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Surface Pro 4 and 'SurfaceBook' announced - rMBP redesign couldn't come soon enough....

$500 more than a similarly configured rMBP. The display sounds nice, and you do get a dGPU. Probably not worth it though.
 
maflynn said:
13" laptop with a dGPU, 12 hour battery - I'd say they have in fact leaped frogged them.

I'm not sure what to make of their claims that its faster then a MBP - we'll have to wait and see on that bit of marketing hype.
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MS did what every other competitor does, play spec games. The fact that they're not even stating what dGPU they're using makes me think they're playing some games. And battery life will likely be an issue when powering the dGPU, which could mean 12 hours on tablet mode, but substantially less in laptop mode.

I'll reserve further comments until actual user reviews are in, because it seems like this is when things start to fall apart for MS.
 
Just looking through images of the MS SB, I would be concerned about the gap between the screen and base when the screen is closed. The hinge is going to take a bunch of abuse, when people carry it in a pack or interact when the screen is flipped onto the base. The leading edge of the screen and base, where they meet, could also see significant wear, as it will take on the brunt of any abuse, unlike most other laptops where the screen sits flat on the base.
 
maflynn said:
Regardless, Apple doesn't even offer a 13" MBP with a dGPU. I'd also say the spec game as you call it, is also played by apple.
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Of course they do, but Apple also has the ability to make hardware and software work together in ways that MS can't or chooses not to. So MS adds a discrete GPU so they can say they have Apple beat compared to the 13" MBP or 12" MB, but then the MS product weighs more and costs more. And as I noted, until there are real world tests to show you can get 12 hours running a dGPU, I will not believe it (since MS has proven time and again that they fudge numbers).
 
The surfacebook looks interesting but whats up with that hinge? That looks awful. With the keyboard attached it doesnt close slim there is air between.

That looks strange and concerns me how durable that hinge is.
 
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maflynn said:
13" laptop with a dGPU, 12 hour battery - I'd say they have in fact leaped frogged them.

I'm not sure what to make of their claims that its faster then a MBP - we'll have to wait and see on that bit of marketing hype.
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I think the speed claims come from applications that are GPGPU enhanced via CUDA or OpenCL. Since it is highly unlikely that Microsoft is putting 45W quad core performance CPUs in these, the gains cannot possibly be that great from the processor alone. This, of course, means that they are comparing the high end Surface Books vs the rMBP 13, but I don't think that's entirely unfair. However, I wouldn't bet that the $1499 model is a significant leap beyond the base rMBP 13, and in some cases may actually be pretty far behind in performance. If I recall correctly, the Iris 6100 in the Mac has something like double the execution units of the Intel HD 520 of the MSSB, leading to roughly 2x theoretical performance. As you said, I suppose we'll have to see what the benchmarks say when these finally make it into reviewers' hands.
 
bennibeef said:
The surfacebook looks interesting but whats up with that hinge? That looks awful. With the keyboard attached it doesnt close slim there is air between.

That looks strange and concerns me how durable that hinge is.
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It looks like the hinge design on the Surface Book is that way so the screen clears the keyboard. The keys seem to be slightly higher than the surrounding frame, probably to keep the body thin but allow more key travel. It's the one design element I'm not fond of, and it remains to be seen how it will hold up over time. I really would like to replace my mid-2009 13" MBP, and I'm definitely interested in this new Surface Book.
 
One thing I'm interested in is how upgradeable the Surface Book is. Can the SSD and RAM be replaced by the user? If so, I can see buying a less expensive model with the option to upgrade it later.
 
Smoothie said:
One thing I'm interested in is how upgradeable the Surface Book is. Can the SSD and RAM be replaced by the user? If so, I can see buying a less expensive model with the option to upgrade it later.
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Seeing as how the RAM and SSD would have to be in the tablet side to make the system functional away from the base, I'm going to assume that they are not intended to be user-replaceable, and would be shocked if the RAM were not soldered. That's not to say it will be completely impossible to replace the SSD. However, I would not expect such modifications to be allowed within the terms of the warranty.
 
Smoothie said:
One thing I'm interested in is how upgradeable the Surface Book is. Can the SSD and RAM be replaced by the user? If so, I can see buying a less expensive model with the option to upgrade it later.
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If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say not upgradeable at all. Like the Surface Pro, and like Apple's laptops, I think everything is soldered onto the logic board. Just look at the promo video and that appears to be the case.
 
maflynn said:
If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say not upgradeable at all. Like the Surface Pro, and like Apple's laptops, I think everything is soldered onto the logic board. Just look at the promo video and that appears to be the case.
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While it is technically possible to replace the SSD in the newer rMBPs, good luck finding a reasonably priced PCIe SSD made for them. According to the docs, MS used the M.2 standard, so unless they actually soldered the SSD itself, finding a replacement drive may just be a matter of ordering from Newegg/Amazon. Whether or not you can safely crack into the tablet to put it in, well, that's another story...
 
ee4life said:
While it is technically possible to replace the SSD in the newer rMBPs, good luck finding a reasonably priced PCIe SSD made for them. According to the docs, MS used the M.2 standard, so unless they actually soldered the SSD itself, finding a replacement drive may just be a matter of ordering from Newegg/Amazon. Whether or not you can safely crack into the tablet to put it in, well, that's another story...
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You're right - I forgot about that the SSDs are not soldered on. I do think however in the SurfaceBook it may be.
 
Mac laptops are never overpriced. I once did a research while we were purchasing powerful windows laptops and found to match rmbp's spec one would have to pay more on the MSRP. One, however, can purchase on the sell prices but the user experience is no where to compare. Do bear in mind, there are differences between different i5 and i7 chips. suggest to use cpuboss to compare.

For surface book, I think in terms of hardware and price - even look at the top configuration (i7/16/512/dgpu) - it is $200 more expensive than the 15" rmbp models (i7/16/512/dgpu). And we don't know what exact chips microsoft is using.

Then coming down to the software - Microsoft is a software company, and windows OS just suck. A lot of people overlook this. Put in this way, for people who'd spend that kind of $$ on a laptop, i think which OS the laptop runs is the biggest concern here. I will NEVER go back to Windows OS again.

So in short, microsoft is a software company lousy in software and try to get into hardware business. Apple is a device company that is excellent in making devices and happen to have a good software development team (do take notes that the QA has gone down since TC took over).
 
Smoothie said:
It looks like the hinge design on the Surface Book is that way so the screen clears the keyboard. The keys seem to be slightly higher than the surrounding frame, probably to keep the body thin but allow more key travel. It's the one design element I'm not fond of, and it remains to be seen how it will hold up over time. I really would like to replace my mid-2009 13" MBP, and I'm definitely interested in this new Surface Book.
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The hinge is that way to overcome the imbalance inherent in having the full computer guts and batteries in the 'screen' half of your device. The hinge unrolls like a carpet to extend the base and move the balance point to make the laptop stable. It's pretty ingenious really as it solves a pretty major fundamental issue of these kind of hybrid devices. I didn't like the design when I first saw it, but now that I understand it and can think of this as a new category of device as opposed to a traditional laptop, I'm ok with it.
 
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I can't believe they didn't include at least one USB-C port on either of the new Surface machines, but especially on the Surface Book. :eek: Of course USB-C is pretty rare in the wild right now, but in the next year or two it's set to explode given all of the protocols that are now using the spec.
 
zhenya said:
The hinge is that way to overcome the imbalance inherent in having the full computer guts and batteries in the 'screen' half of your device. The hinge unrolls like a carpet to extend the base and move the balance point to make the laptop stable. It's pretty ingenious really as it solves a pretty major fundamental issue of these kind of hybrid devices. I didn't like the design when I first saw it, but now that I understand it and can think of this as a new category of device as opposed to a traditional laptop, I'm ok with it.
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Interesting point. But it also allows the screen to clear the keyboard. So it seems to accomplish two purposes.
 
Smoothie said:
Interesting point. But it also allows the screen to clear the keyboard. So it seems to accomplish two purposes.
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What's the advantage of clearing the keyboard? No other laptop finds the need to do that.
 
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