Posted on 10/06/2015 1:59:59 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Microsoft on Tuesday unveiled its first laptop: the Microsoft Surface Book, a 13-inch touch-screen device that also comes apart to become a tablet.
"This is the ultimate laptop," Microsoft's Panos Panay said.
It has two processors and a dedicated graphics-card system. Microsoft says the laptop is twice as fast as a Macbook Pro.
Pricing starts at $1,499, and the laptop will be available on October 26.
As with many devices in the Surface line, the Surface Book can detach from its keyboard to become a tablet. The keyboard can then dock on the back of the tablet to keep it all together. It also uses the Surface Pen stylus that comes with Surface tablets.
It's designed to add more power than the Surface Pro 4, also announced Tuesday. It's for gamers and any enterprise worker who needs more graphical horsepower under the hood. In fact, the Xbox team contributed its graphical expertise, Panay said.
Panay showed off how smoothly Windows 10 games like "Gears of War" and "Gigantic" ran on the Surface Book, even while using video-editing software to record game footage.
Interestingly, the graphics card lies in the keyboard unit, which means you will lose some horsepower while it's unplugged at a likely gain to battery life.
Plus, it has a super-quiet, backlit keyboard, Microsoft promises, with a great typing experience. It also sports a promised 12-hour battery life.
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
I wonder if it crashes twice as fast as old windows machine.
All metal body and carbon fiber...yum
Yet, after installing EyeSpy...ahem, Win 10, it promptly requires more memory, a better SSD and 90sec. of boot time...
Hi Dennis.
The Surface Book is a VERY nice machine, and I'm very impressed. But it's not revolutionary. If they'd introduced it three years ago it would have qualified for revolutionary, but now it's a beautiful evolutionary product.
To be fair, extremely few product designs are truly revolutionary. So my comment is not to disparage the Surface Book -- I rather like it. In fact, when my current Windows laptop, a Fujitsu Lifebook, gives up the ghost, I'll probably replace it with a Surface Book.
But while I grant you that Swordmaker occasionally shows signs of the rogue, I don't think the Surface Book is enough to pry him loose from Apple.
It is NEVER a good idea to compete with your customers. . . yet here they are competing with their customers!
I wonder if they are going to bring out a Microsoft labeled phone now. . . oh, wait, they tried that by buying Nokia. . . and more OEM's fled to Android, or started looking at designing their own phone OS, especially with Google making Google and selling Android Nexus phones under their name. . . again, a bad idea to compete with one's customers.
I don’t do games, photoshop or things my simple Chromebook can’t do.
98% of what I do is via the internet, so I don’t need an expensive, high powered pc.
Besides my Acer Chromebook 15, I have a Toshiba basic Win 10 laptop to do my word processing and spreadsheets using the Chrome Browser.
Both work well with a new View Sonic 22” led monitor via a HDMI cable, and a Logitech USB keyboard and mouse.
The Toshiba is connected via the ethernet, and my Chromebook uses wifi and is faster than the Toshiba.
This morning, I took some pictures of big buck deer and some wild turkey’s with my little LG Android phone near our home.
I came inside and fired up my Chromebook connected to the View Sonic. Seamlessly, I had these new photos on my new View Sonic in great full hd color. Did some cropping and enlarging
on a couple of photos and deleted half of them.
I can do the same with Android photos/videos taken by my wife and a few direct family members. I can see their photos right after they take them even if they are miles away.
I was never smart enough/skilled enough to do that with any windows system.
Google Cloud Print enables my wife and I to print photos, emails/messages or whatever on our HP Envy printer in the next room, our front or back yard, a mile away or 60 miles away at a SF Giant game.
My old/lame/retired HP Pavilion Windows 7 is at our curb tonight waiting to be picked up by the garbage people. It cost more 7 years ago than my total outlay for my current Chrome/Toshiba/ViewSonic/HP Envy printer system. I never was able to do what I do so easily with my current set up. Also, I don’t waste time watching the damn blue circle waiting for the MS bs to clear up or too update.
So, I am very happy with my simple system that does what I want it to do, when I want it. Also, I didn’t break the bank buying it nor did I need an IT or hours to set up my little system. The free Google programs/apps meet 98% of my pc needs.
Having said that. Isn’t it great that we live in America and have the choices we have computer wise, phone wise and what ever else that is legal.
I'm beginning to get it, beginning to see, grudgingly, today's marketplace is quite different from yesterday's PC v. Unix v. Mac desktop wars...
It is "ever-more-rapidly-changing." Geeze I feel old.
Thanks very much for your reply.
#38 he may be first in line when the Surface Pro and Book go on sale : )
True, very true. But Microsoft has totally besmeared their customers with Redmond Poo(tm) so many times in the last 10 years (Vista, Win8, half-baked mobile software) they have caused their customers to run into the arms of the competition (as you mention with Nokia and Android), and Macs, and even Linux...
I think they realize they actually have little to lose by making their own hardware. Their "customers" have lost interest, at least partially.
Like the girl who teases and pretends to like another guy to make her boyfriend jealous, hoping he'll show more interest, Microsoft is playing a dangerous but all too recognizable game of brinksmanship.
Frankly, the Surface Book is a pretty damn nice product. If MS can make a case for people buying it in sufficient quantity, it could be a game changer in that market.
I am salivating after at 13.3” chromebook 2. I’ll probably get one around the black Friday sales
Just to confirm.. You can run dual monitors with your chromebook via HDMI or DVI/HDMI
“98% of what I do is via the internet, so I dont need an expensive, high powered pc.”
So do 90% of computer users. Same for your average Best Buy customer. Look how much ipads are pimped here. Any chromebook is more powerful and can surf the internet better....open more windows and tabs
Got an email yesterday about Lumia 950 XL. Will be able to hook up to screen, keyboard, and mouse. Office will scale up. But I like the idea of a laptop, too.
No they are over priced.... when compared to a PC. They have always been overpriced and always will be.
Do they make a quality product? Definitely. However, I am not willing to pay double or even triple the price of a PC.
Think of it this way: there is only Apple making Apple products. However, there are a dozen or more PC manufacturers. So that means competition and the consumer wins when there is competition. That is why Apple computers are so much more expensive.
Another issue for them: the PC hardware business is a dirty business — margins are low and there is a lot of competition. You need high volume and an established business to survive.
Once software (OS and office) is developed, distribution is easy and probably requires very little physical media or hardware. Analogous to ITunes music vs buying your music on a CD. So MS are not prepared. Maybe they have learned from the xbox?
Important: they can't cannibalize their primary business (selling OSs and software to the VARs). However, it is of ironic that a large portion of the cost of a new pc is the software. Maybe that is where MS has leverage.
IMO: I don't think that it will work out for them.
It looks like they are turning the Apple model upside down. Apple gave away the software to sell hardware. At one point they were urged to open up the OS to get more shelf space and market penetration.
Microsoft and Intel have always shied away from selling their own branded PCs (Intel’s servers being a exception) for fear of cannibalizing sales and alienating partners.
However, with only a handful of large PC vendors (Lenovo, Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, Toshiba) down from 100s (where have you gone, Gateway, e-Machines, Everex, AST, Packard Bell, NEC, Leading Edge, etc., etc.) they might need their own brand to increase visibility and have a counter to Apple. They might even make a “reference” machine for the same reason that Dodge makes the Viper and Chevy makes the Corvette, to make the rest of the line up look more appealing.
Very good points. I love competition. The consumer benefits that way.
Apple will never open their OS. They are very protective and that goes all the way back to the beginning of the company.
A suggestion for MS: if they wish to compete with Apple, then differentiate their product by cutting 30% from the list price for a comparable system. However, then the laptop competes with their VARs. Okay maybe 20% less than a comparable Apple system. Interesting: there is a fairly narrow price window for MS.
Interesting that the VARs have never considered a high end laptop like this. Well maybe they did and realized that they can’t compete and maybe there isn’t a demand for it. Maybe they already know what MS is about to learn.
Apple has a huge advantage of being established in that market. The only leverage for MS is cost. Plus Apple offer a quality product and MS have the reputation of less quality. And there is the ease of use factor — a huge selling point for Apple.
I am not willing to pay double or even triple the price of a PC.
There you go then, because you prefer cheaper products someone will make them.
Nothing new.
The ASUS Transformer. Introduced in 2011.
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