sum the Surface Pro 4 up, marginal Tablet and Laptop at a premium cost.
 
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Try to "slap together" a Hololense or Surface Book. Apple is not getting it at all not even speaking of getting it right. They are playing with paint colors, watchbands and crippling features only to have something to add the next year (OIS, dual camera). Or look at the project Titan. What a cool and pathetic name but they spent a lot of money and human resources only to relaunch it. There's no vision in the modern Apple, that's the point.
I agree Apple is not the same today as it was when Steve was around. Having said that, when I say "slap things together", I mean all those "future technologies" that are going to change the world and our lives...and are no longer around a few months later. Most (not all) of what's apple has released is still around today, and most of what they've replaced on their own products was replaced for something better (jury's obviously still out on removing the audio jack). Samsung has tried and failed (multiple times). Microsoft is still trying and gaining no traction. Others have given up. That's what I'm talking about. Slap things together with all the cores you can, best CPUs you can find, better everything...and still they fall by the road side. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
 
No iPad announcement last week, could that mean a new iPad announcement with a Macbook announcement? Maybe a new MacPad category??
 
I agree Apple is not the same today as it was when Steve was around. Having said that, when I say "slap things together", I mean all those "future technologies" that are going to change the world and our lives...and are no longer around a few months later. Most (not all) of what's apple has released is still around today, and most of what they've replaced on their own products was replaced for something better (jury's obviously still out on removing the audio jack). Samsung has tried and failed (multiple times). Microsoft is still trying and gaining no traction. Others have given up. That's what I'm talking about. Slap things together with all the cores you can, best CPUs you can find, better everything...and still they fall by the road side. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
I see your point and agree to some extent but I don't think the mentioned products are some gimmicks made out of sense just because we can. It seems to be well thought out. In this case it's not about cores or megapixels it's about ideas. I believe in these ideas. A unified OS so you can turn your notebook into a tablet and turn your phone into a mini desktop? Yes, that's the future in my opinion. Phones will replace desktops (and Apple TV) for most of the users one day. You'll come home, connect it to a display or a TV and enjoy your Facebook, spreadsheets, TV show, a game or whatever you want to spend your time with. That just looks like the natural evolution of these devices.

On the other hand I do not believe in some other things like Oculus Rift or curved TVs (hello Samsung). This is something that I'd call a "future technology" being pushed onto people.
 
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, I don't see what's wrong with "making that $$". I don't think any company is in business to not make money, just like nobody works to not get paid. It's a necessary evil, but necessary nonetheless. However, they ARE very correct in keeping them separate, at least at this time. Maybe in the future, people might be more adept at using touch screens on laptops, and Apple would then move into that form factor.

My point about "making that $$" is that I don't think Apple wants to make a hybrid product because it would eat away at market share and sales. Even though I personally think they would make a killing, and the company has enough money. The only thing really holding me back from dumping my MacBook Pro for an iPad Pro is the lack of a file system on the iPad pro.

I kindly disagree that they "are very correct in keeping them separate". If they put macOS on an iPad Pro, I would buy one instantly, and I know a bunch of my friends and colleagues feel the same way. Also, there are tons of touchscreen laptops on the market, that doesn't mean you HAVE to use the touchscreen, its just an option. Being able to attach a keyboard when you need to do lots of typing, then taking the keyboard off and using the device as a tablet when you want to watch a movie is ideal for me.
 
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