7 ms·

Microsoft Surface Book. Easily the best device i have used in a very long time. Expensive (especially the i7 dGPU option) but i am amazed at how good this mach

by rmm 11y ago

Microsoft Surface Book. Easily the best device i have used in a very long time. Expensive (especially the i7 dGPU option) but i am amazed at how good this machine is. Huge battery life, powerful when it needs to be. Connect to a dock and you have a powerful desktop. Currently use it when im working in the office doing design work (plugged into a couple of Dell U2715H) then when i am out on mine sites use it as a portable machine in the field. The tablet mode and pen is just a cherry on top. Writing notes in the field, marking up drawings etc. ridiculously easy. i love it.

KirinDave 11y ago
I concur. It's excellent hardware with excellent features and excellent battery life.
chaostheory 11y ago
Agree. I just don't understand why MS has to call it a Surface. It's confusing since there are so many different MS devices that are called Surface.
- vatotemking 11y ago
  You forgot the "Book" part. I guess its for branding.
  - chaostheory 11y ago
    You can add whatever you want to the end of its name; it's still confusing. This is probably one reason why the blog's author isn't aware of it.
    - pedalpete 11y ago
      Really? Any more confusing than all the Mac's being called Mac? People get the difference between the Mac, Macbook, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro. Why is Surface, Surface Pro, Surfacebook any different?
      - chaostheory 11y ago
        It's really just Mac (the desktop line) and Macbook (the laptop line). It's simple. The problem is that Surface can mean anything. It can mean a tablet, a laptop, or a ginormous screen or table e.g. Surface (a tablet, a table, or a laptop?), Surface Pro (a more powerful version of the tablet, table or laptop?), Surfacebook (another version of the tablet?) Am I wrong? Think about it. Why would a blog post complaining about the absense of a great PC laptop get so many upvotes on HN when MS has the answer in the form of a 'Surface'? imo something is just really wrong with MS's marketing.
touristtam 11y ago
But then you are using Microsoft OS.
- zdkl 11y ago
  I think it's safe to say a lot of people in tech have the same knee jerk reaction (I know I do), but sadly what are the open alternatives? Closest I can think of would be Android, but you're throwing a lot of flexibility and openness out already. I had high hopes that FxOS would grow into the {reasonably hackable, consumer pricing, works out of the box if needed, higher abstraction (eg. don't make me think about my kernel) system APIs} market. Right now, to have any degree of control beyond "here's a GUI with the 5 settings we thought you'd need", you need to use way too much relatively advanced knowledge (setting a 'nix ARM system up, hardware quality, commitment to maintaining your setup at a fairly low level) for it to be widespread. I guess I'm asking the smart people on here why can't we have a tablet ecosystem more akin to the mid/high end desktop market? (Emphasis on modularity, _standards_ and interoperability) Do the actors in that area reckon there's not enough interest/commercial opportunities in contrast to the OEM/OS siloing? Or is there a project out there I should start throwing contributions at? ((EDIT: please don't say Canonical: the GUI is nonstarter because of limited resources, and if you're using server editions then we're back to the original low-level problem in this case))
  - niutech 11y ago
    Speaking of tablets, apart from BQ Aquaris M10 with Ubuntu, there is also Samsung Galaxy 2 with Replicant [http://www.replicant.us http://www.replicant.us], which is fully free software.
- SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
  It's standard PC hardware so you can install Linux on it if you'd like. I guess you're paying the "Microsoft Tax" for the OS license that won't be used but you could say the same about installing Linux on a MacBook too. Also I'm not sure why you're being downvoted - I'm a .NET developer and spend all day in Windows but even I appreciate that others' workflows are built around Linux or OS X. Horses for courses and all that.
spronkey 11y ago
It's nice, but I have a pretty long list of gripes that pretty much prevent me from buying one. Mushy keyboard. Average speakers. Lacklustre I/O port selection. Kinda average camera, despite its resolution. Headphone jack in a stupid place for laptop mode. No brightness controls on keyboard. Trackpad might look and feel nice, but it just isn't as good as the Mac's for palm rejection, and scrolling is still stuttery vs butter smooth on a Mac. Power connector has nothing on MagSafe. Then there's the price. Woooah. It's also an Ultrabook-esque machine. I'm not really wanting one of those. I'd be happy to take the thin tablet part, but mate it to a thicker base that gave me things like... RAM slots, a gruntier CPU, user serviceable storage, triple external display support.
- Infinitesimus 11y ago
  > No brightness controls on keyboard. Recent discovery from my Surface Pro: You can adjust the brightness with Fn + Backspace and Fn + Del. Works with the Surface Book as well. Regarding multiple display ports, I think the SB was meant to be used with the dock for the "power user" mode. I quote like the ease of the docking capabilities even though I've had a few display issues with it when the machine resumes from sleep
  - john_reel 11y ago
    Are there any similar shortcuts?

by rmm 11y ago

KirinDave 11y ago

I concur. It's excellent hardware with excellent features and excellent battery life.

chaostheory 11y ago

Agree. I just don't understand why MS has to call it a Surface. It's confusing since there are so many different MS devices that are called Surface.

vatotemking 11y ago
You forgot the "Book" part. I guess its for branding.
- chaostheory 11y ago
  You can add whatever you want to the end of its name; it's still confusing. This is probably one reason why the blog's author isn't aware of it.
  - pedalpete 11y ago
    Really? Any more confusing than all the Mac's being called Mac? People get the difference between the Mac, Macbook, Macbook Air, Macbook Pro. Why is Surface, Surface Pro, Surfacebook any different?
    - chaostheory 11y ago
      It's really just Mac (the desktop line) and Macbook (the laptop line). It's simple. The problem is that Surface can mean anything. It can mean a tablet, a laptop, or a ginormous screen or table e.g. Surface (a tablet, a table, or a laptop?), Surface Pro (a more powerful version of the tablet, table or laptop?), Surfacebook (another version of the tablet?) Am I wrong? Think about it. Why would a blog post complaining about the absense of a great PC laptop get so many upvotes on HN when MS has the answer in the form of a 'Surface'? imo something is just really wrong with MS's marketing.

touristtam 11y ago

But then you are using Microsoft OS.

zdkl 11y ago
I think it's safe to say a lot of people in tech have the same knee jerk reaction (I know I do), but sadly what are the open alternatives? Closest I can think of would be Android, but you're throwing a lot of flexibility and openness out already. I had high hopes that FxOS would grow into the {reasonably hackable, consumer pricing, works out of the box if needed, higher abstraction (eg. don't make me think about my kernel) system APIs} market. Right now, to have any degree of control beyond "here's a GUI with the 5 settings we thought you'd need", you need to use way too much relatively advanced knowledge (setting a 'nix ARM system up, hardware quality, commitment to maintaining your setup at a fairly low level) for it to be widespread. I guess I'm asking the smart people on here why can't we have a tablet ecosystem more akin to the mid/high end desktop market? (Emphasis on modularity, _standards_ and interoperability) Do the actors in that area reckon there's not enough interest/commercial opportunities in contrast to the OEM/OS siloing? Or is there a project out there I should start throwing contributions at? ((EDIT: please don't say Canonical: the GUI is nonstarter because of limited resources, and if you're using server editions then we're back to the original low-level problem in this case))
- niutech 11y ago
  Speaking of tablets, apart from BQ Aquaris M10 with Ubuntu, there is also Samsung Galaxy 2 with Replicant [http://www.replicant.us http://www.replicant.us], which is fully free software.
SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago
It's standard PC hardware so you can install Linux on it if you'd like. I guess you're paying the "Microsoft Tax" for the OS license that won't be used but you could say the same about installing Linux on a MacBook too. Also I'm not sure why you're being downvoted - I'm a .NET developer and spend all day in Windows but even I appreciate that others' workflows are built around Linux or OS X. Horses for courses and all that.

spronkey 11y ago

It's nice, but I have a pretty long list of gripes that pretty much prevent me from buying one. Mushy keyboard. Average speakers. Lacklustre I/O port selection. Kinda average camera, despite its resolution. Headphone jack in a stupid place for laptop mode. No brightness controls on keyboard. Trackpad might look and feel nice, but it just isn't as good as the Mac's for palm rejection, and scrolling is still stuttery vs butter smooth on a Mac. Power connector has nothing on MagSafe. Then there's the price. Woooah. It's also an Ultrabook-esque machine. I'm not really wanting one of those. I'd be happy to take the thin tablet part, but mate it to a thicker base that gave me things like... RAM slots, a gruntier CPU, user serviceable storage, triple external display support.

Infinitesimus 11y ago
> No brightness controls on keyboard. Recent discovery from my Surface Pro: You can adjust the brightness with Fn + Backspace and Fn + Del. Works with the Surface Book as well. Regarding multiple display ports, I think the SB was meant to be used with the dock for the "power user" mode. I quote like the ease of the docking capabilities even though I've had a few display issues with it when the machine resumes from sleep
- john_reel 11y ago
  Are there any similar shortcuts?