
New Windows 10 Devices From Microsoft - yread
http://blogs.windows.com/devices/2015/10/06/a-new-era-of-windows-10-devices-from-microsoft/
======
MatthiasP
That's what the OEMs get for not being able to put out a laptop that could
compete with Apple in all those years, they always managed to introduce some
fatal flaw in their premium laptops, from weird keyboard layouts to bad fan
management software.

Let's hope the Surface Book will be succesful and Apple finally gets serious
competition in the premium laptop market.

~~~
pcunite
Exactly this ... outside of ThinkPad, many Windows hardware options have been
pretty embarrassing.

~~~
nogridbag
I'm relatively unfamiliar with ThinkPads and happened to be looking at them
yesterday. Here's my problem with ThinkPads (as well as most other Windows
laptop vendors):

[http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-
id=laptops](http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/?menu-id=laptops)

Which ThinkPad are you talking about? ThinkPad X, ThinkPad T, ThinkPad W,
ThinkPad Yoga, ThinkPad E, ThinkPad L, or ThinkPad Helix, or ThinkPad 11E?

Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which model?

T440p, T450, T450s, T540p, or T550?

And ThinkPad is just one line of Lenovo's products, they also have: Y Series,
Z Series, Yoga Series, 500 Series, Flex, Edge, U Series, Lavie, B Series, 100
Series, S Series, G Series, and finally Chromebook.

As a consumer, I have a hard enough time deciding between Surface Pro 4 or
Surface Book... or Macbook Air vs Macbook vs Macbook Pro. When presented with
so many options from one company I simply close the webpage. After all, how
can they possibly make the product as good as MS's offering if they have so
many models?

~~~
sampo
> Let's say we're talking about ThinkPad T.. Which model?

> T440p, T450, T450s, T540p, or T550?

T450s.

When looking for a competitor to Apple, go for the T-series, but also take a
look at the X-series.

T5XX has 15" screen and numpad in the keyboard, so unless you like numpad,
forget those. 440 is the older series, before it there was 430 series, and
presently 450 is the current line.

"p" stands for "performance", basically it's a laptop with an NVIDIA GeForce
graphics card, if you are heavily into gaming or video production. It makes
the laptop thicker, heavier and consume more power. Usually you forget the "p"
option. Also Apple makes do with just the integrated Intel graphics, so we
don't need NDIVIA either.

"s" is maybe for "slim". T4XXs is the flagship, and the plain T4XX is an
economy version. The T4XXs is, in my opinion, the best competitor for Apple
laptops.

~~~
reubenmorais
> Also Apple makes do with just the integrated Intel graphics, so we don't
> need NDIVIA either.

No they don't… the 15" MBP has a dedicated GPU, and a good one at that.

~~~
exadeci
A good one ? Nope, not for the price.

[http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-
Radeon-R9-M370X.142763.0.ht...](http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-
Radeon-R9-M370X.142763.0.html) The AMD Radeon R9 M370X is a mid-range graphics
card for laptops that was announced mid 2015.

Mac are awesome for work (mine at least) but useless for anything that
requires a good gpu

------
aresant
Wow, this page is a mess - here's an element based breakdown of the switching
elements in their presentation:

MSFT:

\- nav 1

\- nav 2

\- header with what sounds like a call to action, but no button to buy?

\- hero image with text overlaid that has terrible contrast nobody will read

\- inter-page menus with some insane zooming function that scared my browser

\- another hero image

\- 3 columns - maybe buttons? no not clickable.

\- another hero image

\- 3 more columns - maybe buttons? no not clickable.

\- another hero image

\- 3 more columns - maybe buttons? no not clickable.

\- 2 columns marketing other products? maybe buttons? yes - those little ">"
things mean they're clickable i guess.

\- 3 more columns - maybe buttons? ok now they're buttons. but there's no ">"?

\- another hero image with a price action, no button to click to follow the
action! WTF!

VS vs the iPad Pro [http://www.apple.com/ipad-pro/](http://www.apple.com/ipad-
pro/) which is single column and nav consistent throughout.

As the old quote goes "If I'd had more time I would have written a shorter
letter."

Feels rushed.

~~~
liquidise
Page on a full sized browser on a 13" screen with ublock:

[https://www.dropbox.com/s/gmyi3jjwq25w0d1/surface_book.png?d...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/gmyi3jjwq25w0d1/surface_book.png?dl=0)

~~~
DuskStar
Similarly, on a 13" 1080p chromebook, I get this:
[http://i.imgur.com/pGhjAwQ.png](http://i.imgur.com/pGhjAwQ.png)

Turning uBlock off didn't seem to help at all.

Edit: after letting it load for 3+ minutes, the page does load successfully,
giving this: [http://i.imgur.com/qnNlvYj.png](http://i.imgur.com/qnNlvYj.png)
So maybe it does work! Eventually.

~~~
dom96
Pretty sure it's just one of their CDN's failing.

~~~
mtw
How can we trust Microsoft Azure then?! Not even able to serve their own
product

~~~
Lx1oG-AWb6h_ZG0
[https://www.microsoft.com/surface/assets/..](https://www.microsoft.com/surface/assets/..).
is resolving to 2600:1409:a:18c::2768, which is owned by Akamai.

But your point still stands: even Microsoft doesn't trust Azure's CDN
offering.

~~~
mh8h
Isn't the Azure CDN offering through Akamai?

~~~
mugsie
Isn't everyone's CDN offering through Akamai these days?

------
pcunite
What Microsoft has done today is prove they're very focused about providing a
top of the line personal computing experience. You can argue about server, but
when it comes to applications (which are floating windows), Microsoft Windows
has proven they can keep that title for their operating system.

I'm glad to see them take ownership over the hardware. That has always been
the black mark. I build my own PCs and always bought ThinkPad to keep the good
experience. Now, Microsoft can help others who don't or can't do that.

~~~
exelius
Microsoft's server software is actually top-notch and has been for years.
Server 2003 was rough, but after that MS really started improving the
management tools and allowing a lot more command line via powershell, etc.

And in corporate America, Microsoft's Server products are near-ubiquitous.
Consider that most of the in-house workflow tools at any company are built in
Sharepoint -- and Sharepoint is actually a great platform for business apps
(and easy to hire developers for). Exchange/Outlook/Lync is a great corporate
collaboration suite that mostly "just works". And from what I've seen, Google
Apps isn't really a threat for Microsoft -- it's largely just displacing Lotus
Notes at the bottom end of the market.

~~~
Karunamon
At the risk of sounding overly snarky: Top-notch does not mean putting the
Goddamned Metro UI, a thing for _users_ on _touch screens_ , on a Goddamned
SERVER OS like they did with 2012.

It's insanity. Every time I have to RDP into a 2012 machine, I cringe a bit.
Whoever was responsible for that decision should be shot, and the corpse
fired.

For all Microsoft has been doing to improve their standing lately, they still
make some rather absurd missteps...

~~~
exelius
Yeah, the UI is shit, though in the next server release they're adding native
PowerShell over SSH, so hopefully you should never have to log in to one
again.

~~~
niels_olson
will I need a CAL to SSH in?

~~~
Karunamon
..what's sad is that this is a completely legitimate question :(

~~~
exelius
I thought MS had mostly done away with CALs? I haven't been in an environment
without Enterprise Software Assurance for a while, but I thought they were
actively moving even their SMB customers over to SA licensing as well. No idea
how far their plans got though...

------
cdnsteve
Could be a MBP replacement for developers. The only thing is those of us
running on OS X, how is Windows 10?

I love my command line and linux like commands and tools. \- Homebrew \- Bash
scripts \- Docker (Windows 10 currently not supported) \- Vagrant

I just feel the tooling for MS isn't in the direction I am. I still have a
Windows 7 desktop and it's just not the same.

~~~
slantyyz
>> Could be a MBP replacement for developers. The only thing is those of us
running on OS X, how is Windows 10?

>> I love my command line and linux like commands and tools. - Homebrew - Bash
scripts - Docker (Windows 10 currently not supported) - Vagrant

I switched from OSX to Windows last year. I thought I'd miss stuff, but you
don't.

There are package managers like chocolatey to replace homebrew.

I use Cmder as my terminal and it works a lot like Mac's terminal. It was
probably the key app that made my transition easy.

I use Vagrant on Windows and it works fine.

Can't say much about bash scripts or Docker though, since I rarely run those
locally.

~~~
k__
I found compiling on Windows always a bit of a PITA.

On Linux I just install build-essentials and everything works fine. On Windows
I had to install a specific version of VS and fiddle around with the path to
get things running. But maybe there is something like the build-essentials
package in chocolatey?

The terminal command history also feels strange. But I like cls more than
clear, haha :D

~~~
Poyeyo
Compiling what? May be some of us can help you.

If it's C++, I did learn cmake, and now I use the same script for Ubuntu and
for Win7/VS2008 and Win8.1/VS2012, and so far I just don't care about
compilation issues anymore. Sadly the VS site only has VS2015 now.

But yes, the first time you have to check the VS version and add all the
proper env vars for the cmake scripts to find the libraries.

But anyway, it is much better than when I used mingw and made makefiles by
hand.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
How about code written in C11? Or Fortran 95? Throw in a couple of numerical
libraries you want to link to, maybe CUDA or some MPI or an optimized
BLAS/LAPACK, and it's an all night party.

I lurk on a few sci.comp mailing lists, and the number and nature of problems
that the Windows people have with compiling is crazy compared to Linux where
the OS actually has a package manager and stuff Just Works.

As for cmake, I don't think it's any better than (gnu)make. I've seen big
projects with complex buildsystems (eg. PETSc from Argonne) switch to cmake
and then switch back again to make quite quickly. A frequent "problem" with
make, I think, is that people learn just enough about makefiles to compile
HelloWorld.cpp and then use that knowledge for everything.

~~~
Poyeyo
I think I agree with you on all fronts, simply because the online cmake
documentation is not as good as it should be.

For BLAS, it has a

    
    
        find_package ( BLAS )
    

script, which you can use. The same for CUDA. They define cmake variables you
can use later for the include and link search paths.

[https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/module/FindBLAS.html](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/module/FindBLAS.html)

[https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/module/FindCUDA.html](https://cmake.org/cmake/help/v3.0/module/FindCUDA.html)

I haven't used C11 or Fortran95, only C++11, and I had to add a cmake script
for it, you can find it as CheckCXXCompilerFlag somewhere in the web.

I have to use Visual Studio instead of mingw because I'm using some winSDK
libs, and VS has no (gnu)make, and what VS offers for the command line is not
cross-platform, making it a poor investment of my time to learn about it.

After climbing just a section of the the steep cmake learning curve, I have
deleted the solution and project files from my repository, and now I use cmake
to compile and run the project in the command line with both VS2008 in Win7
(the PC) and VS2012 in Win8.1 (the laptop), without any path dependency.
Previously the solution files depended on both my username and the path, and
just moving the folder was cumbersome and required a lot of fiddling with
those files.

Another thing I really like is the concept of an out of source build, and
that's very easy to set up and use with cmake.

I now can write

    
    
        git clone somewhere:my_project.git
        cd my_project
        mkdir build && cd build
        cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=../install ..
        cmake --build . --target install && cmake --build . --target run
    

in both Ubuntu and Windows and see my program running, which means I will not
go back to make, or nmake or gmake anytime soon.

------
dang
We merged
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10340117](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10340117)
and
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10340022](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10340022)
hither, since there shouldn't be three stories about this on the front page.

Since the live event looks done now, we've picked (what I think is?) the most
significant product URL to change to from
[http://www.microsoft.com/october2015event/en-us/live-
event](http://www.microsoft.com/october2015event/en-us/live-event). If anyone
suggests a better URL we can change it again.

~~~
ableal
Found prices and specs here (redirected from surface.com):
[http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us](http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-
us)

Page's not looking too good on Mac Safari, though.

~~~
acaloiar
There's a resource on the page ([https://controls.account.microsoft-
int.com/me?partner=surfac...](https://controls.account.microsoft-
int.com/me?partner=surface&market=en-us)) precluding other resources from
loading. Just wait it out.

~~~
gcb0
on firefox, just press ESC when the status bar shows that.

------
nullrouted
I think the Surface Book is finally something that can give the MacBook Pro
line a run for its money, this should be interesting.

~~~
pkkp
My thoughts exactly. To me, OS/X's quality has been slipping, but I haven't
found any non-Apple hardware that's comparable. If they get the trackpad and
keyboard right on it, this will open a lot of interesting doors.

~~~
Osmium
> To me, OS/X's quality has been slipping,

I'm amused to see the 'OS/X' typo still lives on, more than a decade since
OS/2's been relevant :)

On topic, I've just upgraded to the latest version of OS X and it really seems
rock solid. Fastest, most stable, and most secure version yet. Still a bit of
an evolutionary dead end though, in that there have been no moves to add touch
support beyond multitouch trackpads. I admire their vision with keeping iOS
and OS X separate, but given touch is so ubiquitous elsewhere, I can't imagine
it'll be long before Windows users are genuinely surprised and baffled by the
lack of touch screens in Apple laptops...

~~~
Joeri
Probably apple's next move is not to add touch to os x but to release an iOS
laptop to replace the MacBook air, they could call it an iBook. It's pretty
clear OS X is legacy tech and on the roadmap for being phased out.

~~~
sz4kerto
The big step for that would be XCode for iOS. Currently, iOS is one of the few
platforms where the platform does not let you develop for itself.

~~~
mikestew
I'd buy an iPad Pro tomorrow...if only it ran Xcode. But I can't justify $1200
or more if I doesn't help me to get my work done. At that price, and
admittedly for _my_ purposes, the iPad Pro is just a very large and very
expensive gadget.

The really annoying thing is that these days a late-model iPad probably has
most of the horsepower needed to pull it off.

~~~
Osmium
For me it's "I'd buy an iPad Pro tomorrow...if only it ran Xcode [and had a
terminal]." It can be heavily sandboxed as far as I care, I just need a proper
Unix terminal. The trouble with Xcode is that it just needs so much screen
real estate, I just can't see it working very well on iOS.

~~~
mikestew
I assume you mean a terminal for the local machine, not an SSH session to
another machine, in which case Panic's Prompt is what you want for SSH.

I'm with you in that I'd _like_ a local terminal, but I could live without if
I had Xcode on the box and some sort of full-screen editing mode. Working with
storyboards would indeed suck, though.

------
mark_l_watson
One advantage that Microsoft has is better cloud services and integrated apps.
I am typing this on a MacBook, but I use Office 365, and all of the cloud
services and apps run just fine also on my Android phone and iPad. Perversely,
Microsoft supports Linux very well: I find the web versions of the Office 365
apps useful on my Linux laptops and I use Linux VPSs on Azure.

The Surface Book blows me away. It looks like it covers all use cases except
for a phone.

Apple has their advantages, primarily most people love Apple devices. They
just need to improve their cloud services.

Google's huge advantage is their AI based systems. Google Now has no real
competition right now.

I am almost 65, and even though I enjoy running a machine learning/AI
consultancy, I am transitioning to a more complete retirement. I am looking
for a "winner" in the digital life space, adopt their products, and make my
leisure years simpler. But, Microsoft, Apple, and Google blow me away with
their products and choosing will be difficult.

~~~
scholia
Agree with your comments. Google is cloud-centric while Apple is Apple device-
centric. Since I use Windows and Office, Mac OS X and Android, Microsoft does
a better job of bridging devices, cloud and local storage.

> Google Now has no real competition right now.

Cortana is getting there. I'm looking forward to getting Cortana on my Nexus
phone....

------
nilkn
When I got my first MacBook back in 2008, it was a revolution for me. The
industrial design, the multitouch trackpad that actually worked 100% of the
time, the backlit keyboard, the battery life, the trackpad-friendly OS --
these all worked together to make me wonder how other laptop manufacturers had
got it so astoundingly wrong.

I haven't had that feeling since then. Sure, the MacBook Air came out and it
was amazingly thin. Now there's Force Touch, and that's quite nice as well.
But this whole time I've just been waiting for somebody, Apple or not, to blow
me away the same way I was blown away ~8 years ago, to do something that makes
you wonder how everyone else got it so wrong.

Is this that moment? I don't know, but it might be.

~~~
CMay
I was never particularly sold on MacBooks, probably because I was used to
always building my own machines and the costs of MacBooks never felt like they
were justified in any way regardless of pollish.

The Surface Book looks like the first laptop I've ever seen that makes me
think it might be worth it and it may be one of the first laptops to ever have
an upgradeable internal GPU since the base could be switched out if Microsoft
decides to support that.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
I was initially quite excited but the $1500 version doesn't have a dedicated
GPU. It's still a pretty sweet laptop that should outperform a MBP, but then a
MBP is $1300. That's a justified price difference I think, the SB has touch,
pen and tablet functionality, too, plus better performance (MS claims), for
$200, that's not a bad deal (unlike the iPad Pro, the pen - and obviously the
keyboard - is included in the price!). Still, if you actually want the GPU
you'd have to pay up $1900, at that point it gets kinda steep although that's
true for the competition as well, plus your storage is doubled together with
the GPU for that price. (can we all laugh at the MBP 15' at $2k that doesn't
have a dedicated GPU for a moment :p?)

I totally agree with the MBP's value not being fully justified, at least until
recently. I felt like that for years (~15 years of Windows user here), until I
recently needed OS X for work and looked at the market more closely. I find
that where I live (which reflects the international market pretty well), if
you buy a $1500 Windows laptop, 4 years later people look at it as if it has
no value and offer like $200 for it. For a MBP, it's more like $600. These
things just retain value incredibly well and I'm stupefied to see some of the
prices, e.g. yesterday I saw a guy ask $800 for a 2010 MBP (yeah the default
one without an SSD, 4gb of ram, an intel core duo and 1280x800 display), it's
just ridiculous but people actually buy those things. A 5 year old laptop -
i.e. battery is shit and parts could start dying within 1-2 years - that has
worse specs than brand new laptops at the same price, yet people buy it, in
this case for something like 50% the original price, that's just ridiculous.
Reminds me of that time I bought an iPod touch for music (2nd hand), and 18
months later sold it for the same amount, basically had a free mp3 player for
a while. These things retaining value means a ton for my buying decision.

That fact right there means I'm, in effect, comparing a $1500 MBP to a $1500
Windows laptop, only the MBP in comparison would only cost me $1100 compared
to the full $1500 for the Windows laptop. The Dell XPS 13 non-touch for
example is $1k and that has a lower resolution, worse battery, worse cpu/gpu
and half the storage, obviously, to a $1300 MBP, yet given the resale value of
the two the MBP's lifetime value should be cheaper for the average person.
That's why I ultimately bought the MBP (mostly for work, but also because
taking into account the 2nd hand selling value shifted the economics such that
it made the price justifiable)

The Surface Book feels like it might be different as it's got potential to
become a solid 'real brand' that should retain value for quite some time. If I
put a Dell XPS 13 on a second hand website, most people considering to buy a
2nd hand laptop (like my dad) haven't a clue that it's an amazing machine,
especially 4 years after launch, because it's not a distinct enough brand. But
even my dad who has never used an Apple device in his life thinks Apple means
quality and knows about the Macbook brand and would pay up for one. The
Surface Book seems to me to have a shot of becoming such a brand that everyone
heard about and knows works really well and that could be sold for at least
30%-40% four years after launch like Macbooks. But apart from that, the
economics of windows second hand laptops never looked good, maybe with the
alienware/razer series as a niche exception.

I think you're right on switching out the base, that must be possible if MS
wanted to make it possible, but that may be unlikely. One is that it's going
to be much more expensive as the base probably has battery packs, cooling and
a keyboard in there, alongside of course the actual casing. So for every GPU
you buy, you're also buying all of that. With economics like that, it'd
probably be a niche demand for a few people who are rich enough to do that,
that MS won't be bothered to cater to, as these people are rich enough to buy
a new device, too. Two is that cooling & power in such a small and enclosed
device might become an issue when you bump up the card, although part of that
(better cooling, more battery) is probably in the base so it could be co-
upgraded, but that goes back to expense. And three is that it might not make a
ton of sense. i.e. the on-board GPU of a 6th gen intel CPU is already pretty
damn good, powers 4K, photo and video editing etc. So any dedicated card they
do put in should probably be really good, and any upgrade of that that's worth
ditching that, plus buying an even better card, plus the rest of an entire new
base (keyboard, battery packs etc), would probably then cause CPU to be a
bottleneck for practical applications. (i.e. when the CPU is made for the
onboard GPU, then the GPU becomes dedicated, an upgrade of that dedicated GPU
might create too much of an imbalance where the GPU outperforms the CPU and
the latter bottlenecks the former.) Finally it doesn't feel like companies are
excited to facilitate this usergroup much, everything seems to be moving
towards non-exchangeable.

What if it worked the other way around though... Think about it, the default
model's base has a keyboard and some battery packs and no GPU. Now what if I
wanted to buy the Surface Book 2? Well nevermind the base, I just want to buy
the new tablet and put it on my old base, then give my old tablet to my kid, a
friend, sell it 2nd hand. That way you can upgrade the screen, the cpu, gpu,
the ram, the storage etc, while using the same keyboard and battery packs.
There are some reasons why this won't happen but this might make more sense to
a larger amount of users than the niche who wants to switch out their laptop's
dedicated GPU every few years.

------
sz4kerto
I think they've pulled the rug from under other HW vendors, and that is well-
deserved (for the vendors). MS essentially made the ultimate Windows PC
(tablet, pen, long battery life, powerful GPU if needed), after waiting for
the partners for years.

~~~
melling
I guess moving to USB-C is asking for too much?

~~~
strictnein
Unfortunately, they chose to support 99.9(999?)% of existing USB cables
instead.

~~~
melling
You can always make that argument. If you want progress, you need to Think
Different. Intel and Microsoft have enough muscle to get 100 million PC's
shipped in 12 months wth a new standard. Of course, no one said that they only
have to ship USB-C.

~~~
WorldWideWayne
I guess if you think that walled gardens and locked down platforms are
"progress", then you really are thinking differently because you have to
basically swallow that pill if you want to enjoy the _occasional_ hardware
progress that is seen with fruitier companies.

Of course _real_ progress, to me, means that there is a good standard and
everybody uses it. Remember when cell phones all had their own type of
charging adapter? I'm so happy now that _most_ manufacturers use micro-usb.
Everybody except Apple of course because they're always too busy trying to
invent something that will keep you locked in.

~~~
melling
I'm sorry, I guess by referring to Apple I confused the point. You went off on
some pointless irrelevant rant. How about I mention Google instead?

[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2478157,00.asp](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2478157,00.asp)

[http://www.androidcentral.com/google-says-look-out-more-
usb-...](http://www.androidcentral.com/google-says-look-out-more-usb-c-
chromebooks-and-android-phones)

USB-C is an open standard that is not controlled by Apple.

------
codeulike
"The laptop that can replace the tablet that replaced your laptop is also a
tablet" \- someone on twitter (edit: @schaemelhout)

~~~
zatkin
[https://twitter.com/zzatkin/status/651445545194622976](https://twitter.com/zzatkin/status/651445545194622976)

~~~
benologist
Classy move to retweet it and attribute it to yourself.

[https://twitter.com/Schaemelhout/status/651420894150152192](https://twitter.com/Schaemelhout/status/651420894150152192)

------
aleem
I have been skeptical after a lot of Microsoft misses but the Surface Book Pro
might just put Microsoft on the high road. Splitting up the hardware breaks
new ground. If I understood it correctly, the GPU is in the keyboard which you
can attach to get more power. In detached mode the screen itself has an i7
processor that's plenty powerful. So they managed to let you hot-plug the GPU
while the OS is running?

~~~
cwyers
> So they managed to let you hot-plug the GPU while the OS is running?

Yes. And I think they said that with DirectX 12 it'll split the load between
GPUs when both are connected.

~~~
Splines
I'm curious how this works in practice? I have a laptop with AMD integrated +
dedicated graphics, and AMD's implementation with dual-graphics resulted in
herky-jerky framerates (it seemed to alternate between the GPUs, so frames
rendered with the integrated one took slightly longer than the dedicated one).
I ended up telling the driver not to do that and just use the dedicated GPU
(and splitting the work didn't really result in observable improvements
anyway).

~~~
WorldMaker
It's a DirectX 12 feature that software developers have to opt-in to, and it
is up to the software developer to figure out how they plan to spread the
workload across the GPUs, but they can program against any and every GPU on a
device regardless of manufacturer now. (The fun thing here will be to see
software handle hot drops as GPUs get attached/reattached with the Surface
Book.)

------
bhauer
Surface Book promo video:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVfOe5mFbAE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVfOe5mFbAE)

Worth watching.

~~~
josu
1:30 [1] Why? Everything was so elegant until that.

[1] [https://youtu.be/XVfOe5mFbAE?t=90](https://youtu.be/XVfOe5mFbAE?t=90)

~~~
Artistry121
My thought exactly. I'm not sure if it's the color or the text or both.

~~~
josu
I may understand their need to differentiate from Apple with the blue
background. But why the sliding laptop that made it look like a cheap BestBuy
commercial?

------
DeusExMachina
I think this device really shows the different approaches of Apple and
Microsoft to "tablets".

When the iPad Pro was announced, many joked about the fact that it was just
like a surface. With the release of this device from Microsoft, the look even
more similar then before from the outside.

Still, the huge difference in the approach is the software. Microsoft is
bending a computer operating system, with a full hardware keyboard and an
interface made mainly to be used with a mouse, to adapt to touch and the use
of a tablet. Apple instead is slowly expanding the functionality of a pure
touch operating system that reject the idea of a mouse and a cursor entirely,
to accommodate more computer uses, adding a keyboard and a pencil.

~~~
scholia
Microsoft isn't bending anything. Windows 10 has two distinct APIs for
different types of program. The old Win32 API handles traditional desktop
software and the separate Windows Runtime is used for sandboxed apps that can
be installed and updated from the Windows Store.

If you're writing for Windows Runtime, you are as fully touch-enabled as you
are with an iPad, and the apps run in a similar way.

The complaints about Windows 8 were that the two environments were disparate.
Windows 10 does a reasonable job of integrating Runtime apps for desktop users
(eg scaleable windows and mouse control options). It could do with further
improvements, but it's still being developed.

If you're, say, a photographer, you can use full-strength Photoshop, Lightroom
etc on Windows 10 then switch to an iPad-style app for viewing or showing
stuff to other people. It's actually very convenient.

~~~
slantyyz
On an added note, the "Tablet Mode" in Windows 10 is actually pretty decent
with traditional desktop apps.

I run Chrome on my Vivotab in Tablet Mode so that I can still access
1Password, and it is surprisingly usable (haha, weak praise, but still
praise).

~~~
scholia
Fair point. It's a bonus!

------
fumar
As a Surface Pro 3 user, who saves a Macbook Pro for heavy lifting (like
video) at home, I can safely say the MB is getting replaced with the Surface
Book. Depending on in-person use, it might also replace the Surface Pro 3. I
typically watch Apple's and Google's product launches, have to to say this
event was concise and unveiled products in a great forward moving momentum.
Solid work Msoft marketing team!

~~~
swah
I thought video people used OSX due to the apps available?

~~~
scholia
I meet an increasingly large number who use Windows now. They're often people
who used to use Mac Pros and switched to PC towers when that fell behind in
price/performance.

The new Mac Pro is very expensive compared to what you can assemble in a PC
tower, and the tower gives you a lot more flexibility.

As others have said, there's plenty of video editing software for PCs. The
main one that's missing is Apple's Final Cut Pro (which Apple bought from
Macromedia, though it's changed a lot since then).

See [http://ppbm7.com/index.php/tweakers-page/87-what-pc-to-
use/9...](http://ppbm7.com/index.php/tweakers-page/87-what-pc-to-use/98-what-
pc-to-use)

------
s3nnyy
In closed state, the surface book has a giant gap between screen and keyboard
([https://goo.gl/n5B7Te](https://goo.gl/n5B7Te)). I think, it can easily
happen that things in your backpack slip between screen and keyboard and
damage the screen. That is why the old Thinkpads used to have a "click"
mechanism.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Neoprene sleeves are pretty inexpensive and would afford a little more
protection.

~~~
rplnt
It's an inconvenience though.

~~~
RobotCaleb
How would you rather treat your $1500+ piece of technology? I don't throw that
sort of money around lightly.

~~~
barrkel
For something that's disposable in a couple of years, yeah, I throw it around
with fair abandon. That's a large chunk of the reason I bought a macbook air
to run Windows on; I didn't want any moving parts (apart from fans) and I
liked the solid aluminium design for strength when mixed with a lot of other
random objects in a bag.

I still have an impression of the keyboard on the glossy screen (from
compression), but it's perfectly liveable for a device I only use a few weeks
of the year.

------
voiceclonr
Page looks bad and it loads so slow! At some point, the msdn pages were
awesomely fast and I would've imagined they spent more time on load testing
for such a crucial day.

That aside, the product looks very interesting. I was a Windows user for a
long time and switched to Mac in the last few years. This makes me want to
give the newbie a try.

~~~
josu
On top of that there is a typo:

"Intel HG Graphics"

[http://i.imgur.com/kLt8Ydz.png](http://i.imgur.com/kLt8Ydz.png)

~~~
listic
Wow Microsoft, do you even proofread? :P

------
SwellJoe
I can't believe I'm seriously considering buying a Microsoft product. But,
this is a really nice looking laptop, and I suspect does not fall prey to all
of the bullshit that is so common on Windows laptops, even high end ones.

If it were possible to dual boot to Linux, I'd be sold. I have my doubts that
it is, however. I guess one could use a VM...I've always found that clumsy in
the past, particularly in terms of getting accelerated graphics drivers
working, but maybe times have changed.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
> If it were possible to dual boot to Linux, I'd be sold. I have my doubts
> that it is, however.

Why do you have your doubts? It's typically pretty easy and people have guides
for doing it on the Surface Pro 3; it would be odd if the Surface Book
couldn't do it as well.

~~~
SwellJoe
That's cool. I haven't followed anything about the Surface. I have such a long
history of avoiding Microsoft products that I have very little knowledge of
them. What knowledge I have is from a time when Microsoft would have happily
made it impossible to dual boot if given the power to do so (like if they were
designing he product from the ground up).

------
SNACKeR99
That was an epic launch. Docking the phone and using desktop apps, and then
the removable Surface Book screen, wow. It eclipsed the Surface Pro 4 launch,
which is what I expect most people were most hyped about. I have to go back
and remind myself what changed there...

------
JustSomeNobody
I wonder if I can get it to run Linux. That would make a pretty nice machine,
if so.

Edit: I'm not hating on Windows. I just don't prefer it.

~~~
mizzao
I run Linux on a VM inside my Surface Pro 2. Best of both worlds. All the
touch and pen gestures are handled by Windows and carry over through
VirtualBox.

Would love to get a Surface Book as soon as possible.

~~~
owenversteeg
Ooh, this is actually a really attractive option, thanks for the idea. How
much is the speed decrease? Is it enough to be noticeable? And how much does
the battery life decrease by? Thanks!

~~~
mizzao
With a SSD on the host OS, I really can't tell much of a difference.

Not sure on the battery life, but I've had nothing to complain about as long
as I'm careful not to have some random process hogging 100% CPU on either
guest or host.

------
Roritharr
The Surface Book feels like the second coming to me. This is everything i
wanted them to produce and they delivered perfectly. Thanks Surface Team!

------
drewg123
How about the Band 2?

Unaware of this event, yesterday morning I ordered the first MS Band for a
little more than 1/2 the list price of the Band 2. I'd been shopping for
fitness trackers for a long time, and settled on the Band as the only tracker
meeting my needs that can also act as an Android trusted bluetooth device &
keep my phone unlocked.

From what I can tell, the Band 2 adds: \- softer, more flexible strap (soft
shell vs hard shell) \- barometer for elevation \- gorilla glass \- better
touch sensitivity

Is that it? If so, given the nearly 2x price difference, I think I'm just
going to keep the old band and use it.

~~~
asyncwords
I've had a Band for most of the year and highly recommend it. Unlike watty, I
think it's pretty comfortable. Admittedly it took a couple of days to get used
to, but I rarely notice that it's on my wrist. The only exception being that
the non-curved display does get in the way when I type on a laptop — which is
very rare for me, your mileage may vary.

I'd recommend that you get a screen protector for your band, though. The
weird, soft bezel around this version is extremely prone to scratches doing
even the most mundane tasks.

~~~
drewg123
Thanks.. I think I'll give the 1st gen band a try. My 1st gen LG Android watch
has gotten me used to wearing a watch again, so I'm hoping for a minimal
transition. If it doesn't work out, I've got ~30 days to return it, and get
the Band 2.

BTW, I read how easy the thing scratches, and purchased some screen protectors
along with it.

------
lewisl9029
Overall quite happy with these updates for the Surface and Surface Book, but
personally I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of shiny new technologies like
USB-C, Thunderbolt 3, Wireless Charging and WiGig.

After having used a laptop with a WiGig dock that can support a fully
populated 10-port USB Hub, 3 DisplayPort displays, and Gigabit Ethernet
transfers wirelessly across most of my room, I'm thoroughly convinced that a
device with both WiGig _and_ Wireless Charging would be absolutely amazing to
use.

~~~
austinsharp
I believe the Lumia phones have USB-C and Wireless Charging. Though it sounds
like you're talking about the Book and Pro 4?

~~~
lewisl9029
Yep, I should have been a bit more specific.

------
bndw
Looks terrible on Chrome
[https://imgur.com/H75ejZN](https://imgur.com/H75ejZN)

~~~
andysinclair
Looks like the CSS hasn't loaded, leave it a few more seconds and it will look
fine.

~~~
untog
Same here after leaving it for 30 secs. I think a server is overloaded
somewhere.

~~~
cm2187
Ain't exactly a great example of the scaling abilities of azure....

------
gbraad
Silverlight or Flash needs to be installed? ... Eh no, thank you.

Googling for Surface Book reveals enough; a beefy (but Ultra-thin) Ultrabook
with Skylake CPU + Nvidia GPU and detachable as tablet. Surface Pro is
similarly specced with a Skylake CPU based tablet as successor to the previous
version.

Dutch Tweakers.net: [http://tweakers.net/nieuws/105651/microsoft-brengt-zijn-
eers...](http://tweakers.net/nieuws/105651/microsoft-brengt-zijn-eerste-
laptop-surface-book-uit.html) [http://tweakers.net/nieuws/105648/microsoft-
onthult-surface-...](http://tweakers.net/nieuws/105648/microsoft-onthult-
surface-pro-4-tablet.html)

~~~
shogun21
The CPU and RAM are inside the tablet, the GPU is inside the keyboard.

------
edvinbesic
This thing is awesome. Does this mean that we can now finally upgrade the GPU
of our laptop by buying next years keyboard dock?

If they sold that separately in the future it would be a killer feature!

------
dogma1138
I'm kinda bummed now that i just bought the MBP 15" with dedicated graphics.

After finally swallowing my pride and getting an apple device MSFT announces
this.

I've never been invested in the Apple eco-system and I've spent a week to find
comparable software and even after that I'll still be needing to run a windows
guest on VMWare Fusion 8.

If Amazon returns will accept it I might actually return it once the UK prices
for the Surface Book will be published, the funny thing is that Amazon sold
the MBP 15 for 500 GBP less than the apple store, it's almost like they new
this will happen.

------
bsharitt
The surface book looks nice. I like the idea of tablet/laptop hybrid, but not
a fan of kick stands and keyboard covers. I liked the idea of Asus's
transformers but I don't recall seeing one with really good specs. They were
either Android(don't need a laptop there) or the Windows ones I remembers
seeing were Atom powered.

------
noahbradley
Weighing in as an artist who works in Photoshop all day: I just preordered one
because they look awesome. This is exactly the sort of machine that people in
my profession want.

I've used the Surface Pro 3 exclusively (as in, no desktop) for about a year
now. This will be a fantastic replacement.

Props to Microsoft for actually looking out for creatives.

------
jpeg_hero
the PC Makers and the windows OEM echo system deserves this.

msft and intel tried for years to bring them along... remember the "ultra book
initiative?"

2011: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/09/ultrabook-
intels-300-...](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/09/ultrabook-
intels-300-million-plan-to-beat-apple-at-its-own-game/)

thinks got so bad that msft realizes that they've got to "make the whole
widget" despite the reluctance to cannibalize the ecosystem. (we ship gold
masters, not pcs)

------
arthurfm
Does anyone know why the fingerprint reader on the Surface Pro 4 keyboard is
only available in the US?

[http://i.imgur.com/0GfZtzz.png](http://i.imgur.com/0GfZtzz.png)

~~~
potatolicious
Educated guess: export controls on encryption used in the fingerprint reader.

------
aceperry
I'm amazed that Microsoft has introduced a laptop that is worthy of going head
to head with the best. All of the specs look great and it looks like it could
possibly replace my beloved Chromebook Pixel (the original). If linux can be
installed on it easily, it would probably be my next computer.

Very interesting to see a "pen first" interface which I hope works much better
than that shitty "touch first" interface in Windows 8. I don't care what the
fanbois say, windows 8 sux! Windows 10 is a major improvement in usability
compared to 8, so I hope MS is back on track to making productive systems. If
the new surface book works as good as it looks, MS is back on track to being
relevant in the computing landscape.

------
dionidium
As someone who was completely out of the loop on Microsoft's recent offerings,
I found the comparisons at the bottom of this page helpful:

[http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface-...](http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface-
Book/productID.325716000)

It's also loading a lot faster right now.

------
thoman23
Why on earth is it so hard to find video of the keynote? Here we have a
genuinely exciting product announcement with a brilliant "one more thing"
hook, and I can't find the video. Microsoft should have it plastered over
every news outlet in the world.

I found the video below (with 97 views!?), which makes me really want a
Surface Book...and then it cuts off RIGHT BEFORE the big reveal! Microsoft
seems to have caught up to Apple in terms of hardware, but it seems they still
have a ways to go in marketing and PR.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c6ZLdJ1rkA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6c6ZLdJ1rkA)

~~~
jpatte
Here [1] is the second part of the presentation, featuring the complete video
(which you can find here [2]). I actually think the way they presented the
device during the keynote was brilliant: present it first as a "regular"
laptop, then revisit the presentation immediately and reveal the device as
what it actually is (a tablet pc with a base). Even if you could rather easily
see it coming, I think a lot of minds were blown at that moment.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UAvdxEjns0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UAvdxEjns0)

[2]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVfOe5mFbAE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVfOe5mFbAE)
(1.6M views in about 22 hours)

------
bitL
Funny how both fruity and glassy company "inspire" each other - first fruit's
version of surface, now glass' version of a "book" :-D

~~~
yread
Even funnier is how Apple used to be mostly for creators, now most of its
profits come from iPhone and iPad - devices mostly for consuming. And
Microsoft markets their Surfaces quite aggressively to creators.

------
h43k3r
The detachable part is very important if you are buying a touch screen laptop.
I have a $1800 lenovo x1 carbon which has a awesome touchscreen which I rarely
use because it doesn't support tablet/detachable mode.

~~~
slantyyz
I find scrolling and cursor placement to be the most useful aspects of a
touchscreen in a laptop form factor.

After I got my Surface Pro 1, I found myself constantly touching the screen on
all of my other computers (laptops and desktops) to do that.

------
bitsoda
I'm not crazy about paying extra for the tablet capability and hinge as I'll
only ever use it in laptop mode, also curious that there's no USB-C port.
However, I'm glad Microsoft is showing its OEMs what a proper Windows laptop
should be. The OEMs have been shitting the bed on this for years.

~~~
mizzao
I don't know about that, I think you should give the tablet mode a try before
you speculate about what it can and can't do.

I use my SP2 a lot with the Pen and OneNote, which provides automatically
digitized handwriting that is viewable and searchable from any computer. It's
a pretty killer app but I would probably still be using pen and paper
notebooks before someone integrated a screen and highly accurate pen in one
device.

You may find some uses for the tablet that you never imagined before.

~~~
hackuser
Can OneNote data be exported to some open, editable format? I like the idea of
OneNote's functionality, but I worry about having my data trapped in that
application.

~~~
blumkvist
.docx, .xps, .pdf

~~~
hackuser
I'm hoping to find something editable. If the document is complex, with
multimedia, are the .docx exports reasonably functional? Some conversions to
.docx and some multimedia content in that format can be unstable.

~~~
NeutronBoy
Can you suggest a commonly used format that would allow complex multimedia
editing like you're suggesting?

~~~
hackuser
Maybe a web CMS like WordPress or a wiki platform, but nothing that is stored
in a single file. It seems to me to be a big hole in available technology. Why
in 2015 can't I easily create a document with multiple videos, markup, etc. in
it?

------
akhilcacharya
I was very impressed until I saw the pricing strategy. $1500 for a 128GB
SSD/8GB RAM and no discrete graphics? I'm not as interested.

------
Artistry121
How much adoption of windows phones do you think it will take for google to
start releasing dedicated apps like they do on iPhones?

~~~
kyriakos
Not sure where I read about it (a couple of days ago) they are already working
on them.

------
saosebastiao
I'll buy one if it can support Linux.

~~~
ebbv
It's more of a question of if Linux can support the hardware.

~~~
elif
ubuntu 15.10 is adding lots of support for the surface hardware

------
codeulike
The Lumia 950 docked into a screen and keyboard was pretty interesting

~~~
spyder
But the thing I don't understand is why they don't make it possible to run a
full Windows on phones that already has the Intel Atom quad-core CPU which can
run full Windows in tablets with good performance. For example the ASUS
Zenfone 2 not only has the Intel CPU but 4GB RAM too. It could be just a
question of having Windows drivers for the components like the PowerVR GPU.

~~~
JBiserkov
There are rumors about a "Surface phone" that will run full Windows. And full
Office, etc.

------
brudgers
Because I use Emacs, I was pumped when I saw that the keyboard has symmetrical
keys around the spacebar like a Thinkpad or Microsoft's own Natural Ergonomic
4000 keyboard.

Then I went to the computer with the big monitor and zoomed in on the keyboard
photo. The assignments are committee meeting fucked. Fn and <\- instead of two
Cntl's on the third key outboard. Oh well.

------
suprgeek
Welcome to the party Microsoft! We were missing you...

------
listic
I wonder what the exact CPU models will be? Microsoft seems to be taking clues
from Apple's guidebook and doesn't bother with stating the exact CPU model
even in 'Tech specs'. Likely the Y-series of the latest 6-gen (Skylake) mobile
i5's [1] and i7's [2]. They are not released nor announced yet, but the
Surface Book is not exactly shipping, either.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i5_micropro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i5_microprocessors#Skylake_microarchitecture_.286th_generation.29_2)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_micropro...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Core_i7_microprocessors#Skylake_microarchitecture_.286th_generation.29_2)

------
Gustomaximus
I bought a Lumia 435 recently to test Windows 10 and see if it's worth going
all in (they announced they would upgrade 435). Now MS are not going to
upgrade this model. Behaviour like this is not how they will build credibility
and new users.

Overall current version of Windows Mobile seems 80% there. Some things are
done better than Android/iPhone, many other they don't. I was really looking
forward to trying 10, but now will likely try out alternatives
(Sailfish/Firefox/Ubuntu Touch?) as I can flash an existing phone.

I'd love to see a market where there are four+ OS's each with reasonable share
seriously competing to be the best. It would be a consumers dream!

------
ctvo
One of the first things in years MS has put out that I'm seriously considering
buying. It looks like they nailed the tablet / laptop experience from the
previews so far.

------
holografix
I just pre-ordered the i5/dGPU model in Australia. Ive been a mac user for at
least 5 years and my current machine is a 15" Macbook Retina from mid 2012 and
its is an EXCELLENT machine and works flawlessly.

What sold me on the SB was the pen, the slight increase in portability and the
dedicated gpu. I was given a macbook air for work and I really noticed the
weight difference between it and my 15" retina and I started considdering
getting the new "Macbook" which is basically an air with retina, but living
without a dgpu basically meant no more dota/sc2.

I also considered getting a surface pro 3 mainly because I love the pen, I
have watched for years how different companies like 53 and Wacok have come out
with over engineered "fingers" for the iPad! People clearly want to be able to
draw and write on it, I think apple missed a HUGE opportunity here, specially
since all the creative types favour apple.

However I am DREADING being stuck in Windows. The constant updates, the bugs,
the lack of dev tools, lack of xcode, antiviruses, bloatware, no proper
terminal... Sincerely worried I'll end up hating it.

~~~
holografix
On the Aussie Microsoft site there's a phone number you can call to reserve
your Surface Book for pickup at the new flagship store about to open in
Sydney.

Called them today, got routed to an offshore call centre, which I have no
problems with, the lady who spoke to me was VERY polite and all around great
at her job, she tells me they don't yet have the number for the flagship store
so can't do anything...

WTF?

------
BinaryIdiot
I'm very curious how well the trackpad on the Surface Book works. I've had
MacBooks and the HP Spectre; the Sprectre is awesome but the trackpad...I mean
holy shit it's just absolutely awful to the point where I've pretty much
stopped using it.

So how good is this trackpad and does it work like a MacBook's where two
fingers = right click versus this weird obsession PC vendors seem to have
about dividing a single trackpad into invisible click zones?

~~~
MLR
In Windows 10 I think MS ship trackpad drivers now, on the old Surface
products at least two finger tap is definitely a right click anyway.

~~~
BinaryIdiot
Interesting; I haven't tried messing with the drivers since Windows 8.1 but
using the default ones didn't support two finger scrolling and just seemed
wonky. The two finger tap works on either though; I want the two finger click.
Taps don't work well in games :)

------
wslh
Up to 16gb and lightweight? It competes directly with Lenovo X series and the
Dell XPS 13.

------
pgrote
I am very interested in learning how they provide 12 hours of usage for the
Surface Book. What do they disable to extend the life? They battery capacity?

~~~
jhugg
My hunch is both halves have a battery. Also that 12 hours is listed as video
playback, which is not how Apple measures.

~~~
mtgx
Or they're just misleading about how they measure the battery life. We used to
have "8h of battery life" 10 years ago, when in fact they lasted 3h. Apple has
done this, too, more and more lately unfortunately. Their "12h" battery life
is more like 8h for moderate usage.

~~~
superdude
Apple products consistently get their advertised battery life (or beyond).

~~~
Guvante
The discussion thread is about battery life under heavy usage which never
meets the advertised battery life since no one would buy a laptop that only
advertised its minimum battery life. "Will last at least 3 hours after full
charging" isn't catchy.

------
arunitc
What i5/i7 processor are they using MQ, HQ, M or U?

------
togusa
That looks like it might actually hit the spot to replace my old ThinkPad
X-series.

------
tdicola
Surface Book looks neat but is it an admission that the Surface Pro and its
flexible keyboard, kickstand, etc. perhaps aren't the best design?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Surface Book looks neat but is it an admission that the Surface Pro and its
> flexible keyboard, kickstand, etc. perhaps aren't the best design?

Seems to me its an expression of the basic fact known to everyone (well,
except Apple for a while, but even they've mostly come around to it) that
there is no one "best design" for all users and uses, and that different users
(and even the same user for different uses) have different needs and
preferences resulting in different "best designs".

------
jerrysievert
Does anyone know what type of cable the SurfaceConnect cable is? Is it yet
another standard, or thunderbolt re-labeled?

------
sliverstorm
_By reconnecting it to the keyboard, you unlock its full creative power in a
pen first mode._

Hmm... what does the keyboard contain? Are we looking at another dual-
processor hybrid? Or perhaps only dual-graphics? Or even simpler, does the
keyboard have most of the battery and so the screen aggressively throttles
itself when undocked?

~~~
dogma1138
GPU, battery, keyboard, and IO ports.

~~~
sliverstorm
Well, the photo with that caption is with the keyboard folded fully over
backwards used as a pseudo-tablet. No keyboard use in that case, and probably
no IO either.

~~~
dogma1138
USB ports, dock, and SD card will work no matter what orientation the screen
is in.

~~~
sliverstorm
Sure, but it seems like if they wanted to be able to connect USB devices while
the Book is in a tablet mode, they would simply put USB ports on the screen
instead of engineering a fancy reversible hinge. Ports just don't seem like
the killer reason to offer that mode.

Usually the keyboard-folded-back mode is offered in lieu of a detachable
screen.

~~~
jholman
It seems to me that once they've built a detachable screen, making it
reversible is simple: you just make the data connector reversible, OR you put
the data connector offset and build two of them on the keyboard side, so the
screen plugs into one or the other depending on orientation. Either way,
pretty cheap. There is no "fancy reversible hinge"; the fancy is in the
detachability.

What do you get for that? Battery, IO, and GPU.

If you want to put USB ports on the screen, that limits the thinness of the
screen (SBook screen: 7.7mm. SPro4: 8.5mm, which they allege was limited by
USB ports).

------
passive
I'll be the odd one out and say that I will miss the kickstand on the Surface
Book. For me, the kickstand is what has made the SP3 into the best computing
device I've ever used.

While a proper laptop will cover many of the same cases as the kickstand,
there are times when the kickstand can function as a hook, allowing the
surface to be used in positions a laptop simply wouldn't be practical.

Probably my favorite example is to hook the SP3 over my steering wheel (not
while driving!), and allow the keyboard to drape down mostly vertically.
Certainly not the most productive position, but for videoconferencing on the
go, it's come in handy half a dozen times.

Another similar one is lying down with my knees up. The stand wedges it nicely
between my legs, with the keyboard over my thighs. It's fairly comfortable,
and pretty good for typing.

Otherwise, Surface Book looks terrific. :)

~~~
ohitsdom
There is still the Surface Pro 4 for the kickstand lovers among us.

------
6stringmerc
If this doesn't convince musicians and DJs to more seriously consider the
Microsoft Surface line of products, I don't know if it's possible. Personally
I love the look of this, and in time, will have it earmarked as a replacement
for my Lenovo X class ultrabook. I'm impressed.

~~~
ape4
Of course, the page has a photo of DJ using it. What about a developer ;)

~~~
6stringmerc
Haha yeah of course they'll advertise a DJ because it's a hip kind of gig!
Makes sense!

I see developers as - stereotypically - having a better understanding of
hardware and software interaction. As in, a developer who likes Linux could
see the Surface Book as a hardware platform.

In my experience, DJs and music types have been traditionally drawn to Apple
products for three main reasons: 1. Ease of use, 2. Stability, and 3. Native
low-latency drivers.

There is a pretty worthy backlash regarding the new Apple single USB-C
unveiling, and from my perspective, the iOS vs. full OS fork is only getting
worse from a creative user standpoint...if Apple continues to push the way the
have in the past (dropping multiple USB ports like they dropped optical
drives), musicians might be reminded of the fiasco surrounding the Final Cut
product in recent memory.

------
owenversteeg
Anyone here know how usable this would be with a tiling WM/on Linux? I've got
a touchscreen Ideapad Yoga and I just bought the newer Yoga Pro, which looked
really nice, but I've never gotten any use out of the touchscreen on Linux. If
you assume that you can't use the touchscreen (which seems to be the current
reality on Linux) this has very few advantages over any other laptop
(beautiful construction aside.)

Specifically, I'd love any names of Linux applications that people use with
the pressure-sensitive pen/touchscreen/multitouch.

-or- anyone out there that dualboots Windows and Linux on a touchscreen just for the Windows touch features? How usable is this?

I'd be very appreciative of anyone who has any comments/suggestions, as this
is something that's bothered me for quite some time.

------
codeulike
Question is: Whats the battery life of the detatched screen?

~~~
codeulike
Answer: About 3 hours apparently.

See: [http://surfaceproartist.com/blog/2015/10/6/microsoft-
unveils...](http://surfaceproartist.com/blog/2015/10/6/microsoft-unveils-
surface-pro-4-and-surface-book)

 _Battery life of the Surface Pro 4 is 9 hours. The Surface Book will offer 12
when configured as a laptop. But when the Book 's display is detached, it will
only achieve 3 hours._

~~~
nogridbag
An interview with Panos mentioned the split is 4 hours in the display, 8 hours
in the keyboard. But I guess we'll see once someone does an in depth review.

------
pmelendez
I would love to read a new Penny Arcade review of this vs. Surface Pro 4. I
hope it happens...

------
deskpro
Great to see 16GB RAM in Surface Book. Disappointing they've not embraced USB
C/3.1

------
acaloiar
This looks like a great step in the right direction for Microsoft, but their
marketing copy, "Use it like a clipboard" is profoundly jarring. Why is
Microsoft afraid to use the word "tablet"? Clipboard is hardly a synonym.

~~~
subspaceman
I don't think they're avoiding calling it a tablet, but highlighting the fact
that it can be used like a clipboard - as in papers clipped to a board with
the pen stuck on top.

~~~
acaloiar
I can only speak for myself, but when I spend $1,500 on an electronic device,
I hope that "like a clipboard" is the least accurate analogy for its
functionality.

------
chx
As I posted in another thread: I was wondering and after some Googling it
seems the dock is not using DisplayLink but some proprietary connector routing
DisplayPort and USB3 which means it works with Linux well. This is awesome
news.

The keyboard we discussed yesterday
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334026](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10334026)
is less than an inch bigger in each direction -- I am wondering whether I
could replace a laptop with that keyboard and the Surface Pro 4. Previously I
wouldn't even consider because of the 8GB limitation but it's possible now
with 16GB.

------
masklinn
1\. how does it charge? I've looked at the promo video, I don't understand
where the power plug is

2\. on a completely related note, why the Type A ports? Why not put a bunch of
nice Type C, maybe a single Type A for backwards compatibility?

~~~
sratner
1\. SurfaceConnect on the right edge of the base:
[https://dri1.img.digitalrivercontent.net/Storefront/Company/...](https://dri1.img.digitalrivercontent.net/Storefront/Company/msintl/images/English/en-
INTL-Surface-PSU-US-RC2-00001/en-INTL-L-Surface-PSU-US-RC2-00001-mnco.jpg).
Same connector as the new dock.

------
anjc
What an amazing event. Every announcement was mindblowing. It's saying a lot
when I'm hyped about the Surfacebook and Lumia, and then realise that I forgot
about the Hololens devkit being released in 3 months. Amazing.

------
tempestn
Looks like a nice, inexpensive docking solution for the Surface Book too [1].
$200 for a full-featured dock with ethernet, 2x DisplayPort, 3.5mm, multiple
USB ports, and charging, all with a single cable.

[1]
[http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Microsof...](http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Microsoft-
Surface-
Dock/productID.325725200?tduid=%2851b4fe6c2248a56f541d6cee6d749763%29%28256380%29%282459594%29%28TnL5HPStwNw-
opG4CMIH7jprgpdRBVIXFg%29%28%29)

------
bluecalm
It's a perfect fit for what I imagined to be a dream laptop for programming:
3:2 high res screen (more vertical space than 16:9 or 16:10), real quad CPU,
good battery life, 16GB of RAM. It's light and great looking as well. The only
thing I am missing there and which makes me unlikely to switch is no
trackpoint option. I find trackpoint to be so much superior to a trackpad I
don't ever want to go back. I even prefer a trackpoint to a mouse these days
(and the fact that you don't need to carry it around is just an additional
bonuse)

------
ChuckMcM
Interesting, I think the iPad Pro announcement did them a favor. Now I'm going
to have to visit a store and actually play with one of these things, could be
an expensive fall season for me this year.

~~~
addicted
Good point. The iPad Pro popularized and legitimized a lot of ideas that
people may not have been willing to accept if they came only from MS.

Yet, when the iPad Pro was released many felt a nagging feeling that something
was missing, and at least on the Surface (no pun intended) the Book seems to
fill those gaps.

------
morsch
Available with 16g RAM. Interesting. The upcoming XPS 13 refresh supposedly
offers 16g, too, but the current version doesn't. I wonder how well a
Microsoft laptop is going to support Linux.

~~~
hutch34
Honestly, if Linux supported the pen fully, I'd buy one of these in a second.
I feel like Microsoft has nailed it with their Surface Pro line.

------
jiantastic
Curious how Microsoft can enter the market this openly. Don't they have an
agreement of some sort with hardware manufacturers ( HP, Dell etc) that they
won't enter the market?

~~~
scholia
Dell and HP have signed up to sell the Surface Pro line.

See my earlier comment
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10342009](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10342009)

------
addicted
The design reminds me of my 2005 plastic iBook for some reason. And I totally
mean this as a compliment. Probably the best device I've ever owned (adjusting
for contemporary tech).

------
hoverbear
Looks like a great Linux laptop... Let's hope it works with it.

------
Veedrac
Google Trends "surface pro" vs "macbook air" vs "macbook pro" is informative.
Of course, none comes close to the iPhones or iPads, but it's impressive how
much market share Microsoft have snatched up compared to the almighty Apple
behemoth.

[https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=surface%20pro%2C%20m...](https://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=surface%20pro%2C%20macbook%20air%2C%20macbook%20pro)

------
lewisl9029
Personally, I actually prefer the 16:9 aspect ratio for any screen that has
sufficient raw vertical resolution to not hinder productivity (i.e. a lot more
than 1080px for me).

I feel that once you get past the point where the _lack_ of vertical
resolution limits productivity, the marginal utility offered by _even more_
vertical resolution becomes rather insignificant, to the point where I'd
benefit more from having more horizontal resolution for snapping windows side-
by-side.

------
sidcool
I cannot open this page somehow. It's accessible on my mobile data, but not
from broadband. In fact, no Microsoft sites are opening. What could be the
reason?

------
rayalez
I wonder if this will work well with Ubuntu Touch.

Ubuntu is on a similar path of creating universal OS for both laptops and
tablets. On this hardware it can be something really epic.

------
miahi
Not different than most current offers on laptops, the keyboard still looks
horrible for programming[1]. Fn keys shared with Home/End/PgUp/PgDwn, Up/Down
arrows sharing a key. I guess they call it "slick", I call it won't buy.

[1] ok, depending on what you are programming, I'm sure there will be people
saying they only need the "0" and "1" keys working.

~~~
dangrossman
I don't like where they're placed on my keyboard either, so I use AutoHotkey
to bind those functions to alt+arrows. Alt+up for page up, alt+down for page
down, alt+left for home and alt+right for end. After a couple hours it became
muscle memory again.

~~~
mmozeiko
How do you press Shift+Alt+Up/Down/Left/Right? Text editors I use do vertical
block selection for Shift+Alt+arrows. Doing this kind of remapping will give
you Shift+PageUp/PageDown/Home/End which is not cool...

~~~
dangrossman
I use shift+alt+left/right to highlight lines, but I don't use
shift+alt+up/down ever. I use my mouse for that.

------
TurboHaskal
Some tips and common sense to combat the hype train:

\- Never buy "iteration 0" products. If you do, at least wait a few months for
long term user reviews.

\- Never buy non upgradeable ultrabooks, unless you plan to sell it right
before the warranty expires. If that's the case, then get a product that
doesn't depreciate like crazy after a few months (stick to MacBooks and
nothing else really).

------
vegabook
yes very nice hardware, both the phone and the surface book. But the real
standout here for me is continuum. This takes the logical next step where all
the heavy lifting compute / storage happens remotely, and your "PC" doesn't
need to be anything more powerful than the device in your pocket. I for one am
overjoyed at not having to cart around a notebook, as the vast majority of my
sit-down work happens in locations where monitors are available (ie office,
home, client location, in that order of frequency. I personally don't do
desktop-class work in trains/planes/coffee shops, even if I understand that
there is a use case for this, and that's what the surfaces are for).

I'll even reconsider Windows now. My only slight concern is it would be great
to get a slightly less clunky USB/HDMI docking cube. Did it have to be a cube?
Surely a cable of some kind would have worked?

Now the only thing left is for Canonical (finally) to ship Unity 8
convergence. Please?

------
gcb0
tell me the didn't remove true multitasking from windows (pro no less)

faq got me very worried:

""" Can I run multiple programs at the same time?

A: Your Surface Book allows you to run up to two apps side by side on a screen
at a time. You can schedule meetings on your calendar while you respond to
email, or edit your PowerPoint deck while you listen to music. """

 _up to two_ ...what?!?!

~~~
akrolsmir
Probably referring to the windowing system that makes it easy to snap two apps
side by side, each on half the screen, while in Metro mode. You can probably
still go to the "desktop" and multitask however you're used to.

~~~
wasyl
> probably

I'd like it to be the case, but they may allow only metro apps, can't they?

~~~
IMcD23
It runs full Windows 10.

------
ljk
For people who uses tablets like the surface exclusively, does your neck get
sore? It doesn't look comfortable working like that

------
elipsey
Are the bootloaders locked?

~~~
jhugg
I wonder how hard it would be to just virtualize linux all the time, rather
than trying to load linux on new hardware. How much do you lose as the tech to
virtualize gets better?

~~~
kozukumi
Not really the point. Sure I can stick Linux in a VM but what if I want to run
something other than Windows on _hardware that I own_?

~~~
jhugg
Yeah, not your point, but it's a question for me. If the machine has drivers
for the windows kernel, and probably terrible drivers for linux, how thin can
that shim get?

------
astaroth360
That hinge is so cool! Finally a real tablet/laptop hybrid comes out!

Seriously, this makes the difference for me. I never wanted to buy a tablet
device because I thought I wouldn't use it much, but if I can just pull off
the keyboard and turn it into a tablet that runs the same OS occasionally,
that's something I'm interested in.

------
johnchristopher
I love the `thunderstruck' theme song but the `start me up' one from the
stones was a better fit when MS communicated about Windows 95.

I remember some Office ad campaign that had more punch and coherence too.

Adding the weird Lumia branding I'd say there's a decline in MS marketing
efforts. But I might very well be in an echo chamber of my own.

------
samstave
I have a surface pro 3 and it's the first windows based machine I've touched
in five years and I love the thing.

I really want the book now though...

The keyboard for the pro 3 is awesome. I really love how solidly the magnetic
attachment feels for the keyboard, the backlit keys and the actual mechanical
buttons...

It's fantastic.

I look forward to seeing how the book feels in person

~~~
stordoff
I feel the same way about the Surface 3 Keyboard. I wasn't going to buy one
initially, but the cheapest (used) SP3 came with one. Really give me the best
of all worlds - tablet for media consumption, detachable keyboard is a viable
laptop replacement (trackpad is not great but usable), and the dock gives me a
decent desktop replacement (Quad-core i5/8GB RAM/Gigabit Ethernet/USB3/Mini-
Displayport gives me everything I need for anything except gaming).

I've also been impressed with MS's customer support - the tip on the Surface
Pen broke, and getting a new one UPSed to me only took about 20 minutes
(register serial number, then a quick live-chat on the support website).

------
cryptoz
Does the Lumia 950 have a barometer? Or does anyone have a full specification
sheet? I don't see the specs listed at [http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/mobile/phone/lumia950/](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
us/mobile/phone/lumia950/)

------
unabst
Microsoft has been chasing Apple for a while now, but chasers never win,
because they depend on whom they are chasing for instructions. They even hired
the Apple store firm to do their stores. Now they are making notebooks at
Apple's price points.

What's ironic is Microsoft has often tried things first. They tried tablets
and hybrid laptops and smartphones before Apple. They even tried flat design
before Apple. They have ideas, but some of their products have been just
awful.

Microsoft still leads in the living room with xbox, the office with Office,
and in the market (or big parts of it) with affordable computers. They're
actually killing it with their smart phone apps and the subscription model.
They even seem to be embracing open source. These are core strengths, and are
areas where they are actually ahead.

Yet, by doing as Apple does, only later and weaker, the conversation is always
about Apple being better and ahead. And the kicker is, it's true. It's hard
working around the truth in America when it's this blatantly obvious.

I'd love to see Microsoft open source Windows and make it a subscription. I'd
love to see them put Windows 10 on every device and produce a phone that could
run the real photoshop, just as a statement, even if it sucks. I'd love to see
them define a new laptop that OEMs could build instead of selling one and
competing with them. I'd love to hear a competing philosophy and not just a
product.

If anything, what they lack is philosophy, and a face that speaks it. What I'd
love to see is a philosopher sharing ideas and inspiring an audience... I
would do anything to see Steve Jobs again.

~~~
scholia
> by doing as Apple does, only later and weaker

Seems to me that touch, pens, detachable screens and a full desktop operating
system is Microsoft doing things ahead of Apple, and stronger.

Putting the same base OS on laptops, tablets, convertibles, smartphones and
games consoles is, arguably, ahead of Apple.

Putting smartphone apps on Windows, Android and iOS is ahead of Apple.

Running a world-class global cloud service is ahead of Apple.

> I'd love to hear a competing philosophy and not just a product.

You should have watched the demo. You can catch the video repeat...

~~~
unabst
Windows 8 was not stronger. Microsoft Tablet PC was a modest attempt in 2002,
but again, not stronger.

The issue with the Surface Book is how closely they intentionally align
themselves with their biggest competitor. They are begging for a comparison.
And I could have easily mistaken the page for a 2002 Tablet PC overview. Only
the pictures are different. "Redefining the laptop" is hardly inspiring copy.

Which demo? Any great quotes?

FYI I have an iPhone like everyone else, but work on a PC. I'm not on either
side.

~~~
IkmoIkmo
Are you really comparing the company that just put out the Macbook (oh wow a
thinner than thin enough MBA with a higher res display, no ports, worse
battery, worse CPU, worse GPU, for a much higher price) and the iPad Pro (wow
a bigger iPad with a pen many other tablets and laptops already had covered,
that you have to charge by sticking it into the iPad like an idiot [0], to
Microsoft which just demo'd a pretty damn awesome laptop which is priced like
a MBP, but has touch, a pen, can work as a tablet and outperforms the MBP,
alongside the newest iteration of the tablet, a phone that can work as a PC
and let's not forget the Hololens which is a genuine innovation unlike
anything Apple is doing, and the latter is just playing catch up? Come on,
talk about bias.

So when Apple is obviously working on a self-driving car, you'd say that Apple
is aligning themselves intentionally with their biggest competitor and
'begging for a comparison' to Google? Or not? Or when they finally allow
adblockers, finally allow split screen, finally have a low-battery mode,
finally add (private) NFC, jumped on the smartwatch bandwagon, jumped on the
bigger-phone bandwagon, they're also begging for comparisons and aligning
themselves with the competition? When Apple copied the Surface Pro's, and
finally shipped a pencil after Jobs bashed them for years, they're also
begging for a comparison?

Innovation doesn't always have to be some grand scheme that is completely
unprecedented and radically different from everything else. Microsoft is
engineering real innovations that are valuable and share some similarities
with competitors, just like Google or Apple do, alongside of which it has some
big ideas that nobody is really pursuing like the Hololens. I think you're
giving them too little credit here.

[0]
[http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2015/09/ipad_pro...](http://core0.staticworld.net/images/article/2015/09/ipad_pro_apple_pencil_plugged_in-100613525-orig.png)

~~~
scholia
Unabst was apparently of the opinion (above and in his deleted message) that
the lack of innovation in the headline was much more significant than the
massive innovation in the product.

Seems to me that if Apple had produced the Surface Book, Mac fans would be
wetting themselves so hard that a lot of people would drown....

~~~
unabst
Please stop putting words in my mouth or those of Mac fans. I stated a simple
fact, but got downvoted, so I gave up. Glad you admitted there was a lack of
innovation somewhere though.

> Mac fans would be wetting themselves so hard that a lot of people would
> drown

@IkmoIkmo How is that for bias?

~~~
scholia
> How is that for bias?

I stated a simple fact. Well, I assume that's how you would describe it ;-)

~~~
unabst
I can state for a fact that the statement was not a fact, and that it was
biased regardless of anything I could have said.

~~~
scholia
In comments
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
unabst
> Mac fans would be wetting themselves so hard that a lot of people would
> drown....

Be civil.

~~~
scholia
It's civil. It's funny. It's true.

------
SoapSeller
Also, the (pre)order page is here[0]

But without full specs ):

[0][http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Microsof...](http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Microsoft-
Surface-Book/productID.325716000)

~~~
rickyc091
Not sure how they can claim it's 2x faster than MBP without any specs... not
sure what they are comparing it too as well. Their highest end model to
Apple's lowest?

------
kid0m4n
Excited to see what this competition will do to Apple. Expect to see something
radical in the MBP line now.

------
inerte
Does anyone have more details on the "NVIDIA GeForce"? I can't find the model,
memory or any other info. What I really want to know is how powerful the GPU
really is, and some benchmarks, but for now just some model-number or series-
letter would be fine.

~~~
exodust
They originally had "NVIDIA GeForce 8G" on the product page, but have since
removed the "8g" bit. Either a typo, or something strange and controversial is
happening behind the scenes!

8 gig of gpu memory seems unlikely. You'll find that in bigger gaming laptops,
but probably not the surface book.

Perhaps because NVIDIA haven't officially announced the new GPU, Microsoft
can't mention it.

------
51Cards
Not sure many would agree but I would have liked to see a kickstand on the
back of the Surface Book screen. I can see a desire to stand it up without
needing the full keyboard. Other than that I think that may be my next device
purchase.

------
bananaoomarang
Looks like a great machine, but almost certainly won't run a non-virtualised
Linux distro very well (if the old Surface lineup is anything to go by). A
shame for devs, but I suppose they want people to use the MS env/toolchains.

------
bduerst
Why no USB Type-C?

------
vinceyuan
Tech specs of Surface Book are very nice. But it does not look good and is too
thick when the lid is closed.
[https://imgur.com/IXUzASs](https://imgur.com/IXUzASs)

~~~
vinceyuan
Not sure the hinge of Surface Book is strong enough. If I put Surface Book and
heavy things into a backpack, I will worry about the hinge. I don't worry if
it is a normal laptop.

------
rw2
The site is screwed up on MAC chrome:
[http://imgur.com/1hHpSiy](http://imgur.com/1hHpSiy)

How can you not check one of the most popular browsers on the internet.

~~~
makecheck
On a page with the words "meticulously crafted" in large print. :)

I found that the glitches somehow corrected themselves; try resizing or
reloading the page.

------
20tibbygt06
The surface book has the potential to propel Microsoft past apple. I was so
amazed at everything that the surface book offers. dedicated graphics, pci
storage, the design, and the convertibility. I highly believe that 2 in 1
hybrids like the surface book will be the future. A device like this embodies
everything that we have come to love with technology in this time and age. the
tablet form, touchscreens, portability, performance, sleekness, applications.

I currently use a toshiba click2pro [1] as my laptop of choice. This device
has the same spirit as the surface book, but fails on many ends where I see
the surface book exceeding. So far I have not seen any other manufacture crack
the right formula for this type of device. The Asus transformer book, HP
Spectre, Toshiba click all have their drawbacks or just weren't design right.

Take my Toshiba click 2 pro for example. 1. the weight of the LCD is heavier
than the keyboard dock causing the laptop to be top heavy when moving it
around. Toshiba circumvented this by docking the screen not at the the where
the dock and keyboard meet, but by moving the docking location in a bit the
lcd will stay without being top heavy and failing over. 2. The keyboard dock
has potential to add components such as extra internal storage when docked,
adding another battery cell in the dock, adding dedicated graphics. 3. The
docking hinge is awful this is the main problem that I currently see with
these devices. All the 2 in 1 have terrible hinge technology to hold the
device together.

Now Microsoft has gone and put a lot of thought into this device and I believe
they have a winner. The have set the bar for this type of device and other
manufactures will be coming with their own devices. The hybrid 2 in 1, a true
laptop and tablet device. Why Microsoft will succeed is because they have not
only looked as design, but they have put a lot of thought into performance and
functionality. From adding dedicated graphics to the keyboard dock it
transforms the tablet to a true power house of a laptop. Also from what I saw,
they added extra batteries in the keyboard dock by doing this they have
distributed the weight of the components. I hope to see more analysis on the
weight and feel of the device. The hinge looks to be highly in house designed.
There was a talk about how Microsoft built the surface pro 3 [2] and watching
the talk you can see that Microsoft spent a lot of time designing the
components to be functional. I highly believe that the "dynamic fulcrum" hinge
is a step way above of what other manufactures have done so far for a device
of this type. I hope we get analysis on the hinge.

A device that blurs lines between the laptop and tablet. Between entertainment
and performance. For some time we were split between a tablet device running
an OS system that was designed for entertainment consumption, not being able
to have the power to do more intensive tasks yet manufactures trying to sell
it as if it could. (iPad Pro, the new Pixel C) to having to choose between OSX
or windows for when we truly needed the power of full operating system. Like
another comments stated we are seeing where Microsoft and Apple are heading.
Microsoft is blurring the line of devices and like they stated are making us
the hub where we are allowed to use our devices in different ways. To docking
your phone to enjoy the desktop experience under continuum to using the
surface book while lounging around and browsing as a tablet. I am liking where
Microsoft is heading.

[1]
[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468274,00](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468274,00).
[2]
[https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK3302](https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK3302)

------
shogun21
Great. I was all ready to get a Surface Pro 4 and now there's the new Surface
Book to consider!

My biggest question is how does performance differ between the SP4 and Surface
Book (detached from keyboard)?

------
bane
In case somebody missed the presentation:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=407Fykg8oz4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=407Fykg8oz4)

------
PaulHoule
When is somebody going to come out with a convertable that doesn't have a
trackpad? Does somebody have a patent that makes it illegal to make a PC
without a trackpad or something?

~~~
codeulike
Feedback from the Surface Pro 1 and 2 was that without a decent trackpad they
were annoying. As in, they had trackpads but they sucked. Got a lot better
with the Pro 3.

~~~
PaulHoule
Exactly, instead of "get a bigger trackpad" the answer could be "get a mouse".

------
rayiner
Miffed that you gotta by the $2,600 model with dGPU (which most people don't
want or need) to get 16GB of RAM. You can get a 13" rMBP with 16GB for only
$1,500.

~~~
intrasight
Totally agree. But typically vendors capitulate to buyer demand, so expect a
16GB model w/o dGPU eventually. And this launch price probably won't hold
anyway.

------
xez
So are there specs for the Book anywhere? If I can replace my notebook + wacom
intuos setup with one of those, It'd be wonderful. A helluva lot more travel-
friendly.

------
mtw
Typos, poor loading times. I'm not impressed, Microsoft!

------
jhugg
How much does the book’s base weigh? Why will no one tell me?

~~~
jhugg
Starting at 3.34 lbs and 22.8mm thick. rMBP 13 is 3.48 lbs and 18mm thick.

Similar weight but the rMBP is a fair bit thinner.

~~~
desireco42
And that makes a huge difference how? I have one and they are great, but this
thing has graphics card and is very powerful, on top of which it can work for
12h.

------
codeulike
PixelSense is apparently their name for what drives the pen now (rather than
Wacom or N-trig). I think they bought n-trig and have developed it further
maybe?

------
thezilch
It's weird this forwarded me to "en-au", when I've always lived in the US. I
had opened a separate tab directly to the Surface Book that was on the "en-us"
site, and when I saw the device pricing, not knowing I was on AU, I was
surprised to see the HUGE difference in price for the Surface Book from what
I'd saw on the other page/tab -- 2.3K vs 1.5K. Hopefully that's rare for them,
or there are going to be a lot of people turned off to that price point --
2.3K for the Surface Book is insane.

~~~
theyoungestgun
The Aussie dollar is pretty weak right now. That translates to $1640 USD.

------
AdmiralAsshat
So..when your slogan is "The tablet that can replace your laptop," maybe it's
not a great idea to announce a laptop next to it?

~~~
Someone1234
Why? The SP4 does replace a laptop, but there's still a trade off there. It
depends just how productive you want to be on the go.

The type cover is amazing for its size and weight. But it is still a thin and
relatively small keyboard. The Surface Book has a more robust keyboard but is
thicker and weighs more.

I feel like the SP4 is a laptop replacement. But the Surface Book can be also
while also acting like a laptop in some situations. They're both interesting,
just boils down to the user's needs.

I'd likely buy a SP4, but can understand why others would be a SB.

------
obilgic
Website layout is all messed up on Mac/Chrome

~~~
h43k3r
It is fine after sometime. Just wait for 5-10 seconds to load the 360 degree
viewer.

------
johnchristopher
Can it be said that MS is pivoting from a software company to a hardware one ?
With Office and Windows as (almost fre) incentives ?

------
miguelrochefort
The headphone jack position is a deal-breaker.

~~~
astrojams
Agreed - its not in the best location. However if you snake the cord behind
the laptop and around the other side it shouldn't pose a problem. The only
downside is that it will eat a little bit more of your headphone length. It
shouldn't be a deal breaker though.

------
simonhughes22
Wow, could they make it look more like a Mac Book? Apple will have to come up
with a different look for theirs now.

------
masterponomo
I want one, but after the New Yorker article on Reid Hoffman I'm kind of
waiting to find out if he likes it.

------
jokoon
Wonder how hard they found against hardware backdoors on this. Also wonder
what companies provided the hardware.

------
Pimmel
Finally! Now, the only problem is the os.

------
bambang150
Apple - Microsoft seems interesting these days. Old rivals seem back after a
whole silence for both of them

------
chang2301
this might be something to expect after all these years...seeing lots of dudes
wish Windows to come back just to give Apple more pressure to make the next
revolutionary product...this might be a alarm to Apple somehow by lacing
breakthrough all these years.

------
dfar1
Hopefully this page (barely loading) does not represent the quality of their
products.

------
ebbv
I can't see giving up my 15" rMBP for this. Never have I ever wanted to take
the screen off and use it as a tablet.

And when I've been forced by circumstance to do development on my Windows
machine it's been at best awkward. (Basically trying to recreate a Unix like
experience via Cygwin or what have you.)

~~~
babuskov
Exactly. MBP is so lightweight and robust that you can take it anywhere where
you would take a tablet. Since I got my MBP I completely stopped using the
Nexus 10 tablet (which I used a lot before that). The battery lasts as long
for similar workloads, it's quiet, and having trackpad means that your screen
doesn't get greasy. Having keyboard at hand is a plus. I really cannot think
of a situation where a developer would prefer tablet-with-a-touch-screen type
of interface.

~~~
slantyyz
Well, it works with the Surface Pen, so for people who prefer pen and paper
for note taking/drawing (like me), it would be useful in a meeting.

I can't imagine mouse/trackpad are as good as a pen for free-form drawing
diagrams, etc.

~~~
babuskov
Now that you bring that up (and it finally loaded the page in my browser) I'm
intrigued by the pen. If this could be a good replacement for Wacom tablets
(which have double the price) it would be really interesting.

Does anyone have experience with drawing on Surface with a Pen?

~~~
slantyyz
I can only speak to the Surface Pro which has the Wacom tech -- it's great but
sucks at the edges.

The Surface Pen from the Surface Pro 3 forward does not have this issue.

------
uvu
The page cannot be displayed because an internal server error has occurred.

------
rbnacharya
Anybody have any idea about memory? How much gigs of RAM it compromises ?

~~~
ksherlock
* 128GB / Core Intel i5 - 8GB ($1499)

* 256GB / Core Intel i5 - 8GB ($1699)

* 256GB / Core Intel i5 - 8GB / dGPU ($1899)

* 256GB / Core Intel i7 - 8GB / dGPU ($2099)

* 512GB / Core Intel i7 - 16GB / dGPU ($2699)

~~~
devit
This pricing is absurd, you are better off buying the cheaper models and
adding a $350 1TB SSD and 8GB RAM for less than $100...

Assuming they haven't somehow locked the hardware.

~~~
snerbles
At that thickness I would assume that the RAM is soldered to the motherboard.

------
tudorw
LTE? Or do they really want to sell phones that badly...

------
untilHellbanned
how does their website not work on Chrome?

[http://imgur.com/a/egqSU](http://imgur.com/a/egqSU)

~~~
jhugg
Ha. Safari desktop too. I guess it worked once I resized the window, but not
until then.

~~~
ihsw
Can confirm, resizing fixed it. Can't imagine why they did that.

------
findjashua
that page does not inspire confidence

screenshot: [http://imgur.com/uBQfoaX](http://imgur.com/uBQfoaX)

------
BadassFractal
Their CDN was crapping out earlier, seems fine now.

------
manuu
what's the target users for this machine?

------
miguelrochefort
The headphone jack position is a deal-breaker.

Rookie mistake.

~~~
gketuma
there has to be another headphone jack on the attached keyboard. if not, then
it will be a terrible experience to listen to music while working as the
headphone cable will be interfering with the keyboard.

~~~
miguelrochefort
This is no other headphone jack.

------
jblow
No trackpad buttons, no sale.

------
plg
can you install linux

------
techaddict009
I compared prices of it and macbook pro. They both are almost same!

------
20tibbygt06
The surface book has the potential to propel Microsoft past apple. I was so
amazed at everything that the surface book offers. dedicated graphics, pci
storage, the design, and the convertibility. I highly believe that 2 in 1
hybrids like the surface book will be the future. A device like this embodies
everything that we have come to love with technology in this time and age. the
tablet form, touchscreens, portability, performance, sleekness, applications.

I currently use a toshiba click2pro [1] as my laptop of choice. This device
has the same spirit as the surface book, but fails on many ends where I see
the surface book exceeding. So far I have not seen any other manufacture crack
the right formula for this type of device. The Asus transformer book, HP
Spectre, Toshiba click all have their drawbacks or just weren't design right.

Take my Toshiba click 2 pro for example. 1. the weight of the LCD is heavier
than the keyboard dock causing the laptop to be top heavy when moving it
around. Toshiba circumvented this by docking the screen not at the the where
the dock and keyboard meet, but by moving the docking location in a bit the
lcd will stay without being top heavy and failing over. 2. The keyboard dock
has potential to add components such as extra internal storage when docked,
adding another battery cell in the dock, adding dedicated graphics. 3. The
docking hinge is awful this is the main problem that I currently see with
these devices. All the 2 in 1 have terrible hinge technology to hold the
device together.

Now Microsoft has gone and put a lot of thought into this device and I believe
they have a winner. The have set the bar for this type of device and other
manufactures will be coming with their own devices. The hybrid 2 in 1, a true
laptop and tablet device.

Why Microsoft will succeed is because they have not only looked as design, but
they have put a lot of thought into performance and functionality. From adding
dedicated graphics to the keyboard dock it transforms the tablet to a true
power house of a laptop. Also from what I saw, they added extra batteries in
the keyboard dock by doing this they have distributed the weight of the
components. I hope to see more analysis on the weight and feel of the device.
The hinge looks to be highly in house designed. There was a talk about how
Microsoft built the surface pro 3 [2] and watching the talk you can see that
Microsoft spent a lot of time designing the components to be functional. I
highly believe that the "dynamic fulcrum" hinge is a step way above of what
other manufactures have done so far for a device of this type. I hope we get
analysis on the hinge.

A device that blurs lines between the laptop and tablet. Between entertainment
and performance. For some time we were split between a tablet device running
an OS system that was designed for entertainment consumption, not being able
to have the power to do more intensive tasks yet manufactures trying to sell
it as if it could. (iPad Pro, the new Pixel C) to having to choose between OSX
or windows for when we truly needed the power of full operating system.

Like another comments stated we are seeing where Microsoft and Apple are
heading. Microsoft is blurring the line of devices and like they stated are
making us the hub where we are allowed to use our devices in different ways.
To docking your phone to enjoy the desktop experience under continuum to using
the surface book while lounging around and browsing as a tablet. I am liking
where Microsoft is heading.

[1]
[http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468274,00](http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2468274,00).
[2]
[https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK3302](https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Ignite/2015/BRK3302)

------
curiousjorge
it looks like a copy of macbook, and I love microsoft for that, actually might
buy this because of that fact.

the tablet laptop thing is a must if you spend a lot of time in front of a
computer. Unfortunately, sometimes you need a keyboard to answer emails and
get stuff done.

~~~
scholia
What, a copy of a MacBook with a touch screen, pen operation, a serious GPU,
and a detachable screen that works as a tablet running iPad-style apps?

Still waiting for a MacBook that does any of that ;-)

~~~
curiousjorge
I would never be caught with an Apple product built on the backs of millions
of Chinese children and women in horrible and tyrannical working conditions.

If this turns out to be the same case I will also denounce and boycott it.

~~~
voltagex_
What makes you think this isn't made in China? It's going to be a similar
group of OEMs making the parts.

------
eru_iluvatar
Did anyone notice that this site is rather sexist?

There's not a single image on that site of a woman using the laptop. The
closest image is of a person who looks like they could be a woman under the
"Key Features" > "Ultimate performance" text block, but since they don't show
the person's face there's no way to know.

The only women on the page are at the bottom, being the support woman and the
woman sitting next to the man using the laptop.

This is part of the problem that women in STEM have, and as a guy, it's really
disappointing to see such a major player in the tech sector do this.

~~~
kuschku
As a woman in STEM: I don’t give a fuck if the people in the ads using the
device are men or women or cats. (Actually, I’d love to see a major
manufacturer only use cats in their ads)

We have far bigger problems than this, like, for example, on the one side
income equality, and on the other side people trying to fix it by banning wage
negotiations. A good way to handle it would be by implementing a system – like
VW did – where, up to the interview, the company only sees your CV,
qualifications and references, but not age, gender or sex. This is far more
useful for us right now than any kind of "let's force ads to contain 50%
women"

------
ilaksh
Wow, this page looks incredibly bad and loads amazingly slow on my Chromebook.
Either google is trolling M$ or M$ is trolling themselves.

------
revelation
Are we all just stuck in the bubble? I mean I love this thing for the specs,
and Windows is a perfectly fine OS for development nowadays.

But I fail to see how this is helping Microsoft move forward. Capturing a
chunk of the developer notebook market doesn't exactly move the needle for
them, and they don't have the brand that allows Apple to sell MBPr as
glorified Facebook machines to people that would otherwise balk at the price.

------
blondie9x
What a joke. Don't they vet out and optimize the page before mass releasing a
new product? Just shows why MSFT lags behind Apple and Google and Amazon.
ASP.NET FTL

------
richardboegli
Next year there will be a Surface Pro 5 (5"), Pro 8 (8") and Pro 12 (12") all
with pens. 12 will be the successor to current Surface Pro 4.

~~~
wlesieutre
They already have Surface (10.8") and Surface Pro (12"), so I don't see that
changing.

There was speculation of a Surface Phone, but with the Lumia 950XL being pen
compatible and still keeping the Lumia name, it's very unlikely.

------
rebootthesystem
THAT is what I've been waiting for, on all fronts. On top of everything else,
run Ubuntu VM's on the phone (if and when possible), Surface 4 and Surface
Book and you now have the best of both worlds.

We run various Windows-native engineering tools (CAD, CAM, EDA, FEA, etc.) yet
do a lot of software development under Linux (by running VM's on all of our
Windows desktops and laptops).

I can imagine popping an SD card into a phone and plugging it into a projector
at a client's office to review a SolidWorks design. I know that's not possible
today due to the SnapDragon processor but it isn't too far fetched to suggest
companies like DS might very well consider at the very least having viewers
and other tools available for the phones in the future. It makes total sense.

Microsoft is taking this in exactly the right direction. From user-accessible
non-proprietary I/O to file system access on the phone and multi-user
capabilities on the Surface devices. Everything is just right.

Sorry Apple. If reviews are good we are dumping our iPhones for MS Phones by
the end of the year. Not upgrading to any of your new closed hardware and
OS's. We are done. Bye bye.

I really like the energy I am seeing coming out of Microsoft.

There's only one thing missing from that presentation: Microsoft TV. You know
that's got to be in the works.

~~~
rimantas

      > Not upgrading to any of your new closed hardware and OS's.
    

I've missed the part whre Windows was announced open source. Can you give me a
link?

~~~
Aldo_MX
> I've missed the part whre Windows was announced open source. Can you give me
> a link?

Sure:

[http://blogs.msdn.com/windows/announcing-windows-10-open-
sou...](http://blogs.msdn.com/windows/announcing-windows-10-open-source/)

~~~
ciupicri
> Group Not Found

> The requested Group cannot be found.

~~~
Aldo_MX
Exactly, the status of FOSS Windows is 404 ;)

------
squeakynick
At the end of the day it's balls in the back of the net that count. I'm
pleased for everyone, so let's see if this translates into sales. It's a
hybrid mix of things to get to success; and all about execution.

[http://datagenetics.com/blog/september52015/index.html](http://datagenetics.com/blog/september52015/index.html)

~~~
dang
You're crossing the line into spam here. HN is for intellectually interesting
discussion, not site promotion.

~~~
squeakynick
I thought I was adding discussion. My point was that it's about business
execution, and that at the end of the day success will be measured by sales
and not about people saying "But this is a better product". It's the tastes of
the fish, not the tastes of the fisherman, and there is more to product and
desire than the tangible parts.

I wrote this down as an essay. I thought it easier to post a link rather than
regurgitate the same text. I'm sorry if I offended.

~~~
dang
An isolated comment is no problem, of course, but if there gets to be a
pattern then users complain to us.

