Again, bullshit.
If Microsoft wanted to make an aspirational Windows S device, it would be much higher-end. OLED screen, the minimum config wouldn’t have 4GB RAM, etc. This is a real product that they intend to sell at volume. It isn’t the google pixel laptop.
Would hope for more for a thousand dollars. A single USB C for power, external display and USB hub would have me very interested.
So I got that wrong-- tack on another fifty bucks, kids. You save $50 for the free upgrade to real Win10, which compensates for half of it.
Surface Laptop
$999 - Core i5, 4GB RAM, 128GB storage
+$300 - to 8GB RAM, 256GB storage
Total: $1300
And here we get the real computers that will be running Windows 10 S. Like I said, the surface labtop is just a way to set prices that partners can easily undercut.
No USB-C ports on the Surface Laptop? WTF?
It is strange that it’s so high-priced for what it’s supposed to be (Chromebook competitor), but I do think that MS is treading a very difficult balancing act.
They can’t afford to alienate the OEM partners, but they’re frustrated at the OEM partner’s relative lack of refinement and polish. Apple owned the complete high-end of the market (computers that cost more than X dollars), and none of the OEMs were willing to fight at that level. The high-end is important because you get much higher margins, and those devices have a halo effect. You know there’s that photo of a college lecture hall from the professor’s perspective, and facing him is a wall of glowing white Apple logos.
In a way, MS’ strategy is starting to work. I definitely notice more Surface Pros and even Surface Books in the wild. I’ve had people come up and ask me about my Surface Pro at coffee shops.
Things like the Surface Studio are so ridiculously overpriced that it feels like MS is firing a warning shot to the Dells of the world. “Here, dudes. This is a goddamn all-in-one that people lust for. We’re pricing this one starting at $3K. Find some room below that and do something.”
I think a pure MacBook Air competitor starting at $999 would be a bit too much for MS’ partners. So they “gimped” it in a way. Fewer ports. A small fee to upgrade to the full OS. But, let’s be honest, even with those moves, this thing is aimed directly at the MBA. But perhaps this is a way for the OEMs to save some face.
The Surface Pro is an extremely successful product. MS has lightning in a bottle there. Book and Studio much less so.
I want a surface book 2 with a 10 series GTX in it.
I’m pretty sure the MacBook Air has already been killed over and over-mainly due to Apple’s unwillingness to improve it rather than any spectacular innovation on the part of their rivals. My Dell XPS 13 from last year is already better than the MacBook Air. True, it wasn’t $999, but neither is the version of the Macbook Air that has the same specs as my XPS 13.
Same. I was actually holding off on a new iPad (screen is cracked on my Mini) in case they did exactly that, but alas no. Maybe by the time my laptop dies there’ll be a Surface Book with a gaming GPU.
I recently got a Surface Book and holy shit is it nice.
Everything about it exudes confidence and boldness that you never see from PC makers.
I could go on for a while, but I will say Windows Hello and the SB camera is so damn seamless. I sit down in front of it and it’s unlocked before I can reach for the keyboard.
Surface Pro 4 I5 new with keyboard and 256hd pretty easily purchased for under 1k these days. I purchased move that way and not on some super holiday deal either.
Yeah, it seemed really awesome. My only reservation was that the graphics card wasn’t good enough to really do gaming.
But with the new 10 series cards, if they can fit one of them into the keyboard base? That would be a crazy awesome machine.
The surface book performance keyboard has a GTX 965M, which is a 50w GPU, the same as a GTX1050. So that’s what you can get in there.
The GTX1050 is a capable 1080p gaming GPU. You can’t run every game at 1080p maxed-out at 60fps, but if you drop the quality a bit it will make you happy.
Ya, that’s what I’d really like to see… but I’m not even sure they are going to make another surface book?
I don’t get the point of this surface laptop thing. It’s a fucking $1000, base… loaded it’d over $2k. Folks are saying this is a chrombook killer. That’s nonsense. I’m using a chromebook right now… it’s awesome for web surfing and office tasks… and it cost $200.
I’ll pay some decent money for a surface book that is a surface pro, with a detachable keyboard GPU that makes it capable of games… But not for a fairly mediocre ultralight. But then again, I’m not that into ultralights, since I use a chromebook for that kind of thing.
Valve surely had an all-hands-on-deck meeting about Windows 10 S. Cue the it’s really happening gif. I.E., I’d bet we’re going to see some chatter about “Steam OS 2.0” in the next quarter or two now.
The laptop doesn’t matter at all. Windows 10 S is the real story.
Well, it is in competition with Chromebook Pixel. That was about 1299.00.
Did anyone buy a chromebook pixel? Do they even still make that?
Because the Chromebook pixel was a stupid machine, for exactly that reason.
I tend to think Valve is smarter than that. The real threat is UWP games on Xbox.
Right, but this is the first time Microsoft has really, actually done something to lock Windows down, at least in the x86 space.
There’s a possible future a couple years from now where 50% of Windows computers sold (to “home users, students”) etc are S versions, locked down without a “pro” upgrade for 50-100 bucks.