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Microsoft Surface Book 2 Puts Desktop Brains in a Laptop Body (wired.com)
David Pierce, writing for Wired: As Microsoft went to create the Surface Book 2, the company once again tried to bust categories. The result is the most combinatory device Microsoft's made yet. It's a laptop (screens measure 13 or 15 inches; there's a keyboard and trackpad) -- and it's also a tablet (the screen detaches, you can use a pen, everything's touch-friendly), and it's also a desktop. A stupendously powerful one, at that: It runs on Intel's new eighth-generation quad-core processors, in either a Core i5 or Core i7 version. The higher-end models come with Nvidia's GeForce discrete graphics, up to 16 gigs of RAM, and as much as 1 terabyte of solid storage. All that in a fanless body that gets up to 17 hours of battery life, and weighs about 3.5 pounds for the smaller model or 4.2 pounds for the larger. What does all that mean? Microsoft claims the smaller model is three times more powerful than the last Surface Book, and the 15-inch runs five times as fast. Those are meaningless comparisons, but the point holds. This thing screams. More useful are the comparisons to Apple's latest MacBook Pros: Microsoft claims up to 70 percent more battery life, and double the performance of Apple's laptops.
My current desktop has 2 Xeons in it and room for 256GB of RAM. Mobile is always playing catch up. So while this may have an 'i7' and compete fine with older desktops in engineering we've just taken that to mean we get that much faster desktops.
Faster than a macbook air 13" with intel's ultra slow high efficiency processor or faster than the high end mac book pro with the hex core, and 2 graphics cards. NOT. Even the new Iphone from apple is faster than the slow mac book (not making that up). On the other hand MS tablet actually weighs more than the entire laptop from apple.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
The 15" version reportedly starts at $2499, maybe if it's my company paying but not me. It makes my gaming PC - which in itself is a giant money sink - seem like a good investment. Unless you're actually making money with it, real money.
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Apple's innovation is impossible to beat. Witness the specifications of the new low-end 2017 MacBook Air:
- 5th-generation Intel Broadwell processor, your choice of dual-core or dual-core processor
- Your choice of 8GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3 or 8GB of 1600MHz LPDDR3
- Impossibly-large-to-fill 128GB SSD storage
- Low-resolution twisted nematic (TN) display (patented in the 1970's)
- "only" USD$999
I have to agree with Apple on this one, it takes courage to still ask that much money for ancient technology.
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Can you totally get rid of Windows and install Linux natively on these?
Yeah its going to cost a bloody fortune and thus not sell very well at all. MS really really doesn't understand their customers.
GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
Well, they might double the performance but Microsoft has a long way to go before it even approaches build quality or customer care. Of the 5 surfaces and 3 Surface Books we've purchased, two of the Surfaces are still working. None of the Books.
Trying to get a warranty service from MS is like Time Tunneling back to the '90's and dealing with Dell. Unenglish, unorganized, unhelpful.
Although I really liked my Surface Book for the entire month it worked, we've dropped Microsoft hardware entirely at this point. Details matter, it's not just 'innovation'.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
This is a 15W TDP mobile processor, not a desktop chip. Someone should look at the specs before posing nonsense.
https://ark.intel.com/products/124968/Intel-Core-i7-8650U-Processor-8M-Cache-up-to-4_20-GHz
17H standby time with 60kw/h battery and 22w TDP CPU? Not gonna happen, Satya should learn math
That desktop part is pure bullshit.
Its CPU is a U series (that's the low power one) mobile CPU (i5-7300U or i7-8650U, both have 15W TDP) and it has the mobile version of the Nvidia GPU, too (and 16 GB max memory is pretty puny).
So it actually has a pretty run-of-the-mill laptop HW, it's the case and the display that is interesting.
Real life is overrated.
Ever see the Steve Martin movie “The Man with Two CPUs”?
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Reliable? HA! The only time I've ever had a computer completely fail, to the point of not being bootable anymore, it was an Apple MacBook Pro. The old Core Duo model from 2005 or so. That was the last Mac I bought. I still have a beige G3 that runs fine. It's useless, but it runs. Apple's build quality declined sharply in the mid-00's. Nothing about their product is "reliable" anymore. So "ancient" technology is just outdated.
I'm not pretending that Apple hardware specs aren't shitty these days but I've gotta stick up for their build quality. I have a 2010 13" MBP and a 2012 15" one. Both are still rock solid. Literally, in fact; I once dropped the 15" one and made a nice little hole in the carpet. Still runs like a champ. Unibody MBPs are essentially indestructible.
I have had an MBP fail spectacularly on me; it was the 2007 model. It died of the Geforce 8600M GT bug - essentially, Nvidia had fucked up their chip design, causing all 8600M GT chips in the world to slowly self-destruct. The 2007 MBP used the 8600M GT. Apple tried doing a free repair program but the replacement logic boards had the same GPU so they weren't long for this world either.
I'm actually kinda sad that everything Apple has released after 2002 has shit specs and ridiculously expensive purchase-time-only upgrades. I really like the build quality but with the crap Apple keeps putting out my next laptop will come from someone else.
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