Microsoft Surface Studio

That is pretty cool. Oddly enough something I've been thinking about would be a high dpi "ribbon" screen, something that is perhaps 14 - 16" wide by 3 - 4" tall. To sit just behind my nice mechanical keyboard. That screen would have application specific tool bars with large icons and easy to tweak controls (sliders, buttons, etc). That would allow me to give over my "big" display to the project workspace, whether it was a circuit, MCAD design, or illustration. The "special sauce" being that I could render to it as a screen and it would have multi-touch capable gestures for the controls.

I prototyped some of that with a mimo 10" touchscreen[1] but in my vision touching a control on the 'ribbon' screen doesn't steal the mouse pointer :-). I've been playing lately with some ST Micro 32 bit parts that can drive a display and use BT LE to communicate back to the PC. It may be possible to "download" control panels to the screen and then get the feedback through a BTLE handler rather than trying so somehow hook the event handler of a standard App and have it take control selection events from this screen/non-screen entity.

So if you find a long and narrow high DPI screen, DVI, MPI, or even VGA driven would be ok. And a capacitive touch layer, I'd love to get one of those to play with.

[1] https://www.mimomonitors.com/collections/10-inch-monitors

$1K is still a bit painful to be able to place 8 of them, grouped in 2 2x2's with a camera in the middle.

It's still an order of magnitude less than doing that with 2048x2048 ATC displays...

Maybe we could do a Kickstarter or something to make a batch of 1920x1920 screens. Maybe we can even start a fashion - square is the new widescreen.

Why not just tape over the sides of a normal monitor?

~33% more expensive than an Eizo FlexScan that has the same amount of pixels in 16:9. Not really unreasonable, I agree, but still painful.

As a side note, I've actually never understood why the industry converged on 16:9. It's pretty much only good for watching movies. I really miss 4:3.

> "you're paying ~$700 for the actual machine driving that display"

~$700 gets you a pretty basic computer with 965m, you can build a desktop with gtx 1070 for 700$ to power a wacom display. And you will be able to upgrade it in the future, with Studio you are stuck with a 965m for $3000. And if you are getting a 980m for $4200 that leaves you with a $1900 to build a computer for Wacom, which can be way more powerful than 980m...

I think Microsoft should have sell that monitor by itself, but I guess this way they could not shovel win10 updates down your throat so it is not a good option for them...

I wish the Surface Pro was just the screen hardware that you can plug into a proper desktop.

Do you know if MS have improved the stylus? As far as I know surface's pen technology is inferior than Cintiq's pen.

The Cintiq also isn't HDR and has a different aspect ratio, making the square inch size difference much greater than just a 1 inch diagonal increase would imply.

Sorry but unless this is a glorified exec office decoration, professionals care about the specs very much, especially at that resolution and price tag

and not just the form factor, the dial is just amazing. I am really curious how developers will exploit its functionality.

Exactly!

Then sell the screen itself.

Why chain it to mediocre, non-upgradeable hardware?

Lower resolution than a 5K iMac

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

Yup. My thoughts exactly. Typical Apple fanboy camp. This truly reminds me of how Android camp always pointed to the specs and completely overlooked the design, form and function of iPhones. Irony that the Apple camp is now doing that to the competition :)

Is it a Wacom or nTrig?

I haven't really spent much time with nTrig based Surface models, but the Wacom in my Surface Pro 1 really sucks at the edges.

I'd rather have it just be a nicer Cintiq that I plug into a proper desktop.

You can already get a Wacom and attach it to a random computer.

Hybrid drives don't always work well. The one in my iMac did, until I reinstalled macOS and then restored from a Time Machine backup, and now I get hard disc speeds, with a second or two delay to (say) open a small file, rather than instantly as with an SSD, as was the case before. It's been a week or two, and I don't know why Fusion Drive didn't optimise the data placement to move frequently used files to the SSD.

> I'm like exactly their target audience for this.

If you are concerned with graphics performance, you are not their target market.

Do you guys actually know designers and illustrators? Seriously.

I suspect this computer took a while to develop and the 1080 wasn't available at that time.

That's next year's upgrade. This year it's the feature screen, next year it's the performance boost. Keep that marketing department ticking over.

Presumably you can use the jog dial off-screen and for any number of things, in which case it would be useful to almost everyone for volume control, scrolling through lists, adjusting values in control panels and so on.

Obviously video editors use them, but I know of professional photographers who find them really useful in moving through a catalogue while editing photos too.

Both digital illustrators I know work entirely on PC's these days simply because the tooling there is more flexible. I have no doubt they will migrate to this device over time.

Apple these days are designed for optimal usage of iTunes and Safari.

It is no longer the platform of choice for creative content creation.

My thoughts exactly.

Not sure if anyone listened to Satya's closing comments but they sounds eerily similar to something Jobs would say.

Either way, good for Microsoft on putting out a product for the high end creative segment.

I think that's part of the point the parent. This is a combination of an iMac and Cintiq. Something Apple currently doesn't have a answer to.

And it's based off NTrig tech, too. Competition is good ;)

Affinity Designer for Windows [1] is currently in beta. Figma is available for Windows too [2].

1: https://affinity.serif.com/fr/windows/ 2: https://www.figma.com/downloads

> the Linux subsystem for Windows is really appealing

In theory. To anyone who feels that way, please try it out for yourself before making a leap. I thought it would let me develop Ruby on Rails under Windows like I could do on Linux or macOS. I discovered a whole bunch of unimplemented features that prevented this. After a couple of months of commenting on bug reports and watching and trying, I gave up. I'll check back later. YMMV.

"Linux subsystem for Windows is really appealing." Have you actually tried it out?

I thought nobody anymore believed in this after the first versions came out and people actually had a chance to try it in action. There are endless amounts of bugs, unimplemented features, complications between 2 filesystems, permissions, applications etc.

When MS announced this I was pretty hopeful. Not that I would change my dev-computer from way superior macOS to Windows, but that when I'm at home gaming on my Windows PC and I get some cool idea, I could do some small development or create simple prototypes without changing from my desktop to my laptop. After trying it out for real I don't belive anymore this "linux" subsystem thingy is ever going to be anything more than niche PoC.

"OS X is basically a Unix workstation & perfected anything the Linux desktop wanted to be."

Exactly. How do they not know this ? Or, why do they not care ?

There is one big huge reason that "smart people" switched to OSX and the computers that ran it and that institutional knowledge appears to have evaporated at Apple.

When you know your core, core base is here for the UNIX, you don't take away the escape key ... or keep breaking and re-breaking crontab ... or introduce the weird-stuff-I-can't-do-even-as-root.

> "Surprised MS went with nVidia 980s instead of 1080s"

It's not even 980, its 980m which is significantly slower than 980, nevermind 1080. And the 980m only comes in the $4199 option, that's ridiculous...

> PC market has been stagnant/in decline for some time now. They have to come up with something.

Quick, someone page Apple because Mac sales are declining even faster than the market. Surely they have to do something, that's the only possible motivation /s

Do you think a lot of people care about PC/phone integration? I don't see it outside of "contacts and email" which is already fully integrated everywhere thanks to the cloud.

People don't buy Macs because they work well with an iPhone as far as I can tell. They buy Macs for all sorts of other reasons, but that doesn't seem to be one of them.

Every corporate office in the world is running Windows. I'm pretty sure people are going to continue buying whatever they use at work, so unfortunately for HN, Windows is here to stay...(sorry!)

I feel like an iPad mini sized device might help break them into that market. Since I really don't make phone calls, when I have my iPad mini with me I don't really use my phone.

Maybe there's some scenario I'm missing out on, but I've never had any issues just using Windows Defender.

uBlock Origin + Windows Defender = pretty good defence for people who don't click yes on everything that pops up

I see your point, I think it comes down to if you believe a major actor like Apple/Google/Microsoft can afford to ignore mobile... I think it's too integral with their ecosystem, being present in mobile will bring more business to their other devices... but I can see the other POV as well.

Anyways, I'm really glad where they're headed with the Surface Books/Studio. It's been a little slow getting the next generation of windows apps/store going and this is a step in the right direction

You make some good points, and some I didn't quite agree with. The notion that you could just recompile old win32 apps, while nice in theory is not practical IMO. Software has gone from being heavily GUI oriented (windows, dialogs, buttons) etc to converge into something between web and UI. I'd rather they make a clean cut with that past than incorporating it into the future. Also lots of new stuff like notifications, roaming notifications/settings etc are things that simply did not exist with traditional software. I do agree however that I miss some deep level win32/OS integration possibilities in the current UWP world, on the other hand there's lots of new cool stuff like App services, notification listeners etc.

I agree completely that a big problem was the constant reboots between Zune/silverlight/NT/Win10. They ended up where they needed to be but it certainly made things difficult for both developers and consumers, and lost them a lot of momentum

Supporting 512 mb devices was one of the biggest mistakes they ever made, the impact on that the development side was just devastating, for what, saving a couple of bucks in RAM memory?

I think it's hard to generalize the speed and pace of Windows Mobile overall, they put a lot of money and effort in it, and still is, but something definitively changed with the Nokia acquisition and/or Nadella taking over from Ballmer

As for updates I always got frequent updates (europe), the problem was more that their QA seemed substandard. Might be an american problem with providers like Verizon. They had an interesting strategy with their insider updates... which is nice in theory but it sometimes felt like they fired their QA team and put the burden of testing on their consumers, resulting in major bugs frequently getting through

> Microsoft developer relations pushed C# as the defacto way to write apps targeting the platform, something that doesn't scale when you also need to support Android and iOS.

Actually, our company has an Android and iOS App written in C# with a 80-90% shared Codebase using Xamarin. It has been pretty awesome so far.

Microsoft were late to the smartphone OS market, but they were making headway. In 2013 they were back into double digit market share in many countries, and the numbers were heading in the right direction. Then Ballmer left, Nadella took over, and they just... gave up.

OK, so they still had a long way to go before they displaced Android. But iOS only has ~30% of the market, and nobody is suggesting Apple give up on mobile because they're not the dominant player.

In the 90s, Microsoft were notorious for entering existing markets, usually with a substandard product, then grinding their way to a leading position. Even if it took years, even if they lost a lot of money at first, and even it took a few product cycles for them to become competitive, they stuck at it, and it eventually paid off.

This strategy worked for web browsers, office software, and console gaming. Would it have worked for smartphones? Maybe, maybe not. But I'd argue the signs were positive, and that they gave up before we really got a chance to see for sure. I mean, they've kept Bing alive for years, despite only having made minor headway against Google, and web search being a far less existentially vital market to them than operating systems.

Now, the problem with Microsoft's current strategy is that consumer IT is heading towards smartphones being the only device most people ever own or use. Desktops, laptops and tablets are becoming niche devices in comparison. It doesn't matter how great your UWP apps are if 90% the market doesn't own or use a device that can run them.

The saddest part is maybe how close they where:

I so wanted it but waited and waited for a waterproof Nokia and then ended with a Sony Z series and later a Samsung something waterproof flagship.

Others waited for instasnapsomething but I almost can't care less I think as long as the platdorm has a couple of good alternatives for notes and calendar + Whatsapp and Telegram.

Now I almost feel bad for not supporting them. Who would have thunk for someone who used to despise all their products until some 4 years ago :-/ (since early 2000s).

Developers won't optimize UX of their apps for phones, unless they'll see valuable target audience there. And this isn't going to happen without selection of new devices of market (their current best one is so inferior to iPhone 7, that the only excuse to buy it is the price). So what we'll get is a lot of ugly apps that barely work on small screens.

This. I think this is why they are pushing UWP and convincing more people to build apps for Windows 10 using it. If this strategy succeeds, they'd have everything in place for a relaunch. It would be so seamless for developers to support Windows 10 Mobile, they'd just do it.

That's a good question, and the mobile market is cutthroat when even companies like HTC/Samsung/Lenovo etc is struggling to survive.

However I think Microsoft has a lot of synergy good both on the gaming side with Xbox and on the business side with Office/Sharepoint/Outlook etc, not to mention that Windows still is the most popular OS.

Now I tend to agree with Nadella's "be everywhere"-strategy but that doesn't mean they can put everything into Microsoft services and software being the best on their own devices. I think the fact they're doing xbox games that are free to use on PC's is a good example of such synergy.

In the end selling hardware is never going to be what they earn money on, but rather they need to be a hardware actor so that they profit off their app store/software/services.

That's some pretty optimistic thinking. Unfortunately, you just don't come back into a market after getting beaten badly and exiting with your tail between your legs. They have no developer support and UWP has, for the most part, been a failure if you judge its lack of adoption as a metric - where exactly are all of the UWP apps?

As for Microsoft "striking" when they get the software right - I couldn't tell if you were joking or not. There's nothing that Microsoft could ever announce that would ever make them relevant in mobile.

Is it possible that Microsoft ships an Android-based phone with Microsoft services plugged in? If it could run existing Android apps yet plug into Microsoft developer tools API for the future, that might work?

Can you please share the comparison? It will be interesting to read and compare the experiences.

Disclaimer: msftie.

I don't buy that, despite how much I hear it. there are a few situations I'd agree that if you don't have the first-to-market advantage you're basically fucked (social networking being a prime one, any system where network effect dominates). And while people cite apps as being the "network-effect-esque" factor in this case, I'm not sure I buy that. Looking at data of how many people NEVER use a single app, how many domains/specialties could use a "professional" phone without a broad app base, how many niches are untapped (constant laments from myself and others about how there are no small, robust, non-feature-obsessed "working mans smartphone") I truly believe there are ways into the market that are just fine to grow a sufficiently profitable business if you're simply OK with not trying to be the next iPhone RIGHT NOW. Maybe this ties back into the whole "vc doesn't want companies that _just work_, they want growth" mindset, but I fundamentally reject that as a philosophy so perhaps I'll never see eye to eye with the decision makers in this case.

(to clarify something for responders, all of the above is aligned as well with the implicit statement that you can't let investment slack; because then you lose your grassroots/what little mindshare you could have had to grow, take the above as "why I think a company should continue investment even in the current scenario")

Never say never. Apple was not in position to succeed in mobile (they were even not on the market at all, when there were Nokia and others). But now they have pretty big share. Despite the iPhone, Samsung was able to become the top smartphone maker. Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi are the rock stars of today. There are always opportunities if you are ready to innovate.

Yeah that's exactly the thing. There's always been something missing. In the beginning there wasn't any apps and hardware was lackluster, but at least Microsoft was putting everything into the platform. Then Nokia shined in knowing how to market a consumer device and make a brand out of Lumia... but still the critical apps were missing and Microsoft's many turns with OS'reboots created an platform that was always trying to catch up with themselves.

Now W10/W10m is basically everything we want it to be, I mean there's some amazing stuff in the new API's and composition API stuff but no one is using them. Continuum in theory could be a game changer. The concept with tiles despite being several years old now is still something that feels fresh and ahead of the curve compared to iphone and android. but Microsoft can't launch and market a flagship phone that pulls everything together.

Just make one gret flagship phone that says "We're in it to win it" and a budget phone that'll mop up the budget/mid-tier. We'll see, maybe that's what they're working on but time is running out

«for whatever reason, Windows 10 Mobile continues to see gradual updates and improvements.»

Well the big obvious thing is that this shows how the efforts put into making the UWP truly Universal seem to be playing out. Certainly a lot updates and improvements benefit every device and the low overhead benefits a "low usage" platform like mobile.

That said, I'm still kind of weirdly optimistic and I think this quiet, continual improvement really is a good sign. I know some criticism existed that Windows Phone 7 and Windows Phone 8 and Windows 10 Mobile were "half-baked" early/at launch, and there's an interesting question about how much Microsoft just wants the platform to "catch up" and "feel solid" before a bigger marketing push.

For instance, one thing that I think has unfortunately been under-cooked has been Windows 10's efforts in the People hub, especially given where Windows 8.1 eventually built up to before some of it getting broken up in 10. The new "My People" functionalities shown at today's event seems to prove that a lot has been going on that space and is due for the Creators Update. I was hoping they'd at least give us a small glimpse of the mobile experience for it, but I realize the gee whiz factor of showing it off on a desktop taskbar.

There was a definite signal in Microsoft only using an HP mobile device on stage. Could be Microsoft is confident in deeper OEM support for Windows mobile devices.

They already have that in Continuum: http://www.pcworld.com/article/3065895/windows/windows-conti... although I'm not sure it has a future given the shaky status of Win10 phones.

As it stands right now, I can fire up Visual Studio and write a UWP app that'll run on phone, tablet, and desktop.

The problem is that hardly anyone is using Windows Phones, and the smartphone market is one that MS hasn't had much luck with. Maybe the rumored Surface Phone will help if it ever materializes, but I'm skeptical.

Since the moment they started investing in hardware, they have always been capable of doing great smartphones. It's not the hardware part that is an obstacle. Probably it's the lack of determination to win.

Out of curiosity, what's the use case for cheap win10 netbooks nowadays?

When I think of something that has a web browser and a keyboard, the low end of the market seems to be the current crop of Chromebooks, and schools seem to agree - they've been phenomenally popular in education.

Typical Win10 netbooks don't have a lot of CPU+GPU grunt, so it doesn't seem to me (maybe you'll correct me) like they'd be very good for running most Windows apps.

Is this a big market?

I keep seeing comments about the Magic Mouse' "horrible ergonomics" and really don't get it.

I've had "ergonomic mice" for a while before and, yes, they felt perfect in my hand. The issue is that I move the mouse with my fingers and not with the whole arm, so my palms stops touching their _oh so ergonomic surface_ pretty soon, defeating its purpose.

If you look closely at a good ergonomic keyboard (such as Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic) you'll notice that the keyboard actually slopes downwards, away from the body. You're correct to say that an upwards slope is harmful, but so too is a flat surface. The best position is to have the elbow extended at more than 90 degrees, and the wrist straight - hence the downwards sloping keyboard.

You'll also notice that the keyboard's wave shape raises it in certain places to match the hands, this is to allow your wrists to relax more, because the karate chop position is neutral, whereas hands flat in front is actually using your muscles to hold that position - the slope helps to relieve this by allowing the wrists to be 30deg or so closer to neutral.

The split in the middle of the keyboard prevents the hands from having to pivot outwards at the wrists on the horizontal axis to align with a straight row of keys, again allowing them to remain in a neutral position instead because the two halves of the keyboard are aligned with the natural arc of your reach.

The Ergo 4000 and Sculpt both slope down and it's great. I agree; I can't use any Apple/Mac input tech without being uncomfortable.

The 3:2 aspect ratio probably makes it less consumery as well.

Yup, people considering this for a standard PC aren't really making an apt comparison.

All the creative people I know said Cintiq set the bar, looks like MS is making a square aim at that market.

Better yet, compare it to the cost of both a Cintiq and a PC. A Cintiq is just a monitor/drawing tablet.

Does it have tilt support? At one point it showed someone using the puck/wheel thing to control tilt instead of just tilting the pen :-O.

IMac does not come with a pen. This is a draughtsmans tool.

Thunderbolt is an Intel standard, Apple was just an early adopter.

While thunderbolt isn't an Apple standard (it's Intels actually and HP laptops for example ship with it), the hardware on Thunderbolt that's actually compatible with Windows is rather rare and doesn't make all that much sense in comparison to just using USB 3.0

Not to mention that running windows on an MBP is completely viable and actually still the best you can get.

FWIW, Windows 10 runs really fast on your two MBPs, if you can get past the keyboard layout while using Windows.

This is highly subjective, but my experience running Windows on Mac hardware was that they felt snappier than OSX on the same machine.

> I'm big on keyboard shortcuts but MS is very much mouse based.

Incorrect. You can operate the entirety of Windows with just the keyboard.

Please tell me what you cannot do with the keyboard in Windows and I'll straighten you out.

OS X/macOS is definitely worse with regards to keyboard acceleration. For instance, here's a glaring omission on Apple's part: try opening any window from the menu bar (e.g. the BetterSnapTools preferences dialog) then switch away from it with ALT+TAB and you'll be unable to switch back to it.

There is a difference between not knowing the key bindings and there not being any. See link below. That's a non comprehensive list of just system shortcuts and doesn't even attempt to enumerate application specific ones.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/126449

I am using company provide rMBP for 2 years and I like to linux like terminal/bash, but otherwise I can't find any reason it is so revered.

Multi monitor support sucks so bad, I have to wiggle mouse few seconds at bottom of monitor before it is taken as active, but boy popup of active window still opens on 2nd monitor.

I minimize Firefox it goes down in Dock, now when I press Cmd+Tab, Firefox is in the applications list but the window doesn't comes back. I have to click on it with mouse to open it.

And maximize screen button now defaults to new full screen Desktop, which looks good if you use trackpad and swipe around, but with keyboard it adds no value, just distracts a lot, and apps like Chrome/Finder if I click option+maximize, they believe I want some sort of horizontal/vertical expansion.

/rant

Edit: Even greater WTF is dialog boxes, I use tab to focus on a button, press enter and viola the default action is taken, ignoring the keyboard focus, so if I don't want to save file, I have to use trackpad :|

> I'm big on keyboard shortcuts but MS is very much mouse based.

I think the key you're looking for is the 'Alt' key. You'll find a lot of doors open up for you on Windows when you use it.

edit: just to clarify. If you see a menu or anything with a letter that is underlined, Alt + Letter will choose that target. In addition, pushing down Alt will sometimes show which menus have keyboard options.

> But I still feel Windows itself is not a productive OS. I'm big on keyboard shortcuts but MS is very much mouse based.

Maybe you should read the help file instead of going on "feelings". Every UI widget in Windows can be operated from the keyboard.

> Being required to use my pinky to try and hit CTRL instead of my thumb to hit COMMAND to do simple things like copy and paste is HUGE to me.

Oh come on. You're just making up reasons to dislike it at this point. "The shortcut key is a half-inch further away! THIS IS AMAZINGLY IMPORTANT MIND-BLOWING SUPER-FLAW!"

>Being required to use my pinky to try and hit CTRL

I use Windows, OSX, and Linux fairly often (mostly Windows, then OSX, Linux here and there). For me, the most frustrating thing about Windows, a minor point but it bugs me, is that you can't remap the CTRL key without having admin rights.

This is a user-controlled preference the OS has in the box, in OSX and Linux distros I've used. On Windows, you need to edit the registry (!!) or use the SysInternals driver, which requires Admin rights. I haven't found another way to do it that doesn't require installing more software and/or admin rights.

Really? That's weird - I'm a relatively recent convert to OSX, and find the opposite. E.g. move a window, with alt-spc, M; every dialog box that opens can be addressed by hitting a letter for the option you want; default buttons are bolded so you know what hitting enter will do, etc. I've had to work on Windows boxes with no mouse and found it tough, but possible. Still have to reach for the mouse a lot in OSX. And don't get me started on home and end ;-)

Perhaps it's a question of muscle memory and discoverability? I love spotlight, and installed magnet (http://magnet.crowdcafe.com/), and slowly getting there.

I use Apple keyboards with windows based products.

The issue isn't that the MS shortcuts for things are any better or worse, it's just that you're not used to hitting CTRL. As a developer, my pinky basically rests on the CTRL by default when I'm on a windows system. When I'm on a Mac my thumb rests on the Command key.

Funny, I feel the same way about OSX. Every time I jump over to a macbook I reach for Win + Arrow keys to move windows around.

I rarely use the mouse on windows, I think it's just a matter of familiarization on both OSes.

you can't really take your issues with pinky movement and apply it to say windows isn't productive. all it means is you aren't productive with it. i use both windows and mac everyday and there is zero slowdown for me with shortcuts

Sure, the location of the control key on Windows is bad. But the location of the command key on OSX is worse. At least on Windows you can use the meat of your hand to press the control key as long as you have a decent keyboard. But on both OS's remapping it to caps is even better.

I really wanted to like the SB but I didn't like that it doesn't have a full keyboard with End, Home, PgUp, PgDown. It's not that there isn't space to include them. I ended up returning it. For something that I paid $3k for it was a dealbreaker.

I've had some minor gripes about the reliability of the hinge connection, the behavior of the FN key, and DPI switching on Windows in general.

That said, ever since the Intel firmware fixes addressing the power management issues, the Surface Book has been the perfect general purpose mobile computer for me. Crisp screen, solid keyboard, long battery life, lightweight, and the stylus has been sufficient for replacing good ol' pen and paper when I need to scratch out some math for my occasional graphics programming hobby work. (I have a dedicated GPU model.)

It's the first new computer I've bought in 4 years, so despite paying over $2000 for it, I'm quite happy with the value I've gotten.

The battery life in tablet mode is only bad when you leave it detached (at least for me).

It would be careless of them to water down the brand like that, after having developed the technology in the first place.

They didn't use that tech in the surface book (AFAIK).

I'm sure he speaks exactly like he did in this press conference when he's at home with his family!

Acting != make believe. The dude was hamming it up to the point that he seemed like a caricature of a product announcement.

Aka every Apple presentation ever. Those are filled to the brim with hyperbole ('magical', 'courageous', etc.) yet everyone somehow considers them the golden standard.

>The next one should have it though.

Yea for me this is a skip until they update the hardware - it's just too expensive to have to replace in a year.

I didn't mean to imply that there are none. I meant that they are incredibly rare if you consider the number of Windows laptop models available. The vast majority have either 1366x768 (low end laptops) or 1920x1080.

For me it's not even about being unix-like (though sounds nice). I would just want them to get rid of all the legacy garbage and start from scratch. They have nice design language, good programming environment, multiple platforms - everything is dandy. The only problem is all the stuff left for compatibility reasons.

This is eerily similar to my experience with Surface Pro 3. I absolutely love the hardware, with the conditional statement that it doesn't work as advertised most of the time. Forced updates broke functionality...and the actual hardware failed: I got a touch dead-zone, but Microsoft gave me a complete replacement after a year (the customer service was exemplary)

My Surface Pro 3 has never felt reliable. I can't count on it working the same way one week to the next, which is unfortunate. I told a colleague this morning that I was surprised that the last two machines I really wanted were both Microsoft hardware (Surface Book and Surface Studio).

But I also won't invest in new Surface hardware until I see lots of user feedback.

True, they still have problems. I was close to buying a Surface Pro this winter, but all of the people complaining about battery issues on reddit deterred me.

That's why I said "closing". These machines look like they had much more effort put into their design than what people think of when they think "Windows laptop" (a cheap, glossy, plastic piece of crap).

Why don't we at least wait one day for the big Apple announcements tomorrow before making this proclamation one way or another?

I actually like coding with bitmap fonts very much, which becomes too tiny if shown on a high-dpi screen.

I agree, I expected loads of compatibility issues and weird bugs, but I have been pleasantly surprised. Integration with apt package management is solid and has so far worked like a charm.

My only complaint is that I had to opt in to the bleeding edge test versions of Windows 10, so my computers keep restarting themselves (often deleting registry settings like keyboard remaps and custom global hotkeys in the process) practically weekly. Anyone know of a way to keep my bash shell without having to (practically) reinstall Windows every week?

Haptic feedback. The implication in the videos is that people are often manipulating the Dials with their off-hands without needing to look to back at the Dial. It's like a well worn knob in your car you don't even have to glance at while you are driving.

Also the videos show it both on and off the screen as users have different needs to work with it.

I wasn't sold on it with the colour changing demos, that seemed a gimmick at best. The haptic feedback basically just makes it an on-screen mouse which is within easy reach, which is cool, you don't have to search for e.g. ctrl+z or a button off to the side to undo.

But what really got my attention was the ruler. That opens up a natural way of drawing lines which just work, as compared to either using an actual ruler on your tablet (which hopefully works), or selecting a line tool and guesstimating the line you want (which you then adjust afterwards) etc.

I'm looking forward to see what other uses for it they can come up with.

Precision and extra inputs that you can't get with touch gestures.