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Comment by rsynnott | Hacker News Reader

> Faster than a MacBook Pro

What's their basis for that? I'd have thought at the very best it'd be about the same speed as a 13" (assuming you're not doing anything that uses much RAM; the 4GB would really cripple it there). I'll be interested to see what CPU it has, exactly, but I'd be surprised if it has the HD540/640 graphics.

EDIT: Specs here: https://i.imgur.com/Kc1fQ52.png

The expensive ones use an Iris 640, so are the Kaby Lake incarnation of the chips used in the non-TB 13" Macbook Pros (the touchbar ones use the higher wattage chips with Iris 545). The cheaper ones use HD 620. So, the more expensive models might be comparable to the non-touchbar Macbook Pro; it's unlikely that the cheaper ones will be.

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Up to a 7th-generation Core i7 with Iris Plus Graphics 640.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-lapt...

I wonder if the core i5 is actually a Core i5 U-edition or an Y-edition. Didn't Intel say they would start calling Core M3 and Core M5 Core i3 and Core i5? (pre-Kaby Lake).

15W TDP

The 7th gen Core i3/i5/i7 have exactly the same performance of the 6th gen.

Also the MBP Touch Bar has a TDP that is much higher than the Surface Laptop, only the low end MBP has the same TDP of all the SL.

So, no, the Microsoft product is MUCH SLOWER.

> I'd have thought at the very best it'd be about the same speed as a 13" […] so are the Kaby Lake incarnation of the chips used in the non-TB 13" Macbook Pros

Yeah they're comparing it to the nTB MBP, it uses 15W Kaby-U, the nTB uses 15W Skylake-U, I assume generational improvements are where they get "faster".

This look fairly expensive for the config isn't it?

They could probably drop the price, but they want OEMs to build their own versions of the machine. If you drop your price too low OEMs will be squeezed out of the market.

That's the big problem Microsoft has with their hardware that Apple doesn't.

except that Apple doesn't go after the low end of the market anyway, so that doesn't really matter.

I agree, i was expecting this to be priced around the same price as the chromebooks or netbooks (~$200 USD) and i was sticker shocked at $999

Apple took the macbooks up by $200 for little reason. There was an article just a week ago that the surface book line was not doing well.

The obvious reason is because they are overpriced. And now they have made it even worse. This does not make much sense. Hopefully manufacturers like Asus can step up with even better quality Zenbooks and do not join this 'premium' binge.

It seems the 'premium manufacturers' see this as a non-elastic market and want to take the prices to around $2000. But is there enough differentiation in laptops beyond the screen and build quality to justify that premium. Everything else is off the shelf components and these dual core chips just don't seem to be worth this kind of money.

Even 'premium' phones are becoming dramatically more expensive with every refresh that are way out of sync with component prices.

Surface products would probably do better if they were sold world wide.

$999 would be fine if it had Windows 10 Pro onboard. Then you're talking about a full Macbook Air competitor.

But once you notice Windows 10 S, then the price is unusual. I bet the hardware team is disappointed by that decision for this machine. It doesn't make sense.

And free updates until 2018 doesn't help tbh.

Compared to what?

Surface i5, 8/256 $1299, MBP $1499 or $1799 depending on the i5 processor.

Surface i7, 8/256 $1599, MBP $2099

Surface i7, 16/512 $2199, MBP $2499.

So not sure how you're saying this is on the expensive end.

> Compared to what?

The Surface uses 15W U-series, so they can only be compared with the 13" nTB, the other two use 28W and 45W with dGPU, they're in entirely different classes specs-wise.

> Surface i5, 8/256 $1299, MBP $1499 or $1799 depending on the i5 processor.

1799 is an i7, so no. And the MBP has a graphical edge (50~80% better graphical performances) as it gets an Iris 540 to the Surface's HD 620.

> Surface i7, 8/256 $1599, MBP $2099

1799 (nTB MBP with i7), Surface gets an Iris 640, the direct (and almost identical) successor to the 540.

> Surface i7, 16/512 $2199, MBP $2499.

2199 (nTB MBP with i7, 16GB RAM and 512GB SSD).

So the Surface is slightly lower-priced, at least at the low end, but with the caveat of flexibility: you can get a 16GB RAM or 512GB SSD nTB MBP for 1699, for the Surface it's 2199 or bust, and you can cut the i7 from any nTB configuration at almost no loss[0] to save $300.

[0] https://ark.intel.com/compare/91156,91169 the only difference is 400MHz base frequency, 300MHz maximum turbo

Realistically, these are the 15W chips, and should only be compared to the non-TB Macbook Pro. The base non-TB MBP uses an Iris 640, so it's more comparable to the $1599 one than anything else ('i5' vs 'i7' in dual core laptops is an almost meaningless term, but there's a vast difference between the HD 620 and Iris 640).

So it's a bit more expensive than the MBP if you care about normal things, or a bit less expensive if the i7 branding is for some reason deeply important to you and you don't care about the GPU. Either way, not great, really, because the 13" MBP is noted for its expensiveness, and generally expected to drop $200 or so soon.

Xiaomi Mi Air 13, i5 8/256 $690. Aluminum unibody, smaller and lighter than MBP 13.

Stop buying overpriced crap and start supporting companies that charge fair prices and maybe MS and Apple will release products that aren't 2-3x as pricey as the competition.

This is purely personal, but I don't buy laptop solely for its form-factor. What sells the MBP to me is the operating system and frankly that is what keeps me from buying a windows laptop too. In the end I'm ok with paying a premium for a laptop that just works 90% of the time. MBP usually last very long (I still use a early 2011 machine), so the cost is amortized.

I have a toshiba laptop from 2001 that still boots up and runs fine, abet slowly. I have 2 from 2008 w/ no problems at all. My 2012 230x thinkpad has better specs then what's being currently released (2 256gb ssds, and 16gb of ram - really easy to install aftermarket ram & ssds) and is my main laptop, and will be for the foreseeable future. I don't see how a 2011 machine is all that remarkable.

If we're giving anecdotal evidence, I have about 4 Dell notebooks from 2011 to 2016, all of them are either broken or cannot function normally. So should i go ahead and generalize that all the machines in this period are bad?

I said the price works for me because a 6 year old laptop still chugs along comfortably so the price gets amortized. I was not holding a measuring contest.

As for me the only thing I admire in the MBP is the form factor and build quality. I dislike OSX and the purely technical specs are nothing to write home about (especially at that price), so the Xiaomi 13 is great for me.

> a laptop that just works 90% of the time

That sounds horrible...

Eh! I meant it needs tinkering once in a while. It is probably more like 99%. Windows and Linux on the other hand require way more work. I just want my dad to browse the internet and not mess with registry or device drivers.

I run windows 10 on my macbook 12" because it works 99% of the time. And battery life is better.

Xiaomi Mi Air, plus VAT/duty, ships with Chinese only Windows license, unlicensed for English, without CE marking for Europe, and with minimal Western country warranty to speak of.

By the time you add all that up, it's approximately the same pride as any other similar spec non-Apple/non-Microsoft/non-Dell Win home laptop.

Still it doesn't come close to the price of brand laptops, even non-Apple/non-Microsoft/non-Dell, but with the build quality to match or surpass those. I also don't care about Windows or whatever since I use Linux. It's the perfect machine for me, fits my use case like a charm. I'm sure there's plenty of people with similar needs that would also be satisfied with it.

except that it comes from China, with chinese Windows installed and good luck with the warranty. No thanks.

But where would you buy one? (That is also trustworthy I should add.)

You could buy one from a store like gearbest or else buy from a reseller in your country and pay a small premium for warranty etc.

I have this impression in my mind that Gearbest is untrustworthy - this may have come from anecdotes where people were buying smaller ticket items where dishonesty, etc is more common, not sure. Anyways, I'm leery sending $800 to that site.

Search for physical resellers near you, you will pay a small premium but maybe it's worth it for peace of mind.

I don't think /u/tmd83 said MBPs were not expensive or was even comparing the two.

When he's replying to a comment that is absolutely comparing the two, it's probably not off-topic for a reply to continue the comparison.

Not really, Surface laptop is clearly an Apple MacBook competitor and not some MS version of Chromebook.

I think they just mean faster to boot (but still slower than Chromebooks).

Simple: Microsoft lies every single time, the Apple haters "fall" for it, and the people that don't know anything about computers, do too.

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