Why Do Most Windows-Based PCs/Laptops/Ultrabooks Suck? Why Surface Exists:

[Nitric]

Some people are really good with touchpads. I, for one is crappy with it. So for laptop, i would anytime use a mouse over the touchpad.

However, with sp3, i use the touchpad all the time unless its in the table mode. Somehow, bringing a mouse with the sp3 just doesn't feel right with me. It sounds contradicting my 1st sentence but i think its all because sp3 is touchscreen enabled and no matter how crappy im with touchpad, i can always interact directly with the screen, rather than the touchpad.

I have a macbook pro in the office and 100% with mouse all the time. So if i buy a laptop, disregard whether its mac OS or window based, the functionality of the touchpad is always least of my concern.

 

[lhauser]

Two Points:

1)One day I was browsing in best buy, and I saw a keyboard with a mousepad on the SIDE of it (Right side). I think it was a TV/Media type system, but I thought to myself, "Wow, now thats smart!" What a smart place to put it. I realize its not the best when it comes to sizing issues, but it feels much more natural to reach to the right side of the KB to access the mouse.

Also, I've always felt the concept of a 'pad' to move the mouse cursor around was not the best. I've yerned for a laptop with ball in the middle of the keyboard (not the stubby little 'eraser' type nipple IBM would put on its PS/2 lappies) .

That would be a great design.

Years ago I had a ergo keyboard with trackpad on the side. Don't remember the brand...Keytronic comes to mind, but that could just be because I've like Keytronic over the years. It was pretty nice.

Even years-er ago I had a laptop with a ball -- this may have been before trackpads were very common. It worked, but I don't remember liking it much.

My experience over the years is that Synaptic made the best hardware, and that comes from using laptops as primary machines for a long, long time. The TC trackpad for the SP3 is pretty decent, and I have few complaints, other than the left click sometime requires me to press rather than just touch. But I fell in love with two-finger gestures on a Macbook Pro a number of years ago, and the fact that I can do multitouch with modern trackpads is just wonderful to me.

 

[markusbeutel]

Battery life can be overcome by the SP3 but the Mac can't overcome the fact it can't run apps like the SP3 can. If all I needed from my computer was email & Internet browsing, I would probably use a Mac.

Uh.. battery life cannot be overcome by the SP3. A MacBook Air will always run circles around an SP3 as far as battery life goes. ~ 54mWh on the MBA compared to 48mWh on an SP3, and with a non-touch screen with mediocre resolution to boot, means that the SP3 will never be able to keep pace.

 

[Liam2349]

Uh.. battery life cannot be overcome by the SP3. A MacBook Air will always run circles around an SP3 as far as battery life goes. ~ 54mWh on the MBA compared to 48mWh on an SP3, and with a non-touch screen with mediocre resolution to boot, means that the SP3 will never be able to keep pace.

It's just Wh when quoting the battery capacity - mWh is tiny!

But talking of battery life, the new Dell machines have 15 hours of battery life quoted with a 13.3" 1080p display and one of the new i5s, so I'm sure the Surface Pro 4 will have a battery life in that region. Seems like battery life won't really be a factor when purchasing devices anymore.

 

[zhenya]

I doubt the SP4 will have anything like 15 hours of battery. In my light use I'm getting ~6.5 hours of actual use as determined by powercfg /batteryreport. Broadwell should bring improvements of 20-30% from what initial tests are showing. That only brings the SP4 to 8-10 hours.

I hope I'm wrong though - 10+ hours is my magic threshold where a device starts to feel truly freed from the power cord!

 

[lparsons21]

I agree that the design of the SPs so far precludes anywhere close to the 15 hours Dell is quoting (I'd like to see independent test verifying that is actually true), but they could get more out of them than they are now.

I have an i7/8Gb/256Gb Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro with QHD screen (3200x1800?) and get nearly 8 hours out of it pretty consistently. And it also has a very short recharge time. I can charge from 10% to full charge in about 2 hours. I suspect that is because Lenovo is using a 20V power supply vice the 12V that seem more common on these hybrids.

So MS could get more out of the SPs if they choose to do so.

 

[hughlle]

It's just Wh when quoting the battery capacity - mWh is tiny!

But talking of battery life, the new Dell machines have 15 hours of battery life quoted with a 13.3" 1080p display and one of the new i5s, so I'm sure the Surface Pro 4 will have a battery life in that region. Seems like battery life won't really be a factor when purchasing devices anymore.

Until they cut down the size of the battery for that same 10 hour usage so they can claim the thinnest device in the world. seems functionality is frequently lost in a bid to be 0.5mm thinner than the competition.

 

[ptrkhh]

Until they cut down the size of the battery for that same 10 hour usage so they can claim the thinnest device in the world. seems functionality is frequently lost in a bid to be 0.5mm thinner than the competition.

And lightness too. Thinness is great for marketing material, but what Surface Pro is actually trying to achieve is lightness. 800gr is, quite frankly, borderline obese for a tablet. Sure, it has Core i7. Sure, it has huge battery for a tablet. But its still a tablet. And tablet has to be light. I expect the next-gen Surface Pro would only bring marginal increase in battery life, but to be a lot lighter (and thinner, for marketing).
They could (and should) cheat though. They could move the center of mass (read:battery) to one edge like the Yoga tablet, and make the tablet feels a lot lighter, and make it more stable on lap as well.

 

[zhenya]

I agree completely. The SP3 is a marvel, but it still feels far too chunky to feel completely amazing to me. It needs to reach about half the weight and half the thickness IMO.

 

[GreyFox7]

Next gen will somehow continue to be compatible with the current Docking Station according to statements by MS. The implication of that is it would most likely have the same dimensions. More efficient components (screen, cpu/gpu ram, storage, etc) will use less power so some of the battery can be dropped with a tradeoff in battery life vs weight. We will probably see a modest weight reduction and a very modest battery life increase while remaining the same size.

 

[zhenya]

Agreed.

Keeping the same basic form factor is good for both Microsoft and customers. MS gets to amortize the development and production costs of the device over a longer period of time. They won't have to discount old unsold accessories. Consumers and businesses get to use the same docking station for more than one generation of devices.

This was one of the driving forces for us in changing our company from Dell to Lenovo many years ago. Dell at the time was changing power connectors and docking stations far too frequently. Lenovo has fairly consistently tried to achieve a 5 year cycle for the design of those components.

 

[GreyFox7]

Getting creative you could make it thinner which would help it lose weight with spacer bumps on the back at the corners so it would still fit the Dock.

I don't have an MS Dock so I cant tell if you left the space from power/dock connector to the back the same and made the device thinner overall reducing the margin from connector to front if that would be an issue or not.