4 ms·

Try a Surface? The Surface Book is the best laptop I've ever owned. Biggest complaint I see, though, is that it doesn't have USB C yet; which I guess you don

Try a Surface? The Surface Book is the best laptop I've ever owned. Biggest complaint I see, though, is that it doesn't have USB C yet; which I guess you don't care about.

nneonneo 9y ago
The Surface Book has had an absolute _pile_ of firmware issues. I have had two (obtained from Microsoft as prizes) and both have been buggy messes. One just refused to undock about 50% of the time, necessitating a reboot to restore undock functionality. No firmware updates ever arrived to fix it, and Microsoft support was absolutely useless on the matter. I sold the other, and the new owner reported that it often woke up for no reason while closed, resulting in massive battery drain and a warm backpack. Also a known issue with no fix, and Microsoft support apparently didn't help either. (They decided to just "wait it out"; I sold it to them without unboxing it so I didn't know it had issues) Also, touching on the touchscreen while in "laptop" mode was almost as bad as trying to touch the old Surfaces with the touch keyboard - the hinge strength is quite weak and the top is heavy, resulting in a significant amount of wobble. (Cue "it's not supposed to be used like that"). You get good experiences and bad ones, but the Surface Books have been more aggravating than not in my case.
- reboog711 9y ago
  The Surface Book had a ton of issues on launch; but those were worked out within the first six months. I haven't had a docking / undocking issue in ages. I would expect a Surface Book purchased today to work without all those launch issues.
- misingnoglic 9y ago
  I had to return two surface books, but the third was pretty good
gamad 9y ago
I'm also a big fan of the Surface (and Windows 10, too!). We went from Mac to Windows and I have no regrets. (It was the desktop / high-end that pushed me over. No good "pro" option on the desktop.)
- valuearb 9y ago
  The 5k iMac isn't a good pro option?
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Not with the GPU / CPU offering they have.
    - gamad 9y ago
      Exactly right. We do accurate-color work so I need a wide-gamut monitor I can calibrate. And we need NVidia "Pro" cards (with FP16 full-speed) support. The Mac "faithful" will tell you can can jerry-rig a side-car box and run your GPU cards over USB-C, but that's flakey and slow.
jrs95 9y ago
The Surface Book design is just silly to me. By putting the CPU in the display they've limited it's CPU performance a lot. A 13" MBP will outperform it on CPU bound tasks. It has 28W TDP processors instead of 15W like the Surface Book (and the Surface Pro).
- bryik 9y ago
  If they put the CPU in the keyboard, it wouldn't be able to detach.
  - jrs95 9y ago
    Why does it need to detach? The battery life without the keyboard is awful, and the firmware that supports this is pretty buggy.
eanzenberg 9y ago
But then you have to use windows... :< :< :<
- steanne 9y ago
  no you don't! https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/
  - synicalx 9y ago
    I think I just need to draw everyone's attention to this little parable on why shoehorning Linux into things isn't always a good idea - http://i.imgur.com/znJEV92.png http://i.imgur.com/znJEV92.png
    - jaxn 9y ago
      I use WSL every day for development. It has gotten really solid.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  For many of us that is an advantage.
- reboog711 9y ago
  Go with what you know... To me, I've used Windows for >20 years and it is the devil I know. Windows 10 is fantastic. My attempt to convert to a Mac / OSX machine was just a confused mess that I abandoned. Like they go out of their way to do things different. [I'm not sure if they 'they' in the last sentence is Apple or Microsoft]. One thing I never got used to was that the mouse scroll wheel detection was reversed between the two OSes. And I had lots more crash problems on the Mac than I ever did on Windows.

Try a Surface? The Surface Book is the best laptop I've ever owned. Biggest complaint I see, though, is that it doesn't have USB C yet; which I guess you don't care about.

nneonneo 9y ago

The Surface Book has had an absolute _pile_ of firmware issues. I have had two (obtained from Microsoft as prizes) and both have been buggy messes. One just refused to undock about 50% of the time, necessitating a reboot to restore undock functionality. No firmware updates ever arrived to fix it, and Microsoft support was absolutely useless on the matter. I sold the other, and the new owner reported that it often woke up for no reason while closed, resulting in massive battery drain and a warm backpack. Also a known issue with no fix, and Microsoft support apparently didn't help either. (They decided to just "wait it out"; I sold it to them without unboxing it so I didn't know it had issues) Also, touching on the touchscreen while in "laptop" mode was almost as bad as trying to touch the old Surfaces with the touch keyboard - the hinge strength is quite weak and the top is heavy, resulting in a significant amount of wobble. (Cue "it's not supposed to be used like that"). You get good experiences and bad ones, but the Surface Books have been more aggravating than not in my case.

reboog711 9y ago
The Surface Book had a ton of issues on launch; but those were worked out within the first six months. I haven't had a docking / undocking issue in ages. I would expect a Surface Book purchased today to work without all those launch issues.
misingnoglic 9y ago
I had to return two surface books, but the third was pretty good

gamad 9y ago

I'm also a big fan of the Surface (and Windows 10, too!). We went from Mac to Windows and I have no regrets. (It was the desktop / high-end that pushed me over. No good "pro" option on the desktop.)

valuearb 9y ago
The 5k iMac isn't a good pro option?
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Not with the GPU / CPU offering they have.
  - gamad 9y ago
    Exactly right. We do accurate-color work so I need a wide-gamut monitor I can calibrate. And we need NVidia "Pro" cards (with FP16 full-speed) support. The Mac "faithful" will tell you can can jerry-rig a side-car box and run your GPU cards over USB-C, but that's flakey and slow.

jrs95 9y ago

The Surface Book design is just silly to me. By putting the CPU in the display they've limited it's CPU performance a lot. A 13" MBP will outperform it on CPU bound tasks. It has 28W TDP processors instead of 15W like the Surface Book (and the Surface Pro).

bryik 9y ago
If they put the CPU in the keyboard, it wouldn't be able to detach.
- jrs95 9y ago
  Why does it need to detach? The battery life without the keyboard is awful, and the firmware that supports this is pretty buggy.

eanzenberg 9y ago

But then you have to use windows... :< :< :<

steanne 9y ago
no you don't! https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/ https://www.reddit.com/r/SurfaceLinux/
- synicalx 9y ago
  I think I just need to draw everyone's attention to this little parable on why shoehorning Linux into things isn't always a good idea - http://i.imgur.com/znJEV92.png http://i.imgur.com/znJEV92.png
  - jaxn 9y ago
    I use WSL every day for development. It has gotten really solid.
pjmlp 9y ago
For many of us that is an advantage.
reboog711 9y ago
Go with what you know... To me, I've used Windows for >20 years and it is the devil I know. Windows 10 is fantastic. My attempt to convert to a Mac / OSX machine was just a confused mess that I abandoned. Like they go out of their way to do things different. [I'm not sure if they 'they' in the last sentence is Apple or Microsoft]. One thing I never got used to was that the mouse scroll wheel detection was reversed between the two OSes. And I had lots more crash problems on the Mac than I ever did on Windows.