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Comment by lvspiff | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft appears to be pricing their hardware in line with Apple now? $1599 starting price for the Book? I get the quality and the features are up there but the price is unappealing.

the surface Go even starts at a reasonable $399 but then to add a dock is $250? The dock is is 62.5% the cost of the computer? That seems rather steep

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I think that’s always been Microsoft’s point of the Surface line. The PC market is flooded with cheap laptops, and Microsoft wanted something premium to compete against Apple.

Well step one should be to create a product that competes.

Higher resolution screen, better aspect ratio, touch and an ntrig pen. Seems they would need to make it more expensive for a fair competition.

Given the technical specifications of Apple's laptops it is not that hard for many of us.

It's not a fair competition to have in the same category a mobile device with a touchscreen and a laptop with a tiny touchbar.

IDK, I think it is more to set a baseline experience expectation. (Similar to what Nexus and Pixel did for google)

A LOT of PC manufacturers bundle a lot of crappy software with their laptops. MS hardware is just windows.

Microsoft is guilty too. I was pretty surprised when I saw a launcher for Candy Crush on a new computer. Go ahead and feature it in the store, but it doesn't belong in the menu of a new computer.

Well, they're not guilty in the sense that that is the baseline Windows experience, disappointing as that fact is.

It's pretty shameful that it's pre-installed even if you are doing a fresh install of windows on a machine you put together

Also, they don't want to jeopardize their relationship with PC manufacturers that buy Windows, so they aren't going to make a modestly priced regular laptop that competes with their customers.

Recall that the surfacebook is a 2-in-1 device. A tablet, and a laptop.

While the dock is compatible with the Go, I don't believe it is the expected to be used with the Go.

The Surface Book was always a premium model and not a staple, compared to the Surface Laptop which was meant to address the lower part of the budget spectrum. The Surface Laptop is more comparable to the Macbook Air line on both features and price.

Also the dock was definitely designed for a workstation setup, which the Surface Go isn't. Surface Go support seems to be incidental. I have the gen 1 version of the dock and I use it at my desk to attach two screens and a keyboard and mouse.

I think with the docks it's a no-win situation, from what I can tell the surface docks contain a display adapter (maybe 2 now for the new one since it supports multiple displays?), a NIC, a USB hub, charging circuitry, and some other random stuff. The price of all that seems to add up. I originally assumed the video out on the surface dock was just passthrough but it's not, it has its own display hardware with its own quirks and you update the firmware on it to change the behavior in some cases.

In my experience a comparable USB-C dock of decent quality for my macbook is pretty expensive too, though certainly not surface dock level. I think this is just the situation we're in with how laptops and docks interact now. If more of the smarts were in the laptop than the dock the dock would probably be a lot cheaper, but that seems like it might drive up the price of the laptops.

The original Surface Dock supplies power, two USB ports, two mini-displayport plugs, a headphone jack, and an ethernet port. (I'm using one right now.) With my first gen Surface Book, I'm able to drive two external screens through the dock, or use the laptop screen plus one more. Haven't tried with a Surface Book 2 yet. The nice part is that it just reuses the charging port.

As far as docking stations go, it's a substantial step up from most docks. That new price tag is still pretty steep though.

You're paying for the r&d that does into creating these products. The Surface Book is full of custom parts, and you really don't expect it to cost the same as other OEM laptops.

It also goes without saying the Surface line are luxury items.

But why does it contain so many custom parts? Does it improve the user experience in some way?

The hinge and locking system are custom made for the Surface Book, and it's very sturdy. Many users [0] mention that they really like it as well.

I'm pretty happy with my Surface Book 2 as well, it's a pretty solid computer, with the only caveats being the repairability and non-upgradeability.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/6lu0kg/lets_talk_a...

> Microsoft appears to be pricing their hardware in line with Apple now? $1599 starting price for the Book? I get the quality and the features are up there but the price is unappealing.

We'll have to see the detail of the configuration, but the original Surface Book had an entry price of 1500 (5 years ago), and it was a fairly anemic configuration (iGP, 128GB storage). The SB2 lowered the price to 1150 for a similarly anemic base configuration (no iGP and 128GB storage, and a Kaby Lake where the other models got Refresh).

The book's always been a pretty premium laptop.

> the surface Go even starts at a reasonable $399 but then to add a dock is $250? The dock is is 62.5% the cost of the computer? That seems rather steep

You do know that the Surface Go is a tablet right? The "keyboard" is the $130 Type Cover. Getting a dock just for that seems somewhat unlikely. As in, if you already have a dock for some other surface product you might use it with a Go, you're not going to buy a dock for a Go, that's insane.

I am surprised the Surface Duo phone isn't listed, since it looks like a luxury item, and considering all the products are too be preordered.

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

Reminds me of the $999 Apple stand

The $999 Stand was a publicity stunt, to get people and outlets talking about Apple and maintain its apparent status as a "luxury brand" (which it's not, it's a consumer brand, albeit a slightly expensive one).

But if MSFT is going for the same thing with something that's actually meant to be useful like a dock, they're just being stupid. No one views MSFT as a luxury brand anyway.

No, Apple wanted to appeal to pro-sumers. The stand is for people who need the display, but already have a monitor grid to plug it in.

A decent surface has always been in that price range

The dock for the original Surface Go was garbage. You were always better off getting the USB-C hub.

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