Microsoft’s education press event just wrapped up, and two announcements stood out. First and foremost, the company unveiled Windows 10 S. Windows 10 S is exactly the same as regular Windows 10, except in that it’s locked to applications available in the Windows Store. Note that this doesn’t mean it can’t run Win32 applications; it runs Win32 applications, but only those available in the Windows Store. Users can upgrade Windows 10 S to Windows 10 Pro for 50 dollars to allow the use of non-Windows Store applications.
The second announcement that stood out was a new hardware device: the Surface Laptop. Aimed straight at college/university students currently probably buying MacBooks, the Surface Laptop is a downright beautiful machine with all the current specifications we’ve come to expect from a modern laptop, such as Core i5 and i7 processors, SSD storage, a 2250×1500 13.5″ display, and a battery life of 14.5 hours. Starting price will be $999. Americans can order today, and it will ship 15 June.
It’s available in four colours, and one of those colours is burgundy, so everything else is invalid and a waste of time, because the burgundy model is the only model that counts. I really don’t want to go back to a laptop with a fixed keyboard, but at the same time, burgundy. All your arguments and facts and reasoning and fake news are irrelevant now.
In all seriousness, this looks like a great laptop, aimed directly at Apple’s popularity among college students. As usual, there’s no word on when this thing comes to The Netherlands (nobody cares about us), but once it does, I’m going to have a seriously hard time not buying a specced-out burgundy model.
Windows10 S, because “S” is the letter that falls between “R” & “T”.
And soon Windows 0 E ?
Because “E” falls between “R” – “S” – “T” ?
R-E-S-E-T ?
From its description it sounds like the “S” stands for “shitty edition”. I do agree, it fits right in.
I’m being completely honest here, I really like burgundy, and that’s the weakest burgundy I’ve seen in a long time. It’s just crimson.
I’m thinking more of a young merlot, myself.
I know this is about something else – but I was really hoping for a Surface Book refresh with a better (non-laggy) pen. I’d buy that today.
I doubt the n-trig pen will ever be anything other than slightly laggy.
The WACOM pen on the Surface 2 Pro is pretty awesome.
I can’t pre-order the Burgundy with any thing other than core i5 , 8 GB ram and 256 SSD.
The available options are limited to specific colors.
Bizarre…
Oh, MSOFT.
Yeah… It’s awefull. Not going to buy.
I want ports, ports and optical drive on my laptop. Give me something like 6 usb ports, and a dvd-burner. I want power, 15 inch screen, cool running machines and no noise. Then I will be a happy champ.
Agreed with everything except optical drive. When is the last time you used one?
I’ve found I’m fine with just an external drive for that once a year use case.
I have a 17 inch laptop, and I’ve used my external DVD drive at least twice a month since I got the laptop late last year.
Agree with you. I removed the DVD burner from ThinkPad 520 about 3 or 4 years ago, to make room for a second hard drive, and have never needed it once (well, just the once to rip a CD).
dude….you want a behemoth from 5 years ago.
modmans2ndcoming,
That would be great. I agree with Bill Shooter of Bul: go ahead and drop the CD, but keep the ports, those are still very essential to me. I don’t want to carry around any damned dongles! I still do a lot of work that requires ethernet, it’s faster anyways. Gimme SD, USB, headphone, HDMI too.
Don’t forget reducing size also means giving up a better battery and CPU. I already mentioned it in another post: I loved the layout on my old laptop, I just want updated specs! When it’s too thin it can feel fragile and becomes less robust against physical deformations:
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/unbalanced-wobbly-keyboard.1867…
It seems many manufacturers are following the trend to go razor thin, and that’s fine for some consumers, but for others it may compromise too much.
Edited 2017-05-03 02:19 UTC
I agree. I lament the general decline of 17 inch laptops the most. Even when you do find them, they tend to have a tiny number of ports given their size, and no DVD drive anyway.
Once again: what is optical drive needed for these days?.. I get it, there could be around 0,0000003% of the population who would find a use case for internal DVD drive in a laptop today, but are we really going to manufacture such a laptop just to satisfy that tiny fraction of users, when even they can just use cheap external DVD drives?
I answered before, but I mainly use it for four things: burning data CDs (for booting or for data archival), playing DVDs, booting from CD/DVD, and ripping music from CD. I easily use my external drive more than twice a month, and I consider that a common enough use that I want it integrated.
For comparison, I almost never use my builtin microphone or my webcam, and I’ve never once used the fingerprint reader. I could easily do without those. I have an external microphone that makes the builtin one sound like I’m talking into a toaster, and I just don’t use my webcam very much.
EDIT: I would add that I think the (possibly minority) of users who seriously use their disc drive are probably more aligned with those who want a 17-inch laptop, too.
Edited 2017-05-03 23:13 UTC
Mic, camera or fingerprint reader do not add considerable weight or take up huge amount of space in a laptop. You would need like 50 mics/cameras/fingerprint readers to account for one optical drive.
I haven’t heard anything about the Surface running hotter and noisier than other similar systems.
Yeah, if you’re going to use 6 USB ports on a laptop, it’s obviously no longer anywhere near portable. A decent USB hub would be 10 times more convenient and practical than connecting 6+ devices directly to the laptop. I mean, your laptop would look like some kind of weird octopus and it would take good 5 minutes just to disconnect all those things properly.
I really like the idea of docking stations, like with my MacBook Pro: there are few ports, but the ones that exist are incredibly high-throughput (Thunderbolt), so that I can use just a one single cable to attach a docking station, which then connects gazillion of devices at once: external HDD, external SSD, a very large USB drive (for Time Machine backups), external 32″ monitor, huge external speakers, wired ethernet, 9-port USB hub, card reader… And I still have room (both port-wise and throughput-wise) for more.
Now imagine if I had to connect all those things DIRECTLY to my laptop. It would likely become stationary forever, since it would be too bothersome to disconnect and reconnect all that every time I want to go.
Edited 2017-05-03 06:38 UTC
FooBat,
To be fair though, just because ports are there doesn’t mean you have to use them and it doesn’t mean you can’t use a docking station.
Edited 2017-05-03 14:25 UTC
To be fair, why are you asking for ports if you know you’re not going to use them?.. I only want to pay for what I am going to use, not for what I am never going to use…
Edited 2017-05-03 14:30 UTC
FooBat,
It depends on how predictable your life is
Not for nothing, I’ve gone on business trips with MBP owners who were unprepared because they didn’t bring an HDMI or ethernet dongle. I’ve seen this enough times to know that I want my laptop to have those ports, just in case.
It’s fine that you have a different preference or requirements, but you should acknowledge that getting rid of the ports isn’t right for everyone.
With that I agree. Some basic ports are still nice and useful (though as my recent experience demonstrated, not really that crucial), but I was referring to the person who asked for 6 USB ports and loads of other crap — that is simply useless in a modern laptop. Then I would rather have COM port and PS/2 port — still more useful than 6 USBs or an internal DVD drive…
FooBat,
Some people still have a DVD collection. Maybe you don’t realize this but netflix’s content library is far more comprehensive in DVD format than streaming, there’s a huge cultural divide particularly for foreign content. For me personally it’s been difficult to get french shows here in the US. I don’t really like the fact that media companies impose regional restrictions, but until that changes DVDs are still quite useful for content that one can’t otherwise get online due to IP-based discrimination (ie netflix/hulu/etc). Even when the exact same movie is available in french in canada, access to the french soundtrack is not made available to customers in the US. This problem doesn’t exist with DVD’s, even those in the US carry the french soundtrack. I imagine you can agree with me that IP discrimination is total BS, yet as long as this is the case a DVD remains the best (legal) option.
The world can be a backwards place. Some people in rural areas simply don’t have access to high speed internet:
https://consumerist.com/2015/04/28/att-becomes-latest-isp-to-promise…
In some areas the last mile network infrastructure is actually being decommissioned and not replaced with anything (my parents learned this the hard way when they moved). Their house HAD DSL but the telco refused to renew it when the previous tenant left.
https://consumerist.com/2012/05/16/att-upgrades-dsl-customer-to-u-ve…
We should not trivialize other people’s needs because they may have problems we just aren’t privy to, just keep this in mind
Edited 2017-05-03 18:56 UTC
OK, I get it. There are cases. But those are still very specific and/or edge cases. Not what general population wants or needs. And edge cases are usually served by external/USB devices or very specialized (and expensive) laptops. It’s naive to thing that would get into mainstream laptop design.
Optical drive?.. Would you also like floppy drive? Seriously, optical disks are now in the same category as floppy drives.
Not really, since UEFI banished the boot capabilities of all computers back to the dark ages. Booting from CD is now WAY easier than booting from USB if you end up with one of the terrible EFI implementations, which are quite common.
> Booting from CD is now WAY easier than booting from USB
Yes, I had to go through about 4 USB sticks and 6 different programs (“WinUSB” on Linux did the trick – Microsoft’s own “DVD to USB” Windows software failed to write anything!) before I could get Win 10 to boot via UEFI on a USB stick. And, no, dd’ing the ISO image to the stick didn’t work either, before you ask.
Of course, once you’ve booted the Win 10 installer via UEFI, you have to have a GPT-partitioned disk and Win 10 creates about 4 or 5 partitions on it! I wonder if the new Surface machine can dual boot Linux? Doesn’t matter much, because like the rest of the Surface range, it’s too expensive (and 4GB RAM on a modern expensive Windows machine is a total joke).
Don’t Believe in any corraling here. It’s about weight.
I really like this trend of making computers with decent vertical resolution.
Computers are not created only for watching movies.
I once had for work a Fujitsu-Siemens laptop with a great 1400×1050 screen, it was replaced by a faster one but with an awful 1366×768 display.
Below the Arc corresponding to the high density cones of our retinas, Anything not round is stupid. Let’s leave this at square.
Indeed, I find screens with 1080 vertical pixels quite awkward to use these days, you get used to having more vertical resolution. They’re fine for videos where you’re taking in the entire screen at once, but as soon as you want to focus on specific items, it gets very cluttered very quickly. And, of course the current fashion for huge, horizontal toolbars doesn’t help when your vertical resolution is already quite limited.
Hardware is the one side ..
But no hardware will ever convince my to use Win10, oder any windows for that matter. I tried it and dismissed it.
Agreed, but windows 10 is the least worst one to use ( excepting the privacy concerns).
At least it isn’t OS X. Pleh.
That’s funny, because just recently, after using Windows 10 for about half a year, I switched to Mac and became full-time OS X user. Not looking back…
4 gigs of RAM in 2017? Really? Like they couldn’t soldier in 8 or even 16? Planned obsolescence in a year?
I don’t know what you are all smoking but this looks like a failure.
Smartphones in 2016 already had 6 gigs of RAM and 256GB of storage.
This machine runs Windows, not OS X. My Surface Pro 4 is 4GB and not once is that a problem.
I know OS X is garbage when it comes to RAM, but Windows isn’t.
If I’m spending 1,000 dollars on a brand-new laptop, it had better come with at LEAST 8GB of RAM. No excuses. RAM is very inexpensive.
EDIT:
You know, I wish that Windows 10 was better at using the RAM I have in my machine. Too often, I recognize needless paging to the hard disk when using Microsoft applications (32GB in the machine I have now). Swapping be damned, use the RAM!
Edited 2017-05-02 22:13 UTC
Thom Holwerda,
It may be all right for the target demographic, but it’s not a high end spec. At 4GB I was regularly running out of memory, I personally needed to upgrade my desktop systems to 8GB.
We may need a new laptop soon as well, I’ll be imposing an 8GB minimum. The other day I was browsing and found that most new laptop keyboards use an awful layout especially around the arrow keys, they are so scrunched up that it’s impossible to touch type. what are manufacturers thinking?
I accidentally ordered one like that without giving it much thought and for the life of me I couldn’t hit arrow keys/control keys/etc without looking, I returned it right away for a better keyboard. To my dismay almost all new laptops on the market have bad layouts and even half-sized keys. Vendors don’t offer a checkbox for “This laptop is good for touch typing”, I have look at 40-50 laptops photos to find one that looks like it might be usable.
I wish I could keep the same laptop I have today, but with newer/faster insides.
No wonder younger generations don’t have a fondness for keyboards over touch screens, since odds are all they’ve ever experienced is crappy keyboards that deserve to be trashed.
Edited 2017-05-03 00:43 UTC
Agree. They’re trying to kill Keyboards.
Exactly what is wrong with OS X in regards to RAM? That it actually uses it? It’s not like I buy 16GB of RAM and want it to sit there empty and idle…
Or are you saying OS X minimum requirements for RAM are to high?
In my experience it’s not the OS itself, it’s the poorly written applications that seem to have memory leaks or simply want way too much RAM. Compared to how it runs on other BSDs and Linux, the Mac version of Firefox eats RAM like a kid in a candy store. Several games I play that are cross-platform also use way too much memory on macOS compared to their Windows versions. Again, I think it’s less about the OS itself and more about how those programs are written (lazy porting?).
The Non High-Maintenance, Non-Monica Version Of Windows. We will see how far this path goes onto the “don’t worry, be happy” crowd. If The Landscape, wide enough, will get some for my distracted family 🙂
What happened to former Surface?
Edited 2017-05-02 21:26 UTC
On laptops. A rugged version oblige. If not wanting a femme-ization of the concept. Think of kids, -gammer kids.
I presume that those Laptops are Microsoft UEFI “call-home” certified. What About the SW Surface? Any Specific Restrictions on HW compat?
With none of the functionality! It will still be virus prone, still have an unreasonably high overhead with maintenance, upkeep, and administration, yet not be able to run most Windows software! NICE! Who approved this shit??? Whoever did should be fired!
I’ve seen a few articles saying that these laptops are targeting current MacBook buyers, but I don’t think that’s the case…
I would equate Windows 10 S to Chrome OS, and therefore the Surface Laptop is more like a Chromebook. Suddenly, it makes a lot more sense that it will only run apps from the store.
I would guess that they are trying to claw back at the student market that Chromebooks have been dominating lately.
(At least in this case you can upgrade to Windows 10 Pro if you want.)
EDIT: Never mind… Just looked at the difference in price between this and an average Chromebook. No idea what is Microsoft is thinking.
Edited 2017-05-03 04:06 UTC
Offering a version of MacBook Air with “Retina” display and improved battery life is most likely what they are going for.
At least they created a lot of hype over this.
The S version of Windows is just Microsoft once more attempting to bring in more casual users to the App Store.
They didn’t design this for pro use, but at least those interested in that as well can put the Pro version of Windows without any charge. Not sure if they will extend this offer in the future.
The rule of the thumb is simple: If you can’t beat them, join them.
Edited 2017-05-03 07:29 UTC
I would like one, maxed out, burgundy, now. But not without at least one full USBC/Thunderbolt port.
I want to plug my laptop into a 24″ 4K Thunderbolt monitor for charging and desktop use. With a single cable. And I want to unplug a single cable to drop the laptop back into my bag. I will not spend one € in a new laptop that does not give me that.
I find this shortcoming at this time baffling.
It looks like Microsoft is at it again. I see this Windows S introduction more as their will to dominate every single segment of the market. He states at the beginning that it is aimed at “students all over the world” and that it can run on low spec computers.
Microsoft is acting like a political “catch all” party: spread as far and as deep as possible conquering the territory of its rivals. And making users dumber as they are doing it.
This was done many times in the past. And it is happening again. I remember when eeePCs came along. Linux was gaining its foothold and then all of a sudden there was a watered down version of Windows 7 which dominated this segment over night. They have a way of pushing their product down the throat of every user. And I hope they choke on it. Again. Like they did on Windows Mobile.
Are you talking about Windows 7 Starter Edition? Because it was completely useless. I think some restrictions were lifted later on, but anyways, any computer capable of running Windows 7 Starter Edition was capable of running full version of Windows 7. It was not “watered down” version, it was restricted version.
I know few people who bought those Anus eeePCs with Linux and re-installed Windows XP instead. So it’s not like MS is forcing Windows on everyone. It’s just that Linux is not ready for desktop. And likely will never be, apart from enthusiasts and niche markets.
Edited 2017-05-03 10:12 UTC
Agreed on most points. The thing is that if Microsoft wouldn’t produce Windows Starter the user would have an opportunity to test something new – linux in whichever flavor. Microsoft came late as they were most probably surprised by the success of eeePC and similar. But they were damn successful and blocked the availability of linux on what was a good and useful consumer product. Linux all but disappeared from those devices. And most of the users don’t change whatever is installed on the computer.
Anyway, I see Windows S as a very similar step. If an ordinary user, especially a student, gets used to something else but Windows it threatens Microsoft in the long run. Apple is present in US classrooms, true, but not so much in the rest of the world.
If the application offer was par with what is found on Windows, no one would switch to Windows, but only to recover the usual habits and keyboard shortcuts.
That, and also the fact that Linux devs/community can’t seem to get their sh*t together. Constant revolutions and no evolution, ridiculously outdated and laggy X server, every other application having a GUI that is completely different from everything else on the system, and everyone doing things “their way” all the time, which results in a convoluted mess.
You’re being downvoted but you’re right. It seems that Linux development is “move fast and break things” in the wrong places (systemd), and years behind in critical places (Wayland).
The thing is, Linux by its nature (collaborate development) can never truly be cohesive. You either take the best of what’s out there and try to bring it together in a sensible, consistent way (Elementary OS), or else you shun the idea of Linux ever taking over the desktop and leave it where it works best, as a modular OS for embedded devices and servers.
If you want a monolithic OS that is consistent and stable and you don’t want Windows or macOS, you would have to lean towards the BSDs, FreeBSD and OpenBSD in particular. Even there, you’re still dealing with the X server and all of its pain points.
Not completely true, there are several companies working and developing for Windows and macOS, yet they tend to be more disciplined and stick to UI rules defined by each OS vendor and, say, common sense. On Linux, it’s still the far west on that matter. Not only the code is… well… but the UI is too.
And these damn keyboard shortcuts. It like switching from emacs to vim.
Looks to me more like a serious atempt at the low End. Lately MS not very good at it. World as a whole, is low End.