8 ms·

How does this compare against the Macbook?

by Artistry121 11y ago

listic 11y ago
- has a touch screen - has a stylus - has a detachable keyboard
- jmnicolas 11y ago
  - has Windows ;-)
- glogla 11y ago
  Also it has Windows 10 instead of OS X, and probably worse touchpad (because so far, nobody else has gotten it right)
  - josteink 11y ago
    It's not Microsoft's fault that osx is an OS with extremely bad hardware support.
  - bergie 11y ago
    The Chromebook Pixels actually have as good (or better) touchpad than MacBooks
    - bduerst 11y ago
      Can confirm - I've been using a pixel 2 for a while now and it's amazing. Kind of bummed that Microsoft didn't go with the USB Type-C on these.
  - e12e 11y ago
    Has anyone seen how Linux/*BSD is coming along on these devices? I couldn't care less about OS X, and have little use for Windows (gaming without a high end GPU?) -- but well-integrated Linux would be nice.
  - listic 11y ago
    That's obvious, I suppose; also it can be fixed :)
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
TurboHaskal 11y ago
Who cares. Both lack a trackpoint.
Spivak 11y ago
You'll probably be more interested in a Surface if one of the following is true: - You take handwritten notes or draw diagrams. - You're an artist who would prefer to draw on the screen rather than on an external tablet. - You want a 'consumption' device rather than a 'workstation'. I would have never believed I would be saying to avoid a MS product of you want to get traditional work done but it's true in this case. Typing on it is not a good experience -- the keyboard is small, cheap, and missing many valuable keys, the touch screen is great but the mouse is atrocious. Although they're trying to target artists, until the 'mobile' version of CS6 is ready is might be a pass. Pretty much any CS6 application will being the tablet to its knees and nearly burnt my lap. The software selection is abysmal which sounds silly since just about everything is developed for Windows, but pretty much no one of consequence (except for MS themselves) is developing touch or pen friendly apps so you're left with muddling around with regular desktop apps which were designed with mouse/keyboard input in mind. It's not bad, but it's a little frustrating and not the best experience. This is a general comment on Win 10 but the UI now has absolutely no consistency. This has pretty much been true for all iterations after XP but it's much more noticeable and jarring now. It's like they got half way through developing Win 10 but then gave up because the deadline was coming. I don't blame them for rushing after the failure that was Win 8 but it shows. Apple might put form over function but as least they care about it. You might not really care because your IT department will be imaging it anyway but holy crap did MS choose the most user-hostile defaults. I really shouldn't have to comb through every setting and group policy disabling all their tracking and other assorted bullshit. The new Office is nice but it has the same problems the Adobe suite. Unless you're using the mobile versions you'll just watch your battery life drain away -- Desktop OneNote is by far the worst offender and is almost unusable because of it.
- hcurtiss 11y ago
  To each his own. I've used an SP3 hard for a year now, and came from a 2012 MacBook Air. While the keyboard is inferior, I value the functionality, and honestly, it works fine. The trackpad is among the best I've used with Windows. As for software, as a lawyer I require little more than the Office Suite, Acrobat, and a browser (I use Chrome). All work beautifully on the Surface (and Windows 10 made it better), and I've been pleased/impressed with battery life. Finally, I could not disagree more about desktop OneNote. It's my favorite piece of software. I use it all day, every day. I don't mean to be contrarian, but for all the years Microsoft took heat on HN for sucking, I think they deserve some real credit for developing a product that, at least for me, works really, really well.

How does this compare against the Macbook?

listic 11y ago

- has a touch screen - has a stylus - has a detachable keyboard

jmnicolas 11y ago
- has Windows ;-)
glogla 11y ago
Also it has Windows 10 instead of OS X, and probably worse touchpad (because so far, nobody else has gotten it right)
- josteink 11y ago
  It's not Microsoft's fault that osx is an OS with extremely bad hardware support.
- bergie 11y ago
  The Chromebook Pixels actually have as good (or better) touchpad than MacBooks
  - bduerst 11y ago
    Can confirm - I've been using a pixel 2 for a while now and it's amazing. Kind of bummed that Microsoft didn't go with the USB Type-C on these.
- e12e 11y ago
  Has anyone seen how Linux/*BSD is coming along on these devices? I couldn't care less about OS X, and have little use for Windows (gaming without a high end GPU?) -- but well-integrated Linux would be nice.
- listic 11y ago
  That's obvious, I suppose; also it can be fixed :)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

TurboHaskal 11y ago

Who cares. Both lack a trackpoint.

Spivak 11y ago

You'll probably be more interested in a Surface if one of the following is true: - You take handwritten notes or draw diagrams. - You're an artist who would prefer to draw on the screen rather than on an external tablet. - You want a 'consumption' device rather than a 'workstation'. I would have never believed I would be saying to avoid a MS product of you want to get traditional work done but it's true in this case. Typing on it is not a good experience -- the keyboard is small, cheap, and missing many valuable keys, the touch screen is great but the mouse is atrocious. Although they're trying to target artists, until the 'mobile' version of CS6 is ready is might be a pass. Pretty much any CS6 application will being the tablet to its knees and nearly burnt my lap. The software selection is abysmal which sounds silly since just about everything is developed for Windows, but pretty much no one of consequence (except for MS themselves) is developing touch or pen friendly apps so you're left with muddling around with regular desktop apps which were designed with mouse/keyboard input in mind. It's not bad, but it's a little frustrating and not the best experience. This is a general comment on Win 10 but the UI now has absolutely no consistency. This has pretty much been true for all iterations after XP but it's much more noticeable and jarring now. It's like they got half way through developing Win 10 but then gave up because the deadline was coming. I don't blame them for rushing after the failure that was Win 8 but it shows. Apple might put form over function but as least they care about it. You might not really care because your IT department will be imaging it anyway but holy crap did MS choose the most user-hostile defaults. I really shouldn't have to comb through every setting and group policy disabling all their tracking and other assorted bullshit. The new Office is nice but it has the same problems the Adobe suite. Unless you're using the mobile versions you'll just watch your battery life drain away -- Desktop OneNote is by far the worst offender and is almost unusable because of it.

hcurtiss 11y ago
To each his own. I've used an SP3 hard for a year now, and came from a 2012 MacBook Air. While the keyboard is inferior, I value the functionality, and honestly, it works fine. The trackpad is among the best I've used with Windows. As for software, as a lawyer I require little more than the Office Suite, Acrobat, and a browser (I use Chrome). All work beautifully on the Surface (and Windows 10 made it better), and I've been pleased/impressed with battery life. Finally, I could not disagree more about desktop OneNote. It's my favorite piece of software. I use it all day, every day. I don't mean to be contrarian, but for all the years Microsoft took heat on HN for sucking, I think they deserve some real credit for developing a product that, at least for me, works really, really well.