Samsung unveils GalaxyBook 2 with Snapdragon 850 with ONLY 4GB RAM for $1000 | Everything wrong with the Pro 6 and more

[Nowak]

8 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Probably related to the 850. But it could have 128GB of RAM and  1TB of Optane eqyivalent storage and the SoC would still make this an extremely stupid purchase for any and all use cases.

Snapdragon 850 supports 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, so it's not the issue. And, yeah. I have zero faith that Windows on ARM will amount to anything more than Windows RT 2. There's no reason to spend $1000 on something like this when you can just buy an Intel or AMD laptop and not have to deal with any of the fuckery of Microsoft's x86-to-ARM translator for the same price.

 

12 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

No no, the discussion is not about the value of the product. That we can agree is poor.

The discussion was that a system 4GB is not enough for anything, and as a result, the experience is lackluster. 4GB should not exists on any device, is what is being claimed, 8GB is the minimum. I, and others, were saying that 4GB is actually plenty for a great experience out of a system if you don't stuff that, such device, can't even do to start with (gaming, video editing, etc). This includes the base model Surface Go,and other system with 4GB of RAM.

 

The problem is that people open Task Manager and see how much is being used and makes a conclusion.The problem is that since Windows 10 adapts to RAM.It will load the most things it can on your RAM. I won't be surprised if the whole OS is loaded on RAM even on things you don't use if you have a 128GB of RAM.

 

7 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

No no, the discussion is not about the value of the product. That we can agree is poor.

The discussion was that a system 4GB is not enough for anything, and as a result, the experience is lackluster. 4GB should not exists on any device, is what is being claimed, 8GB is the minimum. I, and others, were saying that 4GB is actually plenty for a great experience out of a system if you don't stuff that, such device, can't even do to start with (gaming, video editing, etc). This includes the base model Surface Go,and other system with 4GB of RAM.

1. Not what I mean
2. Repeating yourself there, GoodBytes?

[GoodBytes]

Just now, NowakVulpix said:

Snapdragon 850 supports 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, so it's not the issue. And, yeah. I have zero faith that Windows on ARM will amount to anything more than Windows RT 2.

Depends if people are open into breaking the near monopoly that Intel has on the PC market or not.

 

Just now, NowakVulpix said:

1. Not what I mean

Explain then,

Just now, NowakVulpix said:

1. Repeating yourself there, GoodBytes?

Only to those who don't read.

[captain_to_fire]

Meanwhile, Apple doesn’t even sell a laptop with less than 8GB of RAM. 

 

Just saying... 

[Nowak]

7 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Explain then,

The Galaxy Note 9 is a phone. It has more RAM than this does. Obviously, you'd think that a phone wouldn't benefit from so much RAM. I mean, 4GB is fine on a phone, right? Sure is fine on my phone. But that's a phone, not a laptop. I don't use it for the same things that I would my laptop or desktop.

Now, both the SD845 and 850 support 8GB LPPDR4X RAM. What reason is there for the Galaxy Book 2 to cost the same as this smartphone but have 2GB less RAM? Yeah, Windows might be smart about RAM management, but wait until you start up Edge. Or Chrome. RAM's gonna fill up FAST.

 

An extra 2 or 4GB RAM won't hurt. Especially since there are other $1000 laptops and 2-in-1s out there that start at 8GB RAM, rather than 4. Remember, the Surface Go you keep bringing up is a $500 device; it costs half as much as Galaxy Book 2 does. So why does the $1000 device have the same amount of RAM as a $500 one? Why is this okay, when other $1000 devices have 6 or 8GB RAM minimum? Why?

[Drak3]

Just now, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Just sorta showing that the phone can double as a makeshift pseudo desktop

There should be no excuse why this tablet can't do the same.

 

1 minute ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

don't know which is better though

DEX. Android was built around ARM when Google pushed it to phones, so it has a better selection of apps compiled for ARM, not to mention that the OS itself doesn't run like shit on ARM.

6 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

just done with 2GB of RAM. 2!!! half of 4GB, and it runs fine.

Again, subjective and not that many people agree. 4GB just isn't good enough for most peoples' use cases with Windows.

 

I've stopped using my 4GB Surface Pro 4 for any internet browsing because even after 10 minutes, it's bogged down. Fresh install, stripped down, doesn't matter. Anything sub 6 on a Windows machine just isn't good enough for most people.

 

9 minutes ago, NowakVulpix said:

Snapdragon 850 supports 8GB LPDDR4X RAM, so it's not the issue. 

I meant more along the lines of cost.

9 minutes ago, NowakVulpix said:

There's no reason to spend $1000 on something like this when you can just buy an Intel or AMD laptop and not have to deal with any of the fuckery of Microsoft's x86-to-ARM translator for the same price.

Especially when these devices have no inherent advantages over some similar x86 machines but lose out heavily on performance and experience.

[Nowak]

Just now, Drak3 said:

Especially when these devices have no inherent advantages over some similar x86 machines but lose out heavily on performance and experience.

Battery life, although that's inconsistent as well if you go by Michael Fisher's review of the Asus NovaGo.

[Drak3]

Just now, NowakVulpix said:

Battery life, although that's inconsistent as well if you go by Michael Fisher's review of the Asus NovaGo.

Not really. There are some ultrabooks getting the same real world battery life, but no one is (falsely) advertising their x86 machines significantly higher than they can achieve.

[Nowak]

Just now, Drak3 said:

Not really. There are some ultrabooks getting the same real world battery life, but no one is (falsely) advertising their x86 machines significantly higher than they can achieve.

tbh gigabyte advertised the aero 14 as getting 6 - 7 hours of battery life and I've gotten 10 out of mine so

 

keep in mind that this was with a browser, discord, telegram open, a youtube video playing back and 12 tabs open in the browser

[Linus_torvalds]

15 hours ago, FloRolf said:

Lmao, my 2y/o phone has 6gb ram. What is the purpose of this shit? 

Lmao you have the worst OS RAM requirment wise. Android needs shitload of RAM to work. Even full fledged windows 10 x64 does not need that much RAM.

4 GB is enough for this device. You can't play games on it you can't run 3d modeling or video editing on it. It's just a little PC you can watch movies, listen to music, browse and so on. Also windows is probably optimized for it so it's enough! 4 GB on that device equals 8 on android

[suicidalfranco]

9 hours ago, yolosnail said:

So let me get this straight, everybody is complaining because this tablet ONLY has 4GB of RAM. 

In what realistic situation would somebody using this device actually require more RAM?

no, everyone is complaining because it's a 1000$ device with spec sheet of a 300$ that performs worse than that device due to the ARM chip.

 

[LAwLz]

11 hours ago, yolosnail said:

So let me get this straight, everybody is complaining because this tablet ONLY has 4GB of RAM. 

In what realistic situation would somebody using this device actually require more RAM?

No, I am complaining because I expect more than 4GB of RAM on a 1000 dollar computer.

I complain because this machine is extremely weak for costing 1000 dollars.

 

11 hours ago, yolosnail said:

Surely the ARM processor is going to bottleneck you well before the 4GB RAM.

Depends on what you do, but the processor is also a complain of mine.

 

11 hours ago, yolosnail said:

To me, this is like Ford announcing the new Fiesta and everybody complaining because it doesn't come with a V8, of course it bloody doesn't! If you want a car with a V8, buy a car that can actually handle the power

If the new Fiesta cost as much as a Lamborghini with a V8 then yes, people would complain.

 

If this computer was 400 dollars then I would not complain, but that's not the case.

 

Imagine if Nvidia came out with a 1000 dollar graphics card which was just a rebranded 1050. Would you go "why are people complaining about the low performance? It's meant for a HTPC so as long as it can play video fine it's enough performance"? No, you would look at the price and go "wow, that's really shitty specs for the price". Same thing here.

 

 

 

5 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

No no, the discussion is not about the value of the product. That we can agree is poor.

The discussion was that a system 4GB is not enough for anything, and as a result, the experience is lackluster. 4GB should not exists on any device, is what is being claimed, 8GB is the minimum. I, and others, were saying that 4GB is actually plenty for a great experience out of a system if you don't stuff that, such device, can't even do to start with (gaming, video editing, etc). This includes the base model Surface Go,and other system with 4GB of RAM.

 

The problem is that people open Task Manager and see how much is being used and makes a conclusion.The problem is that since Windows 10 adapts to RAM.It will load the most things it can on your RAM. I won't be surprised if the whole OS is loaded on RAM even on things you don't use if you have a 128GB of RAM.

I agree that people greatly overestimate how much RAM is actually needed, but I agree with the general response of this thread in that 4GB should not exist ON A 1000 DOLLAR COMPUTER.

If this device was 400 dollars, maybe less, then I could see it being justified. But we're talking about 1000 dollars here.

 

Like it or not, price is a major factor people look at when evaluating devices. In fact, when I look things up I usually use price as the first or only search criteria. I look at my budget, look up what I can get for that amount, and then compare the things I see. This device belongs in a budget category, yet it costs like a really high end device. Whoever buys this device is either clueless about what they are buying, or their IQ is roughly the same as the calorie count in a diet coke.

 

 

5 hours ago, Drak3 said:

Probably related to the 850. But it could have 128GB of RAM and  1TB of Optane eqyivalent storage and the SoC would still make this an extremely stupid purchase for any and all use cases.

The 850 can support more.

It's just a Snapdragon 845 with the big cores running at 2.95GHz instead of the standard 1.8GHz.

The Lenovo Yoga C630 is also Snapdragon 850 b ased and it can be configured with 8GB of RAM. Worth noting that the Yoga starts at 850 dollars, so it seems like it's a trend that Windows on ARM devices are expensive as fuck.

[Nowak]

4 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

The Lenovo Yoga C630 is also Snapdragon 850 b ased and it can be configured with 8GB of RAM. Worth noting that the Yoga starts at 850 dollars, so it seems like it's a trend that Windows on ARM devices are expensive as fuck.

Remember when we were told that WoA devices would be cheap?

[LAwLz]

I just realized another issue with this device. It runs the cancer marketed as Windows 10 S.

 

That means that to everyone who has brought up using Firefox, Chrome, or some other browser, forget it. Windows 10 S is locked to Edge. You can not use any other browser. It is also locked to using Bing as the default search engine.

Oh, and you can't install programs outside of the Microsoft store. So all those x86 programs Microsoft says you can run thanks to the ARM-to-x86 compatibility layer? You better pray that the program you need is in the Microsoft Store or else you can't install it on the computer.

 

 

So to summarize.

• This device runs a crippled OS which locks you into using Microsoft's products such as their browser and search engine.
• The CPU is very low end and can be compared to Intel Atom processors.
• Running x86 programs on this device, which is heavily being pushed as a great feature, will most likely dramatically reduce performance (and battery life), and it will only work on the program is already in the store (which not many programs are).
• But it's not like you'd want to run many x86 programs because the performance will be so low to begin with.
• The device is best used with native ARM programs, but the Store is not exactly brimming with that. Not even all programs in the Store are native ARM.
• It costs as much as high end, premium laptops.

 

 

Also, we're only like 1-2 months away from Qualcomm announcing the next generation of Snapdragon SoCs, and about 3 months away from it showing up in devices.

The rumors is that the next SD will have:

7nm transistor size, compared to 10nm.

Possibly 5G support.

NPU (hardware acceleration for neural net and machine learning)

Better GPU (probably around 30% if previous generational increments are anything to go by).

Better CPU (A76 performs about 30% better than A75 which is in the Snapdragon 845/850, and about 40% better efficiency).

 

 

So the Snapdragon 850 is just way too late to the show. It should have been released in the beginning of the year with the Snapdragon 845.

It feels like Microsoft are playing catch-up right now. Their system is too inflexible, so they are constantly one step behind. As soon as they catch up to the current generation of stuff, the next one is knocking on the door. It was the same way with Windows Mobile too, which was constantly 1 generation behind in ARM SoC tech.

 

 

27 minutes ago, NowakVulpix said:

Remember when we were told that WoA devices would be cheap?

I don't think any manufacturer ever said that, but I do remember telling people on this forum that I did not believe they would be cheaper.

Did a bit of digging and found this post from me last year, when Snapdragon 835 powered Windows devices came out:

On 12/5/2017 at 11:35 PM, LAwLz said:

I just saw the price for the Asus NovaGO.

 

SoC: Snapdragon 835

RAM: 4GB

Storage: 64GB of UFS storage 

OS: Windows 10S 

Price: 600 dollars

 

It's 800 dollars if you want 8GB of RAM and 256GB of storage. 

 

Sounds like the HP will cost about the same.

Also, they won't be out until spring 2018, and by that time we will probably have Snapdragon 845 devices.

So these devices will basically be outdated the day they launch, and they will cost about twice as much as they should. 

Funny how it seems like nothing has changed in a year. Windows on ARM are still lagging behind in SoC tech, and they cost twice as much as they should.

[AlTech]

5 hours ago, mate_mate91 said:

Lmao you have the worst OS RAM requirment wise. Android needs shitload of RAM to work. Even full fledged windows 10 x64 does not need that much RAM.

4 GB is enough for this device. You can't play games on it you can't run 3d modeling or video editing on it. It's just a little PC you can watch movies, listen to music, browse and so on. Also windows is probably optimized for it so it's enough! 4 GB on that device equals 8 on android

Not at all.

 

Android is just as efficient as Windows if not moreso.

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

18 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Did you know that Windows 32-bit can run 16-bit programs? YES in 2018!

yet i can't run NFS Underground in Windows 10?

[GoodBytes]

4 hours ago, AluminiumTech said:

Not at all.

 

Android is just as efficient as Windows if not moreso.

among all people, you are the one that perfectly knows that you just lied.

iOS and Windows phone had devices with less CPU and RAM power than Android, and ran better. Android is what encrusted in people head that they need an excessive amount of RAM on a PHONE,running simple basic apps. Not to mention that Windows XP flies with 512MB of RAM

[GoodBytes]

3 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

yet i can't run NFS Underground in Windows 10?

I don't know what is the story, but that game is 32-bit and the demo runs fine under Windows 10

 

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

4 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

I don't know what is the story, but that game is 32-bit and the demo runs fine under Windows 10

i have a legitimate disc, and it installs fine, it just doesn't launch. it might have something to do withit starting from disc, because the demo won't do that. 

[GoodBytes]

30 minutes ago, firelighter487 said:

i have a legitimate disc, and it installs fine, it just doesn't launch. it might have something to do withit starting from disc, because the demo won't do that. 

Sounds like DRM in action to me. You can try your luck with compatibility mode...

[Ashley MLP Fangirl]

1 minute ago, GoodBytes said:

Sounds like DRM in action to me. You can try your luck with compatibility mode...

i already tried that. 

[AlTech]

1 hour ago, GoodBytes said:

among all people, you are the one that perfectly knows that you just lied.

iOS and Windows phone had devices with less CPU and RAM power than Android, and ran better. Android is what encrusted in people head that they need an excessive amount of RAM on a PHONE,running simple basic apps. Not to mention that Windows XP flies with 512MB of RAM

I said Windows.

 

I didn't say Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile was less resource intensive than Android but that's like saying it costs less to operate a corner store than a large supermarket. Windows Mobile was less resource intensive because it was less capable and didn't do as many things.

 

Windows 10 Desktop is probably as bad at ram management as Android. I'm not lying because this is my opinion.

 

Windows 10 version 1507 was okay at ram management but since that release Windows 10 has slowly become more ram hungry to the point of being as inefficient as Android if not more.

 

Again, there's no way i can be lying if this is my opinion.

[Emberstone]

On 10/19/2018 at 9:09 AM, GoodBytes said:

You are not going to game or run VMs on this system. 4GB is plenty.

Your phone needs a lot of RAM because it is an Android and runs Google's custom Java runtime, and Android is RAM intensive.

This runs Windows, and it is fine at running with 4GB of RAM

The issue is that, even in the Windows space, there are significantly cheaper options with better specs.

 

This is just straight-up overpriced for what you can do on it.

[GoodBytes]

7 minutes ago, Emberstone said:

The issue is that, even in the Windows space, there are significantly cheaper options with better specs.

 

This is just straight-up overpriced for what you can do on it.

Yes, but that is not what is being discussed. What is being discussed is that 4GB is not enough for anything at all where you can't even browse the web, and therefore it should not exists. What I and others are countering is that 4GB is actually plenty for providing an excellent experience for a system that you can't/won't play the latest fanciest games, and video editing and such.

 

[GoodBytes]

17 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

I said Windows.

 

I didn't say Windows Mobile. Windows Mobile was less resource intensive than Android but that's like saying it costs less to operate a corner store than a large supermarket. Windows Mobile was less resource intensive because it was less capable and didn't do as many things.

 

Windows 10 Desktop is probably as bad at ram management as Android. I'm not lying because this is my opinion.

 

Windows 10 version 1507 was okay at ram management but since that release Windows 10 has slowly become more ram hungry to the point of being as inefficient as Android if not more.

 

Again, there's no way i can be lying if this is my opinion.

Trees are Foxes

You can't say I am wrong, as this my opinion.

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Trees are Foxes

You can't say I am wrong, as this my opinion.

.

 

There's no need to insult my intelligence.

Why are you defending Microsoft so hard? 

 

Android is somewhat efficient with ram management and windows 10 just isn't in my experience.