Microsoft Surface Event

[elfensky]

ehh it can function as the global Surface Event thread to prevent spam.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/microsoftevent

 

Event is live, and has been for about an hour. I'll update as I watch it.
 

1. Welcome by the big dude (Satya Nadella). Marketing/Community fluff, talks about his own experiences with computers etc.

    Surface is focused on 3 things:

• 1) people at the center of device exp
• 2) innovate across form & function, focus on next level of creation and productivity
• 3) not an experience in a device, experiences that span across devices

Last decade was focused on consumption. browsing, watching, etc. Next decade is about creation.
 

2. Panos Panay is on stage. ^{(did you know that "Panós" means diarrhea in Russian? I always get a chuckle out of it)}

more talk about how people at the center of what they do. Marketing fluff about creating great moments etc and how surface helps with it.

 

 

HARDWARE

Surface Laptop 3

• 15" confirmed (13.5" also available)
• Keyboard travel reduced from 1.5mm to 1.3mm
• 20% larger precision touchpad
• body is machined aluminum (seems alcantera versions still available)
• instant on -feature (I guess a more advanced version of fast startup? you open it and it's one and ready to go)
• IO
  • Left side: 1x USB A, 1x USB C, 3.5mm jack
  • Right side: Surface Power (with fast charging?)
• Modular design (removable hard-drive) (from the short clip in the video, it seems less glue and more screws. Which will hopefully help with the repairability score)
  OH MY GOD. with just a few screws, the top can come off, and you get a look at the insides. IT'S NOT GLUED
  
• omnisonic speakers (whatever that is)
• PERFORMANCE
  • INTEL Quad Core 10th gen 10nm Icelake CPUs (2x faster than SL2)
  • RYZEN chips available as an option  are only available, and are the only option on the 15" model
    Apparently, AMD makes a custom chip for Microsoft, called the "AMD Ryzen 7 Microsoft Surface Edition"
    
    
  • AMD Radeon RX Vega 11 (presumably only in the 15" model)
• FAST CHARGING (80% charge <1hour) (across the full Surface lineup)
• dual "studio" microphones (no descrition about them yet, but presumably clearer voice for calls/cortana)
  • optimized for your voice, tuned to capture voice and not bg sounds
• Pre-orders start at $999 and $1,199
• Release October 26

 

 

Surface Pro 7

Most popular 2in1 on the market. More marketing fluff about how it helps brings out creativity and great experiences in artists etc
Design & Engineering team focus 1) Power 2) Performance 3) Better Experiences and Oh... USB C.

• Type C (FINALLY)
  • !important. no info on whether you can charge through this port yet. Presumably, but not confirmed.
• same dual studio mics as the Laptop 3
• Pre-orders start at $749
• Release October 22nd

They mostly used the new Surface Pro 7 to showcase various software features of Windows and Office
 

 

 

Microsoft Surface Earbuds

last year we entered the market with the Surface Headphones. Comfort, Battery life & Great sound are super important.

Designed with Office, to bring your productivity to ear.

• Touch control surfaces on the back of both of them, so you can navigate with gestures
• Voice enabled
• omni directional sound
• directional dual mic array (noise cancelling + better voice pickup)
• charging case (24hr battery life)
• one-click pairing to your devices (both surface and android)
• WORD INTEGRATION
  • dictation (did not elaborate during the presentation)
• POWERPOINT INTEGRATION
  • live captions
  • live translation (shows as captions) in 60+ languages
• OUTLOOK INTEGRATION
  • not (yet) mentioned in the presenatation, but the icon was shown
• TEAMS INTEGRATION
  • not (yet) mentioned in the presentation, but the icon was shown
• Price: $249, available this holiday

 

 

Surface Pro X (ARM)

• ARM using Microsoft SQ1 processor
  • processing based on Qualcomm's SnapDragon DNA
  • AI accelerator
  • 7 Watt (important, given regular phones run at ~2Watt. So this is one performant chip)
  • 3x more performance per watt than the Surface Pro 6
  • 2 teraflops of graphics performance
• SIZE
  • 5.3mm thin
  • 1.68 pounds
  • 13" Display, 1400:1 contrast
  • smaller bezels
• Integrated AI Engine
  • 9 Teraops (that's not a typo apparently, that's how they measure AI performance)
  • example use-case was live video modification to show your partner's eyes looking at you (the camera) and not the screen.
    Also, important point, on a regular computer something like that would pull ~15Watts and use the GPU, here it uses 0.3Watts and doesn't even touch the GPU
• Cover has slot to store the pen, and I'm not sure on this, but appears to be part of the device and non-removable?
  • compatible with regular Surface Pro
• Surface Slim Pen
  • rechargeable
  • cradle within new type cover
  • compatible with regular Surface Pro
    
• Removable Hard Drive
• Drive up to dual 4K monitors
• ADOBE SUPPORTS ARM (see more in software section)
• Starts at $999
• Available early november

Surface Neo (yeah guys, this is happening)

• Dual-screen TABLET from Microsoft (x86x64)
• physical keyboard accessory that can transform the screen it's on into an apple-esque touchbar or touchpad
  
• Windows 10X (see more in the software section)
• Intel LakeField - Hybrid processor.
• Coming holiday 2020

 

Surface Duo (yeah, this is also happening)

It's a surface first, phone second. Heavy focus on #productivity

• runs android apps (partnering with Google to bring the best of Android together with the best of Microsoft)
• Productivity without interrupting user flow, because kepp doing whatever on screen #1, and do the quick lookup/... on screen #2
  • example: video call, and they ask you some question, you can look it up on second screen
  • example: writing email, look up info/... on second screen
  • ...
• Coming holiday 2020

 

 

 

Software

Microsoft Edge

• Collections: put info (eg selected text), images or web-pages related to a topic you're (re)searching into a single place.
  • as I understand, it can also generate some info based on the collection? Eg if you're researching a hiking trail it will give you driving instructions?
  • You can share a whole collection (Send to Word, Send to Excel, ...)

Microsoft Office

• Word now has Surface Pen support.
  • Just like OneNote or MarkUp in Edge, you can now do the same in Word (and other) documents.
  • In-line editing. scratch out some text with the pen to delete it etc.
• Word now has comments.
  • comments related to content, useful when multiple people are working on a doc. Type, speak or draw them.
    
• Excel has pen support too now
  • writing with pen inside cells is supported
    

 

Your Phone App

• Now you can send and receive calls. ^{Honesty, I shit on Microsoft a lot, but the more they update, the less I want to switch to a MacBook.}

 

Adobe Creative Cloud
creativity must not be constrained to the desktop and more marketing feel good words.

• Now runs on ARM
• Worked with MS to integrate Pen & Touch into the workflow
• FRESCO (a new painting/drawing app) ^{(wohoo, no more using photoshop for what it was never intended for)}
  edit: isn't new, already existed on iPad. I guess they're porting it to Windows ARM/Android
  • brushes that reproduce behavior of oil and water-based paints
    
  • coming to Surface soon™

 

Windows 10X

• Built and optimized for Dual Screens
• New/Different Start Menu, no more live-tiles.
• Spanning apps -> apps have a mode designed for 2 screens, so it's a native-like experience, and you don't have a button that's split across the border
  • example outlook: menu & list of emails on the left, an opened email (body) on the right.
    
• Keeping user in the "flow" (between 2 apps? cuz 2 screens?) no matter how you work.
  • if you open a link from outlook on screen1, the browser will launch on screen2
    
  • when you open the keyboard, whatever was on 2nd display moves to the first one, and is shows side-by-side.
    

 

 

Personal opinion

I must admit, while I still love the surface line for its design, after buying my Surface Book 2 15" I've been more and more disappointed by how Microsoft manages to half-ass things that are supposed to be incredible. Specifically in my case, the Surface Book is a device that strives to be a bridge between a 2-in-1 and a laptop, and in it's goal for that it hurts both. Due to the display having to house most of the components, cooling is fairly space, and as such if I really push the thing, the touchscreen gets over 50°C, a sensor triggers and the damn thing throttles to 0.40Ghz making it basically unusable.
If I want to draw, and thus flip the top and close it, the GPU's cooling gets restricted and it throttles down... Never mind the effect it has on the CPU, with hot air from the GPU being blasted along the back of it.

I'm going to say nothing about the display burn-in (well, it's an LCD so it's more like pixel persistence, but whatever), lack of a powerful-enough dock (the normal dock can get me about 100W, while the Book requires about 120 to run at full tilt), lack of software-support (it's a first party device, and yet 1903 is still not officially supported on it) and many more issues I've discovered over my time with it.

My fear here is that just like Microsoft did with the Windows Phone, just like it's doing with the Surface Book, and so many other products of theirs, they're gonna either half-ass or abandon it mid-way, or market it completely wrong.

Case-and-point, whether or not the new Surface Pro 7 can be charged using USB C, and lack of Thunderbolt support on the Laptop 3. They say they listen, but I have no idea who they're listening to.
 

Sure, the Pro X is certainly seems impressive, especially with Adobe being present and appearing to support it, but how long will that support last? From both sides, Microsoft & Adobe. What about x86 apps many still have to use daily. I'm sure that for there will be many for whom Office and Creative Cloud will be enough, but there will be even more for whom it won't be. Something as simple as ShareX, or Visual Studio (Code) if you're a developer.

They seem to target a lot of visual creators, because fuck that's easy to market for, but what about all the programmers and power-users who want to use a Surface?

 

The same is even more true for the Neo and Duo. I don't think I need to mention Windows Phone to anyone here? Though I must say, getting the android library will make it a very much more attractive product. Though I must say, with how much camera's matter in a modern smartphone (I bought the Pixel 2 XL for the camera first, the Google experience/support second) I wonder if they will nail that part of it. Because I do not want to carry multiple devices.
 

I suppose I am cautiously excited and optimistic, but past experience taught me I'm gonna be disappointing.

[elfensky]

1 minute ago, VegetableStu said:

snip

Yeah, I went to save my comment as I was editing it, and it gave me an error. So thankfully I control-c'd it all and made a new topic.

[cori_i]

Regarding that USB-C port.... Nobody is mentioning much, beside the fact that, is still not a thunderbolt 3 port. If isn't possible to charge with it, it's a dealbreaker for me

[givingtnt]

Surface du-woah o.o
I need a 2 screen device that isin't a phone.
GET IN MY LIFE

would still rather have the zenbook pro duo tho. right @Den-Fi ?

[Guest]

1 minute ago, givingtnt said:

Surface du-woah o.o
I need a 2 screen device that isin't a phone.
GET IN MY LIFE

would still rather have the zenbook pro duo tho. right @Den-Fi ?

I'm going to kick you right in the life.

[Guest]

Just now, VegetableStu said:

....

*holds up doll* i need you to point to which part is "life"

All of it.

[cori_i]

5 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

by the way, there's a surface Neo and a surface Duo. the duo is the smaller one that runs android apps o_o

I think the duo is actually Android based

[elfensky]

2 minutes ago, cori_i said:

I think the duo is actually Android based

Yeah, I'm only about 3/4 way through the presentation. Pausing all the time to type up info.. I want the interesting stuff lol

[cori_i]

2 minutes ago, elfensky said:

Yeah, I'm only about 3/4 way through the presentation. Pausing all the time to type up info.. I want the interesting stuff lol

Sorry for the spoiler pal!!! And thank you for compiling the post!!!!

[RedRound2]

How fucked up in the head is the Microsoft hardware team? They finally implemented a type C port, but it’s not Thunderbolt enabled? Like what? Doesn’t 10 gen intel processor even have thunderbolt chip integrated into the CPU?

 

Isnt Microsoft the one who said Type C is a mess? So to counter act that, you implement the kind of protocol that basically does everything, geniuses. 
...........

 

Honestly, I really like the surface Laptop. But lack of Thunderbolt 3 is an instant deal breaker for me and many other I’m sure.

 

And the surface laptop? A blast from the past with those huge bezels. 

 

Surface X? Microsoft’s 86th attempt trying to make Windows on ARM a thing while absolutely doing nothing different in the software department.

 

I believe this is their first hardware launch after a while. Honestly, I have no words on how incompetent they seem to be to bring something good on the Windows side of things.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong in any of the facts I stated above. I wasn’t following their launch and I got my info from here and GSMArena.

[Commodus]

I want to ask everyone who said they'd get a Surface phone if they'd buy the Duo.  You're committed to the idea?  Prove it!

 

Of course, I suspect many of the people who said that were assuming it'd run Windows, but that ship sailed a long time ago and wasn't realistic to start with (you're not going to run full-fledged Windows desktop apps on a phone screen).  This at least will have plenty of apps and an otherwise healthy ecosystem.

[rawrdaysgoby]

1 hour ago, elfensky said:

Yeah, I went to save my comment as I was editing it, and it gave me an error. So thankfully I control-c'd it all and made a new topic.

you forgot the Neo. Neo is different from Duo

[elfensky]

Just now, rawrdaysgoby said:

you forgot the Neo. Neo is different from Duo

I am still watching it the presentation. I started late. About to start on that part.

[rawrdaysgoby]

THIS IS NO SURFACE EVENT, there is no surfacebook 3.... That was the one I was waiting for

[elfensky]

4 minutes ago, rawrdaysgoby said:

THIS IS NO SURFACE EVENT, there is no surfacebook 3.... That was the one I was waiting for

Honestly dude, I have the Surface Book 2 15", and I have to say: don't.

 

too many compromises due to form factor. If you want to primary draw, get a Pro or Pro X, and game on console or desktop. Or if you want productivity with the ability to game, get the Laptop 3.

The Surface Book was neither a laptop or a 2 in one, and in it's goal to be versatile it compromised both. I will eventually write up a review on my SB2 15", but the TLDR is so many issues.

While I love the design, the feel and look of the hardware... the performance leaves a lot to be desired.

[cori_i]

30 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

How fucked up on the head is the Microsoft hardware team? They finally implemented a type C port, but it’s not Thunderbolt enabled? Like what? Doesn’t 10 gen intel processor even have thunderbolt chip integrated into the CPU?

 

Isnt Microsoft the one who said Type C is a mess? So to counter act that, you implement the kind of protocol that basically does everything, geniuses. 
...........

 

Honestly, I really like the surface Laptop. But lack of Thunderbolt 3 is an instant deal breaker for me and many other I’m sure.

 

And the surface laptop? A blast from the past with those huge bezels. 

 

Surface X? Microsoft’s 86th attempt trying to make Windows on ARM a thing while absolutely doing nothing different in the software department.

 

I believe this is their first hardware launch after a while. Honestly, I have no words on how incompetent they seem to be to bring something good on the Windows side of things.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong in any of the facts I stated above. I wasn’t following their launch and I got my info from here and GSMArena.

The USB C thing is the one that triggers me the the most. I'm surprised Microsoft didn't learn anything from the win10 mobile, windows RT and Windows S experience which is that usually crippled versions of windows don't really have a place in the market, like the whole point of running windows is the x86 library. Don't get me wrong I think the pro X does look pretty sweet, but if I wanted a crippled tablet, I would just buy an Ipad. Also not looking forward to see how buggy Win10 on an ARM chip will be. The Surface Laptop (for a different type of consumer that is not me) actually looks great. I can live with those bezels, the fact that they made it easier to service is a breath of fresh air in this 'pro, expensive and sleek looking' market. I'm actually moderate excited of those AMD chip on the 15 inch version. Great competitor against the Apple alternative and their disgraceful keyboards. Still pissed that it doesn't look like you can charge them with usb c (like NO ONE on the internet seems able to answer that)

[cori_i]

15 minutes ago, rawrdaysgoby said:

THIS IS NO SURFACE EVENT, there is no surfacebook 3.... That was the one I was waiting for

Yeah better this way. It's a very cool concept but it just fails both at being a tablet and a laptop, an overwhelmingly frustrating experience (for the price). I would not be surprised if they just killed the book entirely. After all,in the surface family, if you need to draw get a surface pro, and if you need a laptop, well the surface laptop.

[Nowak]

Well

 

There's the Surface Phone, folks.

[porina]

From Ryan Smith, head of Anandtech.

 

 

[mynameisjuan]

Hands down getting the Buds.

 

Watching the keynote brought me joy when the first thing they showed off was the SL3 repairability.

[GoodBytes]

1 hour ago, RedRound2 said:

How fucked up in the head is the Microsoft hardware team? They finally implemented a type C port, but it’s not Thunderbolt enabled? Like what? Doesn’t 10 gen intel processor even have thunderbolt chip integrated into the CPU?

Intel is charging too much, most likely. 

They'll include it when it will be USB 4 will be standard and implemented by the CPU chipset.

While Thunderbolt is free now, it is really only "free" you need to certify it, and Intel asks too much for it. Sure you can say that the Surface line is not budget class system, and for the price it should have it... but seeing how Microsoft now has AMD CPU and a custom one (in partnership with Qualcomm), and Microsoft never used Intel wireless cards, it may suggest that Microsoft and Intel relationship is not strong. Maybe it has to do with Intel crappy drivers hurting Windows image over many years or their ridiculous pricing, blocking innovation from being released, or who knows.

 

1 hour ago, RedRound2 said:

Isnt Microsoft the one who said Type C is a mess? So to counter act that, you implement the kind of protocol that basically does everything, geniuses. 

I don't recall them saying this. I do recall saying that there isn't any Type-C device to with it, and you need adapters. And, at the time, it was pretty much true. USB Type-C Flash drive just recently came out, and beside that, you had nothing. The rest was really Thunderbolt using the connector (external graphics or other PCIe cards), and that has noticeable performance drop, due to lack of bandwidth. It also been a long time since a new version of it. Is Intel keeping it to themselves and will only release it when they feel like it? Or Intel stopped working on it?

 

 

1 hour ago, RedRound2 said:

Honestly, I really like the surface Laptop. But lack of Thunderbolt 3 is an instant deal breaker for me and many other I’m sure.

Are you really going to cash out on a external GPU enclosure (expensive) and a dedicated GPU knowing you'll have a nice performance drop due to bottleneck?

 

1 hour ago, RedRound2 said:

Surface X? Microsoft’s 86th attempt trying to make Windows on ARM a thing while absolutely doing nothing different in the software department.

They did in the past, and that failed miserably. See Windows RT and Windows 10 IoT. Now, it is full Windows 10 with Win32 support and x86 translation layer for x86 programs. Only soft-launch devices where ever released by OEMs (limited time and quantity devices, sold on select (mainly US only) market, online only, and high price). This is because, Microsoft and OEMs was seeking feedback from, essentially, a test market, and waiting for, at the very least web browsers to run native on it without the translator layer for speedy experience (So far we have: Chrome, Chromium, Firefox), and VLC joined officially. It is clear that Microsoft saw that the ARM chip of the time, while fast, needed to be faster to reduce the impact in performance drop in running x86 programs on the system.

 

[elfensky]

2 hours ago, VegetableStu said:

 

 

Aaaand done. Holy hell this took way more time and effort than I expected lol. Now for a WAN show shout out  

[suicidalfranco]

i'll give it to MS this time: it's great to see someone in the industry that actually thinks different 

[Exprima]

I work for Microsoft and now that NDA has lifted y'all can ask me questions and I'll answer to the best of my abilities

[Exprima]

2 hours ago, cori_i said:

Regarding that USB-C port.... Nobody is mentioning much, beside the fact that, is still not a thunderbolt 3 port. If isn't possible to charge with it, it's a dealbreaker for me

You can charge with it, but it's not advertised because USB-C chargers come in all shapes and sizes. The recommended USB-C charger should be capable of outputting at least 65w otherwise you risk damaging the battery