Microsoft is raising prices on all its current Surface PC offerings, with the midrange devices now starting at above $1,000, and flagships starting at $1,500.
  • Reygle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    5 hours

    Do people really buy this trash-teir garbage anymore?

    • sunbeam60@feddit.ukEnglish
      11 hours

      “Due to COVID we are temporarily suspending the trolley service in your train”. Never returned.

      “Due to COVID, we have temporarily removed your inflight magazine”. Never returned.

      “Due to COVID, we now temporarily only clean your hotel room if you request it”. Still have to request a room clean.

      “Due to COVID, the salad bar has been temporarily suspended”. Still no salad bar.

      “Due to COVID, you now have to book a slot to go to the tip”. Still have to book a slot.

      “Due to COVID, the sleeper train has been temporarily suspended”. Never returned.

      These are just the examples I can think of.

      • Eximius@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3 hours

        Many of these things don’t sound specifically wrong. Just heavily entrenched cultural artifacts that needed a catalyst for change to occur. Which, I, personally, don’t mind.

        Salad bar and sleeper train is pure evil.

    • stray@pawb.socialEnglish
      10 hours

      Here in Sweden the government recently lowered taxes on groceries so that the stores would lower their prices for customers. lol

  • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zipEnglish
    8 hours

    I had one of these about 10 years ago. Pretty nice little things. However, since moving to Linux exclusively 8 years ago, I don’t miss them at all. Plus, with all the publicly facing bullshit from Microsoft, it blows my kind that people will still spend money on this. Not an Apple fan either, but you can get a very powerful Mac for the sake money.

    • NebLem@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4 hours

      https://github.com/linux-surface/linux-surface makes most of the features “just work” in mainstream distros on these devices.

      In the laptop that can also be a decent tablet sometimes space, the brand still does really well, though most people are probably fine with tablet that can be a decent laptop sometimes. Hopefully mobile linux projects like mobian and postmarketos allow the later idea have more than iOS and Android as viable options soon.

    • Diurnambule@jlai.luEnglish
      8 hours

      Thé surface until 8 included run Linux amazingly. That one thing you have yo give to microslop it know how to make Linux shine. Look for the project surface linux these guys are amazing.

    • Blackmist@feddit.ukEnglish
      5 hours

      It seemed popular at the time MS was pushing “Windows is a touch screen OS” phase, before remembering that there are pretty much no Windows apps that are useful with touchscreen, and the only reason they are relevant is 30 years of vital old software that businesses can’t throw away.

      I think the niche it tried to open was as a drawing tablet, basically being a built in Wacom, but an iPad and Procreate do that job so much better.

      • Regrettable_incident@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4 hours

        The surface actually looked pretty cool when it first came out. To me, at least. Times have changed tho, and windows has leapt in the shitter.

    • Railcar8095@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11 hours

      I saw one around ten years ago. My boss bought it, used it for a week and bought a new mac.

      OS was the main issue for him.

      • Spice Hoarder@lemmy.zipEnglish
        11 hours

        I might get hate for this,but Windows 8 was the perfect operating system for this device. As soon as I upgraded to 10, none of the fun touch screen stuff was there anymore and I stopped using it.

    • AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zipEnglish
      15 hours

      I used one in school a couple years ago, and I can’t deny it was pretty great for it. I like to handwrite my notes, and any math-heavy assignments are way easier to just handwrite, so I used it so all my notes and homework and textbooks could be saved digitally and automatically get backed up to cloud storage. I still use it occasionally as a super light and portable laptop occasionally, but I use a desktop far more often these days.

      • FlexibleToast@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14 hours

        I had a Surface Pro 4 when I went to university. I always said if it wasn’t for the note taking there was no way I would recommend it. It had all kinds of software issues and eventually it just straight died while I was studying one day. I don’t think I’ve ever had a computer die like that, eventually they just get replaced by being obsolete.

        • AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zipEnglish
          13 hours

          I never really had any issues with mine. I did have it die after about two years when it just stopped charging and/or turning on, never was quite sure where the issue was. But I bought it refurbished and on a steep discount, so I felt I got my money’s worth out of it at least and that that was just an inherent risk of cheap refurbished tech. My only real complaint was that it managed the battery really poorly when I tried to put Linux on it, but it ended up being useful to keep one Windows machine around for the occasional one off use, so even that worked out for me in the long run. As someone who’d prefer to run Linux on everything I can, I have to admit I had like zero problems with it until it died.

          But if I had to use one with Windows 11 on it, I’d rather learn to live on my smartphone.

  • Goodtoknow@lemmy.caEnglish
    23 hours

    Lol, just as Apple released their lowest cost laptop ever at $600

    • greyscale@lemmy.grey.oooEnglish
      4 hours

      and its STILL insultingly expensive for what it is.

      A laptop with one of the worst modern keyboards with a dated ARM phone soc… Where have I heard that before.

      If the pinebook can exist for $200 in tiny volumes, the macbook with its massive production volume is absolutely a slap in the face. The BOM on that thing can’t be more than $200-250 even with the wasteful packaging and marketing.

      That should be filling the $399 space the eee pc laptops did. The costs should have diminished down by now.

      • Goodtoknow@lemmy.caEnglish
        3 hours

        Huh? The CPU has still one of the highest single core performance benchmarks on the market, especially considering it’s fanless. The keyboard is also really good as they got rid of the butterfly in 2019, it is unfortunate, it has no backlight, and RAM is limited to 8 gigabytes. Otherwise, a good deal with how good the screen and speakers are, and solid aluminum build quality

        • greyscale@lemmy.grey.oooEnglish
          3 hours

          Gee mister I bet you sure do love paying phat margins on commodity goods.

          To quote Allan Sugar, you’ve bought in to the mugs eyeful.

    • Pycorax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      21 hours

      Not really sure how big of a difference it makes but isn’t the memory on the Neo on the same die as the processor? The A18 Pro is also likely a lot of old binned chips that they’ve been collecting for a year. I wouldn’t be surprises if this completely isolated them from the rising memory costs. Apple really lucked out on the timing of their release. Not that the Neo wouldn’t have been an amazing value regardless either way.

      • Evkob (they/them)@lemmy.caEnglish
        20 hours

        I honestly feel that’s less of a diss on the Neo and more of a statement on how overpowered phones are now, especially considering the limitations placed on mobile OSes.

      • ripcord@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21 hours

        Some of the same hardware, yes.

        But also - the CPU/GPU in the iPhones are insane.

        Compared against a bunch of laptops in the price class from dell, HP, etc and the single-core performance is like 50% higher on the iPhone CPU in the macbook neo.

        I can’t wait for more ARM CPUs that hit these specs for a reasonable price.

        • verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.frFrançais
          16 hours

          ARM cpus are great for battery life and aren’t saddled with decades of legacy support, what they are not is a physics bending device. It’s not a geekbench benchmark that is going to change the reality of physics. Now, if one’s use of a computing device is circumscribed to opening web pages, then the iPhone is the device for you. Also, don’t forget to breathe in and breathe out.

          • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.worldEnglish
            16 hours

            As someone who was very excited about ARM several years ago and still is using ARM for half of my homelab equipment, it’s unfortunately rapidly become irrelevant. x86 CPUs can now run as efficiently at the same TDP while still beating it in performance with all the benefits of x86. Unless something unforeseen changes, I probably won’t be buying any more ARM machines for homelab/server use. Still using what I already own, of course.

            RISC-V seems cool though, but not sure that it will be more attractive than x86.

            • verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.frFrançais
              15 hours

              I’m still excited, ARM is still a gen ahead of x86 in power constrained situations, for energy efficiency, where peak compute is not a requirement. That illusion fades away fast though, when one multitasks or needs a non hardware accelerated pipeline. For single purpose devices like game consoles, that advantage in power consumption looks mighty sweet. Let’s see what AMD conjures up for the next gen PS6 or as a response to Lunar lake. The mobile ecosystem, especially Apple, have a vertical integration that makes HW development more agile as they are not saddled by decades of legacy support and tech debt.

          • ripcord@lemmy.worldEnglish
            16 hours

            This seems nonsensical to me. It’s physically impossible for ARM competitors to match the performance of Apple ARM?

            Not to mention that we’re talking about their lowest-specced CPU here and there are far more powerful ones.

        • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.worldEnglish
          16 hours

          Those single core performance numbers are entirely benchmaxxed and don’t reflect real world performance or reality at all

          EDIT: downvoters in denial. They get better synthetic Geekbench numbers compared to some of the latest desktop x86 processors (“beats” 7950X and “meets” 9950X), but get absolutely smoked by those same processors in real use. Maybe your only use of a computer is running Geekbench idk.

          • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
            5 hours

            Your words were correct but not your laughing smug face. You said it like it was some kind of own when really it was complementing iPhone’s.

            I’ll hate on all the companies in the world, but I’ll do it based on facts and not allow my bias to make me look like a clown, as it did for you here.

            Just try and be better is all I ask, else we may as well go hang around on r/conservative with all the other folk that don’t fact check and have no integrity.

            • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.worldEnglish
              4 hours

              And I’m supposed to be the biased one who looks like a clown?? 🤣

              Brother, we aren’t talking about phones, we are talking about laptops. Yes, it is a huge own.

              else we may as well go hang around on r/conservative with all the other folk that don’t fact check and have no integrity.

              As you’ve admitted, I’m factually correct.

              • dependencyinjection@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
                4 hours

                Calling an iPhone mediocre hardware is like calling an android mediocre hardware, neither statement is true.

                You seem to think I’m defending Apple, but I’m not I’m just calling you out for being dense.

                Replace the target of your original comment with Android and I’d still be here calling you out BECAUSE I DONT CHANGE MY FUCKING VIEWS BASED ON WHETHER I LIKE THE COMPANY OR NOT AS THAT REEKS OF A LACK OF INTEGRITY.

                Now fuck off with your silly memes ya cunt. You got ratio’d on Lemmy (the leftist and most anti capitalist place I know, shouldn’t that show you’re fundamentally wrong given every fucker here would be the first to shit on Apple).

                • theunknownmuncher@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  4 hours

                  The laptop is extremely mediocre. I wouldn’t want a laptop made from an Android phone, either.

                  You got ratio’d on Lemmy

                  Your one downvote isn’t a ratio…

      • Pycorax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        21 hours

        Not exactly, it’s a binned version. 5 GPU cores instead of the 6 on the iPhone. Still, it’s pretty impressive for what it’s able to do.

  • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    20 hours

    i honestly don’t know who these things are for. I’ve never seen anyone using one in person. why the fuck would you put windows on a tablet

    • Railcar8095@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11 hours

      There was a very weird placement on Supernatural on some episodes with a “tech genius”. Very jarring how forced it was.

    • thethrilloftime69@feddit.onlineEnglish
      18 hours

      I have a surface pro 4. I love these machines. You can use it like a tablet, you can use it like a laptop. It’s great for drawing and taking notes by hand.

      The only problem is Windows, but that’s not a big problem for the average person. The price of the new ones is a problem but I think the form factor is awesome.

      • T156@lemmy.worldEnglish
        17 hours

        It’s like a better iPad in a way, since you could run full-scale desktop programs on it, and use it like a desktop.

        I wouldn’t be too surprised if things like surfaces were one of the reasons why Apple seems to be making a push to try and make the iPad functional as a computer on its own.

      • potustheplant@feddit.nlEnglish
        15 hours

        “Only problem” is quite a stretch. Those devices are borderline unrepairable.

    • AlecSadler@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      18 hours

      I love my Surface Snapdragon X. Battery life up the wazoo and I use it largely as a thin client to windows and linux systems so it lasts forever.

      I did debloat it heavily though.

      And someone will probably say why not install Linux on it, to which I say…for everything I use I’ve yet to find a Linux distro that works without hours of custom efforts. I work 7 days a week and don’t have time to dive down rabbit holes every day to fix shit like my mouse, or my bluetooth ear buds, or RDP, or parsec, or nomachine, or wifi.

      • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        18 hours

        install the terminal version of claude code and ask it to configure your computer for you. you might think I’m joking until you do this

        • Railcar8095@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11 hours

          If ever going to try this, ask to make it a script fully explained, then read it and fully backup before you run.

          • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
            17 hours

            ive been using Linux for 20 years. my assumption is that your barrier is tedious linux usability problems.

            my suggestion specifically would be to give it research powers and regular non-root access, have it write configs and answer questions about your system, suggest alternative packages to install etc.

            • AlecSadler@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
              16 hours

              Alright, I’ll give this a go on a VM first. If it can solve my RDP-like issues I’ll be supremely happy - but to my knowledge, Linux just doesn’t support such a thing the way I want to use it.

              I’ll test this on Ubuntu, Mint, Pop, and Debian to start but let me know if there is a distro you recommend.

              • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
                15 hours

                i am an extreme fan of arch, even if for no other reason than the AUR

                im not sure about rdp but i remember vnc being the cross platform standard years ago. i have a comet wifi kvm giving me access to a mac mini because i need it for certain tools

          • ranzispa@mander.xyzEnglish
            15 hours

            I had this impression as well, until I had to troubleshoot some problems I was having with the screen. Did not give it root access, but it run a bunch of analysis on the system and within a few minutes it was spitting out configuration files that I just had to copy in the correct directories.

            Doing the same myself would have taken me a day on the arch wiki. I’ve been using Linux for years, when I was on X I was editing the Xorg.conf without looking up the documentation. If you know exactly what the problem is, you’ll fix it faster that way. However, if you don’t troubleshoot many systems often it is unlikely that you have a structured approach to identifying the problem. LLMs can be quite organised in doing that.

      • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        18 hours

        I can think of two reasons, but I can’t think of any for putting it on a tablet

    • ColdWater@lemmy.caEnglish
      18 hours

      I would love to have one as a novelty item for installing Linux on it, I always thought using Linux on touchscreen is super cool. but it’s expensive as fuck

      • drgeppo@lemmy.worldEnglish
        15 hours

        a friend of mine sold me his semi-new Surface Laptop Go (the original model), and for 400€ it’s a super cool touch screen laptop, using Gnome is super slick, and I am fine to be restricted at 250gb ssd/8gb ram.

        but paying it more than double the price would be insane imho

      • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        18 hours

        I bought a thinkpad on eBay and it surprised me by being a touch screen version and it just kind of gets in the way you pick up the laptop to move it and you’re clicking the mouse all over the place. i disabled it after drawing about 4 cocks

    • lobut@lemmy.caEnglish
      18 hours

      My friends love them. It’s more like a laptop than a tablet and they love using the touchscreen as apart of their PC experience. Battery life needs work, at least the Intel ones that they were using.

      I have yet to convert them to Linux. I’m working on it though.

      • thesohoriots@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1 day

        Heck, my surface pro 3 makes a great Linux machine. Still tweaking it but the touchscreen works just fine with Mint, so even an old one could probably do just fine.

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        15 hours

        As long as you don’t mind the webcam not working, which except for the oldest models seemed to be a constant with the Surface tablets.

        Edit: i mean in Linux, as these camera modules are near impossible to support.

      • Doug@piefed.socialEnglish
        24 hours

        I remember when the first Surface released and Gabe from Penny Arcade was like “wtf this is better than iPad for drawing. why aren’t they advertising this aspect of it?”

        I don’t know if that’s still true, but I always tucked it in the back of my mind when I was looking for drawing tablets.

      • reddig33@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1 day

        Which Surface Pro version do you recommend? Are you using Ubuntu Touch?

          • saltesc@lemmy.worldEnglish
            24 hours

            Gnome kind of makes sense for touch.

            I just threw Cachy onto an old Inspiron for a computer to have near me while recording instruments, but a Surface Pro would actually be much better.

            How’s battery and did MS fix those shit house chargersthey had back when I had a Surface Pro 2?

            • Willoughby@piefed.worldEnglish
              23 hours

              Mine’s okay, the two little contact idea they had is finicky but a little jiggle and it’s good, I do keep the contacts clean, little rubbing alcohol.

    • k0e3@lemmy.caEnglish
      22 hours

      Even as a Surface owner, this came as a surprise. Had no idea they were still in the hardware business.

  • kboos1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    22 hours

    But already cost like $1k. I can’t figure why anyone would want one. It’s like they took the worst things about a tablet and the worst things about a laptop and put them together.

  • Hond@piefed.socialEnglish
    1 day

    I wasnt even aware that Surface hardware was still a thing.

    • Brkdncr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      23 hours

      Surprising good for small companies that don’t want to deal with hardware maintenance but are already in the m365 ecosystem.

      Updates for drivers, firmware, etc comes right from windows update and not from a 3rd party app like dell/hp/lenovo business-oriented devices do.

      • MIDItheKID@lemmy.worldEnglish
        20 hours

        I work for an org with ~1700 Surface Laptop 7 ARM deployed. They are actually really nice. Managing them with Intune is a breeze (including BIOS management), and Windows ARM is actually getting 3rd party app support now (Thanks, Apple!)

        Yes, yes. Microslop, I know. But we are talking end user computing here.

        • Brkdncr@lemmy.worldEnglish
          18 hours

          I have a lot of win32 to deal with so not exactly ARM friendly but with recent hardware cost increases I’m aiming to support ARM by end of year and begin a real transition next year unless intel can pull a rabbit out of the x86 hat again. Panther lake has me cautiously optimistic.