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Microsoft: more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before
- youdontknowtho 10y agoOne high price computer for another... Just kidding. I want a Surface Studio so bad its crazy. Just can't bring myself to spend the scratch, though.
- jetti 10y agoI just can't get behind either the Surface or Macbook Pro. I had a Macbook that my wife has taken over and I'm currently rockin' an Asus ultrabook that has a 15" screen. I love the bigger screens and 13" is just way to small for me. For the price of a Surface Book I could get a Dell/HP/Lenovo with a 15" screen, 32GB of memory and a large SSD.
- ghaff 10y agoIt's a function of how you use your computer. I travel a lot and find 13" is a pretty good compromise between portability and usability. No way would I travel with a 15". I do sometimes just go with a small Asus Flip Chromebook but with the knowledge that I can't use it for everything.
- jetti 10y agoI think it also depends on how you travel. I have a 4 hour commute each day but it is on the train. I'm lucky enough to be at the first stop each way so I typically get a seat and the train is typically empty enough so I get a seat to myself. Because of that I'm able to plop my 15" laptop on my and go to town. When I fly it is more of an issue because of the limited space, so I definitely understand why a 13" becomes a better option.
- m_fayer 10y agoYup. I decide on form-factor primarily based on whether I can easily bring the device on a brisk 30 minute bike commute without sweating (too much).
- lmm 10y ago13.5" is great for portability - my surface book is small enough to slip into a satchel in a way that a larger laptop wouldn't, and light enough to do that with. Before I got it I used to have two laptops (an 11" ultrabook for travel and an 18" gaming laptop), but the surface book replaces both - powerful enough to game on but small enough to transport. I used to be a big fan of the big screens, but you adjust quickly, and the resolution is high which is the main thing; I could keep a screen plugged into my surface dock if I wanted to use a bigger screen at home, though so far I haven't felt the need.
- jetti 10y agoI have a close to 4 hour train commute per day and I just bring my 15" laptop on the train with me. I have a laptop section in my backpack so carrying it isn't an issue. Being on the train is typically the only time I bring my laptop out of the house as it is a long ride to work on side projects. If I had to do more travel, especially on a plane, then I could definitely see how a 13.5" screen would be worth it.
- H4CK3RM4N 10y agoBut the equivalent MacBook is thinner than a lecture pad, and more powerful at most price points.
- lmm 10y ago> But the equivalent MacBook is thinner than a lecture pad Sure, but how much value do you get from that? Weight matters, diagonal matters, but thickness alone makes very little difference unless we're talking about something too thick to fit into a satchel. > and more powerful at most price points. I don't think that's true? The top and bottom end specs are pretty similar IIRC (same RAM, similar processor, similar resolution...), except for the Surface having a touchscreen, and the price points are mostly higher for the MacBook.
- 0wl3x 10y agoI agree with you. I use a surface pro 3 as my daily driver but I have two 23" monitors I plug it into. I can only use the 13" screen for movie watching and reading.
- vidarh 10y ago15" is way too small for me. Basically it boils down to differences in usage patterns. For my part I have a 17" laptop that is almost exclusively for home office use, a 11" chromebook for meetings or light work away from home, and an 8" tablet for entertainment and the odd emergency ssh session (I can fix servers over ssh from my phone too, but it's not exactly a fun experience). The way I see it, there's no single form-factor that'll keep me happy, so I'd rather go for multiple. I don't think people will ever agree on a single screen size or what other specs actually matters (e.g. I do have an SSD in my laptop, but quickly realises it doesn't really matter what type of storage I have, because I boot, I start Chrome and a bunch of terminals + ssh sessions, and then I rarely touch disk again; meanwhile other people load and store massive files regularly)
- mi100hael 10y ago> For my part I have a 17" laptop that is almost exclusively for home office use, a 11" chromebook for meetings or light work away from home, and an 8" tablet for entertainment and the odd emergency ssh session (I can fix servers over ssh from my phone too, but it's not exactly a fun experience). 15" is perfect for all-around use. Plug in an external monitor or two and you won't notice the difference between 17", and it's still plenty portable in any bag that holds more than a tablet.
- vidarh 10y agoMaybe it is for you. It is not for me. I used a 15" for years, and I'll never use a 15" again. Plugging in an external monitor was a workaround that helped when I was at a desk, but much of the time I much prefer to have my laptop actually on my lap in a comfortable chair or on the couch, where external monitors is not an option. And it's still way too big for my travel needs. Yes, it fits in my bag, but I regularly have other things I want to take with me too. So back to my point: It depends on your usage pattern.
- jetti 10y agoI'm curious as to why you don't just have a desktop for home office. I wouldn't be able to use the 11" chromebook, especially coming from a 17" screen.
- gavi 10y agoApple should realize that most of its cash cow (iPhone) is due to Mac and developers are key to long term success.
- hodder 10y ago"most of its cash cow (iPhone) is due to Mac" Almost certainly untrue. Most iphone users are still Windows PC users. Yes the developer community is important to the iOS app lead, but most of that is due to the self selecting group of people who purchase iphones - people willing to pay for things.
- mishac 10y agoIt's more indirect than that: the apps exist because of Mac using developers. Without the developers having access to Xcode/Swift/etc the quality and number of apps would decline in favor of android.
- hueving 10y agoHow are they due to Mac? They outsell macs by an order of magnitude and most of the non developers I know with iPhones dont have macs. If the implication is that developers will stop writing apps for iPhones, that's highly unlikely because money is still in vogue.
- lazarus101 10y agogood ol' Microsoft FUD if they had numbers I see no reason why the wouldn't make them public
- gregmorton 10y agoMicrosoft means "than before Surface exists".
- wila 10y ago>Microsoft refuses to provide numbers but vaguely claims “our trade-in program for MacBooks was our best ever.” But wasn't it the first time they ever offered a trade-in for Macbooks? I just googled it and was not able to find old offers.
- kemiller2002 10y agoI'd be curious to see the real numbers: Again, Microsoft refuses to provide numbers but vaguely claims “our trade-in program for MacBooks was our best ever.” If you go from 5 trade ins to 7, you can site your best year ever. It doesn't mean you've made a dent. I can see that people are disappointed in the new MacBook, but there are very few I know that would just say "screw it, I'm switching platforms." Admittedly, my friends are mostly designers and developers, so it's a biased sample, but I'm a little skeptical about the numbers.
- Cthulhu_ 10y agoIt's definitely reminiscent of Apple's marketing language, calling everything the best ever. Which isn't technically wrong, but still.
- badloginagain 10y agoTrue, but seeing that trend upwards allows Microsoft to put more dollars towards developing Surface. I don't know if Microsoft has reached parity with Apple with professional development machines, but it does look like they've set themselves up to be a contender for next generations. With increased internal funding, they may actually achieve that goal.
- jlebrech 10y agothe surface studio looks great. i'd love them to come up with an IDE that takes advantage of touch. my proposal is: the basic structure of code is represented visually via an AST, i.e the folders,files,classes,method and public variables and public variables and constants. and they could tie in tests and have test show up within that space.
- FlyingSnake 10y agoThese PR pieces are getting funnier each day. Do people really want to switch from a rock-solid, sandboxed Unix to an inferior OS like Windows? Did people already forget the crazy days of regedit, zero app sandboxing, inconsistent installers, anti-viruses etc? I wish more people jumped ship to Linux instead of the Apple/Windows duopoly, but if wishes were horses...
- II2II 10y agoWindows of today is not the Windows of 10 years ago, and the Apple of today is not the Apple of 10 years ago. Windows has improved considerably over the past decade, while Apple has shifted away from the professional market. It is realistic to believe that at least some people would switch platforms.
- slantyyz 10y ago>> It is realistic to believe that at least some people would switch platforms. I know "Post-PC" is the more popular buzzword, but "Post-OS" is probably a good one to use. So much stuff is in the cloud these days that a lot of non-developers and non-creatives can probably use any OS these days without too much pain. I switched to Windows from Mac a couple of years ago, and honestly, I don't miss it much. I did have to write off a pile of Mac software purchases, but I found reasonably priced alternatives that work as well. If I get sick of Windows, I can easily transition to something else. Outside of some platform specific games, I can do just about everything I do now on another OS.
- vidarh 10y agoI detest Windows and much prefer Linux, but I have used OS X at work for years before, and caused it to crash regularly. Your experience will greatly depend on what applications you use and your usage pattern. I'd prefer more people switched to Linux too, but it's by no means certain that their experience would be better.
- rado 10y agoThat's why AAPL must become 10x worse before I think of switching. There is no alternative to macOS. I wonder if they realise it.
- artursapek 10y agoI believe it. I just abandoned Apple after years of loyalty. I looked hard at Surfaces and after considering them for a while I decided they weren't ready to be my main dev machine, so I went with a Thinkpad. But Microsoft is doing great stuff with its hardware lately.
- mi100hael 10y agoSame, I bailed for a Dell Precision this year, though I'm running Fedora, not Windows. Apple has steadily lost direction over the past 5 or so years and it shows. There's no way I'd buy a new laptop with nothing but USB-C, a headphone jack, and a million dongles.
- H4CK3RM4N 10y agoBut one TB3 port can run a dock with more ports than previous MacBooks.
- trome 10y agoSure, that is great, but even with prior generations of MacBooks dongles were a hinderance. I'd end up at the end of a conference with at least a couple mini-Displayport to VGA adapters from people who were presenting but forgot them for one reason or another, and I'd usually only be able to get 2/3rds of said dongles back to their rightful owners. With USB C at least for now, this will be a constant source of fustration for users who don't own a Google Pixel and have to deal with legacy hardware (everything else out on the market). That being said, USB C itself is great, Apple should adopt it on the iPhone.
- mgkimsal 10y agoI looked at a surface book last month, decided to stick one more cycle with the new MBP, but I was moderately tempted. Hardware looks and felt pretty good. Biggest drawback was window 10 itself - too many colleagues and clients still have daily issues with it (mostly unscheduled updates and downtime) - I don't want to deal with that right now. But if it shakes out and stabilizes in the next couple years, a Surface might be my day to day machine then.
- martijn_himself 10y agoI can't believe anyone using macOS for their professional workflow would consider switching to Windows 10 despite all the criticism leveled at Apple's hardware (most of which I think is totally justified). I use Windows professionally (for .NET development) and I think Windows 10 is still light-years behind, with an unstable, jarring OS experience full of bugs and niggles and unloved and underdeveloped touch interface. I would love the opportunity to move to macOS and iOS professionally. Fonts and UI rendering look awful on Windows compared to macOS, there is just no comparison.
- erokar 10y agoIf by "professional workflow" you mean programming, I agree. But I'd have no problem using Linux for that instead of MacOS. However, for many "professional workflow" means using the MS Office suite and a browser. For that use, Windows 10 is not only adequate but better than MacOS.
- H4CK3RM4N 10y agoI'd say that macOS tends to be more stable, and The office suite has an actual price instead of a shitty subscription model.
- johnward 10y agoThere are tools purposely missing from Mac like visio and project(?). I don't get why they are needed but my project manager does.
- Aldo_MX 10y agoDoes it have a price? The last time I checked it was free. OTOH, I don't see many professionals trusting Apple software in the long run (ex. Final Cut).
- jsjohnst 10y agoIt's only free to the original buyer of a new Mac since something like 4 - 5 years ago. If you've never bought a new Mac and registered it with your Apple ID, it's not free. I always thought it was free too, but learned otherwise recently from a colleague battling with it.
- JoeAltmaier 10y agoIf the market is growing, then every part of it may be growing including trade-ins. They may still be shrinking in market fraction. How would we know? We need numbers.
- nickbauman 10y agoI would consider a Surface if I could install Linux on it and it worked as well as a my System76. In fact I'm asking: is anyone out there doing this?
- toyg 10y agoWell, someone must be, since there is even a subreddit for it: https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/
- AlbertoGP 10y agoI'm writing this on a Surface Pro 3, and I've commented on it before: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9300927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9300927 I've been compiling the kernel since I got it, later figured out how to compile only the drivers I needed (specially the keyboard/touchpad) which was reduced over time as more and more drivers were built in. There was finally a guy that set up an Ubuntu PPA [1] repository from where you can install the whole package, and it was fine until last October when I decided to upgrade to Ubuntu 16.10. [1] https://launchpad.net/~tigerite/+archive/ubuntu/kernel https://launchpad.net/~tigerite/+archive/ubuntu/kernel For that version there is no PPA, and the kernel patches I had been using for the type cover did not work any more (they compile, just do not work). Then I re-installed 16.04 from scratch, but now the tigerite kernel does not boot because of some BTRFS crash (divide by zero) and the standard one only supports the Type Cover 3 keyboard: I have both the v3 and v4, and the later is much better and was working with both my patches and the tigerite kernel. There are ways to get the Type Cover v3 touchpad working by configuring xorg, but the patches are better because they work with the multitouch driver. The result is that right now I'm typing on a Lenovo Thinkpad Compact USB keyboard. :-\ In general I like this computer a lot, and nowadays almost everything works out of the box (including volume keys and both cameras) except the most crucial part, the type cover. The stylus and touchscreen worked fine from the first day. Suspend never worked, although it kind of did for a few months and now it's broken again. Hybernate should work but I did not do it because I would need to work around the encrypted swap. I had pledged for the Eve V tablet computer [2], a crowd-funded version which has a few interesting improvements, but I think I'll back down before the deadline because they said they can not support Linux, and I will not have time in the coming months to experiment with it. [2] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/eve-v-the-first-ever-crowd-developed-computer-laptop-tablet#/ https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/eve-v-the-first-ever-crow... This is quite a disorganized answer but I hope it'll be of use to you. I like the Surface Pro, but I'm tired of this back-and-forth getting the basics to work with Linux. At this point the v3 is not a cutting-edge computer any more, and it should be effortless to use it with Linux.
- delegate 10y agoI've resuscitated an older Windows PC, after years of exclusive OSX.. I've changed the CPU cooler (Intel Q9550), added an SSD drive - and my old PC is back up, with the SSD it has enough juice to do the tasks I need it for - run Visual Studio 2015, browsing ... plus I can also play some (older) games on it, which is a lot of fun. I miss the old days of being able to play with the hardware, buy new video or sound cards, overclock the CPU and so on. Years ago when I was using Windows 7 it seemed the best OS Microsoft has put out so far (and I think since). But after years of working on a mac, I have to say that Windows feels like a huge hack in comparison. There are countless UIs you have to access in order to configure the OS, all kinds of voodoo utilities, registry editor hacks and so on. Should I also mention the daily blue screen of death ? Probably my fault somehow, but still.. Yes yes, I remember.. this used to be the Windows experience - I used to liked that.. It was what made me an 'experienced' user. But I don't anymore. I'm not sure what the Windows experience is today, but I'm not eager to spend a lot of money to find that out... Of course I'm curious about the Surface hardware - but not as much as to accept an inferior OS experience. After all, these little things, the details, the polish, the smoothness ... they trickle down into the creative work that I do, they do influence me subconsciously.. all the time.
- canuckintime 10y agoYou're comparing apples to oranges. Your old 'revived' PC doesn't not represent the Surface signature experience which Microsoft designed to appeal to Mac users. Curious though: Who was the OEM for your PC and how much did you spend on it? How much was your Mac?
- Al-Khwarizmi 10y agoI think I have seen maybe 2 or 3 Windows BSODs in the last 5 years, and all of them due to hardware issues.
- daenney 10y agoSo according to Microsoft, based on their numbers, which they won't release, more people are trading in Macs for Surfaces than before. There's also no way of knowing if this claimed increase is in any way significant. I'm rather puzzled that even with this complete lack of data, which The Verge seems also skeptical about, they still decided to write an article about it.
- TheRealDunkirk 10y agoMaybe the focus on fake news about politics in the popular press will get people to wake up and realize that the problem has been worse, for longer, in the tech press?
- jsjohnst 10y agoUsers switching from macOS to Surface last year: 100 Users switching from macOS to Surface this year: 150 "Best year ever!" -- When companies say things like this and refuse to give actual sell through numbers, the above is what I think. I'm sure I'm not alone.
- Learn2win 10y agoHow to install Linux on a Surface was the first thing popped in my mind
- chx 10y agoOdd. Isn't the biggest complaint against the new Macbook Pro the lack of memory? There's no Surface with 32GB at this moment, is there? There are rumors of a Surface Book 2 next year with 4K and 32GB but nothing more than that.
- emehrkay 10y agoI played with the Surface Studio yesterday and it was a BEAUTIFUL machine. The screen was a lot thinner than I imagined, it was super sturdy, and just felt good in the hand. My experience fell apart with using the pen/my finger to navigate windows. I felt like I was double/triple clicking icons because I wasnt sure if my action registered or not. But once into photoshop (it was right on the desktop) the pen worked well. If I were to leave macOS as the os on my development machine, it definitely wouldn't be for Windows. I've heard people still have problems with *nix symlinks in their VM shared folders -- that is very minor, but it could cripple certain projects.
- actsasbuffoon 10y agoYeah, the stylus isn't very good. I bought a Surface Pro 4 tablet with a ~$500 discount which made it attractive. The device has some nice points, but compared to my Wacom Cintiq or even my Apple Pencil/iPad Pro combo, the stylus on the Surface is sub-par. The pressure sensitivity is weak, there's no tilt capability, and it frequently fails to capture clicks/strokes. The Surface type cover is definitely nicer than the keyboard cover for the iPad Pro though. MS did a nice job with that.
- chasing 10y ago'Microsoft still isn’t providing sales numbers, but the company claims “more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before.”' Maybe this article would be improved with a little journalism to maybe make an educated guess as to what these numbers might be? Something besides just retyping Microsoft's marketing press release?
- hockeybias 10y agoI started in the windows world decades ago and find macs awkward for both personal and professional use - probably because I am so used to Windows.
- satysin 10y agoA three paragraph "article" from Tom Warren at The Verge which sources a Microsoft blog post with zero numbers to back up their PR fluff.
- dak1 10y agoWithout numbers to put this into context it's a fairly meaningless claim.
- regularfry 10y agoWell, they would say that, wouldn't they?
- jaxn 10y agoI am one of them.
- TYPE_FASTER 10y agoWin10 is ok, but there are two things that have turned me off: 1. The "Start" menu (tiles) have ads in them by default. I do not like this. 2. Connected Standby is still in development. To view advanced power management settings, set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\CSEnabled to 0. If you are having connectivity issues on a Surface device, make this reg change, then reboot and uncheck "Allow the operating system to turn off" under the "Power Management" tab in the Marvell wifi adapter.
- coldtea 10y agoThey were 100.000. Now they are 200.000. 100% increase -- record rates. But totally inconsequential. (Numbers out of my ass, but without specifics, they are as good as the claim).
- xiaoma 10y agoIt's amazing. I used to hate Microsoft. I wasn't a programmer or even that technical but I still kept trying to use linux in college, I jumped on the reboot of Netscape/Firebird/Firefox, and I wrote a long essay comparing Bill Gates to a Robber Baron. But this past couple of years they've just improved their offerings, particularly those for devs, incessantly. I was kind of on the fence about VSC vs Atom a year and a half ago. Now it's not only far faster but also a significant boost in productivity. Ubuntu tools are available from inside Windows. Office, the very program I most used to love to hate, is killing it. I still have a macbook, but it's been gathering dust. The iMac 27" was my favorite computer I've owned but the Surface Studio has leapfrogged beyond it. Especially as a creative dev, it's hard to justify staying with Apple at this point.
- johnernaut 10y agoI'm one of the people that switched from a MacBook Pro to the new Surface Book. The ENTIRE experience was dreadful for me. The day I went into the Microsoft store to purchase it (Black Friday), their credit card system was down, so I had to wait around for nearly 2 hours until they finally figured things out. That wouldn't typically upset me, but my brother-in-law went through something similar just 2 weeks prior. Aside from that, the reps in the store were constantly trying to up-sell me on different items and get me to purchase other things throughout the store. This is something that is extremely irritating to me and something that I appreciated the reps at the Apple Store not doing. As far as the actual product goes - I found the trackpad to be lacking. It just FELT a bit buggy and non-responsive at times. I have yet to find a trackpad as solid as the ones that Apple ship. This became more apparent of time after using the product. Aside from the trackpad I don't have too many complaints, except for things that are of personal preference (I can't say I like the design / functionality of the snake hinge). I also realized, as mainly a pro user, that I don't have much use / need for the touch screen or tablet portion of the device. Needless to say, I ended up returning the device and buying the new touch-bar 15" MBP a few days ago. Aside from how annoying it is to locate / use the touch-based Esc key, it's a really solid device.
- fredley 10y agoTrackpads are one of the main things that other companies just can't get right, even on premium devices. Given how long ago Apple 'solved' trackpads, I'm amazed that the rest of the industry hasn't caught up.
- marrone12 10y agoI believe that Apple has patented a lot of what makes their touchpads so great, which makes it difficult for competitors to make an equivalent.
- jfoster 10y agoSamsung seemed to manage to do somewhat decent trackpads with their New Series 9 models, now discontinued in most parts of the world.
- bluedino 10y agoAt the local mall if you go to the Microsoft store you might find 15 people in there, very empty feeling. Meanwhile, there are probably 3-400 in the Apple store. >> More people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before. Our trade-in program for MacBooks was our best ever You could trade-up with up to $650 credit for your working MacBook Pro or Air. I'm assuming they were giving similar values as you would with Gazelle or another service.
- maneesh 10y agoNot in Boston. The Microsoft store consistently has more than the Apple Store...often a dozen people waiting in line as well to play the HTC vive and Xbox.
- dmalvarado 10y agoThe thing with that though is that you can buy a Surfacebook in a lot of different places. Macbook is mostly the Apple Store, or at least that is the perception. Ever notice how unbusy the Apple section at Best Buy is?
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoMaybe it's my own experience, but I've only ever see a surfacebook at the MS flagship store.
- lmm 10y agoI bought mine at John Lewis, FWIW.
- droithomme 10y agoI recently went back to Windows from macOS. Now I have many USB ports, a DVD burner, an ethernet port, an SD card slot, an HDMI output, a decent graphics card, expandability and compatibility. All things I'm not allowed to have on Macs any more. Mac fanboys tell me "You idiot, you don't need any of that stuff." Actually I do. They tell me "No you are wrong." No, that's not correct. They don't actually know more about my requirements than I do. The real question is what bedevils the fanatics to insist they know more than the real experts such as myself? They make their claims with no knowledge or information with the insistence and loudness of a fundamentalist religious fanatic. Exploring this strange phenomenon is even more interesting I think than wondering what laptop one should get.
- jimbokun 10y agoYeah, soldered RAM and SSD is criminal. As far as I can tell, only Mac allowing for RAM upgrades is iMac 5k and and MacPro. And iMac 5k doesn't allow disk upgrades.
- mei0Iesh 10y agoIt feels like Apple the PC is neglected for Apple the phone/tablet. If I'm looking for a mobile device, I'm looking at Apple. But for laptop and desktop, their offerings don't seem as great. The cloud approach is making it less necessary to keep the PC within the Apple ecosystem. iOS devices already don't have expandable storage, and most data ends up being on iCloud or other internet services.
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoIf you're doing full-cloud then a chromebook is the best value.
- jstsch 10y agoJust to chime in. Since the displeased are always loud. I got my maxed out TouchBar MBP 15" about two weeks ago and I'm really happy with it. It replaces a Mid-2010 MBP 17". It's light, fast and has a gorgeous screen. After a week, I even prefer the new thin keyboard versus the old. My external keyboard feels like trudging through mud. No trouble hitting the ESC-key on the touch bar. The context awareness of it is actually pretty great. For USB-connectivity I simply bought a few convertors on AliExpress for about 70 cents each. How often do I plug those in? Almost never. Everything is wireless these days. Except for those two 5K screens coming soon... but I wish Apple would release them for € 200 more with a nice alu bezel ;) or 5K iMacs with target display mode, that'd be fine too.
- TruthSHIFT 10y agoI'm glad you're having a good experience with the new MBP. However, I wouldn't plug a $.70 adapter into a $3000 computer. Maybe you should splurge and spend $10 on the Apple adapter.
- rcavezza 10y agoAlthough price can sometimes be an indicator of quality, it doesn't necessarily mean quality. I think this is especially true when the alternative higher priced product has a lot of "Brand Value" that can be attributed to the higher price.
- exhilaration 10y agoSince cheap USB-C cables and chargers are known for destroying laptops [1] I would heed the parent's advice. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11021665 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11021665
- mikestew 10y agoIn the case of Apple-branded adapters, it has been demonstrated time and again that they actually put some thought into their adapters so that your device or house do not catch on fire. Not so much with the $0.70 ones. Maybe, likely not, but hey, you saved $9.70 that you can apply to your home owners insurance premium!
- mythz 10y agoI decided to get a Surface Pro 4 instead of upgrading my Macbook Air for my casual/portable computing device as I thought the combined Keyboard/Tablet mode would be more useful than an Air. My initial impressions after the first few days use: - The Surface tablet Hardware has a nice build quality, but the Touch Pen doesn't register touches when it touches the screen you need to press down a little (unlike Apple's pencil). The Type Cover keyboard is wobbly when it's folded up so when I'm at a desk/flat surface I leave it completely flat as it's more sturdy. The touchpad is really small but I find myself using the touchscreen more so I don't notice it much. Otherwise the Type cover is usable, not as productive as a laptop keyboard, but more productive than a virtual keyboard. - It's pretty fast, especially for its small profile - The display is gorgeous, screen's a little small but it makes the device ultra portable. - User Account management is atrocious, I bought the Surface Pro as secondary ultra portable for my Wife and so creating a new User Account is one of the first things I tried to do but couldn't at all, it kept failing with the useless generic "Something went wrong" dialog. You're meant to sign in with your Hotmail and I couldn't add another Local or Internet account for my wife for over 36 hours! it kept failing with "Something went wrong". I really hate needing to use an Internet account or requiring an Internet connection to create User Accounts, I'd prefer to completely disable any notion of Internet/hotmail accounts for Windows 10, it "just works" in Chrome OS but is highly infuriating and unstable in Windows 10. It still didn't let me add any Users after a complete reset, I had to wait 36 hours for that luxury. - They have this "Hello" face recognition where it's able to log you in without entering a password which was a nice surprise and works pretty well. - You now get annoying ads on your Lock Screen - You also get nagged trying to keep you using Edge when trying to switch default browser to Chrome - The AppStore is also unreliable, I couldn't install 2/4 Apps on the App Store Home Page (Halo and Planner 5D). Just failed with "Error, see details" with details being an empty dialog saying "Something went wrong". The Netflix App stopped loading after a 2nd restart (just an empty black screen) even after completely killing/restarting the App multiple times, only a full OS restart could get it working again. This experience falls way short of any of Apple's App Stores which "just work". - Win 10 Apps aren't that great, the Facebook App is fairly polished but lacks feature parity with Website, Twitter's App is worse than its website, Netflix is the only Win 10 App I'm using over their website - Win 10 isn't a great OS for touch, the icons are too small, took me a few goes trying to open a folder in VS which VS thought I wanted to move the folder, so you'll try using the touchscreen first than if it fails fallback to using the small touchpad. - Within 3 hours of a new install I got by first BSOD, I installed VS 2017 beta with Docker + Hyper V. Docker for Windows refused to install the first time and crashes on Startup, I also couldn't run an empty .NET Core + Docker template, hand a number of build errors saying it couldn't find "System" namespace. The empty .NET Core Web App worked. In the end I uninstalled VS2017 beta, I'll try again in the next release. These software issues happened after installing all Window updates. It was surprisingly buggy, I'd expect a hardware/software controlled device to be rock solid but the Surface was the most unreliable computing device I've owned. In summary the Surface Pro4 tablet hardware is nice, quite thin for being able to run full Windows but also gets noticeably hot after a while (unlike iPad), has great display, Touch Pen isn't as solid as an Apple Pencil also its unproductive switching between Finger Touch and Touch Pen but the finger registration is good so I'm only using the Touch Pen for drawing apps. Overall it's not as productive as a Macbook or as useful as a tablet than an iPad, so definitely not a Macbook or iPad killer, but has a useful niche as a secondary portable Windows 10 device. It's software unreliability issues and stupid User account management means I could never recommend it as on option to my parents who love and spend most of their time on their iPads and use iMac + Chrome OS for more heavy duty tasks - which are automatically backed up and have both been virus free for years which we're both happy about.
- outworlder 10y agoInterestingly, the Surface Book does not have USB-C. I excluded it from my search because of that. Currently, the choice at that price point is either full USB-C or no USB-C.
- lmm 10y agoThere are options with a bit of both - I think some of the HP Envy line?
- agumonkey 10y agoApple is losing ground, and this time it's not Steve's fault. I'll be sure to follow Apple when it will fall just so I can see the third coming of Christ. This time Steve will have to revolutionize resurrection; it's been 2000 years since the last innovation in that field.
- folch 10y agoI wouldn't be surprised, considering I was a die-hard Apple user for 15+ years until about three years ago. After owning virtually every Mac from the iMac G3 to the last iMac, with the exception of the new MacPro and the eMac (lol), I will never purchase another Apple product for myself. That said, I am in charge of purchasing computers for an Architectural firm which insists on buying these computers - they claim clients expect to see Apple products during visits to display the company as "avant-garde", which, to me, just confirms the snobbery behind it. I now use my Windows desktop for heavy work, carry a laptop with Fedora, Android Tablet for meetings, and have an old MacPro which I'm 'forced' to use for Sketch; I would argue that if it wasn't for the popularity of Mac-only design software like Principle and Sketch, there would be no reason to use OSX anymore outside of the GUI. To be fair, Apple computers are still a good choice for teenagers, senior citizens and/or Interaction Designers, but I can't think of any reason a professional outside of Video Editing or Design would opt for a Mac.
- dandare 10y agoI for one am very excited about PR articles like this. It is not worth much but it may be that proverbial drop in a full glass to persuade Apple to release new upgrade to MBP much sooner than it otherwise would.
- TruthSHIFT 10y agoApple would love to release an upgraded MBP. Unfortunately, Intel's lack of support for low-power RAM is holding them back: https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/21/phil-schiller-again-breaks-down-why-new-macbook-pro-is-limited-to-16gb-ram-citing-battery-logic-board-design/ https://9to5mac.com/2016/11/21/phil-schiller-again-breaks-do...
- jimbokun 10y agoNo numbers, so no way to evaluate how significant this is. For the record, just played with the TouchBar in the Apple Store, and think it's super cool. Also love the humongous track pad, and believe USB-C support will explode in the near future. So I'm curious to see sales numbers for Surface vs. the new MacBook Pros. Might be more "switchers" to Surface, but also a big increase in MacBook Pro sales overall.
- pdimitar 10y agoAs a guy who uses the top bar of keys a lot, I wouldn't buy the new MBPs even for $500. IMO that was a foolhardy decision; Macs are (were?) very popular amongst designers and programmers, why limit the accessibility of the keyboard? Do you realize how many strokes on the Esc key a VIM-using dev does per day? It's as if Apple doesn't care about the professional audience anymore. They should've offered a "touch bar" and "normal bar" variants for their laptops IMO.
- gerrard00 10y agoMost Vim users I talk to have remapped CapsLock or another set of keys to escape, since the escape key is so far away. I personally use `jk` since I rarely write anything with Dutch names.
- pdimitar 10y ago(1) I can remap Esc of course, but I shouldn't have to. (2) I also use F1-F12 often. Them being gone and replaced by touch interface is awful for an experienced typist.
- jimbokun 10y agoHow much of Apple's sales do you think go to vim users? And they do have a normal bar variant of the 13", although that might go away when prices come down. Lastly, your argument sounds similar to me to the people who vowed they would never give up their physical phone keyboards. I don't think they made much impact on Apple's iPhone sales. Seems your top priority is preserving what you are comfortable with. My gut feeling is potential for better interfaces no one has even thought of yet for Touch Bar is immense.
- akulbe 10y agoI tried to like it. I have my Surface Book sitting here next to me. Windows 10 is much better than previous versions, and I like the direction MS seems to be moving. That said, I feel like in spite of how nice a machine the Surface Book is, QA is still sorely lacking on Windows 10. "Sleep of Death" (google it) and working in *nix 99.99% of the time is what killed it for me. Trying to make the workflow work, it's just too painful, compared to working from my MBP. New MBP touch on order. Should get here next week.
- lmm 10y ago> working in *nix 99.99% of the time is what killed it for me Have you tried their Linux on Windows thing? I find that works really well, better than using nix on mac in fact: you have real apt-get and it all just works.
- akulbe 10y agoYes, and it's still not production-ready, in my opinion. Ruby gems are still problematic, for example. They're working on it, but it's not there yet. Oh yeah... and to the part of your comment where you say it works even better than on a Mac? Not even close. The Mac works so much better than WSL, it's not even funny. Like I said... they're working on it but it's not there yet. :)
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- bitmapbrother 10y agoDid they ever solve that "very hard computer science problem" with power management on the Surface Book? I don't think I've ever heard of a more condescending excuse to give to your customers than that.
- mikesickler 10y agoJust my experience, but a relatively recent (late summer?) OS update must have fixed it. Since then, I haven't had any problems with my SP4 not waking from sleep.
- ebbv 10y agoUhh it's a new product record rates doesn't really mean anything.
- pmarreck 10y agoInsecurity: Look at this handful of people moving from my competitor's highly-regarded product to my promising but flawed one! It's more than ever before!
- iLoch 10y agoMy Mac just went belly up - a software corruption in my encrypted partition has rendered Mac OSX unusable. I took it to Apple, they spent over an hour throwing every piece of software they had at it. Their own diagnostic tools were freezing up from this issue. The tests that did run indicated no problem with the physical hardware, and indeed Windows runs flawlessly. So their totally shit software destroyed itself and they don't have the tools to fix it. Now they're recommending forensic recovery and of course they won't pay the $500-1000 for that. I think I'll be sticking with Windows from now on.
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoIt's nice that they spent a hour trying to recover your software. How much did they charge for that? Now see what happens when you encounter a similar issue with another manufacturer. I'm sure they'll have people dedicated to fixing it for free. Backups in OSX are extremely easy. The easiest I've ever seen. I can reinstall from my encrypted USB hard drive with just a few clicks. It comes online exactly how it was when the backup was taken! And I can choose from daily snapshots going back more than a year!
- shiftpgdn 10y agoI am a Surface convert after Apple discontinued OS support and updates for my still powerful, healthy, relatively new Macbook. Surface is much more flexible and provides a greater degree of customization. It is the perfect hybrid between and tablet and a laptop device. I'm just as comfortable using it as a consumption device on the couch as I am using it as a production device on a desk. It really feels like Apple has become more and more hostile to the "production" crowd as a means of catering to the consumption crowd. I love their hardware but the company and it's attitude towards customers can take a hike.
- matt_wulfeck 10y agoWhat do you mean by "attitude towards customers"? This has always been a selling point for me. Especially if I have an issue with a device, I can get it solved quickly without being made to feel stupid by a CSR.
- eddieroger 10y agoWhich MacBook are you using that you consider "relatively new," but Apple stopped supporting? In my experiences with Apple, support has gone on for years, and in the case of my original iBook, a full decade. It has gotten shorter over the last few years, but Sierra officially supports computers from 2009, which after 7 years I don't consider new any more.
- slantyyz 10y agoAFAIK, the 2011 MBPs are no longer supported for hardware repairs (although they will run the latest OS). Maybe that's what the parent is referring to? FWIW, the 15" 2011 MBPs with the i7 quad cores, GPU issues aside, are still pretty fast when compared to the latest Macs using the ultrabook CPUs.
- djrogers 10y ago> AFAIK, the 2011 MBPs are no longer supported for hardware repairs (although they will run the latest OS). Maybe that's what the parent is referring to? The GGP specifically stated that "Apple discontinued OS support and updates". This is either incorrect, or the GGP has a very different definition of "relatively new" than I do - with 7 year old hardware being supported on Sierra, he'd have to be talking about something 8+ years old...
- nilkn 10y agoI tried to make this switch because I bought into all the online criticism of the new MBP. The build quality was very lacking compared to the new MBP. The screen wobbled like crazy even when just typing on it. The model I was using had a really horrible display with active ghosting (not sure if that's the correct term -- it appeared that the refresh rate was just very low, so moving the cursor around or dragging a window would leave a sort of "ghost trail" behind). It's possible this was just a defective display. The trackpad was nowhere near as good as I was led to believe from online comments. It wasn't horrible, but multitouch gesture recognition felt years behind Apple's. Leaving a finger resting on the trackpad would break all kinds of gestures, but Apple's trackpads handle that just fine. I also didn't realize how nice the Force Touch trackpads are until I went back to a hinge-based trackpad where you can't even click everywhere. Windows 10 is a big advance over previous versions, and I use it extensively on my desktop at home. However, the experience with a touchpad didn't feel anywhere nearly as polished as on my MacBook. Using trackpad gestures to slide between virtual desktops for instance had a very janky and obviously buggy animation. Windows now has the Ubuntu subsystem, but I immediately ran into serious dealbreaker issues. I couldn't get Haskell or Elm to run on it because a core system call hadn't been implemented yet. The team is aware of it and I'm sure it's slated to be fixed soon, but I still couldn't do my work on the laptop without firing up a VM or dual booting. I never used the touch screen and never felt the need to detach the screen and use it as a tablet. The aspect ratio of the screen also bothered me. I'm now using the much hated 2016 MBP with Touch Bar and am extremely happy with the purchase.
- dmix 10y agoI never used my XPS touchscreen at first but I slowly started to and now I find myself using it at least once a day. Usually when I'm on the couch browsing websites or watching a movie and need to pause it. I'd personally love to try out a laptop that converts. But I guess the use-case in question in this thread is for professional usage where I haven't found utility.
- KirinDave 10y ago> The screen wobbled like crazy even when just typing on it. It sounds to me like you had a somewhat defective model. That said, the surface book is not the best physical laptop computer and will always be less stable than a standard hinge laptop. > Windows now has the Ubuntu subsystem, but I immediately ran into serious dealbreaker issues. I couldn't get Haskell or Elm to run on it because a core system call hadn't been implemented yet. The team is aware of it and I'm sure it's slated to be fixed soon, but I still couldn't do my work on the laptop without firing up a VM or dual booting. Why not just use Powershell and the windows builds? They work fine. Powershell isn't going to kill you. But it's also weird, because I got GHC to compile just fine.
- mythz 10y agoI decided to get a Surface Pro 4 instead of upgrading my Macbook Air for my casual/portable computing device as I thought the combined Keyboard/Tablet mode would be more useful than an Air. My initial impressions after the first few days use: - The Surface tablet Hardware has a nice build quality, but the Touch Pen doesn't register touches when it touches the screen you need to press down a little (unlike Apple's pencil). The Type Cover keyboard is wobbly when it's folded up so when I'm at a desk/flat surface I leave it completely flat as it's more sturdy. The touchpad is really small but I find myself using the touchscreen more so I don't notice it much. Otherwise the Type cover is usable, not as productive as a laptop keyboard, but more productive than a virtual keyboard. - It's pretty fast, especially for its small profile - The display is gorgeous, screen's a little small but it makes the device ultra portable. - User Account management is atrocious, I bought the Surface Pro as secondary ultra portable for my Wife and so creating a new User Account is one of the first things I tried to do but couldn't at all, it kept failing with the useless generic "Something went wrong" dialog. You're meant to sign in with your Hotmail and I couldn't add another Local or Internet account for my wife for over 36 hours! it kept failing with "Something went wrong". I really hate needing to use an Internet account or requiring an Internet connection to create User Accounts, I'd prefer to completely disable any notion of Internet/hotmail accounts for Windows 10, it "just works" in Chrome OS but is highly infuriating and unstable in Windows 10. It still didn't let me add any Users after a complete reset, I had to wait 36 hours for that luxury. - They have this "Hello" face recognition where it's able to log you in without entering a password which was a nice surprise and works pretty well. - You now get annoying ads on your Lock Screen - You also get nagged trying to keep you using Edge when trying to switch default browser to Chrome - The AppStore is also unreliable, I couldn't install 2/4 Apps on the App Store Home Page (Halo and Planner 5D). Just failed with "Error, see details" with details being an empty dialog saying "Something went wrong". The Netflix App stopped loading after a 2nd restart (just an empty black screen) even after completely killing/restarting the App multiple times, only a full OS restart could get it working again. This experience falls way short of any of Apple's App Stores which "just work". - Win 10 Apps aren't that great, the Facebook App is fairly polished but lacks feature parity with Website, Twitter's App is worse than its website, Netflix is the only Win 10 App I'm using over their website - Win 10 isn't a great OS for touch, the icons are too small, took me a few goes trying to open a folder in VS which VS thought I wanted to move the folder, so you'll try using the touchscreen first than if it fails fallback to using the small touchpad. - Within 3 hours of a new install I got by first BSOD, I installed VS 2017 beta with Docker + Hyper V. Docker for Windows refused to install the first time and crashes on Startup, I also couldn't run an empty .NET Core + Docker template, hand a number of build errors saying it couldn't find "System" namespace. The empty .NET Core Web App worked. In the end I uninstalled VS2017 beta, I'll try again in the next release. These software issues happened after installing all Window updates. It was surprisingly buggy, I'd expect a hardware/software controlled device to be rock solid but the Surface was the most unreliable computing device I've owned. In summary the Surface Pro4 tablet hardware is nice, quite thin for being able to run full Windows but also gets noticeably hot after a while (unlike iPad), has great display, Touch Pen isn't as solid as an Apple Pencil also its unproductive switching between Finger Touch and Touch Pen but the finger registration is good so I'm only using the Touch Pen for drawing apps. Overall it's not as productive as a Macbook or as useful as a tablet than an iPad, so definitely not a Macbook or iPad killer, but has a useful niche as a secondary portable Windows 10 device. It's software unreliability issues and stupid User account management means I could never recommend it as on option to my parents who love and spend most of their time on their iPads and use iMac + Chrome OS for more heavy duty tasks - which are automatically backed up and have both been virus free for years which we're both happy about.
- rch 10y agoI borrowed an i7 Surface Book to work on a project, and couldn't imagine making it my primary laptop. The worst part was having friends constantly share tips for making Windows approximate a *nix environment... I'd need to rethink everything from a Windows click-menu-checkbox perspective to make it work.
- hesdeadjim 10y agoI'm stuck working in Windows 10 right now due to VR only being supported by it. I spent around 8 hours getting AutoHotkey set up so that most of my shortcuts are back to Mac versions (I use mac keyboard, just can't beat it). The last missing link was Linux Subsystem for Windows. I now use my standard Vim setup and besides being limited to 16 colors (ugh), everything mostly just works. I'd switch back to Mac given the choice, but the embarrassingly bad hardware specs make it a complete no-go for game development. Edit: I also use Cmder to give me a very capable console window.
- mikewhy 10y agoCare to share your AHK script? Here's mine: https://gist.github.com/mikew/18a0e5c6f6bdbf1bb3be0a9cfa3b5df8 https://gist.github.com/mikew/18a0e5c6f6bdbf1bb3be0a9cfa3b5d...
- hesdeadjim 10y agoOf course, here's mine: https://gist.github.com/justonia/caf8c8a794d5252e8dbc149d4578631d https://gist.github.com/justonia/caf8c8a794d5252e8dbc149d457... I also added a .reg file that lets me right click on an .ahk file and get a menu item to run as administrator.
- whazor 10y agoBesides the hardware, do not forget the absence of Vulkan and latest versions of OpenGL.
- mark_l_watson 10y agoI bought a very inexpensive HP Stream 11 a few years ago to experiment with Windows 10, and I think Microsoft has generally improved the environment a lot. After a few months of experimenting with Windows 10, I put Ubuntu on this laptop, and I use it while traveling. That said, I had to buy a new laptop last month and after almost getting a Surface Pro + keyboard, I ended up with a MacBook. I decided that I didn't want to change my workflow (writing, programming in Haskell, Java, various Lisps). However, I will carefully evaluate Microsoft laptops (purchased from Microsoft: signature editions don't have crap-ware on them) in a few years when I need another laptop.
- bobjordan 10y agoI've been on Macbook pros since 2010, had a few of them by now, my latest is a retina 2013 with an i7, 8gb ram, 500GB hard drive. When surface book came out last year I bought one, with i7, 16GB ram, dedicated video card, 500GB hard drive. I really fell in love with drawing on my surface book with sketchbook pro, also great is fact that solidworks runs well on it, and finally windows 10 is much improved. Throw in the new linux subsystem on Windows 10 and general opensource embrace these days, altogether it is really more interesting to use my Surfacebook vs my MBP. It certainly feels like Microsoft is on the rise while Apple is on the decline. Further, I'm honestly excited to read about the upcoming Windows 10 phones that can run full desktop programs.
- mattlevan 10y agoIf anything, it sure is nice to see that Microsoft might actually begin to become a real Apple competitor again. Competition is good!
- mikekij 10y agoMisleading title. Any rate >0 may be a record rate.
- bitmapbrother 10y agoIf they really are switching to the Surface at "Record Rates" then why don't they provide the numbers to back up their claim instead of using superfluous headlines to prop up their ailing product? It's reminiscent of Apple's tired old line of Android users switching to iPhones in record numbers yet the smartphone OS market share reports never really seem to reflect that. I switched from Windows to a Mac about a year ago and found macOS to be a refreshing change from Windows in terms of UI, polish, usability, privacy, app quality and security. Those people switching, that have never experienced Windows, better prepare themselves for the world of hurt that awaits them.
- swingbridge 10y ago"Record rates" just means "more than before" but it can be, and likely is, still just a small number that's mostly noise in the data so far as Apple is concerned.
- anjc 10y agoI switched from an MBP to an SP3 and I could never ever switch back. It's the best tech purchase I've ever made. It has its quirks for sure, but using my MBP now feels almost claustrophobic due to the limitations (evidenced by the fingerprints on its screen). What made me switch was the realisation that using my iPad for productivity reasons would've been useful - even just for typing a document with a keyboard - but actually trying to use it was like a sick joke perpetuated by Apple. So I got an SP3 to fill that gap, and within a week my iPad, MBP and desktop were all useless to me.
- JustSomeNobody 10y agoWhy is this on HN? There are NO NUMBERS to back up such a click-baity claim.
- shmerl 10y agoIn my experience, quite a lot of MacOS refugees who are upset with its stagnation are switching to Linux.
- krob 10y agoNot sure I've read anything about this, it always seems to be going on year round, especially when toolsets become increasing difficult to work with exclusively on mac. vmware fusion on mac is pretty piss poor, amount of ram on a mac laptop is usually the biggest concern I'd have for doing virtualization or setting up a bunch of vm's for simulating deployments, 16gb vs say 32 & 64gb ram configurations on newer laptops is a huge deal in my opinion towards migrating away from macos.
- shmerl 10y agoWell, MacOS was experiencing bit rot for quite a while already, especially in areas where Apple simply completely abandoned it. Having a paranoid control from Apple in combination with its indifference bit MacOS users hard. Example: https://www.winehq.org/wwn/404#Direct3D%2011%20development https://www.winehq.org/wwn/404#Direct3D%2011%20development > An open issue with anything newer than Direct3D9 is that wined3d still depends on legacy OpenGL 2 features and many drivers do not expose some features necessary for d3d10/11 in legacy contexts. With the MaxVersionGL key set wined3d will request a core context, but certain blitting corner cases are still broken. Mesa and the Nvidia binary driver mostly work. On MacOS you are most likely out of luck.
- xenihn 10y agoI was set on getting a new 15" MBP to replace my late 2013 model, and I put aside just over $2k for one. Sadly, after prices came out, I would have been spending $3k minimum after taxes for what I wanted. I looked into buying a used 2014 or 2015 instead. When I looked into the actual spec difference, the biggest upgrade for me would have been going from 8GB to 16GB of RAM, since the integrated GPU (Iris Pro) is the same, and the CPU performance upgrade is minimal. The idea of spending $1100ish on a used MBP and then having to sell my current laptop (probably spending $500-600 total) just to upgrade my RAM was so offputting, so I held off. I ended up building a mini-ITX hackintosh instead. It turned out great -- the new UEFI method is so much better than the old way, since you can update with no risk of breaking your drivers, and upgrade without a full reinstall. I also just found out we're all getting loaded 2016 15" MBPs at work, so I'm glad I didn't go through with either of my first two considerations.
- sulam 10y agoUntil I see actual numbers I take any advertising material like this with a hefty grain (nugget?) of salt. As far as we know they went from 1000 people using the trade-in program last year to 5000 using it this year. Yes, a big uptick, but not necessarily meaningful until we get to larger numbers. I've seen/used the Surface and honestly it's a lot like the iPad Pro in that it feels like the sort of computer I'd happily hand to someone who doesn't actually need a PC, but I'd hate to have it be my development experience. The Surface is a bit more full-featured due to it having less of a sandboxed app model, but it's underpowered for the stuff I do with a computer. On the other hand the new MBP is pretty good. It has some annoyances (USB-C annoys me once every couple weeks so far, and the keyboard takes getting used to), but it's fast, light, and has a beautiful display. And I can run everything on it that I need to.
- edko 10y agoI switched from a MacBook Pro to a Dell XPS 13 (Kaby Lake i7). From a hardware point of view, it is an excellent machine, and I do not miss Apple at all. What I do miss terribly is macOS.
- adrianlmm 10y agoGood for MS, Surface is really a wonderful device.
- uncletaco 10y agoI bought a Surface Book recently and it has been a mixed bag. On one hand there's Windows' horrid display scaling issues. Hooking the Surface Book into an external HD monitor means dealing with blurry fonts and inconsistant scaling on some apps. Not entirely Microsoft's fault but its still a concern. On the other, I really like marking up documents and drawing sketches on the screen. The machine is fairly solid and a joy to type on and use on a day-to-day basis. Like others have said, the trackpad has taken some getting used to. It feels less "solid" than my 2011 MBP's, and it's definitely more limited than the MBP's. It doesn't handle palm rejection as well as I'd like, and the swipe to go back gesture is inconsistent across applications. There are other issues too. Flux fucks with things; when I use it things get sluggish as the screen begins to warm. I've recently gone ahead and uninstalled it. Sometimes when I press the Windows key to bring up the Start search the search bar doesn't register the keyboard. Detaching and reattaching sometimes confuses the machine and it doesn't know whether to drop into tablet mode or return to desktop mode. Despite that, if someone reads this in the future, I will say I overall enjoy the machine. I really like what Microsoft is trying to do in terms of bridging the gap between devices like tablets and traditional PCs. My girlfriend and I both like doodling on it, it plays older games good enough with its dGPU, and it's battery life is superb. So I'd recommend it as a great prosumer device.
- mafuyu 10y agoYeah, Windows 10 is a huge improvement but there are still some hairy parts. I've run into the search issue as well, and resolved it by tweaking some options in "Adjust the appearance and performance of Windows". I believe it was the "Animations in the taskbar" option, but I'm not 100%. Flux also destroys your framerate when it transitions. I tend to just launch it when I need it and set it to always be tinted. The touch and pen support is fantastic, though, and has become second nature to me for web browsing and note taking. I've also more or less been able to recreate a Linux-like development workflow with Windawesome[0], cmder[1], chocolatey[2], and qutebrowser[3]. Msys in cmder gives me the unix-like terminal I need while still being able to run Windows-native utilities, and things I install from chocolatey like git, ag, and vim are added to the cmder PATH and just work. Bash for Windows has been quite nice as well. [0] https://windawesome.codeplex.com/ https://windawesome.codeplex.com/ [1] http://cmder.net/ http://cmder.net/ [2] https://chocolatey.org/ https://chocolatey.org/ [3] https://qutebrowser.org https://qutebrowser.org
- thearn4 10y agoI have been looking at making the switch to another kind of laptop too (I'm still running a 2012 MBA as a personal machine, 2013 MBP at work, and a Win10 desktop for gaming). I've test driven a few, but still haven't committed to something. For now, my macbooks are still doing pretty well (though the MBA is feeling low on RAM these days). I know I'll find it tough to give up their trackpads, assuming another vendor has not successfully copied their feel within the next year or two.
- amerkhalid 10y agoThis might be right place to ask; has anyone been using SP4 (not Surface Book) as their main dev machine? I am debating between 13 inch MBP or SP4. I can get SP4 with same specs as MBP for significantly cheaper. But of course, it may not be as productive as MBP.
- tluyben2 10y agoHow is the battery life on the Surface book/pro? All I about it sounds pretty horrible. Especially compared to the 2011 X220s I use all the time, which have 15+ hours I wonder what people really get from these MS things. I don't really care about the OS, but the last Macbook Pro's I bought had crap battery life; the best was the Air 11 inch for me but they don't make that anymore...
- iwritestuff 10y agoI know it's popular on HN and Reddit to bash the MBP, but could be just me.. I love my new 2016 MBP 15". Haven't experienced any issues with battery life. Use it to program on and have been very satisfied with it.
- ocdtrekkie 10y agoOne of the things I've noticed that's pretty huge is that a lot of Mac-exclusive apps like Affinity and Tower have recently made full native Windows versions in the last few months. Developers who felt their customer base resided entirely or primarily on Mac seem to feel there's a market on Windows for artists and developers that there hadn't been before.
- mf2hd 10y agoI moved to OSX a couple of years ago. I was really surprised that the extra buttons on my Logitech mouse doesn't work at all, ok, I bought SteerMouse, now it works. I use every app in full size window, sometimes two apps side-by-side. On windows it was really easy, on Mac it's painful. So I bought an app for that, Cinch. I want a tiny calendar in the corner with the weeknumber in it, I had to download Itsycal (which is at least free). The bar can be a real mess so I bought Bartender, worked fine, I could even hide the spotlight icon. Then I upgraded to El Capitan, and guess what, you can't hide the spotlight anymore, so I had to buy Bartender 2 because they claimed you can hide icons without disabling SIP (https://www.macbartender.com/system-item-setup/ https://www.macbartender.com/system-item-setup/). But it turned out it's not working for spotlight... Thanks Bartender! Ah, the mess when you plugin an external display, how fckd up is that! My carefully fullsized windows are all resized and moved around to some random position. No worries, there is an app for that! It's called Stay, it can save the position of the windows, but you have to do it for every possible screen combination. If you have one external display, you have to save the window positions three times: internal display only, external only, both. If you happen to using the same MacBook with two external displays (at work and at home), now you have to do this a total 6 times. And it stores the window position on per app basis, so usually I open everything and save them all. On Windows this whole problem just doesn't exists. I can't turn off the internal display, there is no way to just do a windows+p and chose external display only like on windows. I have to close the lid (so now I can't use the keyboard) and wake it up because now it's sleeping. Great. I always turn off every animation, doing this on windows is easy, but it's really painful on OSX, and every time you upgrade you have to do it again, and sometimes the same terminal commands just doesn't work, thanks Apple. And you can't turn off everything, basically this is why I don't use the fullscreen functionality and multiple desktops. Every time I use my desktop pc, I feel like when I was a kid and we upgraded our old 300 mhz computer to a 1 ghz one with a 3d card. After mountain lion I regret every single upgrade. So for me El Capitan is the last, my next computer will be an Alienware 13 with 32 GB ram and GTX 1060 and an OLED screen and it will be still cheaper than a MacBook Pro.
- iuguy 10y ago> Microsoft still isn’t providing sales numbers, but the company claims “more people are switching from Macs to Surface than ever before.” How bad does journalism have to get before it's indistinguishable from fake news? Surely MS knows how many people are switching from Macs to surface compared to a previous period? Surely a journalist can push for figures?