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.
      • thesohoriots@lemmy.worldEnglish
        14·
        17 days ago

        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.

      • Doug@piefed.socialEnglish
        12·
        17 days ago

        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.

      • iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        16 days ago

        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.

          • saltesc@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            17 days ago

            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
              1·
              17 days ago

              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
      1·
      17 days ago

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

      • Evkob (they/them)@lemmy.caEnglish
        45·
        17 days ago

        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
        31·
        17 days ago

        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.

      • Pycorax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        5·
        17 days ago

        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.

    • Pycorax@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      14·
      17 days ago

      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.

      • GamingChairModel@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        15 days ago

        but isn’t the memory on the Neo on the same die as the processor?

        Not actually on the same die, but in the same package, stacked on top using TSMC’s Integrated Fan-Out Package on Package (InFO-PoP).

        So the memory still needs to be sourced from memory manufacturers, sent to TSMC, and then have TSMC package it all together in a single package. It’s unclear whether they had locked up this supply at pre-AI prices, though. The underlying A18 Pro chip/package was annoinced and launched about 18 months ago, so if they had the manufacturing pipeline set up for that they might have kept the contractual rights to continue buying memory at the old prices.

    • sunbeam60@feddit.ukEnglish
      43·
      16 days ago

      “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
        2·
        16 days ago

        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
      16·
      16 days ago

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

  • nutsack@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    26·
    17 days ago

    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

    • thethrilloftime69@feddit.onlineEnglish
      13·
      17 days ago

      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
        10·
        16 days ago

        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.

    • AlecSadler@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      5·
      17 days ago

      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
        3·
        16 days ago

        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
          2·
          16 days ago

          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
            2·
            16 days ago

            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
              1·
              16 days ago

              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
                1·
                16 days ago

                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
            1·
            16 days ago

            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.

    • Railcar8095@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      16 days ago

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

    • ColdWater@lemmy.caEnglish
      2·
      17 days ago

      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
        1·
        16 days ago

        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
        1·
        16 days ago

        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
      1·
      17 days ago

      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.

  • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zipEnglish
    14·
    16 days ago

    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.

    • Diurnambule@jlai.luEnglish
      7·
      16 days ago

      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.

    • NebLem@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      16 days ago

      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.

      • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        14 days ago

        I don’t have a tablet precisely for that reason. Until I can have a full Linux driven tablet, I’ll keep to phones and computers.

          • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zipEnglish
            3·
            13 days ago

            Thanks for the tip. I guess I’ll dive into eBay and see what I can find. I want 2 Linux tablets, 1 for myself (reading comics and books since I jumped the Kindle ship long ago, watching my Jellyfin library on the couch, etc),and one to put on the wall as a central command center for my Home assistant.

            I really appreciate it, because I did let my hate for Microsoft keep me from ever looking in that direction. Thanks so much bud.

      • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zipEnglish
        3·
        14 days ago

        I have a 3 years old System76 Gazelle with an i7 running CachyOS and at the office, also running CachyOS, a Venus UM773 Minisforum with a Ryzen 7735HS.

  • kboos1@lemmy.worldEnglish
    14·
    17 days ago

    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.

    • Brkdncr@lemmy.worldEnglish
      13·
      17 days ago

      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
        6·
        17 days ago

        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
          1·
          17 days ago

          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.