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But that's what I mean, fair enough if the screen was too small and kickstand fiddley on the SP2, but the SP3 fixed that completely. But then the goalposts shif

by anjc 11y ago

But that's what I mean, fair enough if the screen was too small and kickstand fiddley on the SP2, but the SP3 fixed that completely. But then the goalposts shifted... And they definitely aren't abandoning this philosophy seeing as they announced the SP4 at the same event. The Surface Book is a competitor to the Macbook Pro, but they aren't slowly creating a Macbook Pro. My sense is that Apple are now slowly moving in this direction.

IanDrake 11y ago
Right: Surface Book - I want a laptop that I can use as a tablet once in a while. Surface Pro - I want a tablet that I can use as a laptop once in a while. Both- Dock it and replace your desktop.
rayiner 11y ago
> But that's what I mean, fair enough if the screen was too small and kickstand fiddley on the SP2, but the SP3 fixed that completely. But then the goalposts shifted... I see it the other way. The SP2 was too small to use as a laptop so the lack of a proper hinge and keyboard was secondary. SP3 was big enough to use as a proper laptop, so the lack of a proper hinge and keyboard became more glaring. In any case, the whole narrative is a bit revisionist. Here's me complaining about the Surface 1's lack of "lapability" almost three years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4869442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4869442. It was a common complaint at the time.
nilkn 11y ago
> But then the goalposts shifted... The goalposts didn't shift. High priority complaints just tend to get more visibility than low priority complaints. Each iteration of the Surface Pro has fixed a high priority complaint, shaving it off the queue and revealing the rest of the queue. But the entire queue was always there from the beginning. In other words, the issues that are now primary were previously secondary or tertiary in prior iterations of the Surface Pro. They existed, but there was little reason to focus on them because of other, more glaring problems that had to be fixed first.
- swsieber 11y ago
  I think you could say that the goalposts shifted. After a long time of whacking down the other complaints, people who would like machines like that have been using MacBooks. And so their target has likely been becoming increasingly entrenched in Mac Products.

by anjc 11y ago

IanDrake 11y ago

Right: Surface Book - I want a laptop that I can use as a tablet once in a while. Surface Pro - I want a tablet that I can use as a laptop once in a while. Both- Dock it and replace your desktop.

rayiner 11y ago

> But that's what I mean, fair enough if the screen was too small and kickstand fiddley on the SP2, but the SP3 fixed that completely. But then the goalposts shifted... I see it the other way. The SP2 was too small to use as a laptop so the lack of a proper hinge and keyboard was secondary. SP3 was big enough to use as a proper laptop, so the lack of a proper hinge and keyboard became more glaring. In any case, the whole narrative is a bit revisionist. Here's me complaining about the Surface 1's lack of "lapability" almost three years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4869442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4869442. It was a common complaint at the time.

nilkn 11y ago

> But then the goalposts shifted... The goalposts didn't shift. High priority complaints just tend to get more visibility than low priority complaints. Each iteration of the Surface Pro has fixed a high priority complaint, shaving it off the queue and revealing the rest of the queue. But the entire queue was always there from the beginning. In other words, the issues that are now primary were previously secondary or tertiary in prior iterations of the Surface Pro. They existed, but there was little reason to focus on them because of other, more glaring problems that had to be fixed first.

swsieber 11y ago
I think you could say that the goalposts shifted. After a long time of whacking down the other complaints, people who would like machines like that have been using MacBooks. And so their target has likely been becoming increasingly entrenched in Mac Products.