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Microsoft Unveils the Surface Laptop, a Traditional Notebook That Is 'Better' Than MacBook Pro (engadget.com)
On the sidelines of Windows 10 S and affordable Chromebook-like laptops announcements, Microsoft also announced the newest addition to its Surface computing lineup. Dubbed the Surface Laptop, the laptop starts at $999, and is for everyone, the company claims, though the focus is on students and professionals. From a report: The Surface Laptop includes a 13.5-inch PixelSense display (Microsoft's branding for its unique screen technology) and a keyboard draped in Alcantara, a smooth cloth-like material. It's powered by Intel's most recent Core i5 and Core i7 CPUs, and it can pack in an SSD up to 1TB (that's notably integrated directly onto the motherboard). Performance-wise, Microsoft's Surface head, Panos Panay, claims the Laptop is 50 percent faster than the Core i7 MacBook Air while also being lighter. (Editor's note: Panos added that the Surface Laptop also outpaces the MacBook Pro on performance.) You can also expect up to 14.5 hours of battery life, thanks to Windows 10 S's battery savings and more efficient hardware. One thing you won't see on the Surface Laptop: Speaker holes or grills. Microsoft managed to fit the speakers behind the keys, which Panay claims delivers a more enveloping sound. Microsoft says it has also improved the standby time -- so much so that "you could go away on spring break and still have the same battery life when you returned."
Quick check: Does it have a glare screen?
[x] Yes
[ ] No
Conclusion: It's crap.
Aka I FUCKING TOLD YOU SO.
Newest update: On May 1st 2017, under pressure from the Vault 7 leak, Intel released a "Critical" security bulletin INTEL-SA-00075, admitting Intel Core CPU from 1st gen to 7th gen (2006-2017) all share the same critical vulnerability.
The goal of this report is to make the existence of Intel CPU backdoors a common knowledge and provide information on backdoor removal.
What we know about Intel CPU backdoors so far:
TL;DR version
Your Intel CPU and Chipset is running a backdoor as we speak.
The backdoor hardware is inside the CPU/Bridge and the backdoor firmware (Intel Management Engine) is in the chipset flash memory.
30C3 Intel ME live hack:
@21m43s, keystrokes leaked from Intel ME above the OS, wireshark failed to detect packets.
[Video Link] 30C3: Persistent, Stealthy, Remote-controlled Dedicated Hardware Malware
[Quotes] Vortrag:
"DAGGER exploits Intel's Manageability Engine (ME), that executes firmware code such as Intel's Active Management Technology (iAMT), as well as its OOB network channel."
"the ME provides a perfect environment for undetectable sensitive data leakage on behalf of the attacker. Our presentation consists of three parts. The first part addresses how to find valuable data in the main memory of the host. The second part exploits the ME's OOB network channel to exfiltrate captured data to an external platform and to inject new attack code to target other interesting data structures available in the host runtime memory. The last part deals with the implementation of a covert network channel based on JitterBug."
"We have recently improved DAGGER's capabilites to include support for 64-bit operating systems and a stealthy update mechanism to download new attack code."
"To be more precise, we show how to conduct a DMA attack using Intel's Manageability Engine (ME)."
"We can permanently monitor the keyboard buffer on both operating system targets."
Backdoor removal:
The backdoor firmware can be removed by following this guide using the me_cleaner script.
Removal requires a Raspberry Pi (with GPIO pins) and a SOIC clip.
Decoding Intel backdoors:
The situation is out of control and the Libreboot/Coreboot community is looking for BIOS/Firmware experts to help with the Intel ME decoding effort.
If you are skilled in these areas, download Intel ME firmwares from this collection and have a go at them, beware Intel is using a lot of counter measures to prevent their backdoors from being decoded (explained below).
Useful links:
The Intel ME subsystem can take over your machine, can't be audited
REcon 2014 - Intel Management Engine Secrets
Untrusting the CPU (33c3)
Towards (reasonably) trustworthy x86 laptops
30C3 To Protect And Infect - The militarization of the Internet
30c3: To Protect And Infect Part 2 - Mass Surveillance Tools & Software
1. Introduction, what is Intel ME
It's kinda funny how despite the way Apple brands itself as innovative and user friendly, but Mac users are still stuck using a mouse on icons and menus while Windows has a touch-friendly interface.
Keep spending big on antiquated technology Apple users. Maybe one day the ghost of Steve Jobs will give you a touch screen and claim it's a revolutionary invention...
>> laptop starts at $999
Seems like it's priced about $700 too high. About three years ago, I was happy to shell out about $300 for a Windows 8 tablet with Office preinstalled and a bluetooth keyboard. It was just fast enough to run Civ5 in tile mode through Steam.
For dev machines I can build my own laptop (with RAM + SSD) for cheaper than $1K too, and $1K should be mostly graphics cards if it's invested in a desktop. And educational institutions on budgets are already using "disposable" Chromebooks and Android tablets that can be had for a hundred bucks so it seems unlikely Microsoft has a viable product for K-12. So again...what do you get for a $1K Surface?
I think someone here is compensating for a small package.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The title claims better performance than a MacBook Pro, but the summary references a MacBook Air. There's also no link to the actual article?
could this new surface place the new Quake game?
Why is the side covered in weird rectangular holes?
SJW n. One who posts facts.
It's freaky when they even copy the number of an apple. However I'm going to wait for the Next edition, dubbed NE1, which I hear will be labeled as
10S NE 1
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Well, considering Lenovos are great as soon as they have no MicroSquish and run Linux instead, I wonder if this can run one of the Penguin distros too.
Let me guess. Windows 10 only? *snicker*
Alcantara Keyboard... yuk!
And that is a selling point?
RAM? Discrete graphics? Oh wait, it comes with Windows 10S... the rebranding of RT. Nevermind. It's worthless.
I'm guessing the answer is "No."
I've had my 2013 MBPro since Jan 2014. Zero issues. Longest uptime was 144 days which I hit before upgrading to Sierra. Compare: I have a Dell Win10 PC that crashes when I unplug my mouse or it goes to sleep with an Arduino plugged in.
Yeah, Surface is a nice UI, no question there, but the underlying OS is still fucking buggy garbage. Apple could learn from that UI. Nice affordances on everything, well, until you hit a Win95 dialog, which lurk a few clicks below just about every interface item.
So its a high power laptop that can't run any software that would need high power? A high end Chromebook makes no sense at all. Easy to see why the surface series has less sales than apples accessory division.
A $1000 laptop that can only run Windows Store apps? Somebody at MS is getting fired.
Protect your browser with the Force Safe Search add-on
..... this post brought to you by Microsoft.
Wow, shill much?
A MacBook doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to work, I get 30 days of standby/suspend/sleep time on battery, and MacBook Pros and Airs already are i5 or i7. They say it's faster, but only because of cloud computing: the destroyer of open source. Also, good luck getting any work done without the internet and enjoy having no control over your software and Window$ spyware. There's also no way you'll be able to install Linux on it either. If I have $999 to blow on a laptop, I'll get a System76 or a Thinkpad off of Amazon. Hell, I might just buy a bunch of Raspberry Pi's and put them together.
I cant top looking at that fabric covered keyboard and thinking how NASTY that's going to be within a single report writing session
If its primary OS is a Microsoft OS, that doesn't fit the description of "better" in my book.
Windows was the primary reason why I jumped ship to OSX/MacOS so I'll stick with that OS, thank you very much.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Does it still run on Windows? If so, it's not better than the MacBook Pro.
I get the feeling they are testing those two things separately. If you have your computer set to performance and the competition set to battery, naturally your computer will perform better. (for a few hours anyway) And vice-versa. You can't have highest performance AND best battery life at the same time without some incredible hardware, which I doubt this can live up to.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
At $999, I can buy 4 (or more) chromebooks, which are more than adequate for pretty much all education needs. Way to read your market there, Microsoft...
Personally I'd rather have my idiots at home glued to the TV than out doing idiotic things
How is not being able to detach the keyboard a benefit? Why not buy a Surface w/ detachable keyboard? So I should over-pay even more for a laptop b/c it has the name of the worthwhile(SLIGHTLY LESS OVER-PRICED) tablet?
Pass!
A MacBook doesn't need to be connected to the Internet to work, I get 30 days of standby/suspend/sleep time on battery, and MacBook Pros and Airs already are i5 or i7. They say it's faster, but only because of cloud computing: the destroyer of open source. Also, good luck getting any work done without the internet and enjoy having no control over your software and Window$ spyware. There's also no way you'll be able to install Linux on it either. If I have $999 to blow on a laptop, I'll get a System76 or a Thinkpad off of Amazon. Hell, I might just buy a bunch of Raspberry Pi's and put them together.
It looks like MS is playing the "you can centrally manage the machines and only approved MS Store software can be installed so you don't have any security issues..." to school districts. They would presumably always have wireless access so using cloud based programs is not an issue. tI would guess MS will offer substantial "discounts" for volume buys. As for Alcantara, it'll be interesting to see how that stands up over time in a school environment. I'd also love to see teh data backing up the faster than Macs claim. After all, my $4 calculator is faster than the new Surface (if all I am doing is adding 2 numbers).
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Mildly interested if I could replace the OS with something that works, not M$ crap.
I would not touch a windows machine with a 10 foot pole. Gosh, windows is so bad... Give me a unix-like environment and then I can manage. Linux or Mac, windows... NO NO NO NO NO.
...is here. Honestly, I can't see the point of putting an i7 in these. If you're doing anything that's pushing all the cores, the heat generated will force it to throttle down, unless the newest chips have become way more efficient than previous gens. Would be interesting to see a shoot-out between the i5 and i7 models.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Yeah, I'm wondering if they're comparing to Macbooks running Windows. Bootcamp drivers are crap, so it's not a great comparison. My Air runs OSX much more efficiently than Windows.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
This infomercial is a frickin joke. 999$ USD for an entry level Core i5 laptop with Windows on it is an insult to our intelligence.
"The Surface Laptop includes a 13.5-inch PixelSense display..."
No one attaches a 13.5" display to their desktop and boasts about it. I'd sure as hell give up an hour or two of battery life for some actual real estate. Let me guess, that "monster" screen also has 4K capability too, for some pointless marketing reason.
"...a keyboard draped in Alcantara, a smooth cloth-like material.
Obviously a critical "Pro" feature. I always wanted my keyboard to feel like drapery.
"... it can pack in an SSD up to 1TB (that's notably integrated directly onto the motherboard).
Translation: Fuck You consumer. You'll pay factory price for upgrades, and like it, bitch. (Tell me again how this is notably better than Apple's Fuck-You hardware model?)
"You can also expect up to 14.5 hours of battery life..."
Translation: You can expect to get up to 4 hours of Netflix binging.
"Microsoft managed to fit the speakers behind the keys, which Panay claims delivers a more enveloping sound."
Translation: We spent a billion dollars on behind-the-keyboard R&D for the earbud generation.
THIS is what hardware has become these days; a fucking fashion shitshow for hypes sake. Thanks Apple, for starting this trend.
I think it's more of a PSA letting us know what to avoid.
Then again, anything with "Microsoft" or a Windows logo on it should already be a good indicator that the product is complete, absolute, irredeemably worthless garbage.
Longer battery life AND better performance AND lighter than a MBP?
Something smells really fishy. Microsoft has pulled sketchy stunts like this before, so only a fool would take this announcement at face value. I'll wait for some actual reviews before I'll form an opinion.
It's using their newly released Windows 10S, so you can only install UWP and select windows store approved win32 apps. This is another massive alarm bell, and it's certainly not fit for "professional" use, no matter what they like to claim. There are more than plenty of "professional" applications which are not available in their app store.
Well, at least you should give them credit for finally getting the direction where the wind is blowing.
Dell got bumper sales once Michael Dell got back into business and wrestled the helm from MBA flowchart warriors and people who were "product managing" company's products to death.
See: XPS13 - the most sold high-end PC laptop. And they got there in just 2 years.
Hey, even Chinese are leapfrogging old brands now: See Chuwi Surbook 13 - the name is ofcourse ridiculous, but see THEY GOT IT TOO. This is provably the one and only budget PC laptop worth buying on the market. You have apollo lake for the core, bur it comes with huuuge battery, best in class screen, and all benefits of 100% solid state/single chip platform.
Gets worse... not only is it underspec'd, but there's no info on durability (or more importantly, even the potential thereof).
I've got a 4-year-old MacBook Pro that still performs just as well as most latest/greatest mid/high-end laptops, and I abuse the crap out of it. I wiped the disk and reinstalled exactly once - when I upgraded the disk from platter to SSD. Nothing (and I mean *nothing*) has ever given me cause to doubt the quality of the product, let alone its durability. Odds are nearly perfect I will keep it another year (maybe two?) before refreshing it. I also know that my particular scenario is quite typical among folks who own similar MacBook Pro laptops.
So... can Microsoft credibly make the same claim?
(There's also that stupid Spyware-by-default called Windows 10 on these new Surface laptops, but we won't go into that at the moment.)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Oh I love the way branding goes these days, as if it wasn't enough to say it has "i5" or "i7" CPUs while omitting they're actually ULV CPUs. But claiming it to be more powerful than an MBP makes me digress, but I'm calling that BS since they started to compare it with a Macbook Air.
But man, that marketing BS with the "PixelSense", "Iris Plus" and deceptive numbers like "3.4 Million pixels". So basically it's not 4k in 2017. It is less than a Dell XPS 4k (2y old, but ok, 15''), it is less than a Chromebook Pixel (a 4y device, a DISCONTINUED one at that!). It is also less than an MBP. So basically it is up-to-or-less-than par with the competition.
Granted: it looks good; a ULV CPU will be decent enough for most; and so will WQHD (2560x1440). But that "Iris Plus", at first glance, doesn't convince, especially due to the fact the the real dedicated GPU contender we know on the Iris family is named Pro, you know the one used in soldered variants such as Gigabyte cubes and "cost-efficient" macs. I also have serious reservations about 50% performance of an MBA on what pretty much looks like a passive cooling solution. XPS15 and MBP (not the XPS13 though, don't know about the air, think not) all come with better BASE MODEL, dedicated GPUs. For getting that Intel-beefed-up-Iris you need to shell out for the i7 model (which, to be fair, puts it in the XPS15 price range).
AH! And that SD Card teaser! Everybody on the youtube video was praising it, apparently it is just a sheet-thinned PSU connector. Well who knows, maybe MS decided to do what no other company wanted to do because they wanted to profit either from cloud-storage or the "more-storage-in-200-bucks-increments-variants". If they added an SD Card reader in a super-premium range device, they have probably discovered the best new feature of 2017.
My precocious verdict is this will be like all niche products in the ultra-portable category: either M or C-Level word+slideshow machines, like the XPS13 or the the Surface Pro, or under-adopted, "almost-powerhouses" like the Chromebook Pixel.
MS make me eat my words please.
The new Dell XPS 13 is good :) I swapped in an Intel wireless NIC (apparently late 2016 has Qualcomm so FOSS drivers there too) and it gives me 0 issues and about 8 hours battery. If you want a smaller, more portable laptop, choose this over a thinkpad. I had a T420 before this and the upgrade was substantial
Here's my takeaway.
My overall rating, averaging it all together: DUMB.
For free for this year, for $49 in the future.
Sorry guy, mustook the name. It's called "Lapbook." Chuwi's take on XPS class devices is this thing https://liliputing.com/2017/04...
It's even worse than that, they say it runs W10 "S" which is locked down to only** be able to install software from the MS app store.
** With MS's security history, anyone want to take bets on how long before this is blown wide open so you can install normal programs from anywhere?
To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
I know they're trying to compete with the Chromebook, but I thought they learned their lesson with Windows RT -- very few use cases exist for an artificially limited device that can only run Store apps and, essentially, Office.
It's obvious that Azure and cloud services are the way they want to go, but no one wanted the non-Pro Surface. Outside of education, why would anyone want this? Phone is dead, UWP apps exist but certainly aren't the only type of apps people use, and it seems silly to me to artifically limit a device using Windows 10 S.
The ideal endgame for Microsoft is definitely having locked-down devices that are useless without paying subscription fees and consuming Azure services. They're going to be the new IBM and we're all going to be mainframe customers at some point.
Aye, agreed. The new Microsox _might_ be good but it isn't better than a MacBook Pro. In fact, it isn't even _as_ good as a MacBook Pro. In addition to the technical aspect there is also the fact that the MacBooks last so much longer than Windows machines and require less support. This is repeatedly shown in industry studies. We have MacBook Pros and PowerBooks (older version of MBP) that are over 10 years old and even over 15 years old and still performing their duties perfectly. When the top level users upgrade the machines pass down within our business and family because not everyone needs the latest and greatest. Meanwhile Windows machines have an average lifespan of about 2 years and a higher support cost.
This infomercial is a frickin joke. 999$ USD for an entry level Core i5 laptop with Windows on it is an insult to our intelligence.
Only if you compare it to the end-of-isle specials at Walmart.
How much does a 14mm thick laptop with 14 hour battery life and a bit of style cost at Walmart? Oh, that's right, they don't even sell them!
This is way cheaper than a similar size Macbook and better specced. Those Macbooks sell by the million. You can complain about a lot of things but the price isn't one of them. Not really.
(and anybody who'd buy something with an Alcantara keyboard certainly won't be complaining about that)
No sig today...
Bullshit. I had a great Microsoft mouse some time in the late 90s.
This doesn't need to be connected to the internet to work. What the fuck are you talking about? The point of Windows 10s is that it's focused on the Windows App Store. And an upgrade to pro is $50 or it's free if you do it before the end of the year.
Yeah, chromebook competitor...I haven't seen a 16GB i-7 chromebook that runs real applications hanging around. Get off Tim Cook's cock and actually research before you start talking bullshit.
But the real question is will it run Linux?
You've still got plenty of life left in it. Mine is 7 years old and is still doing great despite frequent travel and occasional abuse. It's missing a screw from the bottom (I have the screw, but it doesn't stay in anymore) and one corner has a fairly significant dent. All four plastic feet have long since broken off. Battery life is down to about 4 hours with everything running at full tilt. Still gets the job done.
Microsoft says it has also improved the standby time -- so much so that "you could go away on spring break and still have the same battery life when you returned."
Appealing not to people that will actually attend spring break since they hardly have money for gas and beer, rather, to people with fond memories of spring breaks past.
So... can Microsoft credibly make the same claim?
I'll answer that for you: no, because no one actually has it yet, let alone has had it for 4+ years.
P.S., your Macbook is about to catch on fire and burn, within the next several weeks. Can you credibly claim otherwise?
My Asus G50VT is only 9 years old. Works perfectly,even now with Windows 10 on it. I didn't game on it much, so the video card is still 100%.
My Dell E6440 is just shy of 4 years old. Works perfectly, but did get a hard drive replacement last year. Drive failures being essentially random nowadays, this is hard to blame on Windows, Microsoft, or Dell.
Before this, I had a no name laptop that lasted 11 years, damn, but i hacked the power connector back on several times. My ThinkPad X41t lasted me 9 years and is still working fine in its new life literally velcroed to a wall 24x7, running some weird asterisk pbx and bbs stuff, now about 12 years old. The battery has to be toast.
There are non-Apple laptops/notebooks out there doing fine for very long lives. Apple doesn't have a lock on hardware, just the foresight to avoid letting manufacturers build for them, getting caught up in driver hell. Well played, Apple.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
cloud computing: the destroyer of open source
lol.
I'll answer that for you: no, because no one actually has it yet, let alone has had it for 4+ years.
Nota Bene: The Microsoft Surface line launched in 2012, or 5 years ago. ;)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Also, the screen is 3:2, which for me is the best aspect ratio I've seen on a "normal" laptop, since I believe the 2007 Thinkpad T61 (although since the Surface Pro 3 there have been _convertibles_ with 3:2 too).
Out of the box you're free to download and install Windows Pro if you want to run non-MS-store programs. It's even mentioned in the keynote, if you can get through all the Jony-Iveish sumptuous design verbage.
It seems to be very decent hardware. So much vitriol and misinformation in this thread makes me wonder if Microsoft will ever really recover from all the bad will that was generated during the Ballmer years.
that has an atom cpu and eMMC storage. it's crap.
"The focus is on students and professionals."
I've never understood this. These two groups couldn't have more different needs. Students need basic word processing and internet browsing. Professionals need all kinds of other things, such as virtual machines, high-end graphics software, video editing, etc. etc. Why do they always get lumped together? Is it just because students so often want to waste their time playing video games?
And no chance of Windows 10 here.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
So it runs Mac OS X, and NOT Misro$hit Windon'ts S? (S stands for "SUCKER!" hahah you can only run the shitwear WE let you... hahaahaha!!!)
Microsoft. Shit software for morons.
can i hackintosh it ?
Yup. Sitting back with popcorn for that one. Two weeks maybe, to get Ubuntu booted on it? Then if the price actually gets closer to the Chromebook zone, I'd pick one up.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
I hate macs... I hate mac os. But they are still better than ANYTHING running windows 10. Sorry Microsoft. Start listening to your consumers who aren't retards and morons who have never used a computer.
Yea lets blame balmer for everything and forget nutella satays assault on compuer users privacy.
The difference is, as shown by plenty of studies, while you have an anecdotal case of a Windows machine lasting four or nine years the vast majority of them only last about two years. The studies contrast this with Macs which last two to three times longer on average.
Do those studies control for price? No shit a $250 asus is going to die sooner than a $1000+ mac.
The Dell Latitude series has for the past 7-8 years far surpassed the 4 year life mark.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
This appears targetted to low end (ie, students). But Macbook Air is not intended to be a low end laptop, and Macbook Pro is definitely professional grade. So their whole stance here is confusing; is this the cheap student laptop or a laptop to compete with the top of the line? If it's Windows 10 "S" then it's useless for professional purposes.
If the claims turn out to be valid (actually competing with Macbook but at a cheaper price, smaller, better battery life), then this would be awesome to put Linux on. But I think there's a whole lotta marketing going on here which means treat everything as hypothetical until a real person gets ahold of one.
I have a MacBook 4,1 2008 and I just run Linux on it. Right now it's a distro I made that's using kernel 4.10 and latest software, so I can probably get another 5 years out of it if I wanted; only 5 because it's 32-bit, but I do have the PAE kernel installed for more RAM access if I need it, though with Linux I barely ever get about 2 GB of RAM.
The college I went used Windows but even then, they ran it on iMacs. I think they did it so that the IT department could free up their time for internet security (they had military students and homeland security majors there) and because they also took looks at student's computers for fixing if they needed it. You can guess which platform saw the most trouble, and it was a private school too, so the Windows to Mac ratio was a little off.