5 ms·

New Arm-Powered Surface Pro and Surface Laptop Aim Directly at Apple Silicon Mac

33 points by OptionOfT 2y ago

OptionOfT 2y ago
Genuinely interested in this. I had a MacBook Air M2 and the battery life was amazing, even when using VS Code w/ Docker. I am wondering though what kind of contract MS has with Qualcomm wrt binary drivers. I'd hate for there to be a situation where you cannot upgrade your Windows version because Qualcomm hasn't released updated binaries, like what happens on Android. But then again, I don't know if this applies to Windows.
- cchance 2y ago
  Man wtf is with macbook chips their nuts, my Macbook Pro M3, i was on like a 3 hour flight and i don't think it moved from 99% the entire flight, and i was watching a movie and some tv shows lol
- pjmlp 2y ago
  Windows has a mostly stable driver ABI, in all its history the ABI has only changed a couple of times, major milestones being during the 16 -> 32 -> 64 bit transitions, Windows Vista and Windows 8.
chipdart 2y ago
This is major news, but not because of a new laptop is being released or because Microsoft is competing with Apple. From the news article: > But today's new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop are the first Arm devices to be the primary Surface offerings rather than a side offering, and they're the first to credibly claim that they can both outperform comparable Intel- and AMD-designed chips while offering better battery life, a la Apple's M1 chip in 2020. Microsoft's ARM-powered Surface Pro sounds like the first credible step to move the whole consumer market away from the x86 family, and thus kill Intel's stranglehold on how people use computers as their daily driver. This is a historical change, and one which might as well spell the death of behemoths such as Intel. People are no longer bounded by an anti-competitive stranglehold on their choices to pick Intel products over any conceivable competitor, and this happens at a point in time when Intel is already struggling.
- Refusing23 2y ago
  > outperform comparable Intel- and AMD-designed chips sure, in some tasks im sure the gamers will have a thing or two to say what made the transition easier for apple was their rosetta translationlayer i wonder if windows have similar. If i recall, the video i saw on an arm-chip powered windows laptop from a while ago, the performance was terrible and a some software just wouldnt run
  - OptionOfT 2y ago
    I do wonder about this. Is there something about ARM that prevents having a PCIe slot with an AMD / NVIDIA card? And I suppose the game can be recompiled to ARM, for as long as you're not using any architecture specific code?
  - frankvdwaal 2y ago
    It does have a translation layer. Microsoft calls it Prism, which immediately made me think of the NSA's PRISM program, in which Microsoft was an enthusiastic collaborator. I guess this is a nice way to shadow search engine results for "Microsoft PRISM".
  - geon 2y ago
    Dotnet managed code wouldn't need any translation layer, right?
- Unfrozen0688 2y ago
  [dead]
metadat 2y ago
Recent related submissions: Microsoft says new Surface Pro is faster than 15" M3 MacBook Air https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40423706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40423706 - Today, 81 comments Microsoft's mission to take down the MacBook Air https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40418914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40418914 - Today, 6 comments
maxboone 2y ago
Hopefully this will incentivize Microsoft to fix the current WSL virtualization on ARM chips. Something's that's been broken for years now: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/11274 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/11274 (also see this as a warning if you are considering a Microsoft ARM device)
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tstrimple 2y ago
Too bad Microsoft sucks at software. We've seen the Windows ARM bullshit before. No indication as to why this would be any different. Their software stack still can't support it outside of Windows Store apps which are a joke.
- maxboone 2y ago
  It supports software outside of the store fine, even has x64 emulation. There's no real noticeable difference in daily use. The only real problems that are left is drivers (old devices that require an x86 driver) and WSL2 (which has a nasty virtualization bug causing CPU stalls).
- cchance 2y ago
  What are you talking about i have windows arm running on my macbook vm, and it runs most things just fine lol, except some really really old shit
znpy 2y ago
> 16gb ram Basically dead on arrival. I still can't understand why the industry is stuck in such low amounts of ram. I had 16gb ram in my ThinkPad X220 from 2012 in like ~2015 (when 8gb modules were available). Now it's 2024 and we're seeing brand new laptop models with 16gb models of *soldered* on board memory ?
- Havoc 2y ago
  Apples start at 8gb…
  - znpy 2y ago
    that's not an excuse.
    - Havoc 2y ago
      Not intended as one. Merely something to indicate there is a market for it
- bfrog 2y ago
  Especially coming from electron happy msft
  - hulitu 2y ago
    > Especially coming from electron happy msft I don't understand what the problem is. Teams runs perfectly with 16 GB of RAM. Now, if you also want to run something else ... /s
    - meepmorp 2y ago
      I don't get why the electron Office apps are so much worse than the browser-based ones. Shit's mind boggling.
- sneed_chucker 2y ago
  Soldered is the issue, not 16GB.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] More discussion on the official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40417828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40417828

33 points by OptionOfT 2y ago

Genuinely interested in this. I had a MacBook Air M2 and the battery life was amazing, even when using VS Code w/ Docker. I am wondering though what kind of contract MS has with Qualcomm wrt binary drivers. I'd hate for there to be a situation where you cannot upgrade your Windows version because Qualcomm hasn't released updated binaries, like what happens on Android. But then again, I don't know if this applies to Windows.

cchance 2y ago
Man wtf is with macbook chips their nuts, my Macbook Pro M3, i was on like a 3 hour flight and i don't think it moved from 99% the entire flight, and i was watching a movie and some tv shows lol
pjmlp 2y ago
Windows has a mostly stable driver ABI, in all its history the ABI has only changed a couple of times, major milestones being during the 16 -> 32 -> 64 bit transitions, Windows Vista and Windows 8.

chipdart 2y ago

This is major news, but not because of a new laptop is being released or because Microsoft is competing with Apple. From the news article: > But today's new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop are the first Arm devices to be the primary Surface offerings rather than a side offering, and they're the first to credibly claim that they can both outperform comparable Intel- and AMD-designed chips while offering better battery life, a la Apple's M1 chip in 2020. Microsoft's ARM-powered Surface Pro sounds like the first credible step to move the whole consumer market away from the x86 family, and thus kill Intel's stranglehold on how people use computers as their daily driver. This is a historical change, and one which might as well spell the death of behemoths such as Intel. People are no longer bounded by an anti-competitive stranglehold on their choices to pick Intel products over any conceivable competitor, and this happens at a point in time when Intel is already struggling.

Refusing23 2y ago
> outperform comparable Intel- and AMD-designed chips sure, in some tasks im sure the gamers will have a thing or two to say what made the transition easier for apple was their rosetta translationlayer i wonder if windows have similar. If i recall, the video i saw on an arm-chip powered windows laptop from a while ago, the performance was terrible and a some software just wouldnt run
- OptionOfT 2y ago
  I do wonder about this. Is there something about ARM that prevents having a PCIe slot with an AMD / NVIDIA card? And I suppose the game can be recompiled to ARM, for as long as you're not using any architecture specific code?
- frankvdwaal 2y ago
  It does have a translation layer. Microsoft calls it Prism, which immediately made me think of the NSA's PRISM program, in which Microsoft was an enthusiastic collaborator. I guess this is a nice way to shadow search engine results for "Microsoft PRISM".
- geon 2y ago
  Dotnet managed code wouldn't need any translation layer, right?
Unfrozen0688 2y ago
[dead]

metadat 2y ago

Recent related submissions: Microsoft says new Surface Pro is faster than 15" M3 MacBook Air https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40423706 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40423706 - Today, 81 comments Microsoft's mission to take down the MacBook Air https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40418914 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40418914 - Today, 6 comments

maxboone 2y ago

Hopefully this will incentivize Microsoft to fix the current WSL virtualization on ARM chips. Something's that's been broken for years now: https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/11274 https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/11274 (also see this as a warning if you are considering a Microsoft ARM device)

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tstrimple 2y ago

Too bad Microsoft sucks at software. We've seen the Windows ARM bullshit before. No indication as to why this would be any different. Their software stack still can't support it outside of Windows Store apps which are a joke.

maxboone 2y ago
It supports software outside of the store fine, even has x64 emulation. There's no real noticeable difference in daily use. The only real problems that are left is drivers (old devices that require an x86 driver) and WSL2 (which has a nasty virtualization bug causing CPU stalls).
cchance 2y ago
What are you talking about i have windows arm running on my macbook vm, and it runs most things just fine lol, except some really really old shit

znpy 2y ago

> 16gb ram Basically dead on arrival. I still can't understand why the industry is stuck in such low amounts of ram. I had 16gb ram in my ThinkPad X220 from 2012 in like ~2015 (when 8gb modules were available). Now it's 2024 and we're seeing brand new laptop models with 16gb models of *soldered* on board memory ?

Havoc 2y ago
Apples start at 8gb…
- znpy 2y ago
  that's not an excuse.
  - Havoc 2y ago
    Not intended as one. Merely something to indicate there is a market for it
bfrog 2y ago
Especially coming from electron happy msft
- hulitu 2y ago
  > Especially coming from electron happy msft I don't understand what the problem is. Teams runs perfectly with 16 GB of RAM. Now, if you also want to run something else ... /s
  - meepmorp 2y ago
    I don't get why the electron Office apps are so much worse than the browser-based ones. Shit's mind boggling.
sneed_chucker 2y ago
Soldered is the issue, not 16GB.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] More discussion on the official post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40417828 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40417828