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Do you own a Surface device

  • Yes I own a Surface Pro or Surfacebook - it’s great

    Votes: 163 51.1%
  • Yes I own a Surface laptop - it’s great

    Votes: 35 11.0%
  • No - i’m not a fan

    Votes: 69 21.6%
  • Not anymore I had a bad experience

    Votes: 52 16.3%

  • Total voters
    319

eltoslightfoot

macrumors 68030
Feb 25, 2011
2,537
3,086
I did the opposite of you and ditched all my Apple gear-okay in the process of selling but I am not using it anymore. Had a MacBook air M2 512/16gb midnight and an Ipad air 5th gen. I may keep the iPad just to have access to Apple ecosystem and I genuinely like the iPad for what I use it for.

But to be honest I don't miss my Mac at all. M series chips are good. But Intel and AMD are not trash. The Intel Ultra 7 is a decent chip and Intel should be coming out with Lunar Lake which should be the first to truly compete with m series chips. The Ultra 7 was a really good step in the right direction. Efficiency is finally not bad and thermals are not a toaster and performance is good. The next gen should focus more on performance as this gen was more focused on efficiency and graphics. Graphics on Ultra 7 are the best from Intel integrated graphics ever and don't totally suck for the first time and this will also get better next gen.

I have a Samsung GalaxyBook 4 Pro with an 16" OLED 3k 120hz anti-reflective touch screen, Ultra 7, 16gb ram and 1 tb ssd and a free 2 tb portable ssd. Cost me about $200 more than my previous air and it is a better laptop in almost every way. Battery life on M2 is still better but not by a big margin. I get about 12 hours on my air the way I use it. I get about 10 on my GB4. Not a huge difference in real life and the Ultra 7 is faster and has a better GPU than M2, M3 is faster in single core but slower in multi core and GPU. The M3 Pro is the chip that bests the Ultra on most fronts.

My point is that Intel and AMD have finally reached a close enough competitive level both in terms of performance and efficiency that m series is not the leap it was a few years ago.

Windows is Windows and the Windows as a service business model has only made Windows become an Ad platform. However, at least you can disable it. Overall as an OS Windows 11 is pretty good. I like MacOS look better and before they changed the setting menu thought they had a better organized menu system than Windows with ancient and new UI elements in the mix. But in terms of utility and ease of use I find Windows to be better. I have more control over Windows and can modify it to suit my needs rather easily. There are things I would like to see change but it is stable, secure and gets out of my way. MacOS on the other hand wants to get in my way and make sure I know I am using a Mac and it bothers me.

At the end of the day, your M2 MBA is still a very good laptop and will be for years to come. The chip vulnerabilities you mentioned are bad and can be executed remotely unlike what a lot of people say. It is a huge security issue and of course Apple is crickets. However, I honestly think the risk to most people is low. But they said the same thing with the Spectre flaw in Intel and AMD and ANdroid devices years ago. I sold everything I had with those known vulnerabilities. Did I need to? Probably not but I don't like hardware security holes. Obviously all chips have undiscovered hardware security holes but that is another topic.
Do you have the 15" or the 13" M2 MBA?
 
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Technerd108

macrumors 68040
Oct 24, 2021
3,051
4,301
Do you have the 15" or the 13" M2 MBA?
I have the 13". So I preordered the surface laptop with x elite and MS dropped the ball. Some error happened with their billing and even though I got a confirmation email of my purchase never got anything else. Today I finally called for the third time and they told me my payment never went though although it did on my end and got a receipt of the hold.

All they could do is change the payment method and send out another unit. I have been checking my email and MS account ever since I ordered on the 21st of May. Several times a week and nothing. So I was rather upset and of course MS didn't offer anything for my inconvenience. So I canceled the order.

What a mess. I have pre-ordered many times and never had as poor as an experience as with MS today. I am not sure I will get one of these until they go on sale since I don't trust MS to deliver and I could just go into the MS store and pick one up but I don't want to give MS my business when they seem to have such little regard for their customers experience and the last two days I couldn't get ANY information on my order and they repeatedly told me everything was fine and I will get the order then an about face today.

Maybe I will try Samsung version of the x elite when it goes on sale. Rather disappointed. Wanted to share impressions not complain about MS customer service and pre-ordering process. Oh well. I am less confident now in these devices if MS can't even update a pre order properly then making a smooth arm transition seems less likely. Just my experience and probably not indicative of MS overall but sours me none the less.
 

Technerd108

macrumors 68040
Oct 24, 2021
3,051
4,301
I have been reading initial reports and reviews and so far it seems as though the x elite is a decent first gen attempt but maybe not the Apple killer people had hoped for. Battery life and performance of the cpu are good and best Intel and AMD but roughly meet m3 and in some areas M2 and M4 is even better. Next gen release though should be more competitive. Of course we will have Lunar Lake by then and then you have to consider emulation and incompatibility and as much as I hoped this would be the one I think I will wait until the Copilot laptop 8. By then, the arm issues should be worked out(maybe-as MS has been working on WIndows on Arm for many years now) but at least the QC elite should be powerful enough and efficient enough to justify the switch maybe.

On graphics the GPU is good but still way behind any dedicated solution or the likes of m3 pro/max. Even Ultra 7 is not that far behind in GPU.

So I think at this moment unless you have a strong need for arm or battery life, don't need to worry about compatibility or emulation I would wait for the next release as it should iron out any kinks in this gen. The hardware looks good. I see no issue with buying the laptop 7 based on the new chassis, screen, etc. It looks beautiful and it seems as always MS optimizes Surface products very well.

So if you are curious, want to try arm this is actually a very solid first release and I don't see anything that would be a show stopper and I think the pricing is very competitive. If I was in a different financial position and didn't have concerns about the first gen being a beta tester for a year while MS gets the emulation layer optimized properly so there is a smaller hit then I would buy right now. As it is I will wait for a while but I do think it is possible that the future for arm on Windows finally is starting to look like a serious and viable alternative. It isn't there yet but the potential is there and I would love to see it evolve into something viable.

With Lunar Lake being a truly potentially disruptive chip for Intel it is entirely possible that Intel either takes a lead or at least is right in line with M4 while still improving efficiency greatly at the same time. Then if Intel is able to best performance and meet efficiency in M4 would arm still be something people would be interested in? At the moment the biggest market motivator for Windows users to switch to Apple is performance and battery life. Intel has chipped away at performance and with Ultra has just started to crack efficiency. If their road maps holds true then I am unsure of Arm on Windows future.

Right now the CPU market is so competitive that it is pushing everyone to try to best each other and in that environment we generally see disruptive products emerge even from more traditional or old school(Intel) type vendors. This means predicting the future of tech is very uncertain and volatile and probably best to be more conservative until things start to stabilize.

But for those adventurous souls who get a Surface Copilot Laptop 7 please give us your reviews, pictures and experiences. I am very curious and think these will be very successful for MS. They look great.
 

seggy

macrumors 6502
Feb 13, 2016
467
312
Since Panos got kicked upstairs I've had my doubts about Surface being Surface anymore, and now he's gone the writing is well and truly on the wall for, well, Surface being Surface again. No longer interested in anything they sell, so I'll wait for something else from another vendor with an NPU - for work or home.

EDIT: well maybe except the Go 4. It's slow as hell but there's no form factor quite like it for an actual PC.

Maybe we'll get an Asus x Acronym x William Gibson Welcome To The Real Dystopia colab lol
 
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Sheepish-Lord

macrumors 68030
Oct 13, 2021
2,516
5,129
Just pulled the trigger on the latest Surface Laptop (X Plus). I’m a big fan of ARM but all the reviews are of the Elite SoC so the Plus I ordered should be more comparable to my MBA M3. The Elite is putting up solid numbers with limited to no fan noise, in the Surface lineup, so the Plus should be plenty and quieter.

Additionally, if you have an AMEX business card you get a MS offer of $175 for anything over $1000 for the next few days.
 
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MiniApple

macrumors 6502
Sep 3, 2020
358
454
Just pulled the trigger on the latest Surface Laptop (X Plus). I’m a big fan of ARM but all the reviews are of the Elite SoC so the Plus I ordered should be more comparable to my MBA M3. The Elite is putting up solid numbers with limited to no fan noise, in the Surface lineup, so the Plus should be plenty and quieter.

Additionally, if you have an AMEX business card you get a MS offer of $175 for anything over $1000 for the next few days.

Got the same model (to test) 2 hours ago.

Won't keep it either way, but wanna see if and how my older AAA games work, if the mods works and some other use cases.

Windows Out of the Box Experience was worse than usual - thanks to multiple (firmware) updates, after WiFi, but before creating an acccount, followed by the usual Windows and App store updates.

Surface isn't fanless, but almost silent, no ramping up, even with software/updates installs and downloading games via steam. I am impressed so far.

Had a flickering external monitor and image loss when I connected it with a USB-C to HDMI cable (Lenovo adapter, decent HDMI cable, Dell monitor), probably driver issues or so. After a look into the display settings and some tweaks, it works now.
 

seggy

macrumors 6502
Feb 13, 2016
467
312
Fingers crossed for an ARM variant later this fall (or a similar efficient Intel/AMD one)
I'm not entirely convinced ARM will be that much better in terms of performance for what they can stuff into the Go
but ya, hopefully if it can work out well then it might encourage other vendors to start selling things in this category, the iPad form factor Windows PC has been abandoned since the W8.1 days (where it generally worked quite well).
 
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MiniApple

macrumors 6502
Sep 3, 2020
358
454
I got the base Surface Pro 11 (X Plus) with 16GB RAM 256GB SSD
aka the weakest of the 4 1st gen offerings CPU and GPU-wise.


Fan noise
fans do ramp up while gaming, but not jet engine like or high pitched.
Otherwise they are not noticeable for surfing, watching a 4K movie, office work.

Battery
the battery life is crazy good - compared to what I got at work (2023 HP Laptop) and had prior. While it's no match for low power sipping Mac/MacOS, its so nice that Windows (and hopefully Linux 🤞) will have something at least something in the vincinity.

Games/Launchers/Mods
None of my game launchers, games, fan made mod manager (🥰) and mods are made for ARM, but they all work without any issue out of the box, the Xbox controller (Bluetooth) too.

I can output a stable 50 to 60fps to 4K with the stock USB-C to HDMI adapter.

RPG/shooting/driving works fine fps wise and no noticeable input lag.

The cinematics/cut scenes however are all over the place - from low 20fps to 57fps - sometimes in the same game and scene.
If I remember correctly those are rendered on the fly and not prerecorded, so that would points towards some driver/optimization/compatibility issue.

the Xbox Game Bar also just shows zeros for GPU and VRAM, but otherwise works fine (CPU, RAM, FPS).

software issue/installation error
I did have a single program that doesn't work.
I got an error message (below), while trying to install it.
I'll see tomorrow if I can make it work.
Even if not, no worries, they are already at work for an ARM variant and I can use the web version until then.

Installation Wizard Error.png



FINALLY
I don't remeber how many years that I've waited for such a device and they are finally here.

I will still return this awesome Surface in a few days regardless.

Looking forward what's announced/rumored within until the end of the year.
It's possible I'll get a Surface Pro again, but with 32GB RAM and in a different color.

However my takeaway: I a(r)m ready 🙂
 
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MatthewUT44

macrumors regular
Jun 14, 2015
177
345
Arizona
Ive had my surface since launch and its going back:

1. Battery life is horrific
2. Games run poorly, which is a windows PC bread and butter.
3. Apps arent compatible with ARM at the moment
4. Screen is hard to look at.
 

Sheepish-Lord

macrumors 68030
Oct 13, 2021
2,516
5,129
Ive had my surface since launch and its going back:

1. Battery life is horrific
2. Games run poorly, which is a windows PC bread and butter.
3. Apps arent compatible with ARM at the moment
4. Screen is hard to look at.
Curious about the screen, mostly the 120hz refresh rate and if there’s any ghosting issues.
 

drinkingtea

macrumors 65816
Jan 31, 2016
1,240
3,270
Ive had my surface since launch and its going back:

1. Battery life is horrific
2. Games run poorly, which is a windows PC bread and butter.
3. Apps arent compatible with ARM at the moment
4. Screen is hard to look at.
Which Surface are you referring to?
 

varezhka

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2022
73
55
Battery
the battery life is crazy good - compared to what I got at work (2023 HP Laptop) and had prior. While it's no match for low power sipping Mac/MacOS, it’s so nice that Windows (and hopefully Linux 🤞) will have something at least something in the vincinity.

That is an exciting thing to hear and what I wanted to know the most. Did you feel like you would get maybe half day of work out of your Surface without a charger? I would be happy to get 2/3 the battery life of my M1 MacBook Air but not sure if that’s asking for too much.

I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of Windows update in the coming months and improved performance to go with them. Even the units I saw in Best Buy had different state of update and the difference in performance/stability for each was very noticeable.
 

MiniApple

macrumors 6502
Sep 3, 2020
358
454
That is an exciting thing to hear and what I wanted to know the most. Did you feel like you would get maybe half day of work out of your Surface without a charger? I would be happy to get 2/3 the battery life of my M1 MacBook Air but not sure if that’s asking for too much.

I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of Windows update in the coming months and improved performance to go with them. Even the units I saw in Best Buy had different state of update and the difference in performance/stability for each was very noticeable.

the scientific answer depends on what "work" you do, what software you use, if that is ARM native or not etc, what brightness and so on. Best bet is to look out for notebook check and similar sites and maybe specific YT people.

Compared to other recent Intel Surfaces I had - I'd estimate you can add 2-3+ hours of battery life to it + with a lot less heat and a lot less fan noise.

I think for now the main keys are indeed the device specific optimizations and windows itself - not the apps.

I would describe it as a public beta test phase of sorts where it's stable to use, but can have some issues.
OEMs, Microsoft, app developers and providers and customers figure it all out - in the wild.

If you don't require an ARM based Windows machine right now, wait for a bit or even better the 2nd gen products from Qualcom (and maybe others), OEMs and Windows improvements.

I was just so curious since I've been waiting for years for this moment + seeing if my current use cases would be covered (they are already for the most part and will be within a few months)
 

drinkingtea

macrumors 65816
Jan 31, 2016
1,240
3,270
Yeah? Tell us more! Love to hear more of your thoughts.
This whole line of products has started to pique my interest

I'm really enjoying mine. Thoughts:

Pros
  • I've already sold my M1 MacBook Pro. I do not miss it. It was too heavy, the software often glitched on me, my MX Master 3 for Mac started refusing to scroll properly while using it with the MacBook (no issues here using the mouse with the SL7).
  • The SL7 is crazy smooth. It's even more so than the MacBook was. Also, I'm glad the SL7 has 120hz refresh rate. I was a little tempted to get the MacBook Air instead, but the laptop only having 60hz was a dealbreaker (and I just don't want to use MacOS anymore).
  • For years, I have hated how Apple handles full-size apps; I hate that a new desktop is literally created for each fully expanded app. I only use apps in full size, so Apple's implementation would create so many different desktops that I would have to scroll through to get to my desired app or open browser tab (the scrolling animation often glitched as well). This is not an issue with Windows since full-size apps layer on top of one another, which is a breath of fresh air.
  • I absolutely love the SL7 keyboard in comparison to the MacBook Pro keyboard. It just feels so much better to type on.
  • I have the 15-inch SL7 and it's much lighter in comparison to the 16-inch MacBook Pro, which was an absolute tank to use daily. The SL7 is so much more manageable in comparison. My arms definitely hurt less.
  • No matter the task, the fans have not kicked in. The laptop gets slightly warm, but at least it's quiet no matter what task I am performing.
  • I never realized how much I hated the notch on the Pro. It's nice not to be staring at that thing 24/7.
  • I am a student, and Word is much nicer on Windows.
  • I am using Copilot only to edit some of my writing grammar-wise (this is literally all that I use AI for). It does just fine in comparison to ChatGPT. So, I'm probably going to stop paying for ChatGPT.
  • I was a worried about app compatibility with Arm, but all the apps I need work just fine on the SL7.
Cons
  • I wish the screen were brighter and less reflective.
  • I wish I could find a good RSS app; I have tried all the ones available for Windows and I do not like any of them.
  • Literally, that's all. I really like this laptop. I have no regrets.
 
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Carrotstick

Suspended
Mar 25, 2024
230
418
This is just the start, next year Nvidia + MediaTek will also be joining the ARM laptop space.

Qualcomm also needs to add Nvidia or AMD graphics support for more professional workflows and for gaming in future updates. It can only go up.
 
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Queen6

macrumors G4
This is just the start, next year Nvidia + MediaTek will also be joining the ARM laptop space.

Qualcomm also needs to add Nvidia or AMD graphics support for more professional workflows and for gaming in future updates. It can only go up.
Truly a good thing as monopolies rarely serve the end user and tend to stifle progress, coughs Intel...

Q-6
 
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varezhka

macrumors member
Jun 10, 2022
73
55
Truly a good thing as monopolies rarely serve the end user and tend to stifle progress, coughs Intel...

I still remember when Intel tried to cram mobile Pentium 4-M down our throat as the future of laptop processors and Pentium III-M for those weirdos asking for thin and light. And then all the Japanese OEMs started using this embedded CPU Crusoe from a startup Transmeta. All of the sudden, Intel started talking about power efficiency and dig out a small project from Israel that was to be their future going forward.

And I don't know how many time AMD forced Intel to move the ball game...
 
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Queen6

macrumors G4
Intel clearly abused it's position did all it could to rain on the competition, as opposed to innovating. Lazy iterations of the same fab, with minor performance increments. Times have changed, their power hungry, overly hot CPU's will soon enough be confined to history...

How ironic Intel has to ask TSMC to manufacture it's latest CPU's as Intel has sat on it's collective ass far too long. Fat Cat's were just too busy soaking up the profit with little to no investment

Q-6
 
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