For me the Surface Book 2 was the MacBook Pro that we had all wanted/expected from Apple, it just wears a different logo. While other reviews will read off the spec sheets and talk about the 17 hour battery life and GX yadda yadda yadda processor, they sometimes forget that we (the creative professionals) use these as tools. What Microsoft has done with the Surface Book 2 is make a system void of gimmicks, because gimmicks don’t hold up in the working world. Our jobs will not benefit from being able to tap an emoji on a scroll bar, they will benefit from the ability to get work done. As a photographer, it feels extremely odd to say this, but I sincerely feel that the Surface Book 2 is not only a strong contender for the laptop to own, but actually the clear cut choice of the computer to have on set.
There seems to be a lot of interest in Surface from people disappointed with the recent MacBook Pros.
If only it didn’t run Windows… The surface book hardware is gorgeous, and I’d love to see Cupertino break out their copiers.
Apple has a tablet + laptop story – get both a laptop and an iPad Pro, but that’s very expensive, and they aren’t telling that story well.
Edited 2017-12-04 21:03 UTC
i’m still scarred from my 5-year foray into Windows 20 years ago. i feel like a lot of the people who are saying they are thinking about switching have probable never used Windows or never done much work in it. all i remember is crashing, drivers, popups, blue screens, BIOS, and basically messing with the computer instead of doing things with it. i’ll take a slower computer with a useless touchbar over that any day
Edited 2017-12-04 21:14 UTC
And pray tell us: how is your experience from 20 years ago relevant today? Or do you really think that things are still the same?
Heck, even Microsoft itself is almost unrecognizable from the bad bad Microsoft of the Gates/Ballmer era! Your were just trolling, right? 😉
RT.
In computers, a generation is usually considered every 3-5 years. You’re referring to issues with hardware and software that is a full *human* generation behind the times.
20 years ago, “top of the line” meant a 200MHz CPU, a 2GB hard drive and 32MB of RAM.
My *telephone* has 2 dual-core chips running 1.5GHz and 2.1GHz, 32GB of storage and 4gb of RAM– and 4x the screen resolution.
Why not refuse to use computers at all because punch cards are too difficult? Or getting the volume on a tape deck was a bit persnickety?
Why not refuse to use Apple computers because they had a cheap floppy drive that went *thunka*thunka*thunka* when the 35 track head banged against the stop 5 extra times (because the controller was 40 track)?
Or, refuse to use computers of any type, because once upon a time, a moth caused a calculation error?
It’s not like I haven’t used Windows since then. And I haven’t experienced, or read, or seen, anything to convince me there’s been a drastic change in how Windows works. Do you really think it has improved a lot, changed a lot?
In not so many words: yes.
In slightly more words: either you are very good at ignoring the truth, or we are using entirely different products and looking at entirely different companies.
Hardware wise: think about the big WTF?!? that was the Surface RT and compare it with those that followed; or the Surface Book iterations, not to mention the Surface Studio. Some say that Microsoft is the innovator here, not Apple, and I tend to agree.
Software wise: I’m mostly happy about Windows 10 except for the “all or nothing” approach about patches but, on the other hand, given that non patched systems are bad (and dangerous) so how would you make sure that computers are not left unpatched for months — if not years? I was okay-ish with Windows 8 too, and I think its biggest sin was to default to the tablet interface even on non-touch devices (which was easy to avoid and got fixed with 8.1 anyway) and I think that most people agree about Windows 7 being good. Which leaves us with Windows Vista (and in my opinion Microsoft should not carry all the blame here, but it’s a long story), Windows XP (okay, I guess), Windows ME (yuck!), Windows 98, etc. So yes, I think things have changed quite a bit and, on the whole, for the better.
And don’t let me get started with the new-found love for Open Source: only time will tell if it’s genuine or not but, as I said, Microsoft looks very different now.
RT.
Starting around XP, yes. XP SP2 was probably the first solid, modern OS Microsoft produced. Still had security issues, primarily with everyone’s Visual Basic programs wanting to write to anywhere they wanted, and needing local admin by default.
Vista, while much maligned, was a paradigm shift by Microsoft, and an attempt to bring order to a previously uncontrolled development landscape. It was doomed from the start, but it did what it needed to do, which was get everyone used to actual security standards so that when Windows 7 shipped, it was probably the best OS available, period.
Since I had a sufficiently powerful machine, Vista was a solid, reliable beast of an OS, and Windows 7 improved on that.
8.x is a good OS, marred by a plethora of poor design choices, and while Windows 10 improves on that, I still have at least one too many control panels.
But stability and viruses are not an issue.
Lest ye label me a fanboy, I am– of Linux. I haven’t seen a non-hardware related BSOD since XP sp1, and that included when my Vista system had a corrupt video driver.
I have a friend, who whenever he gets a new windows desktop, immediately starts disabling services that he doesn’t think he needs. Then he spends the next couple years complaining about how slow and unstable his system is.
No love from you for 2000 or NT 4.0? ;(
Unless you ran servers in the 90’s, no-one used 2k or NT4. And if you did, it was purely because your application required it.
Even if that were true (it wasn’t, especially for 2k), it’s a different statement than the one I quoted above…
NT and 2k were quite common für workstations
I just checked my old CDs für Catia and Pro/E and both include a disk for NT/2k.
Edited 2017-12-08 14:56 UTC
And not only für (?!
) workstations, quite many businesses bought in. Also, my highschool got a computer lab with 2k boxes, which was quite a common rollout.
NT 4.0 annoyed me. Partly because the difference between “Server” and “Workstation” was 2 registry keys that the system wouldn’t let you edit, and partly because if you secured it properly, virtually no existing Windows apps were usable.
That left it strictly in the “server” category, something it did very poorly compared with the NetWare servers I was running at the time.
Of course, that was not long after Novell changed management, and the new board managed to pick boneheaded strategy after boneheaded strategy, and bled the company dry of cash and market share in equally catastrophic amounts.
Most of my memories of Win2k are about security issues– specifically, the worm that hit in 2005. We had just finished a full security sweep / patch of our network, so we avoided the burn, but other departments were hammered.
Then, around 2008, there was the case of a single Win2k workstation running IE 6 taking out an entire department via one of the most complete breach / takedown events I’ve seen– it was gruesome.
I suppose that was the problem of all NT-based Windows releases, up to & including Vista…
I was late to the Apple circus.
After years of terrible computers, terrible experience with Windows 3.1, 95, 98 (crash-mania), NT4, 2000, XP, win7 (not so bad)… and terrible laptops with poor battery life, terrible trackpads, … and years if trying to get Linux display drivers, power management, disk optimisation, function keys, don’t rendering etc to work.. I tried an Apple Macbook Pro 2015 13″.
It was hands down the best computer I’d ever had. Long battery life so I never took a charger with me. Excellent screen and accurate enough colours. Fantastic trackpad. Great keyboards. Solid build quality. Stuff just worked. The OS wasn’t open but i didn’t have to worry about registries, or driver’s, or don’t rendering, or paper management… And it didn’t come bundled with crapware from Dell or Lenovo or HP or whatever.
It just wasn’t quite smooth with a 4k display so I upgraded to a 2017. The keybaord was a disaster ergonomically. And it keeps failing. Even after replacement. The wrong dust will kill your keybaord. The keybaord is widely reported. Less well reported is the poor thermal design – which means despite the faster CPU, it throttles quickly so you don’t get any benefit. Worse.. it overheats. Run YouTube or VMware and the fans hit max and you can watch the CPU approach 100 degrees C. In clamshell mode this damages the display. Which apple replaced. But that doesn’t cure the root design problem… Prioritising thinness over all else.
Apple support used to be good. Now I get the many calls not answered, call queues, failing to reply, sending me on unnecessary trips, … That’s I’d expect from a lesser brand who only cares about the initial sale.
Apple are now a fashion company.
More detailed write up here – incl videos and screenshots.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2017-macbook-pro-13-non-tb-revi…
I’m now using a 2015 Macbook Pro 15 and that model had an already out of date CPU on release .. it doesn’t run much slower, but it runs without damaging itself.
In future I’m going to look at the Surface .. I’m told Apple no longer can claim an exclusively good trackpad or battery life.
From Apple to Microsoft. The world has turned upside down and inside out!
project_2501,
To be fair, apple’s always been a fashion company, but they were a fashion company with good laptops. Now they’re a fashion company with bad laptops. While we’re at it, the mac pro is guilty of form over function as well. Many people who just want to use macos are not well served by apple’s hardware these days. It’s over priced, yes, but the real disappoint is that it under delivers.
Edited 2017-12-05 02:11 UTC
Apple was never taking into account thermals. the priority was keeping their systems silent and allowing their set of apps to run noticeably faster than the competition.
This unfortunately still applies today. Say what you will but Final Cut is still better coded than what Adobe pushes out the door.
On the other hand I still get thermal throttle when running Java apps (Lotus Notes and part of IBM suite). Putting a VM on top of that is pointless but fun fact is that there are workarounds.
If you really want to use Final Cut or anything else from Apple ecosystem you don’t have any alternatives..
At the end of the day it should be “what am I going to use it for” and not only “how fast it’s under the hood”.
It’s worth noting in the context of your post, that the Adobe suite runs WAY faster under Windows on the same hardware, compared to how it runs on macOS.
Also, games released for both macOS and Windows tend to have higher requirements on macOS…
As I, a 50-something, unshaven man in a T-shirt, hair unkempt and with two days of beard stubble, sit in front of my Mac, I realize that I am a total slave to fashion.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going upstairs to use my iPad Pro, likely belching occasionally as I do.
I’ve got two systems running Windows 10 and I much prefer MacOS. So, no matter how nice a Surface device Microsoft makes, it’s not a suitable replacement for a MacBook Pro.
I have used Windows since Windows 2.0 and switched to Mac around the time that OS-X Snow Leopard was coming out. I’ve never regretted the move and see nothing coming out of Redmond to tempt me to switch back.
macOS is the only thing holding me to Apple hardware. I just prefer the way it works over WIndows. It’s all the little things, like the small delays you get when starting apps, and losing input focus, and why does it take 10 years to re-install a printer driver when you move the USB plug from one port to another?
Plus, there’s that minor matter of Windows deciding that I need to update this minute regardless of whether I’m in the middle of something or not.
In the case of the Surface Book (and other Surface devices) themselves, there’s one deal killer for me and it may sound silly: the FN lock. I hate, hate, hate that. For those who don’t know what this is, Microsoft decided that the way to handle the F keys was to have the FN key be a toggle between the function and hardware controls. Unfortunately, there’s no way to turn this off and, as it’s 100% at the hardware level, there’s nothing I can do about it. To top it all off they, in their infinite wisdom, decided to map F4 to be the mute key when the F lock happens to be on so, on attempting to close a Window quickly, it not only doesn’t work but might shut my system audio off instead. And how do you tell if this FN lock is on? A puny little LED. I’m a touch typist. I don’t look at my keyboard, nor do I want to. That, right there, can easily cut my productivity in half on a Surface and I’ll have none of it.
darknexus,
I can sympathize with that. I once bought a laptop that reversed the physical scancodes for the Function/FN keys so that the default mapping would emulate FN key press and you had to hit the FN key to register F-number keys. I returned that laptop immediately because that behavior is too faulty for my needs.
There was a windows driver to reverse the keys, but I didn’t want to have to deal with custom keymaps in linux too just to restore correct behavior. Typing CTRL-ALT-FN-Fx on a compact 14in laptop keyboard sucks.