Hacker News Reader

Comment by mise_en_place | Hacker News Reader

It's not only a privacy headache but will most likely impact performance as well. Especially on a low powered ARM device, I can imagine the user experience being pretty terrible. Strange that Microsoft is getting into hardware again, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson by now. Every tech company I've worked for that pivoted into hardware went bankrupt shortly after. It's not trivial navigating manufacturing and real engineering processes.

View on HN

> Strange that Microsoft is getting into hardware again, you'd think they'd have learned their lesson by now

They've been making surface devices for a decade, I am not sure what you mean by "again".

As for performance, there is a reason the feature is limited to laptops with 16 gigs of RAM or more and a dedicated NPU of a certain speed. I dont think there will be performance issues when they are controlling the hardware spec that tightly.

What do you mean "getting into hardware again"? They have been making surface laptops for quite some time. This is like the 10th iteration? Maybe more?

It's more accurate to say, going all in on hardware again. Surface laptops were not the primary focus, just a throwaway product to grab a small percentage of entry level laptop consumers. This is positioned as a direct ARM MacBook competitor.

I haven't brought one myself, but know enough about the lineup over the years[1] to know this creates a distinction where there is none. They certainly weren't only entry-level. Been a perfect mirror of Steve Jobs-era Apple of having 2 choices, consumer and professional.

I do agree they're excited to announce an ARM laptop, but there's not a commensurate bigger "bet"/investment in hardware.

I'd argue there's less investment: Internal Dell documents has Snapdragon at $145, versus $276 for i7.[2]

[1] Purchased two as gifts.

[2] https://videocardz.com/newz/snapdragon-x-series-chips-cost-o...

> just a throwaway product to grab a small percentage of entry level laptop consumers

Yeah I don't think this take is accurate, my employer (state-owned, largest utility in my country) issues Surface laptops to many employees so I think there is likely significant enterprise use of these.

I do agree that this refresh seems like a renewed effort to compete in the consumer space though.

10th, 11th, or 12th depending on how you count.

It's also the third one that is just called "surface pro", along with the firs generation and fifth generation devices.

It's not going to be on low powered ARM devices.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com