Surface Devices

[fokmik]

The Surface Pro X seems to be a little expensive for what it is. Saying that tho you can pick up the Pro X for around the same price as the iPad Pro (the 256 and 512GB versions). It really depends on the platform of choice.

it depends on the users APPS that he use ...surface pro x has big issues thanks to the QC custom arm cpu.. a lot of x86 outside windows store apps cannot even run...and the emulation is very poor
So again, for those who wants surface pro x they should test it first very heavy
ipad pro on the other hand has a lot more apps on its OS than surfacepro x, and users knows exactly what they get

 

[The_Interloper]

The Pro X isn't for me, but I can see it being a popular device for a lot of Enterprise customers who rely on two things:

1. Web apps - the Pro X runs a full desktop browser (Edge) with plugin compatibility. It's a perfect thin client with LTE and long battery life.
2. Office 365 - it doesn't matter how good the iPad Pro is, for a huge amount of people/companies the inability to run full Office apps is a deal-breaker. The Pro X achieves this; the iPad Pro only has gimped versions of the most powerful and popular office suite in the world.

 

[fokmik]

What cant you do on the ipad office and you can on the win10 side?
I know how limited was on ipad in 2014 and 2016..but now..the new microsoft under the new CEO, is full in for ipados and others as services
The office for surface pro x is made for arm chips and its a clone of ipados. Office 365 is not running on emulation on surface lro x.. you take the arm based app

 

[SteveJUAE]

it depends on the users APPS that he use ...surface pro x has big issues thanks to the QC custom arm cpu.. a lot of x86 outside windows store apps cannot even run...and the emulation is very poor
So again, for those who wants surface pro x they should test it first very heavy
ipad pro on the other hand has a lot more apps on its OS than surfacepro x, and users knows exactly what they get

This is a very narrow view above

The number of professional full grade progs that run on Ipads is pitiful compared to MacOS or Win10

Almost any W10 device can run Android apps so you have potentially the same +1M apps at your disposal as an Ipad, if you really want an app and not a prog, MS have come on leaps and bounds with Your Phone app and if you have a Samsung device DEX is also moving forward rapidly thanks to MS/Samsung collaborations

There are 1000's of x86 32bit progs. Agreed some will not work and you could be unlucky currently if the software company has not got an x86 32bit, 64-bit (ARM64), 32-bit (ARM32) version, but the good news is MS are also going to support x86 64bit apps

You can see here a small sample of some progs that have been tested :

Surface Pro X Application Support

Home Surface Pro X Application Support Spreadsheet,Admins Welcome to the Surface Pro X application support spreadsheet! Here you can find out which applications run great (and also those that don't!) on the Surface Pro X. All of this information can be found in the multiple sheets, found at the...

docs.google.com

For most they are not going to run in to issues as these are lightweight on the go enterprise devices and not heavy lifters and unlike an Ipad your not going to get stumped when someone sends you a curve ball in the shape of an unusual email attachment

Your right users know exactly what you get with an Ipad and that's why we are here in a Surface laptop/2 in 1 and others W10 forum and know there is more than just doing dailies and colouring

 

[canesalato]

What cant you do on the ipad office and you can on the win10 side?
I know how limited was on ipad in 2014 and 2016..but now..the new microsoft under the new CEO, is full in for ipados and others as services
The office for surface pro x is made for arm chips and its a clone of ipados. Office 365 is not running on emulation on surface lro x.. you take the arm based app

I have to correct you!
The MS Office you run on Surface Pro X is the full desktop version. Apparently it is a 32 intel app running on emulation, but the rumor is that a significant part of it is actually ARM64, and only the plugin interface is intel 32bit. Regardless, it is absolutely not the iPad OS (mobile) version. And yep, the iPad/mobile version is still incredibly limited. Might be enough for some workflows, but for me...not at all.

 

[The_Interloper]

What cant you do on the ipad office and you can on the win10 side?

Where do you want me to start? I'm not going to go into Excel or PowerPoint as I don't use those heavily. But Word alone has serious deficiencies. There is no document map, for example, so navigating large docs via headings is impossible. You cannot add a Table of Contents. You can't even display more than one page at a time! It's even more basic than Pages or Google Docs.

The office for surface pro x is made for arm chips and its a clone of ipados.

As pointed out by @canesalato above, the Surface Pro X uses a full version of Microsoft Office, not mobile apps like the iPad.

 

[maflynn]

What cant you do on the ipad office and you can on the win10 side?

Run the full desktop app, not the limited version one.

Honestly, I could jump back into macOS tomorrow, t

Not me, I've found for the most part the apps that I use to be of better quality, and compatibility in windows, I also have access to games beyond any mac users imagination.

But since we need virtualizations

I don't think you need virutalizations on day one for the arm macs, and what will that give you anyways? You cannot virtualize windows on the arm mac, only arm based operating systems.

To be fair the Windows Surface Laptop Go looks good

I almost bought one earlier this year, but I couldn't get past the giant bezels. Now with working remote 100% of the time, I'm not seeing the need as much. True be told, my professional needs decreased, which means a tablet like the iPad may be a better fit, as the app library for the iPad for things outside of professional needs is so much superior.

The Surface Pro X seems to be a little expensive for what it is.

Not just expensive, just limiting, MS hasn't found a balance of price, performance and features that could draw people in, where as Apple appears to be doing it right.

surface pro x has big issues thanks to the QC custom arm cpu

Can you back up the statement that there's significant issues with the quality of the ARM cpu?

and the emulation is very poor

Yes, this is again MS's desire to get something out the door without dotting all of the Is and crossing all of the Ts They're working on 32bit support but that should have been done on day one

 

[fokmik]

Where do you want me to start? I'm not going to go into Excel or PowerPoint as I don't use those heavily. But Word alone has serious deficiencies. There is no document map, for example, so navigating large docs via headings is impossible. You cannot add a Table of Contents. You can't even display more than one page at a time! It's even more basic than Pages or Google Docs.

As pointed out by @canesalato above, the Surface Pro X uses a full version of Microsoft Office, not mobile apps like the iPad.

who said that runs the mobile version?
I was talking that when i had the surface pro x, i could download the arm based app ! the x86 app is pointless since it runs in emulation. Again, Microsoft since last year has the full office 365 for arm based devices....arm can be any device that has at the core an arm architecture, from surface pro x to ipad pro and future macs that will run at their core on arm
Please, check surface pro x yourself and check the ipad office 365 side by side
No one should run the x86 on the surface pro X

 

[fokmik]

Can you back up the statement that there's significant issues with the quality of the ARM cpu?

I will
Last year i didnt had any comparation to do with...
1) Emulation from the surface pro X that runs windows 10 on arm...is very very poor, you loose around 60-70% performance
2) That chip that Microsoft worked with QC to make it, is very poor optimised for heat, battery life and power management , compared to the dev mac mini kit, it draws so much power under emulation that you should never use any x86 apps(that works) on surface pro x , remember surface pro x is a portable device...so a mac mini draws so much less power under Rosetta2 and its a desktop device

I will try,if i can to see the new surface pro x chip, if i can get it, i will even post some pics to show the real issues

 

[maflynn]

No one should run the x86 on the surface pro X

Maybe I'm not understanding you, why are you saying people should not run the x86 version? That's like people saying you should not run macos apps via rossetta 2 on the arm macs

 

[maflynn]

I will
Last year i didnt had any comparation to do with...
1) Emulation from the surface pro X that runs windows 10 on arm...is very very poor, you loose around 60-70% performance
2) That chip that Microsoft worked with QC to make it, is very poor optimised for heat, battery life and power management , compared to the dev mac mini kit, it draws so much power under emulation that you should never use any x86 apps(that works) on surface pro x , remember surface pro x is a portable device...so a mac mini draws so much less power under Rosetta2 and its a desktop device

I will try,if i can to see the new surface pro x chip, if i can get it, i will even post some pics to show the real issues

You made a statement of fact that the arm based CPUs are of poor quality, please post links and documentation that supports that. You running tests does not constitute citing source material to say they are defective. Also poorly optimized is not defective which you have stated.

 

[fokmik]

lmost any W10 device can run Android apps

maybe, i dont know, but its clear you dont know how an android app works on the aspect ratio of an tablet/laptop device
So, no thank you, android developers lost their ways for that...sadly

 

[fokmik]

You made a statement of fact that the arm based CPUs are of poor quality, please post links and documentation that supports that. You running tests does not constitute citing source material to say they are defective. Also poorly optimized is not defective which you have stated.

im not saying that are hardware poor quality, but they are a poor choice of cpu arhitecture for an windows device
Its hard to elaborate in writing...you must choose and see for yourself how well the mac mini runs anything, and how a mess is the surface pro X....a lot of x86 apps outside windows store doesn't even run, cannot be installed, a lot of drivers issue and so on (64 bit applications only and to run on system would require an ARM64 build)
Again, i know this topic is for surface...and i am been treated like the enemy, but based on my personal usage, surface pro X should be avoided, especially when you have a surface pro 7 as an alternative
Microsoft at least release the App Assure program, and shows that has some willing to make this a go

 

[maflynn]

im not saying that are hardware poor quality

Actually you did:

.surface pro x has big issues thanks to the QC custom arm cpu.

When you post that there's issues thanks to QC (quality control) for the custom arm cpu, you're stating there's defects coming through.

 

[fokmik]

Actually you did:


When you post that there's issues thanks to QC (quality control) for the custom arm cpu, you're stating there's defects coming through.

QC i mean qualcomm and not quality control.......so sorry for the confusion

 

[The_Interloper]

When you post that there's issues thanks to QC (quality control) for the custom arm cpu, you're stating there's defects coming through.

I think @fokmik meant Qualcomm (QC) in this instance.

 

[maflynn]

QC i mean qualcomm and not quality control.......so sorry for the confusion

Fair enough, though I would recommend spelling it out next time to avoid such confusion

 

[The_Interloper]

who said that runs the mobile version?

You did:

The office for surface pro x is made for arm chips and its a clone of ipados. Office 365 is not running on emulation on surface lro x.. you take the arm based app

As for this:

I was talking that when i had the surface pro x, i could download the arm based app ! the x86 app is pointless since it runs in emulation. Again, Microsoft since last year has the full office 365 for arm based devices....arm can be any device that has at the core an arm architecture, from surface pro x to ipad pro and future macs that will run at their core on arm

I think there is some confusion here. You stated the ARM version is "a clone of iPadOS". It is NOT. There are old mobile UWP apps (in the Windows app store) but these are obsolete.

The official ARM version for Windows is the full desktop software compiled for ARM. However, it presents itself in an x86 wrapper so plug-ins will work:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1192939660730863616

It is not emulated, it only fools plug-ins into thinking its x86.

 

[SteveJUAE]

Not just expensive, just limiting, MS hasn't found a balance of price, performance and features that could draw people in, where as Apple appears to be doing it right.

Yes, this is again MS's desire to get something out the door without dotting all of the Is and crossing all of the Ts They're working on 32bit support but that should have been done on day one

Samsung have done a much better job with their Surface Book S arm variant than MS but without MS leading the way with their Halo type approach we could not move forward

Thanks to them the 2 in 1 format and now Arm is a firm reality and still growing, so maybe pricing is not everything

 

[SteveJUAE]

maybe, i dont know, but its clear you dont know how an android app works on the aspect ratio of an tablet/laptop device
So, no thank you, android developers lost their ways for that...sadly

Why would I not know ? I have several laptops including Arm based ones and can talk from RL experience and not some garbage collected of google

There are many instances where users like to have their favorite mobile app on their laptop or monitor why would you assume it would have to be full screen

Anyone in W10 land can have their mobile android app in a convenient window, the same for dialer or sms and messages etc etc

I think a phone keypad at full screen on my 49" monitor would be a little bit over kill LOL

 

[SteveJUAE]

I will
Last year i didnt had any comparation to do with...
1) Emulation from the surface pro X that runs windows 10 on arm...is very very poor, you loose around 60-70% performance
2) That chip that Microsoft worked with QC to make it, is very poor optimised for heat, battery life and power management , compared to the dev mac mini kit, it draws so much power under emulation that you should never use any x86 apps(that works) on surface pro x , remember surface pro x is a portable device...so a mac mini draws so much less power under Rosetta2 and its a desktop device

I will try,if i can to see the new surface pro x chip, if i can get it, i will even post some pics to show the real issues

Firstly why do you think IRL that programs that people use are solely performance based. I give you a little tip most companies are not upgrading or even giving their staff high performance laptops etc

I work in heavy engineering and we have 1000's of engineers running complex CAD and analytical software on laptops 3 to 5 years old. Lets not get confused with our interests and real world examples or imply every x86 prog get hit by 60-70%, that's just twaddle

Funny our little Samsung Book 2 Arm version has no problem with getting over 18 hours run time and is always cool to the touch and is why my wife is happy over her MacBook that gets so hot it cuts out

I would not be surprised that there are so many x86 32 bit apps still available that even if 30% of them did not work it would still be a library bigger than MacOS

As for driver issues and other 3rd party support lets not even go therewith what Apple support LOL and besides currently we are dealing with fairly static hardware of laptops and not the almost infinite configurations possible with W10 desktops, you are way off base here with what is possible with W10 installations

 

[maflynn]

even giving their staff high performance laptops etc

No question, my work got me a new laptop, its nice one, but its a far cry from my what I'm used too, at least this model has an SSD. I think either the end of 2019 or 2020, my company started supplying laptops with SSDs instead of HDs

laptops 3 to 5 years old.

My desktop in the office is closer is over 5 years old, and we just on windows 1803, not even 1904

I would not be surprised that there are so many x86 32 bit apps

Many of the programs I use daily are still 32bit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[SteveJUAE]

No question, my work got me a new laptop, its nice one, but its a far cry from my what I'm used too, at least this model has an SSD. I think either the end of 2019 or 2020, my company started supplying laptops with SSDs instead of HDs


My desktop in the office is closer is over 5 years old, and we just on windows 1803, not even 1904


Many of the programs I use daily are still 32bit ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Exactly we often get carried away with specs and what we enthuse about with at home is far from what we do or use at work

Compiling you family home video 20 seconds faster is fun but not a necessity and so on .........

Probably gaming is the only thing that has a direct user experience that is truly measurable in terms of performance and enjoyment

The rest is just us over specing because we can and their is a certain amount of satisfaction in that, in owning the latest and greatest having x number of tabs open and jumping from prog to prog without worrying about good management

 

[canesalato]

Where do you want me to start? I'm not going to go into Excel or PowerPoint as I don't use those heavily. But Word alone has serious deficiencies. There is no document map, for example, so navigating large docs via headings is impossible. You cannot add a Table of Contents. You can't even display more than one page at a time! It's even more basic than Pages or Google Docs.

And no row numbers, quite a standard feature for academic purposes.

As for Mobile Excel...the absence of pivot tables makes it quite useless for data analysis.

Even the Office web apps seem to be in a better shape than the native mobile/iPad apps.
By the way, I don't know how well the web apps work on iPadOS. Last time i checked (mobile) Safari sucked with them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Queen6]

Indeed, I still think they are great devices, they put a lot of thought into them. I am not saying I wouldn't buy a Surface Laptop Go. Just no need whilst locked down. But it really would make a great alternative to the Surface Pro which I was waiting on to see if they improved it.

What are you thinking @Queen6? You are very quiet these days

Here on and off, been busy with my music addiction feeding the beast so to speak ?



TBH I'm out the computer market until COVID is sorted or I run out of hardware, hopefully COVID wont prevail that long LOL. Mostly just don't have any need to upgrade and I like my other toys too Personally I'm good with MS expanding it's line up, as it's good for the consumer and competition. Disappointed that the Neo is delayed/shelved as that was one device that really interested.

Done with Mac's unit the smoke clears with the upcoming ARM models even then maybe not as the MBP's I still have are running well enough, that and I don't trust Apple any more than the likes of Google or FarceBook, Apple's just better at bluffing the public then the rest...

Q-6