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cbautis2

macrumors 6502a
Aug 17, 2013
894
1,106
It does occur. The verge's review: http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/21/9574381/microsoft-surface-book-laptop-review mentioned the wobble and I have to agree the design is such that it will have wobble because the weight balance is in the screen and not the base.


My SP3 has not crashed once, I can't tell you the last time my work PC crashed - I'm going to say years because nothing comes to mind

Lucky for you. All of people I know returned their surfaces for too many issues: not waking up from deep sleep, standby network connected eats too much battery, high random CPU usage, keyboard not being recognized, pen malfunctioning, bluetooth and wifi keeps going to "limited". Abysmal scaling issues, overheating, app compatibility issues, etc.
 

modernaccord

macrumors 6502a
Apr 20, 2015
620
198
Seattle, WA region
I checked the SB out at Best Buy and the MSFT Store over the weekend and have to say the build quality, the feel of the keyboard, and giant breakoff tablet were amazing. A superb feat of hardware engineering - albeit I still don't like that 1" fat loop hinge thing they have going on.

I was sold, right up until the demo threw a Windows Device Driver Crash error, the pen stopped working, and the device wouldn't switch to tablet mode in Win10. I asked the employee and he said "oh yeah, we've been having tech issues all day with this. BUT IT'S SWEET ISN'T IT???"

Honestly, I think it has potential for being a great device, but I have wandered back to Windows so many times in the past only to return to OS X in frustration. My experience with the demo just affirmed my understanding of the Windows experience - I'll stay with El Cap in the meantime.
 

fieldsphotos

macrumors 6502
Aug 15, 2013
274
109
I myself am a photographer, and rely heavily on a laptop while working mobile, this video sums it all up:

As a photographer, this post also made me think really, really hard about the tradeoff between portability and power. I currently own a 2011 MBA that I travel with and wanted to get better performance in PS and Lightroom while in the field. The MBA is perfect portability-wise because I can throw it in a sleeve and haul it in my tote bag on the airplane, no roller laptop case required, which is what I used to do for my old windows laptops. But it does leave something to be desired for editing on the go.

But then every time I go handle the 15" in the store, I realize how bulky and heavy it is. I am a petite female with a shoulder injury, so I am not sure I could easily carry the 15" in a tote bag on my shoulder - I would probably be back to a roller bag. And I am not sure the 15" would fit in my rolling camera gear bag, which is already overfull when I travel with my gear.

So then it becomes a battle of the 13" laptops, and the dGPU option in the surface book won with the bonus feature of the stylus for on-screen brushes and masking - that could really change my PS workflow for the better.

So I currently have a Core i7/16GB RAM/512GB SSD on pre-order to arrive in November sometime. Hopefully that will be long enough to get through the day one bugs because it appears there are a lot of them looking at the other forums today.
 

cbautis2

macrumors 6502a
Aug 17, 2013
894
1,106
I checked the SB out at Best Buy and the MSFT Store over the weekend and have to say the build quality, the feel of the keyboard, and giant breakoff tablet were amazing. A superb feat of hardware engineering - albeit I still don't like that 1" fat loop hinge thing they have going on.

I was sold, right up until the demo threw a Windows Device Driver Crash error, the pen stopped working, and the device wouldn't switch to tablet mode in Win10. I asked the employee and he said "oh yeah, we've been having tech issues all day with this. BUT IT'S SWEET ISN'T IT???"

Honestly, I think it has potential for being a great device, but I have wandered back to Windows so many times in the past only to return to OS X in frustration. My experience with the demo just affirmed my understanding of the Windows experience - I'll stay with El Cap in the meantime.

It's Windoze. What do you expect. It never gets old.
 

Cvx5832

macrumors regular
Nov 2, 2014
237
88
Just sold my Mac, going surface book. Anyone else making a change? I'm simply sick of the Nickel and diming Apple does. $20 for a usb-c to usb cable which should be included, two USB-C multi port adapters for $79 a piece, extra power brick which of course doesn't come with the USB-C cable.

This unit has a detachable 13/5 inch screen, the screen quality 3000x2000 is incredible.
13 hour battery life
Upgradable base/dgpu
latest skylake processors

Gotta say guys, I think Microsoft has hit a homerun here. Not a fanboy of either company but
they have hit a homerun. I have used macs the past 5 years, it's time for a change.

I'd wait until how the machine actually turns out. That stuff you quoted sounds like it came from the spec sheet.

In any case I deal with Windows all day everyday with work. Even with the latest hardware I can assure you the Windows camp is no better picnic.

See you back in a few months. Or not...
 

Tenashus1

macrumors 6502a
Jul 27, 2011
501
286
Initially, I was really enamored with Windows 10. The apparent versatility - have both touch and keyboard options in one machine. Ultimately, I found the versatility to be distracting for me. Sometimes, I'd have to decide whether to touch the screen or use the keyboard, and the whole decision thingy got in the way for me. With OSX, I just use my keyboard and touch pad, and it's elegantly simple for me. A piece of cake. It does what I need it to do. No questions asked. Others may differ of course, but for me the simplicity of OSX is what keeps me with Apple. Venturing back to Windows land with what I described above plus the defragmenting, virus scanning, etc. makes me tired just thinking about it.
 
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cbautis2

macrumors 6502a
Aug 17, 2013
894
1,106
Initially, I was really enamored with Windows 10. The apparent versatility - have both touch and keyboard options in one machine. Ultimately, I found the versatility to be distracting for me. Sometimes, I'd have to decide whether to touch the screen or use the keyboard, and the whole decision thingy got in the way for me. With OSX, I just use my keyboard and touch pad, and it's elegantly simple for me. A piece of cake. It does what I need it to do. No questions asked. Others may differ of course, but for me the simplicity of OSX is what keeps me with Apple. Venturing back to Windows land with what I described above plus the defragmenting, virus scanning, etc. makes me tired just thinking about it.

Don't forget to add the Wimdoze updates that nuke your PC. Such a fail for windoze.
 

polbit

macrumors 6502a
Sep 18, 2002
530
651
South Carolina
I checked the SB out at Best Buy and the MSFT Store over the weekend and have to say the build quality, the feel of the keyboard, and giant breakoff tablet were amazing. A superb feat of hardware engineering - albeit I still don't like that 1" fat loop hinge thing they have going on.

I was sold, right up until the demo threw a Windows Device Driver Crash error, the pen stopped working, and the device wouldn't switch to tablet mode in Win10. I asked the employee and he said "oh yeah, we've been having tech issues all day with this. BUT IT'S SWEET ISN'T IT???"

Honestly, I think it has potential for being a great device, but I have wandered back to Windows so many times in the past only to return to OS X in frustration. My experience with the demo just affirmed my understanding of the Windows experience - I'll stay with El Cap in the meantime.

I agree 100%, the software simply seems unfinished on the SB. Why MS would release it that way is beyond me. It's not Windows 10 fault, it's pretty stable now, but all the drivers, etc.
 
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Fancuku

macrumors 65816
Oct 8, 2015
1,023
2,663
PA, USA
Don't forget to add the Wimdoze updates that nuke your PC. Such a fail for windoze.

kid_computer.jpg
 
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maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,682
43,740
I was sold, right up until the demo threw a Windows Device Driver Crash error, the pen stopped working, and the device wouldn't switch to tablet mode in Win10. I asked the employee and he said "oh yeah, we've been having tech issues all day with this. BUT IT'S SWEET ISN'T IT???
I can't say that I'm surprised. I think there are some gen 1 teething problems. Thurrott mention some issues that he expects to get fixed once they roll out a firmware update. I think once the actual units are getting into the hands of the customers some the these should be fixed - at least that's what MS said to Thurrott.
 

Steve121178

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,462
7,162
Bedfordshire, UK
I'm a Windows & Mac guy and the Surface Book interests me a lot. However, I would rather Microsoft just design and release a simple Surface Ultrabook because I've no interest in a Windows tablet. Microsoft came so close in releasing something I wouldn't hesitate to purchase (although I really hate the gap between the screen & keyboard when the SB is closed, that needs to be fixed in a later version of the product).

I'm unsure why the rest of the industry can't design a premium slim laptop with a high specification. It seems to be only Apple & Microsoft who are trying. Although it must be said that Dell have upped their game recently. The new XPS 15 is a genuine Windows alternative to the 15" rMBP and the wealth of customisable options allow people to build a machine to meet their needs.
 

lowendlinux

macrumors 603
Sep 24, 2014
5,459
6,786
Germany
Half the Lenovo line is slim and powerful, then there's Samsung, Zen Books there is no shortage of slim powerful Windows computers out there. Yes the XPS series is the current hotness but that doesn't mean others don't exist.
 

bennibeef

macrumors 6502
May 22, 2013
340
161
Well when the book came out and the Surface pro 4 I really thought about it and wanted it really bad. Then yesterday I needed a Win install to fiddle around with a thermal printer and the one I got only had a Win driver. For the first 30min I thought man windows 10 is really cool. (Wasnt really using it anywhere)

A few hours later my hate is bigger than ever. I wont switch. It was already too much fiddling around with trying to install Visual Studio build tools which have some weird version numbers with different numbers for the years and different versioning conventions hours of fiddling around.

The thing what got me was I think... ****ing windows still cant open .rar archives natively(ok OS X doesnt do it either I think), I still have to download a program for it and the program still looks like it looked like years ago. And back then it already looked bad.


And I really missed my unix terminal. I'm no powershell guy but whatever. I really hoped Windows got a bigger update with 10.

All the menu structures and settings are like those in XP with some other weird setting panels on top of it. I get its cool for the guys who know that stuff for years, I know it too from the days but still some settings could have been improved.


And still Apply AND OK buttons in the same window? Come on. I'm not even used to this anymore with any other platform. UX design at its best
 
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Steve121178

macrumors 603
Apr 13, 2010
6,462
7,162
Bedfordshire, UK
Half the Lenovo line is slim and powerful, then there's Samsung, Zen Books there is no shortage of slim powerful Windows computers out there. Yes the XPS series is the current hotness but that doesn't mean others don't exist.

I'm typing this on a ThinkPad T440s & been using ThinkPad's for 20 years so I know how good Lenovo ThinkPad's are. Quite unsure how I forgot to mention them in my post above. However, ThinkPad's are designed to work with all your peripherals of yesteryear and internally they use much slower non PCIe storage & screens that are well behind the panels Apple, MS & Dell use. These days, for a ThinkPad you pay premium prices for mostly mid-range components. They are ideal business machines, but for those who want cutting edge hardware, they fall short as they are designed for the enterprise.

Maybe with the upcoming T460s they will have some configurations that compete with their rivals.
 

lowendlinux

macrumors 603
Sep 24, 2014
5,459
6,786
Germany
I'm typing this on a ThinkPad T440s & been using ThinkPad's for 20 years so I know how good Lenovo ThinkPad's are. Quite unsure how I forgot to mention them in my post above. However, ThinkPad's are designed to work with all your peripherals of yesteryear and internally they use much slower non PCIe storage & screens that are well behind the panels Apple, MS & Dell use. These days, for a ThinkPad you pay premium prices for mostly mid-range components. They are ideal business machines, but for those who want cutting edge hardware, they fall short as they are designed for the enterprise.

Maybe with the upcoming T460s they will have some configurations that compete with their rivals.

Yes the T, W, and X are a lot like the Latitudes I use and love but that's only three series, Lenovo has 20 odd series of notebooks. They're prolific to say the least.
 

cbautis2

macrumors 6502a
Aug 17, 2013
894
1,106
Well when the book came out and the Surface pro 4 I really thought about it and wanted it really bad. Then yesterday I needed a Win install to fiddle around with a thermal printer and the one I got only had a Win driver. For the first 30min I thought man windows 10 is really cool. (Wasnt really using it anywhere)

A few hours later my hate is bigger than ever. I wont switch. It was already too much fiddling around with trying to install Visual Studio build tools which have some weird version numbers with different numbers for the years and different versioning conventions hours of fiddling around.

The thing what got me was I think... ****ing windows still cant open .rar archives natively(ok OS X doesnt do it either I think), I still have to download a program for it and the program still looks like it looked like years ago. And back then it already looked bad.


And I really missed my unix terminal. I'm no powershell guy but whatever. I really hoped Windows got a bigger update with 10.

All the menu structures and settings are like those in XP with some other weird setting panels on top of it. I get its cool for the guys who know that stuff for years, I know it too from the days but still some settings could have been improved.


And still Apply AND OK buttons in the same window? Come on. I'm not even used to this anymore with any other platform. UX design at its best

Any device that comes Windoze is **** . The surface would've been far better with iOS ported to x86 on it. It bet people would buy it if it had iOS/android on it. Price is also ridiculous for the subpar hardware quality that you get.
 

GoldfishRT

macrumors 6502a
Jul 24, 2014
611
350
Somewhere
Maybe with the upcoming T460s they will have some configurations that compete with their rivals.

One can hope.

I've bounced back and forth between ThinkPads and MacBooks for the last 10 years. I find either OS pretty much stable and both are completely usable when set up properly (and thankfully Lenovo tends to not load ThinkPads with too much crap), and because of the size of the market for both there's not really a whole lot you can do with one that you can't do with either. Mac OS certainly feels nicer to use in my opinion. As crazy as it sounds, the one thing that really pulls me back into Mac OS a lot is how poorly they've done the Windows version of iTunes. It's absolute trash.
 

The Clark

macrumors 6502a
Dec 11, 2013
905
2,643
Canada
The new Surface Book is impressive however nothing will work as intuitively as OSX with Apple Macbooks. There are a lot of things I really don't like about Windows 10, most of all Microsoft's obsession with staying relevant by making everything mobile/touchscreen friendly. I hate touchscreens, and I really hate all of these stupid Windows Store apps that serve no real purpose other than to look fancy. OSX is strictly designed for laptops and desktops without a touchscreen and it shows. The desktop/laptop experience is infinitely better on OSX than Windows at this time (IMO). I'm only using Windows 10 on my main PC because I feel obligated to run the faster, more "stable" OS but apart of me wishes that I would have rolled back to Windows 7 despite the fact that it's aging. I'm sure the Surface Book is a great device for people like the whole touchscreen/app thing but I personally hate it and that's why I'll be sticking with my Macbook for the foreseeable future.
 
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Clairvoyant129

macrumors member
Jul 21, 2012
35
8
Champ, they weigh the same.. No "most lightweight bs". You're drinking the kool-aid.. Guess you believed the "everything has changed" marketing as well.. What changed is Apple just got kicked in the face with this release.

http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/

3.48 lbs

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...59235&ef_id=VimqMQAAAM-bnTMO:20151025185115:s

3.48 lbs


Troll detected. Your first post talked about 2015 MacBook now you're using for your comparison MacBook Pro? You're the one drinking the cool-aid buddy.
 
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