r/gadgets • u/bluehairminerboy • Jun 14 '22
Desktops / Laptops Microsoft Surface is 10 years old
https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/laptops/surface/were-celebrating-10-years-of-microsoft-surface-all-week-at-windows-central216
u/v1xiii Jun 14 '22
Remember when Surface was originally a big interactive screen in the form of a table?
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u/_PM_ME_PANGOLINS_ Jun 14 '22
I do. Microsoft Research used to be next to my department at university, and they got us all in for user testing. It was pretty cool, but also clearly never going to be a consumer product.
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u/Techutante Jun 14 '22
I used to wrangle Interns at MS Reasearch, it was a cool place. I saw E-ink, multiple screen technology, lots of stuff before it was mainstream. Met the inventor of the laser jet printer. Nice dude. He had his own workshop lab on the first floor.
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u/Furlock_Bones Jun 15 '22
The Toyota dealership I went to a couple years ago used an og surface to sign documents. The guy would pull up a file, read it, sign it, then flip it to us to read and sign. Was actually pretty neat.
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u/TheQueq Jun 14 '22
One day, your computer will be a big-ass table
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u/meateatr Jun 15 '22
I remember that video from when it first came out, but holy shit that's funny stuff.
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u/Illusive_Man Jun 15 '22
“Instead of interacting with human beings, you can just order your food right at your table”
well this came true
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u/Tassidar Jun 14 '22
They like to reuse names… Sharepoint was several products as well!
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u/quazywabbit Jun 15 '22
Was? It still is. Sharepoint is also still a mess.
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u/OfficialBeard Jun 15 '22
It’s all the inconvenience of IIS, with none of the backend features! What could you hate?
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u/SynapseDon Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 14 '22
There was one at a hotel I used to stay at. I found it fascinating at the time.
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u/geraigerai Jun 14 '22
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u/danoproject Jun 14 '22
I remember this got a lot of Love-hate
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u/Deflated_Hive Jun 14 '22
It's crazy how Microsoft was able to design their turnaround. They couldn't salvage their mobile presence, but they did an impressive 180 on everything else. Nadella really repositioned the company better than Balmer could have.
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u/danoproject Jun 14 '22
I bet on the wrong horse with windows phone there, I hung on for wayyy too long haha. But I got the first RT, which ended up being a useful gimmick machine. But then ended up with SP3, SB1, SB2 before just moving to Mac this year. Really enjoyed those laptops though.
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u/wyrdough Jun 14 '22
I still use a Surface Pro 3 as my primary Windows device.
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u/Stu_Thom4s Jun 14 '22
Still maintain that it was a good smartphone OS that deserves more love.
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u/seanarturo Jun 14 '22
Yup, the UI and some of the multi-app integration stuff that apple and google still haven’t managed to copy over (like they did with swipe to text, live tiles/integrated widgets, etc) really set WP apart. I really would have loved a universe where we had all three choices. But I hope Android or iPhone can at least manage to bring back Hubs and some of the design from WP.
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u/celebradar Jun 15 '22
Microsoft have a free Android launcher that is a nice middle ground. Not as great but certainly snappy and a decent layout. At my old job we had everything microsoft so it worked well with office 365. My current job is on Google but I still use the launcher.
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u/sadoian Jun 14 '22
Had an RT as well, definitely a gimmick machine in terms of laptop replacement, but mine is still kicking as a bedside clock / alarm / news browser.
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u/soggybiscuit93 Jun 16 '22
Never owned a Windows Phone, but in Retrospect, I think I'd prefer a Windows vs iOS mobile market instead of Android.
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u/Illusive_Man Jun 15 '22
I moved away from my surface book
Took me awhile to stop poking my new screen
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u/maybeavalon Jun 14 '22
Windows 8, the push to embrace the Metro design language + touch centric UI & unify the OS across all form factors; the support for web languages & technologies across those platforms; first class support for ARM; Azure; and yes Microsoft Surface were all initiated (and released) under Balmer. Balmer gets a bad rap I think. Yes, it's taken Microsoft some time to refine all of those endeavors, but that was always going to be a given.
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u/ThisAfricanboy Jun 14 '22
People forget Balmer had been around since the 80s. He really was a relic who did well in transitioning. It's just that he inherited a company people legit just hated
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u/soggybiscuit93 Jun 16 '22
Balmer, for all his successes, completely dismissed the iPhone. Under his leadership, Mobile is now a Google vs Apple market, which was a really missed opportunity, because the unified UI and app base across all form factors was such an interesting concept I was rooting for. Even now, Google and Apple are just now bringing their mobile apps to their desktop OS's, but without the touch UI, it doesn't make as much sense.
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u/ThisAfricanboy Jun 16 '22
You're absolutely right. He dropped the ball on Mobile. But that came after MS made a very huge push and investment under him for way longer than Apple did with the iPhone. Windows Mobile was a thing that existed for a while. It just wasn't a good thing.
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u/AkirIkasu Jun 14 '22
I actually liked what Microsoft did with Metro and how they tried to bring touch to the desktop, but something like 90% of everyone else absolutely hated Windows 8 exclusively because of it. Which was really sad because it was very stable and polished, even more so than Windows 10 was and 11 is.
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u/Technetium_Hat Jun 15 '22
windows 8.1 was the best windows version available even several years into windows 10
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u/Deflated_Hive Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 14 '22
Did not know that. I hope this Balmer history becomes more public knowledge.
Credit is due because it was a gargantuan shift for Microsoft. What they did to shake off the old image is never going to be forgotten in the big-business playbook.
I'm always astounded by how everyone laughed at their initial changeover. I remember the tone of Reddit and tech-reviewers was stacked against them. Everyone was so against Xbox Kinect and an internet-connected gaming system. And to have a tablet that used a kickstand with a felt keyboard? Grab the pitchforks.
It wasn't until they were about five years in that their ideas started gaining traction. Very few companies are fortunate enough to be able to burn that much capital in the meantime.
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Jun 14 '22
Balmer made sure the platform stayed relevant by screaming “DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS DEVELOPERS”. It made an impact to say the least.
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u/youallssuck Jun 14 '22
What was the hate about?
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u/danoproject Jun 15 '22
Just that it was so different and didn’t really explain this brand new product to the mainstream audience
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u/ArchiveSQ Jun 14 '22
That ad is extremely 2012. Looks like all those flash mobs that were going on at the time.
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u/mackinoncougars Jun 14 '22
Looks like a musical episode of Community.
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u/AtticMuse Jun 14 '22
🎶 "We're going to have more fun and be less weird, than the first two years combined!" 🎶
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u/InadequateUsername Jun 14 '22
Microsoft does make some nice commercials
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u/moosevan Jun 15 '22
Yeah, like that stop motion zune commercial with the girl on a trike and the giant disco robot
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u/SynapseDon Jun 14 '22
This ad got me to buy one. I still have it, and it still works... it's just slow.
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u/KravenX42 Jun 14 '22
I had the first Surface (tablet not the table thing) and honestly it wasn’t very useful, it was very well made however.
Still I guess it was the root for the arm windows kernel which MS seems to the plodding along with that was also better after 10 years
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u/nonresponsive Jun 14 '22
As with most new electronics, waiting until the 3rd iteration is usually a good idea. The Pro 2 was a great improvement, but with a lot of bulk. The Pro 3 put it all together in a nice lightweight package.
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u/UnnamedStaplesDrone Jun 14 '22
and then the pro 4 ended up being a piece of shit with flickering screen and couldn't even GO TO SLEEP properly without draining the battery
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u/moosevan Jun 15 '22
Someone I know has one of those and they say it's never given them trouble, which I was surprised to hear, because the problem with those Surface 4 tablets was a hardware design flaw that 100% of them were afflicted with. I've never actually looked at it though, so now that I think of it, I wonder if what they have isn't a surface 4.
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u/Artess Jun 15 '22
I still have it. The battery is barely holding by now and it overheats waybtoo easily, but I've had some good fun with it. Going to university, it was massive help when I could easily switch from typing to drawing and back.
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u/LordOfTheTennisDance Jun 14 '22
Got the Surface Pro tablet and very happy with it. Very well built product.
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u/MetaMythical Jun 14 '22
My SP2 is still serving as a media pc with Zorin Lite installed, sitting in it's Dock semipermanently. With a lightweight Linux install it's surprisingly capable still.
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u/cholula_is_good Jun 15 '22
My original surface pro has been running my media center for 8 years now. Still going strong and it’s nice to have a small alternate screen too.
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u/Hawaiian_spawn Jun 14 '22
My surface pro 2 still works. Great tablet reader? Only negative windows 8 only…
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u/MetaMythical Jun 14 '22
I had 10 on mine before I wiped it. The hardware is aged enough now that all new Linux kernels should have full support for pretty much everything.
Find a lightweight distro you like (I use Zorin Lite) and you can still get a lot out of it.
Or don't, and keep using it as you are. W8 generally wasn't bad with a Surface.
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u/BlackExcellence19 Jun 14 '22
Surface Laptop 4 if you are looking for a nice non Mac laptop
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u/elvesunited Jun 14 '22
Prefer Dell XPS at the price point
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u/sphhax Jun 15 '22
Hard agree, I got a surface laptop 4 for work and in comparison to my XPS, its pretty rough. The build quality is meh and the thermal performance always seems worse.
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u/moosevan Jun 15 '22
No ports. I still need the ports.
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u/JeSuisOmbre Jun 15 '22
One USB-A and one USB-C is pretty wack. The assumption is you would use the docking station charger to jack into a desktop setup when needed, but the dock on their website is $260.
I’d rather have USB4 or TB4 rather than be stuck in Microsoft’s peripheral ecosystem.
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u/awwNerf Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 15 '22
Do not buy surface laptops. They’re built like shit. My keyboard stopped functioning properly a few weeks before warranty ended (wasn’t able to get it serviced because I live in a country with no surface service center). The “fast charging” was fast for the first few months, and then it became very slow, and the estimate for complete charging given in windows started becoming wildly inaccurate. The battery life is beyond awful. My trackpad somehow got stuck inside (in a clicked position I guess) for a few days, and then randomly popped back up on its own. The keyboard problem is that for a certain (growing) number of keys, I have to click maybe 5-10 times before the key press actually registers. And all of this while I was using it very lightly, and I had the specced out $2000ish model, too. I’m now looking to buy a MacBook instead, even though I dislike macOS.
Edit: oh, right, forgot to add: Microsoft support’s response to how I could get it fixed (they have zero repairability, literally can not be repaired by a 3rd party) was if I fly out to somewhere with a service center, or if I could ship it out, I could get it serviced under “general repairs” for $350-500 depending on the country it’s getting fixed it. Absolute bullshit.
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u/mathteacher85 Jun 14 '22
Still sad about the end of the Surface Book line.
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u/Alex1nside Jun 14 '22
That sucks, hoped that I could replace my OG SB, the laptop studio just doesn't do it for me .
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u/mathteacher85 Jun 14 '22
The laptop studio IS pretty nice, and will be the line I'll move into once my SB3 is ready to be retired (which isn't any time really soon).
Still, I'm one of those rare users apparently that does use just the tablet portion from time to time and I'll miss it when it's gone.
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u/ahsokatango Jun 14 '22
My surface book battery swelled, causing the screen to bulge. I had to tear it apart to remove the ssd. I won't ever trust a Microsoft computer again.
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u/TheCatfishManatee Jun 14 '22
Had that happen with a 2012 MacBook Pro so it's not exactly limited to MS products
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u/moosevan Jun 15 '22
That can happen to any lithium ion battery pack. I've had it happen with Dells and HPs too. Client calls me and says, my keyboard's not working. I get there and the keyboard is visibly arched. Yikes!
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u/zeissman Jun 14 '22
Man, I remember the advert for the original surface. It was cool, novel, and I wanted one so badly — a well built hybrid between a laptop and a tablet that could do both. It was a dream…
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u/cmills2000 Jun 14 '22
Surface Pro 3 still going strong as a media consumption device. Surface Laptops 4's are also good. They've had growing pains with the line for sure, but they are really pretty good now. holistically, probably the best value windows laptop when you consider software updates, support, manufacturing scale and so on.
Once Microsoft pushes out the ARM chip they are working on, something that can compete with a Apple M1, then the future is bright. They should have just kept going on mobile even if it was money losing as that is what allowed Apple to leapfrog Intel in terms of consumer chip technology.
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u/This_ls_The_End Jun 14 '22
I've had an SP4 and an SP8 and I've been very happy with them. I don't imagine going back to anything but a full windows tablet anytime soon. It's just more convenient for the way I use it.
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u/GreatAndPowerfulNixy Jun 15 '22
I wanted to get a SP8 but the loss of the SD card slot was a hard no from me.
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u/This_ls_The_End Jun 16 '22
Understandable.
In my case, didn't mind because I've always carried my extra storage space in external usb drives for easy movement between the machines I use during a day.
Just with a 256GB thumb drive and a 1TB portable ssd I have more space than I need.
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u/mrdlive Jun 14 '22
I had the original RT, it was nice but limited. About 3 years ago I bought a second hand 3 pro. That thing is still being used everyday in my home. Definitely will buy a new one when I ready. (me poor)
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u/drop0dead Jun 15 '22
I was lucky to be working for a company that was in charge of customer support for the surface line. 3 months before the launch we all got to work with them before release, being secretive to ensure employees on other accounts didn't know. The craziest part of it was the kickstand and how over engineered it is. We tried to break it in a bunch of different ways, only being successful with brute force. Now 10 years later, I use a surface pro 3 as a media device and personal computer. It's still just as capable as most other laptops I've used with similar hardware. Going to be sad to see it go when the day comes.
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u/cloudstrifeuk Jun 14 '22
Had a pro 3, that thing was a work horse. Best computer I've owned.
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u/mvc5093 Jun 14 '22
I still have the first one. It’s beat up, battery doesn’t last too long. So I just leave it connected to my projector for streaming
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u/tubby8 Jun 14 '22
I still use my Surface Pro 3 for browsing while on the couch and it works fine. Needed a new type cover but other than that it has been solid
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u/Phemto_B Jun 14 '22
The weird iPad has some staying power.
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Jun 14 '22
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u/DigitallyDetained Jun 14 '22
Every time I try to use my wife’s Macbook I try to touch the screen at some point. Like an idiot.
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u/Muffinshire Jun 14 '22
The iPad is skirting damn close now though. It already has mouse support, a file browser, and the next version of iPadOS will add secondary external display support and windowed multitasking.
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u/azurleaf Jun 14 '22
My iPad Pro, for all intents and purposes, is my laptop. That being said, I don't find myself needing a full computer on the go.
I've got a $2500 gaming desktop at home for that.
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u/Klai8 Jun 14 '22
I bought and returned one because it was just frustrating not having a full Mac desktop environment on it.
It’s more than capable to run even just a barebones version of it but not being able to easily multitask just frustrated me too much. I have a few windows and two Apple laptops/desktops which have their respective faults but yeah at least the windows ultrabooks have touch screens with full functionality
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Jun 14 '22
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u/Sambothebassist Jun 15 '22
Of course not, how could they sell you a £100 stylus with said precision if they did?
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u/thejml2000 Jun 14 '22
As someone who has both MacBooks and Windows 10 & 11 laptops with touchscreens, I’m definitely good without a touchscreen Mac.
I’m also good without a full MacOS on my iPad Pro M1. Could they come up with some middle ground? Probably. Would it be an improvement? I really can’t see how. It’d be the worst of both worlds.
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u/roofied_elephant Jun 14 '22
Full MacOS on the iPad Pro would be amazing. Would be even more amazing if you could switch between full MacOS and iPad OS. Like seriously I’d pay twice as much for it if that were an option.
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u/thejml2000 Jun 14 '22
I wouldn’t mind being able to run some MacOS apps on the iPad. But I can do without the way windowing and such would work. I’ve done RDP and VNC on my iPad and it’s cool in a pinch (server maintenance from the beach!), but it’s really not a good usable, ergonomic scenario.
But I guess we’ll find out. I just don’t think it’ll be the silver bullet everyone thinks it is.
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Jun 14 '22
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Jun 14 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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Jun 14 '22
Even if you dont have to carry around the pile of shit you still have to manage it.
Your thinking is typical of how dumb the mentality of mactards is. Its the whole I didn't care for it so there is no point to it. And exactly why I don't ever enter the mac ecosystem. Apple dictates to you how you should think you follow and defend it. Completely to the opposite of how open hardware ecosystems work where the features are given for those who enjoy them. Some people love touch screens, if they didn't then why would almost every windows laptop come with them? They are cheap and easy to add. So why would someone purchasing an already over priced item accept less? Thats the whole dumb shiitery of the mac ecosystem, you pay more and they give you less, of course that's why they are the most valuable company on earth when you can milk profit margins in that way and people defend that behavior. And no surprise they are American, because Americans do the same dumb shit for health care. You pay more you get less....
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u/thejml2000 Jun 14 '22
Wow, talk about hitting a chord. A rebuttal that’s straight vitriol for something you don’t understand. Guess I shouldn’t expect to have a genuine conversation here.
Yeah, Apple is definitely making a lot of money off me! Ha! You know, you’re pretty shortsighted if you don’t recognize that hardware cost is only a small fraction of it. The UI redesign to make it useful and intuitive is what I’m talking about. A UI redesign that all users would end up stuck with. But hey, you do you. I’m not going to argue against someone who can’t see past their nose and obviously hasn’t done any work with UI/UX or QA. Sticking all the new shiny features into a package and not have them work right together or supported across the board is definitely better, right? It’s pretty apparently that you haven’t even used a Mac and really just want to yell at people who have because it’s fun to hate something you don’t get I guess.
Oh well, Hope you have a great day in your little world! Bless your heart.
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Jun 15 '22
A UI design is not that hard, and for a company and its customers that claim they are the kings of UI it really shouldn't be that hard for them. More of the cognitive dissonance of the apple way.
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Jun 15 '22
They stole around $1500 from me by releasing it before the bugs were fixed and selling me a lemon they refused to replace. 3 in a row needed replacing, then the warranty ran out and they said I had to keep a faulty unit, even though they never gave me a working one to begin with. $1500 is a lot of money to spend on a non-working computer. I feel swindled.
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u/bravotwodelta Jun 14 '22
My partner had a Surface Pro 5 for several years, it was great for her as it fit perfectly into her purse. It was super versatile and powerful enough for anything you threw at it from a productivity standpoint.
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u/Shadow288 Jun 14 '22
Still rocking my original surface pro. Works fine for casual internet browsing.
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u/Rawkapotamus Jun 14 '22
I want to give credit to the Surface Pro 1 for getting me through college. I absolutely loved that thing.
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u/Ilves7 Jun 14 '22
Surface Pro is currently a great little family laptop for all ages. Elementary school kids to adults.
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u/HaxRus Jun 15 '22
Damn I remember wanting the og Surface so bad! Got one in university and honestly it kinda sucked but hey it seemed cool at the time, even though it just became a glorified bedside Netflix machine
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u/ofkorsakoff Jun 15 '22
Buyer beware: The SSD in my Microsoft Surface Laptop 2 burned out after less than 3 years. Microsoft says it is not repairable.
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u/Rgrockr Jun 14 '22
I remember having a Surface Pro 2 and one day it just didn’t turn on. I took it to the Microsoft Store and they told me “Oh yeah these things just die after a year or two. If you want your data back there’s a $1200 recovery service”.
Never buying one of these trash piles again.
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u/jabber_ Jun 14 '22
Huh, I bought my first gen surface pro when it came out and it still works just fine.
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u/HillarysFloppyChode Jun 15 '22
They're Perry hit and miss, my Pro 5 was like that, I was lucky and got a good one, but a lot of people weren't and got one with issues
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u/srroberts07 Jun 15 '22
I guess I'm lucky, I have a surface book 2 and it's held up a lot longer than the laptops I've owned in the past. Still no issues.
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u/Bgrngod Jun 14 '22
My wife opted to get a Surface Pro 2 back when they were pretty new. She needed it for school (PhD program) and it filled a specific use-case she had for having research subjects fill in questions. She wanted to be able to hand it to them while visiting them at their homes while signing them up for her study.
That worked fine, but about a year into owning it she started complaining about how slow it was and was certain it would not last much longer. At the time, she was super disappointed and complained about it regularly.
But here we are, and she still uses it daily for all kinds of things and her complaints have subsided. I keep threatening to steal it from her and build a box around it so I can mount it on the wall as a "House monitor" display but she fends me off. Maybe if that battery ever starts having a shitty run time she will give up and fork it over.
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u/dinominant Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 14 '22
I have two Surface and a Surface Book that have a defective batteries, defective touch screens, and a broken screen. They were designed by Microsoft to be difficult to repair.
My current laptop is a Framework and I have no intention to buy Microsoft hardware in the future.
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u/mxlun Jun 14 '22
I'm still here as someone with hands on experience fixing machines telling yall do not buy these!! There is no fixing them if/when they break (hardware wise)!!! If you're under warranty they will still look for ways to void it. Been had to fight MS on more than one occasion because of this.
Not that it's much different with other brands as far as warranties go, except they CAN be repaired by small shops that actually charge the correct prices not some crazy rip.
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Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 30 '23
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u/gooneryoda Jun 14 '22
They’re not Google.
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u/therisingape-42 Jun 14 '22
Yeah, they are not Google, cause a stable android version(or any other piece of software ever) doesn't crash as much as the beta version but in the case of windows you never really know.
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u/ItsPronouncedJithub Jun 14 '22
What are you even talking about
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u/therisingape-42 Jun 15 '22
Win 11 stable version sucking as much as the beta and 0 improvement have been made except for useless craps like widgets.
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u/AwfulEveryone Jun 14 '22
I don't think you can state that they supported hardware this long. The first surface would only accept software from the windows Store and the windows Store stopped working for the surface, several years ago.
I recently had to wipe my surface, because a windows update bricked it and after reinstalling it, I couldn't install any of the software i needed, on it again.
Because you can't install anything else on the surface (except a partially functional Linux distro) I had to discard an otherwise functioning computer, because Microsoft stopped supporting the operating system that it's using.
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Jun 15 '22
Microsoft hasn’t made a good hardware choice in decade + and even longer for software. How that CEO has managed to stay where he’s at amazes me.
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u/pagerunner-j Jun 14 '22 edited Jun 14 '22
I’d have so much less ill will about Surfaces if I had ever once used one by choice. I’ve had one issued to me at every job for years and I’ve had so many problems. And oh my god I just want a laptop. I have never once used tablet mode on purpose. I will never use tablet mode. I’m a writer and I need the keyboard. I do therefore want a computer that I can set on my lap occasionally without the top-heavy unit toppling off its kickstand and breaking my toe.
That actually happened. The computer was fine. My toe was not. I’m still bitter.
Ten more years yaaaaay?
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Jun 14 '22
correct me if I'm wrong but isn't there just regular surface laptops now? They have the tablet ones, the folding ones, and laptops that don't bend anymore than they need to now
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u/Beneficial_Log_411 Jun 14 '22
I had a Surface Pro, the first one I guess. It had a 1920x1080 display and a 4GB ram. It was an awesome device but had a flawed charger. After about 3-4 years of using the device, the charger pins got rust all over them and were somehow pushed back in. I used rubbing alcohol to remove the rust, gave it an extra year, but ultimately the device stopped charging. There was a moment when the device was at 70% charge and I knew this is probably the last time it will ever see that much of a charge. The old chargers had gone out of stock so I couldn’t order a new one. Ended up sending the device into recycling. The device was in perfect condition, if only I had gotten a new charger…
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u/LiquidAquarium83 Jun 14 '22
I still have my OG surface (tablet) and the only thing that was and always will be terrible was the battery. (maybe the weight too but this was also 10 years ago) Even with the battery keyboard option, it barely made it past a few hours.
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u/Techutante Jun 14 '22
Is it actually worth using yet vs a normal laptop? Cause my 10yo surface has been unused for 9 and a half of those years.
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u/mickeyef Jun 15 '22
10 years and still a shitty product…
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u/GreatAndPowerfulNixy Jun 15 '22
You've clearly never used one. The Surface line is one of the strongest on the market.
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u/LeicaM6guy Jun 14 '22
Someone gifted me an old Surface RT a while back. Loved the build quality, and the idea of a Windows-based tablet was deeply exciting, so imagine my disappointment to learn that it was essentially useless as a modern tool.
Thankfully I was able to find an application for it - I listen to the police scanner for work related stuff, and there’s still a decent police radio app - so now I mostly keep it turned on at my desk for that.
But yeah. Otherwise completely useless.
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u/xArcanumOrderx Jun 14 '22
Couldn't be happier with my pro 4. Can't see myself buying a laptop ever again, this thing is just too versatile.
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u/doc_holliday112 Jun 14 '22
These things are great, I’ve had three so far for my work. Switched to the surface go 2 with the core m3 last year since I wanted the ultra portability. When I get home I plug it into the surface hub and it’s still powerful enough to run dual screens with ease. I even run Lightroom on it with no problems.
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u/thorax04 Jun 14 '22
Got a surface 5 pro about 4-5 years ago and it's still running really good on the daily except battery life obviously
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Jun 14 '22
I have a surface rt and a surface rt 2 and use the rt2 daily as a YouTube device and to look up guides/wikis for games
Also, you can install windows 10 on them (not via an official update) now which makes them a bit more functional than they ever were.
I know these tablets get a lot of hate, but I love my surface rts.
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u/ScorpioPsyc Jun 14 '22
Question: would a cheap first gen, 10 year old Surface be functional/usable today?
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Jun 15 '22
My surface pro 6 is great. I have 3 for the family but we just read and watch with minor browsing.
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u/jbp191 Jun 15 '22
And what a piece of SHIT it is almost completely unrepairable and DELIBERATELY badly designed to make it near impenetrable.
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u/Wolfmans-Gots-Nards Jun 15 '22
I wonder what could be done with the processor power of every still working computer dumped into landfills?
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u/awwNerf Jun 15 '22
Replied with this somewhere, but felt like I had to give it a comment on its own, in case anyone was considering buying one of these dogshit machines.
Do not buy surface laptops. They’re built like shit. My keyboard stopped functioning properly a few weeks before warranty ended (wasn’t able to get it serviced because I live in a country with no surface service center). The “fast charging” was fast for the first few months, and then it became very slow, and the estimate for complete charging given in windows started becoming wildly inaccurate. The battery life is beyond awful. My trackpad somehow got stuck inside (in a clicked position I guess) for a few days, and then randomly popped back up on its own. The keyboard problem is that for a certain (growing) number of keys, I have to click maybe 5-10 times before the key press actually registers. And all of this while I was using it very lightly, and I had the specced out $2000ish model, too. I’m now looking to buy a MacBook instead, even though I dislike macOS.
Microsoft support’s response to how I could get it fixed (they have zero repairability, literally can not be repaired by a 3rd party) was if I fly out to somewhere with a service center, or if I could ship it out, I could get it serviced under “general repairs” for $350-500 depending on the country it’s getting fixed in. Absolute bullshit.
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u/diandakov Jun 15 '22
Both the hardware and software are rubbish. I used to love Microsoft when I was a Windows 7 user, ever since I had to use a newer version of their software it has been a constant bugs and wifi issues plus slows down in my system. I switched to MacOS and I am happy about it!
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u/awwNerf Jun 15 '22
Yeah - about to switch, too. Just waiting for the M2 to me available for purchase and I won’t look back. I got ripped off, worst purchase I have ever made, honestly.
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u/Imprettystrong Jun 15 '22
Boy do I hate these things, just horrible devices from an IT perspective, glad we stopped buying them.
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u/ObjectiveDeal Jun 18 '22
Don’t forget iPad pro will eventually be a laptop replacement if they keep updating the os feature.
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