Apparently we SB owners have a lot of money to burn

[BearFlag]

According to PC Mag at least: The Surface Book and Microsoft's Marketing Folly

"Nobody in their right mind will buy one unless they have excess cash. If I ever see one in the wild, which I doubt, I'll indeed ask that person if they have money to burn and if so can they give me some of it?" -lol

 

[leeshor]

That's so dumb!

 

[Athol Hill]

I think it shows tech journalists out of touch with consumers. They assume because they won't buy something, that no one else will. The fact that I can't afford a Bugatti Veyron doesn't mean the car won't sell or make a profit. They fail to realise that people are prepared to pay more for something that is better quality. Apple has been doing this successfully in the home user market for years and makes billions in profit. Theoretically, according to this journalist Apple should never have sold anything because the specs of most Apple laptops could be had for a lower cost on a cheap Windows PC but the fact that people buy shows that there is a market for premium products and this is the market that Microsoft is (rightly) aiming for as a differentiator, and are likely to achieve success. If they priced cheap products to compete with Dell, Toshiba and other vendors, it's unlikely they would do much from both a profit and sales perspective but by differentiating themselves into the premium market, they will probably do a limited (in comparison to the low end market) number of sales but with a better margin.

This journalists statements are about as accurate as suggesting that a BMW M3 or Porsche 911 Turbo won't sell because you can get a cheap performance car like a Subaru for a fraction of the cost with the same performance. They do sell. What defines whether a product will sell is the consumer perception of value for money and quality.

 

[BearFlag]

But I wouldn't even compare the Surface Book to a Bugatti or Lamborghini because I don't think the price is so high that it limits to just 0.001% of population. I would say its more like a Mercedes or BMW of laptops.

The reason I found the article to be absurd is because it just assumes that the Surface Book is pretty much like any other laptop with the same internal specs except much more expensive, when in reality it's pretty unique (detachable clipboard, digitizer, dGPU). I do think that the price is a bit high, but I wanted a lighter laptop with a dGPU, detachable clipboard and 3:2 aspect ratio so I paid a premium for it.

 

[Athol Hill]

I agree. It was more to say that if you can't afford something, it doesn't mean there isn't a market for it.

 

[leeshor]

What's funny to me is that there are many laptops out there just as expensive that don't do any more and in some cases less and a ton of much more expensive laptops. Most gamers buying the expensive laptops, that "they" probably can't afford, are in that same category.

The entire story is ludicrous.

 

[Deryl McCarty]

quote from above is from a PC Mag article - and BearFlag is right to laugh at it.

I fully understand not wanting to pay $3.2k for a computer in today's world. (Actually its $3.5k after states and cities get their "fair share" .) But using a class warfare argument to spread the guilt to suggest that if you spend $3.2k you're just a rich bastard and don't really deserve to have or spend that money but that since I (the PCMag author) am not willing to spend the money I DO deserve the product. WTF?

If you read the whole article it does suggest that MSFT is just on the wrong side of the cost curve and they should have gone for market penetration (using loss leader pricing). I disagree. MSFT does have two choices: market penetration or capital recapture. SB is a new product with new technology integrating a new processor/chipset and a dGPU with some established (meaning "old") technology. But I suspect that young Panos Panay spent a princely sum on R&D and engineering. So how do you pay for that capital outlay in a market that is unknown because MSFT is not known as a hardware company and is venturing into a market that is both oversaturated with laptops and underwhelmed with the tablet wannabees offered by some of the competition. And compounded by the fact that the whole gambit is to lead OEMs into building high quality, low priced SB type machines so MSFT can sell more Windows OSes - which IS their forte. So they do a capital recapture by hitting us first adopter MSFT fanboys hard, but with our full knowledge and cooperation...though notice I did not say pleasure. And if you think the blow is lessened by waiting 24 hours to tell my hitlerian Empress of the family treasury that I had just spend $3k on this beautiful i7 16 512 SB you are sadly mistaken. OTOH, I should have learned already that waiting doesn't help - I waited 48 hours to tell her about spending $3k on a 4 meg memory set for a 486-33 in 1990. The reaction was a long cutoff. And now how do I tell her about the 950XL I am gonna buy?

 

[sharpuser]

Some other ... laptop with webcam including infrared for face recognition + digitizing table + tablet + pen = well, a lot.

 

[Wayne Orwig]

I can't totally disagree. I could have gotten a device at 1/2 the cost that would have performed about as well (and not had that display driver glitch).
But:
1) My last laptop lasted 9 years. I plan to ring every bit of life out of this guy that I can. So in dollars per year, it shouldn't be to bad. About one beer a week I figure....
2) There is NOT anything on the market quite like it and it fits my needs. Trust me. I had looked for months at various devices to fit my needs. The closest I could find to what I wanted was the HP Spectre X360. And that screen was a touch small for my needs. (The 3:2 on the Book is about perfect for me)
3) Yes, I do believe Microsoft has the cost a bit higher then needed on the entire Surface line. Part of this might be to keep the other manufacturers from getting too upset with MS for getting into their market space. There are things about the Book that nobody else quit does. Maybe that will prod them to make more premium products. That is often brought up by reviewers and owners, when comparing an Apple product to some other manufacturer. The Apple users often buy Apple because it has a 'premium' feel. Nothing wrong with MS trying for that space.
4) Yes, there is a bit of ego, or whatever you might want to call it, involved. Just an hour ago a few of us were standing around my Book, and a friends budget priced HP 2 in 1. His HP worked just fine of course,. Though I was showing him around Win 10 and noticed right away that there was some annoying lag and delay in doing things. But everyone stared at the beautiful saturated colors on my Book screen. And no, I don't have a BMW.

 

[protip]

Putting aside launch hiccups (and the author doesn't even really deal with that), the Surface Book is great. That article is a bunch of hogwash. Seems like a grumpy guy with an axe to grind.

 

[Athol Hill]

1) My last laptop lasted 9 years. I plan to ring every bit of life out of this guy that I can. So in dollars per year, it shouldn't be to bad. About one beer a week I figure....

I find it extremely insulting that you would compare a laptop to beer. A laptop, no matter how nice, is a nice to have, beer is a necessity and the water of life. According to the gospel of our lord Homer Simpson, beer is discussed in almost every episode, laptops would have been discussed in may one episode of 10 series. This is a fair reflection of the importance of the two

 

[hughlle]

Surely people rarely buy anything unless they have excess cash?