Microsoft Has LOST Their Minds

The new Microsoft Surface Laptop 5 is really great, except...
TikTok Made Me Buy It: • TikTok Made Me Buy It
I Built A Laptop, Again: • I Built A Laptop?!
Apple Kills the Lightning Port: • Apple Kills the Lightn...
Wish.com for ALPHAS Only: • Wish.com for ALPHAS Only
KZbin, Fix This: • KZbin, Fix This.
Subscribe! / thisis
Twitter: / thisis_channel
Matt: / matt_ansini
Instagram: / thisis_channel
Chapter Titles
-------------------------------
0:00 MICROSOFT IS OUT OF THEIR MINDS
0:25 The New Surface Line
1:01 The Best Laptops You SHOULDNT Buy
2:00 You Don’t Buy a Surface for the Specs
3:05 The Surface Doesn’t Fit In
3:52 Let’s Talk About Price…
5:08 It’s MADE To Go On Sale
5:58 The Surface is WORSE Than Apple
7:06 This Does NOT Make Sense
7:58 If I Were Head of Surface
8:58 I ALMOST Recommend It
10:10 WHY It’s So Expensive
11:01 It WILL Be On Sale
12:04 It’s BETTER But…
13:04 It’s Made For Universities
13:58 What Do You Think?

[@christiancage6626]

I honestly love the build quality of the surface products...but yeah the pricing is way over the top🤔🤔

[@jt.8144]

Get what you can afford.

[@RobbieRobski]

I just found a dell laptop for 379 with the same specs as the sp8 i5. Obviously build quality is drastically different but it should be price at 599, MAYBE 649, certainly not 899.

[@ruckboger]

I got a 7+ when they were on sale for $599 and upgraded the SSD with third party hardware. It's a great machine.

[@ersandicky]

Ridiculous pricing

[@PrinceMalachi7]

Yes I agree with you 100 percent. The build quality is amazing but I'm not sure if it's worth the high price today

[@AronFromThisIs]

Microsoft's surface product naming scheme is beyond confusing. You would not (or maybe you would) believe the amount of times I had to swap b-roll because I put the wrong surface in.

[@kobirelf97]

Well-known for crazy naming situations just look at the Xbox

[@mancuniangamecat8288]

Only simpletons can't understand xbox naming.

[@JohnDoe-wq5eu]

@@mancuniangamecat8288 The average consumer/normie does have a problem with it but anyone with any level of reasoning skills wouldn’t. Microsoft obviously expects people to have functioning brains which let’s be real not everyone has.

[@michaelmayers3622]

​@@kobirelf97 look at nitendo nb got them beat

[@TheCommanderTaco]

@@kobirelf97 don't forget the confusing situation with their games as well since unlike Sony they didn't change the colors for their cases lol. The amount of times I have had customers either exchange or almost buy the wrong copy of a game because they didn't realize they were getting the X instead of the One Copy lol. Which also drives more confusion when you have the games that do smart delivery lol.

[@ARCKNIGHT117]

I bought a surface pro 5 years ago and I mainly got it for notes and to be a device I wanted to use. I already had a big gaming computer so I really only use laptops for productivity. And until recently the low specs didn't hurt me. But I definitely agree that a little more ram would make a huge difference.

[@CoasterMan13Official]

Yeah. I game mostly on my Xbox, but when I do game on a computer (I don't do it much,) I play Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. About the only thing I really use computers for is either to manage my personal music library, which is huge (~1,500 songs) or for schoolwork, and I think both of those fall under productivity.

[@jgorres]

In the PC world, 16GB of RAM is currently the minimum spec that should be sold.

[@TheGunnyBadger03xx]

On in Intel processor.

[@jgorres]

@@TheGunnyBadger03xx Or AMD. Maybe I should have stated it as x86, not PC. Although, I'm not a fan of anything less than 16GB for Mac either, even with the better efficiency.

[@TheGunnyBadger03xx]

@@jgorres ARM seems to run just fine on 8GB or RAM. Better yet, Linux breathes new life into just about anything.

[@jgorres]

@@TheGunnyBadger03xx Yeah, it works, but I'd still prefer 16GB (for a computer - laptop/tower/etc.). It's about all the software, not just the OS. Hell, I went with 32GB (2x16GB) in my new build this summer so I don't have to worry about it for 10 years however I use it.

[@onlysublime]

Seriously no. We have a ton of 8gb machines at work, half of them on windows 11 and they're fast, especially the latest AMD and Intel processors.but even 8th gen feels fast

[@abhisheksengupta1773]

I went to buy a windows laptop the other day with a budget of $1000. Came across the Surface with 128gb SSD and 13 inch display. When enquired if I can increase the storage, he asked to upgrade to 1tb by paying some humongous amount extra or invest in cloud subscriptions. When I asked about Microsoft office bundled, he was like “you get a trial version, but need to subscribe after a month”. It was absolutely crazy, they want you to spend a $1000 and still invest in cloud and office. Absolutely crazy. I went to a HP store and got a much better laptop at $200 lesser than my budget.

[@jt.8144]

There you go all for the same Windows experience. For once someone in this forum with REAL PRACTICAL VALUE. Rather than the majority of "entitled whiners" out there.

[@airrwalker]

Which HP did you buy?

[@dsly4425]

I agree with all of this comment except that HP is a better machine. Sadly my experience with them has been that they have been pretty solidly trash since at least 2010, probably earlier. But yeah non upgradeable hardware components is a bad move across the board and subscription based only is a serious money suck.

[@abhisheksengupta1773]

@@airrwalker Pavilion series

[@abhisheksengupta1773]

@@dsly4425 the new ones aren’t that bad. They have upgradable intervals now. I’ll be upgrading my SSD and RAM once the warranty expires on my product. Also my laptop comes with Microsoft office home and student edition activated for life.

[@th.e.nglish]

Microsoft's Surface laptops lines are one of my favourite designs for a laptop, and I'm a fan but the worst thing about the pricing is that outside of the US it's even worse, I'm in Italy for example, and the base model for the Surface Laptop 5 is €1.209, so it's already $200 more expensive, and those $200 upgrades look more like €300 here, so it's all exponentially worse making it a way too harsh of a buy if you look at the competition.

[@FintanMoloney]

As a Mac guy I do also have a lot of respect for the build quality of the Surface laptops as we deployed them in a company I worked in a few years back. I think by tying all the upgrades in together price wise Microsoft is making a mistake. You might want more storage, RAM or an i7 but you can't pick individually. Back to a quick thought on Apple despite using their products their upgrades are insanely priced sometimes but you do tend to have a bit more flexibility than this. I also think it was a very good point Austin made that Microsoft don't have the flexibility of someone like Dell to offer loads of options.

[@Vain-Voyager]

Mostly agree with both. Not only is the build quality a reason for the price, but also its aesthetics & resolution. There's rarely a Windows laptop adopting a 2K monitor. They usually skyrocket to a 4K mon with a significant price jump. I bought a Surface Pro 8 (16+256GB) with a signature type cover & a slim pen 2 for US$1100 at a local retailer. Yes, when they are on sales, the price is reasonable.

[@jimmymac2292]

If it was about $1000 for the i7 and keyboard combined. Id be all over it

[@dawsonbrown1462]

@@Dbentzjr the actual tablet doesn’t break but I’ve had a defective keyboard and pen in under a year

[@rwilliamson238]

I have to agree the price differences are crazy and it's usability can be limited mostly to work, however, a MacBook is also geared more towards business work than gaming. I think both have their place albeit quite niche. My wife's work tablet/laptop crashed a lot in the middle of her doing work and so I ended up buying her a surface 7 pro (i5, 8gb ram, 128gb) with the keyboard and pen. It cost me $1200 but she uses it for work (she's a social worker) and browsing. The pen and keyboard were a bit pricy, but they get used a lot. It's piece of mind for both of us that she has something that just works. She also has a console, so gaming wasn't a priority.

[@planofattack2079]

Remember that Microsoft also has a vision of people moving more towards cloud storage (One Drive), remote desktop, and cloud computing. It's been shown that on the new rollout of Android 12L on Surface Duo and Duo 2 they have started installing new remote desktop software that allows you to plug your phone into a dock to RDP into your desktop or a cloud computer while simultaneously still using your phone as normal. So, they may see high storage and processing power on mobile devices as somewhat of an antithesis to their vision of computing in the future.

[@remymartin15]

Well I was a Dell rep in big box stores I had this same idea for Surface products. I had to explain to customers often why they would pay for a i7 price for a i5. It helped sell dells sometimes but it was wild and they often tell customers if you really want a surface wait for a sell. But they feel and look great

[@PrinceMalachi7]

I feel what you saying about the pricing. I'm a fan of the surface lineup. But I haven't upgraded because of the cost. When I first saw the original surface book released I was in love but I never thought I would own one because they cost so much. But then I got lucky and I saw one on Amazon as a refurb for $640 and I jumped on it. To this day I've never seen another one, Even from the first generation at that low price. I love the products But I don't see myself playing $2,000 for one

[@TheDesius]

Surfaces are mostly used in companies. They are already doing business with microsoft with their office applications and with workspace365 so its easy to have it all from the same source and when bought in bulk they of course get a good deal

[@JWooden271]

New base model iPad has the same problem. With 9th gen available at retailers for sub-300 and 10th gen for 450, is that CPU bump and type-c really worth $150+?

[@ZaneKyber]

The Surface as a product IN THEORY is amazing. But in reality they have been ridiculously priced and frankly the battery life is always lacking too.

[@sikeeeee]

The machine on the left is that surface Go or pro? What colour is it? If it’s a pro I don’t think I have seen in the Microsoft store.

[@donMurgero]

I do really love my Surface Laptop Go, bought this year because price drop drastically here in Mexico (like 18Kmxn ~ 900US to 12Kmxn ~ 600USD), and yes, the build and hardware construction is delightful, screen, touchpad, the freaking way to open it, but pure specs are very low. To give an example, I bought (and returned) a Lenovo IdeaPad3 with Ryzen 7 5th, 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD, for 700USD and even so I'm much more happy with the Surface.

[@mstk8845]

I don’t see Microsoft as being an average consumer company when it comes to computers but are business and education focused. You are right you get more out of some of the other manufacturers. I guess part of the question would be if the support eol is any different than other PCs.

[@Boxhead42]

I don't see too many in the business environment purchasing these either, the same way not many buy will the macs. All our pc's in my company has been upgraded to 16 gb of ram a while ago. 8gbs is just not enough in 2022. So there is no way most companies will purchase laptops at 2 grand a pop, unless you are maybe upper management. Mostly what you will see is Dell and HP.

[@s.m.5343]

@@Boxhead42 yeah man. Cause most of all they just need to do only doc or just chroming. Which would required only few buck. The much heavier worker just buy themself.(which they dont go for notebook still lol) and yes. neither surface nor macbook can do the ACTUALLY HARDLOAD JOB!

[@Maximus20778]

@@Boxhead42 wym? 8gbs work alright in 2022 it just depends on what you do. Just don't have 4 you're destined to get slow performance

[@Tomas_F.]

Fun fact: 16GB DDR4 RAM modules itself starts at 40$, lol. Most expensive costs about 178$

[@MegaMijit]

Before I switched to the Asus zephyrus g14 for gaming, I LOVED my Samsung Galaxy book flex! It was sleek, sexy, and the touchpad was a wireless charger

[@Tomas_F.]

,,Microsoft Has LOST Their Minds" - welcome in club, captain obvious, lol

[@fergotzv]

Can anyone tell me if surface laptops are good enough for music production? or which specs you would say its enough for this?

[@davidhowell3609]

If thats your goal and you plan on spending the amount of money these cost. Buy a macbook they are far superior for music production

[@davidhowell3609]

if I'm spending so much money and want great build quality I'm just going to get a MacBook like a did. I'll get a great laptop that has incredibly quality, battery life and huge resale value if I upgrade years down the road. 10yr old MacBooks still sell for a few hundred dollars.

[@aarongordon4962]

Does anybody have a long-term review (1 year or more) of the SL with the Alcantara keyboard?

[@Eeveewashere]

Austin needs to just tell us what the optimal date is to get the best deal on the surface notebook or should we buy last year's model refurbished on the Microsoft store? I agree with them that the i7 chip is not really desirable on these.

[@thejpkotor]

My BIGGEST gripe with the whole lineup is that none (that I’ve seen, please correct me if I am wrong ) of the laptop line have dedicated graphics options!!! Just why?!

[@benarie527]

I’m a graphic designer but do not care for apple like the idea of the surface pro but did not think about gpu what do y’all think would be good upgrade I currently have an asus q534u got it new and just now is getting old and starting to mess up

[@GabeB5517]

Hey does anyone know what Apple Watch band that blue color is? I love that blue color

[@Ruffles811]

I bought the blue Surface Laptop 3 last winter. Love it, especially the keyboard, trackpad and alcantara. But yeah, it's expensive for what you get on the inside. So you're paying for the design and the quality feel of it.

[@thebasketballhistorian3291]

I didn't buy a Surface Pro for gaming or specs but for its form factor which I use for writing, drawing, and photo editing, all of which I use the Surface Pen, tablet, and kickstand for. Base level was fine for me. But I totally agree with the initial pricing and upgrades being too high.

[@cdytoby]

I had a Surface Pro 4, and later Surface Pro 6 with higher CPU and 16G RAM. I don't use them actively but I still loves it. I'm glad these products exist and I'm glad I can afford one. But still, I agree that it needs to be cheaper.

[@lewis9950]

Is a surface pro good for emulation at least?

[@delakoni]

I tries to use a gaming laptop for work and didn't like it. Main issue running hot all the time and the charger brick and cable too big and heavy, was a Razer Laptop

[@pkcell]

I found this issue with high-end windows laptops in general. They can't just let you pick what you want from pre-set parts. Before I realized I needed a mac for school, I was looking at Windows laptops and wanted specific specs. One of those was 32GB of RAM. I'd find a perfect laptop, the only thing missing being 32GB of RAM, and to get that was $1000 more. Looking at Macs, it was so much easier to pick and choose what you wanted, and I want Windows laptop companies to have a similar building system. Once you get into the $2-3k range, they're probably being made as they're ordered anyway.

[@hawhite2000]

If you were getting a gaming laptop would you really get a screen this size?

[@benjamindbarr]

Most companies buy laptops at discounts and don't consider not buying at discounts (most about 30%) Microsoft is simply putting a 30% markup on everything so that institutions can feel like they are getting a discount.

[@franciscopuente5552]

My brother had to get something for school and he had a surface in his cart at Best Buy. $900 budget so I had him go with a MSI GF65 with a 3060 for I think $799

[@fujinmage8201]

Well im still on a surface pro 4 and as long as it does what i need it to do ( presentations ect. for work) im not planing an upgrade i dont feel like i need (i have a battlestation for gaming so...)

[@lordcorgi6481]

Those prices are all insane. I paid $800 and got a laptop with a Nvidia 1080 and 17 inch screen and 1gb ssd 512mb m.2, and 16gb ram 🤣 Like 2x as fast for half the price.

[@derkaiser9881]

While I agree they're expensive, a gaming laptop is not for the same purpose as a Surface. You will get a faster machine for less money, sure, but that's not why you buy a Surface ultralight.

[@winonesoon9771]

Dude that's what I'm saying hell I've seen for $350 gtx 1650 laptops. If you want just a CPU kind of laptop pay no more then like 400 max even then just find the cheapest gaming laptop and it will blow away any normal laptop.... Shit crazy..... Lol

[@riccardodezza1723]

An i7 Is needed if you want a PC for productivity. High CPU workloads like data analysis, database admin and bi (Power bi, qlik, etc.) Just need that.

[@H37P5kY57]

I bought my Surface Pro 7 and 8 based on the specs and the actual portability of it all. I agree it's damn expensive but it's a little beast these machines that make travel easier.

[@spicediaries]

finally, a review that i can resonate with lol, i've been debating on getting this. I def wanted to do some gaming on it, but on the go. The price is wild.

[@Fish_nipples1998]

I got myself an HP pavilion 16. Gaming laptop. Couple that with a Quest 2 and the link cable. It does everything I need I can be in any vr game and still have things running in the background and only one time have I ever noticed a hiccup with its performance. Absolutely the surface line is good and well built. And very capable for productivity or even light entertainment. But I never really needed an aluminum build or the most premium fit and finish. I still have an old Huawei matebook D that I used when I was in high school. So full of dents and dings and scratches all over the aluminum. I like the plastic on my current laptop just because it's more forgiving without being flimsy. If you put a ding in an aluminum laptop it would be a nightmare to try to get that ding worked out.

[@jacobwarner9710]

I bought a MSI Modern 14 for £400... 11th Gen I5, 8GB 3200Mhz RAM (which I upgrade to 16GB), 256GB SSD which I can also upgrade if need be, full aluminium body, nice screen... £400! If you're looking for a laptop like this, check out the Modern line up!

[@DrewPera]

8GB on a Windows machine this day in age is a no go. 16GB is pretty much my minimum if it's x86. ARM is a little different but 8GB is kinda iffy there too.

[@cat-.-]

Arm is no different when it comes to memory usage. If anything it should get more memory because program binary size is larger on arm

[@devinmccloud]

Microsoft scandals: Build a phone and then after the upgrade breaks the camera, pull all models off the shelves and discontinue all sales rather than admit guilt and recall the phones. One of the corrupt companies you will ever work for.

[@talklein39]

I will love to see a poll on how many of the viewers game on their computer. I myself do not game at all on my computer

[@travissmarion]

I had the first generation Microsoft Surface Book for almost 7 years and recently wanted to upgrade my laptop. At first I was leaning towards the Surface Laptop Studio, but ended up buying the Dell XPS 15 which was on sale for $500 less than a similarly spec Laptop Studio. The XPS 15 I bought had a newer processor (11th vs 12th generation Intel), a better screen OLED, and a full size SD card reader for $500 cheaper ($2199 versus $2699). Both of these were on sale because MSRP on both was $2699 for the Dell XPS 15 versus $3099 for the Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio. I just couldn't fathom myself spending more money for less product.

[@Manuel-rl6um]

The Surface Laptop Studio CPU is not even in the same league, it's a pretty much a U series CPU buffed to use 35W instead of 15W, so it has the same 4 cores, even Ryzen U series at the time had better multicore performance. It was a very bad CPU when it launched. Very few slim 14" gaming laptops used it and reviewers didn't recommend them across the board.

[@lummatravel]

The Dell XPS 15 you can add a second SSD and upgrade the RAM to anything up to 64gb easily and cheaply too. You just need to decide on the processor and GPU from the start

[@travissmarion]

@@lummatravel Yeah. I'm kind of kicking myself now, and went with the 3050 instead of the 3050 Ti. But it was $150 more and honestly I don't really game on my laptop. I use it for college and photo editing. To be honest my 7 year old 1st Generation Microsoft Surface Book with 8 GB of RAM, a 1GB GPU, and i5 processor, with a 256GB HDD was working fine. But for some unknown reason the laptop screen on the right side started popping out. Kind of like the lithium batteries started expanding after 7 years. 🤷🏻 With the Dell XPS 15 I got the 12th gen i7, RTX 3050 (no Ti), 32GB of RAM, OLED screen, and 2TB HDD on sale with my military discount for $2199. Like I said previously the full size SD card reader is huge for me because I'm always taking and editing photos and videos of my children. Plus the upgrade of processor, better screen, and cheaper price... I just couldn't pass that up.

[@lummatravel]

@@travissmarion I got a refurbished but essentially brand new XPS 15, with 16gb RAM, i7 10th gen, 1tb SSD and 1650ti for £1200. I've since added a second 1tb SSD and upgraded to 32gb ram for just a couple of hundred. I think it should last me a while now

[@airrwalker]

HP EliteBook G9 or Surface Laptop 5?

[@OsterlundArchitect]

"The one weird case for architecture?" Yes - exactly. I'm an architect. We need the RAM, and a chip fast enough to fill the RAM, and we're always on the road trying to look cool. So- you say they go on sale?

[@lordtardar4639]

Lovely chat, guys. I really want this thing but am bummed out that MS was SO LAZY with the upgrades. I have concerns about the Core i7-1255U power and efficiency. The aesthetics are actually decent and I can live with those chunky bezels, but can you confidently use a Surface Laptop 5 for six-eight hours for document editing, web browsing and calls without fretting over battery drain? That's the issue. I need to type A LOT and browse a lot with dozens of tabs, but not if it stutters or dies on me real quick.

[@redpillsatori3020]

4 years ago I would have said to get a Surface laptop, but now that Apple ditched the POS "Butterfly" keyboard, added back ports, and implemented the Apple Silicon SoC, it's a no-brainer to get an M1 or M2 Macbook. Unless you really want a portable Windows gaming solution, that is.

[@theosexpertdaymon2774]

I seen a Surface laptop at best buy the other day like ~$1000 for a i5-1135g7 8GB RAM 256GB SSD. Meanwhile I got a Gateway laptop while admittedly inferior in build quality being mostly plastic (The lid is metal but not the body??) I got the same CPU with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage with a easy access on the bottom to add a m.2 SDD in addition to internal storage for about half the price. (I actually bought mine refurbished for about 1/3 the cost of that surface machine.)

[@ImNotPeso]

Something else that I noticed-and maybe I’m incorrect- I can’t seem to find any official microsoft battery service. Everyone blasts apple for repairability, but what about Microsoft? I get that some of the form factors may require special engineering to make them possible, but taking the example of LTT’s laptop studio, they broke it because the bottom panel was attached with lots of flimsy clips and hidden screws. About the quality of microsoft surface products, the plastic strip next to the volume button on my surface book 2 broke within 2 years of owning it. I rarely used those buttons and i had never taken it outside the house. My friend’s higher powered surface book 2 had a battery that expanded. They took it to Microsoft and they said they couldn’t do anything about it, so now he just has a blown up surface book sitting in his house. In my opinion their alcantara type covers or laptop deck covers are frankly ridiculous as they become a consumable item, or just an item u can’t replace.

[@philipperoux3010]

The surface pro 9 actually has a good reparability (check IfixIt last video, a 7/10 rate) The battery is screwed instead of glued, etc. Hope they continue that way.

[@ImNotPeso]

@@philipperoux3010 yeah, hope they continue to make their products like this

[@GeorgeArchibald]

The 9 does have TB4. With an I7 processor, you should be able to pair it with a good external GPU and use it for gaming. Massively expensive, but one machine instead of 2 and the portability of the 9 is what you get. It's a niche crowd, but as someone who has 3 devices now, there is an appeal to it.

[@Suerlink]

This is definitely not a product for the general user. I have these with my Server engineers and we absolutely love them, usbc requires a dongle for management ports but otherwise it's a great production machine.

I love my SP3. When it came time to replace it I tried alternatives for a year, and ended up getting a SP7. It's not perfect, and I think they peaked at the 7+. The 8 and 9 has a new design, and high refresh rate screen, but they don't work as well with the existing accessory ecosystem. To the pricing: It's a US thing only. Here in Europe they rarely go on big sales like there, and the competitors don't have their massive sales at all. (looking at you Lenovo) I also feel that there's a weird lack of competition between MS and the legacy manufacturers. and I'm still waiting for the AMD powered Surface Pro.

[@isstylertho]

I love my surface pro 6, but the thing that killed me is that it has 8gigs of ram which used to be okay until I got into heavy photo editing and the OS USES 4GB ALONE! So I only end up with 4gb of usable memory and eventually photoshop started crashing so much I went and bought a macbook pro

[@monterxz]

I bought Surface Book, then 2, then 3 - GPU acceleration, 32GB RAM and Surface Pen are great in Adobe apps.

[@tomgates3250]

I had a Surface Book 3 and about a year ago it broke: Pretty much exactly 2 years after I bought it (when the guarantee expired). I can't really believe that the quality of surface products is top-notch, as currently in my school, surface products are recommended, but the people who have to replace their laptops are almost exlusively ones that had a surface.

[@xcen1]

Talk about their support of which they only offer 1 year warranty from what I can tell. I'm a tech and my company works for the DOE in NYC. The doe all use lenovo's and mac's for art class. Lenovo web site has good support, it has 3 yr warranty and you can buy any part listed with pictures of it to replace any part yourself. Microsoft doesn't have that

[@Lonewolf_121]

Surface laptop 5? Damn my work has been issuing surface 4s lately... Maybe I'll get lucky my upgrade isn't for another couple of months...

[@jasonchappell5933]

I love the surface line, but haven’t owned one since the Surface Pro 3, due entirely due to the pricing.

[@troylollysaf9311]

Buy used. I paid $220 total for surface pro 6 with i7, 16gb ram, 512ssd and win10 pro👍 Dont go beyond pro 6. its 350 and up used😂

[@agenericaccount3935]

Good lord, new Surface stuff already? I hadn't even finished ignoring the last batch.

[@MithosDagon]

I love the build quality of surfaces. I am on my second Surface laptop and had an HP before that. For other laptops, I always felt like they just get slower and degrade over time. I just got a great deal on a used Surface Laptop Studio ($600 and in like new condition from craigslist) 2 days ago, and had a surface laptop 1 before that that I also bought used from Craigslist in 2017. The Surface Laptop’s battery went completely dead last week at 54% (I have used third party chargers on it since I got it and they also kept going out, so the chargers might have broken it). It still runs when plugged in, and runs like it did when I first got it.

[@torpedospurs]

Five years is about there for batteries nowadays. The Laptop 1 does make it really hard to replace the battery (I had to go to a repair shop to get it done). The one useful upgrade in the Laptop 5 is that battery replacement is now much easier.

[@cubanboi2429]

Def will wait to pull the trigger on the new sage. I love my current surface tbh.

[@giobikefans]

I ordered my wife one on sale. It was tremendously discounted. I think she’s the target demographic; she likes the build quality of a Mac but doesn’t like Mac OS (she actually had a MacBook before), she does online courses/work and light photoshop, and she doesn’t play games other than the occasional age of empires or minecraft with the kids.

[@technerd...1293]

Hey, I currently own an older version of the Surface Laptop (2020 I think), and it works great. I love it. The build quality is amazing and, in this version, I managed to get 16Gb ram without the 512 SSD upgrade. While I would wish for a version with an integrated GPU and I would like another usb-a port, maybe even an HDMI (even if the laptop is a few millimeters thicker), everything else about it is phenomenal. I do, however have to agree that it is ridiculously overpriced and just not really worth the money. However, if you value build quality and amazing design over hardware and you don't mind an overly exaggerated price tag, wait until if goes on sale and I could recommend it. Microsoft does have to work on their pricing and when that is done, I feel that it could sell some of the best laptops in every aspect in the entire market.

[@TallParty3]

I bought a Surface Book 2 a few months before the Book 3 was released. I got the 15" i7 GTX 1060 because I needed it for college and I wanted to game too lol. I play Genshin Impact @ 27 FPS on low. Waiting for RDNA3 announcement before I start spending all my savings.

[@2kull]

whats the best alternatives?

[@christopherwilliams9418]

Before they discontinued it the Surface Book actually seemed like the *perfect* all-in-one solution for my needs, it had a GPU that wasn't anything insanely powerful but sturdy enough for the kind of games I play, it was dockable, and as a tablet it was supposedly stellar... ... Then they discontinued it and replaced it with a model that AFAIK is not dockable and does not have a GPU. Ah well.

[@gehteuchnichtsan7911]

I do video editing, grafic work, drawing for my work and some gaming over steam. I own the surface laptop 2 i7 with the grafics card since 4 years and I'm still perfectly happy and I can do everything with it. I paid 2000€ and for me it's the perfect all in one.

[@cassio2999]

how much does a MacBook Air cost??

[@00SNIVY00]

The Lenovo that I bought has a bigger screen, i7-12700H, 32GB of DDR5, 1TB SSD, and an Arc A370M. The base price was $1700, $100 less than the Surface with almost half of all of that. It's another $700 to get the same memory and storage, but it still doesn't have any sort of dedicated graphics, and that evo badge probably means you'll only get a 1260P or a 1280P instead of a 12700H. Surfaces have tended to lag behind on the generations of hardware, taking a long while to get to the current gen processors and even then only getting the tail end of them being "current"

[@117johnpar]

I got my laptop 2 a few months ago for $300 cool ones. Feels fresh as a daisy.

[@josephkelly4893]

Surface pro and surface laptop are my secondary devices, and have a dedicated twelfth gen gaming pc, that’s the right fit for my use case.

[@rxprxp34]

Definitely true that the pricing is strange. I used to be a big fans of surface pro, until I meet the asus rog flow series. Much better spec with similar price.

[@CombinationGamerFireskull]

I have a surface pro 8 (i7 16gb ram and I upgraded to a 1tb Ssd because the 1tb upgrade was dumb expensive) I use a gigabyte aorus egpu and it’s works good for me when it comes to gaming, I play beaming drive and rust with no issues, not a price efficient way of doing things but I want one system for everything and when I use my computer for work I need the battery life that a gaming laptop couldn’t provide me.

[@auroraprs9133]

We still don't have all in one solution I want to do game (only in weekend but not compromising dedicated GPU)and draw and enjoy touch feeling on a right angle on a nicely built quality laptop

[@dmitryrodionov2386]

I was recently looking for a laptop and considering what I like I had a couple of options: Mac air: really good for university, but close to no games run on this and it's at least €1000; Cheap i5 asus/Acer ecc. it's around €500, runs worse than the Mac and it's kinda big and uncomfortable to take with you, but it does most stuff and it's pretty cheap, but again close to no games; Gaming laptop: there are some models around €800, but they might as well be a desktop for how uncomfortable to take around; Ultrabook: you have a ton of options here, but I found a great one: asus vivobook 14 with oled panel, core i5 and Nvidia 1650, it's really small, can run some games and Iits cheaper than a Mac. At that point I even looked up a refurbished model and ended up spending around €700 which is insane value imo.

[@ATechGuy-mp6hn]

The pricing makes sense from both them and Apple, people will get the base model because its sufficient and in a few years apps get bigger and require more processing power and they will sell you a new base model?

[@piereligiodisante]

To be honest, yeah, they're pricey for the specs. Though, I think surface laptop studio is a good option for moderate gaming performances. Of course I'm talking about the 3050ti option. I've got one for 1800 euros, it is so good in thermals that I made a overclock profile for the GPU without fear 😂 It's of course not a 3080 grade GPU, but it's actually not bad for some gaming when you got no desktop nearby. The speakers are amazing, and it's a great form factor too. It's just a bit too heavy, and it could have a little more watt hours

[@monterxz]

Alot of people are buying phones that are more expensive than Surface Pro. I'm still using both of my Surface Book 2 (for media consumption) and 3 (for work). I've gamed on both before I got Xbox Seies X.

[@74432nholman]

it might be interesting to see you guys duel boot this laptop with chrome flex os

[@cgwworldministries83]

I had a surface once upon a time, and my biggest issue with it was that, for what it was, it had no touch UI to speak of. Like if they would stop and do like Apple and make Windows 8 UI SPECIFICALLY for touchscreen devices, and let you have a start menu for a desktop device and maybe let you switch between, I would be totally fine with it. Microsoft's all or nothing attitude is what is legitimately hurting their brand right now. They have no vision of what things should be like and it makes absolutely no sense to the consumer at all. They had media center, then killed it off but during that time, they didn't force that UI as an all or nothing, so WHY do it with the Windows touch UI?

[@scoopshort]

i have a slgo2 as a student. it is pretty good and im happy with it due to the size.

[@LazyPCRehab]

I still want an ARM GO lineup, with a foucs on battery life.

[@richardclark6113]

The fact the Surface studio laptop didn’t get a mention was hilarious. I’ve seen some older Surface laptops on sale for half the price. Surface is dead until they shrink the bezels and actually offer good specs at a reasonable price.

[@konberner170]

I love my surface and I did pay 999.00, but I have a gaming desktop for gaming and use it for everything else. I don't want any upgrades, that is what makes it work. Basically, I agree with you.

[@billdonaldson5714]

Speaking of “just waiting”, it has its benefits with Surface products. I recently bought a brand new Surface Pro X SQ2 with 16 GB of RAM and a 512 GB SSD for $599 from Woot. A niche product (but perfect for my intended uses), and with LTE to boot. The clearance price at BB for this model was $1,424.99 at the time I am posting this.

[@cjeffcoatjr]

4:48 it isn't just Microsoft doing this - I work at a big box store in a big US city and almost ALL of our laptops have 8GBs of RAM. If you want 16GBs you also have to get the 512GB (sometimes even the 1TB) SSD and/or you have to step up to an i7/Ryzen 7/i9/Ryzen 9, and you're likely looking at spending at least ~$1300 - $1500 . There is a market for ~$1000 laptops with i5/Ryzen 5s, 16GBs of RAM and 256/512GB SSDs but nobody wants to supply that market because most consumers who care about 16GB of RAM are willing to spend extra, even when they may not need the other hardware they're paying for. It's a shame honestly because with how fast CPUs are nowadays, 16GB with an i5 or even an i3 could be an awesome facebook/tab hoarding machine.

[@thewalrusmonger9878]

I tried to use a surface laptop 2 for a year and the weak hardware and jet engine fan was so irritating. Then I got one as a work computer and had to sell my personal one. Now I use an Asus G14 which was less than the surface and has probably 10x the power with similar excellent build quality, the only place the surface is better is the screen/lid assembly.

[@MyReviews_karkan]

With the inflation going on, these companies really need to rethink their sales. Edit: for those who need a maxed out laptop for a reasonable price, look up hp devone. That thing is maxed out with specs, ryzen 7 with an AMD GPU, 16 GB RAM, 1 TB storage, 1000 nits screen, 51 wh battery for $1099.

[@lornjohnson3039]

Sony Vaio's had the same premium finish and was more versatile back in the day for the same price

[@johnmartin8481]

Great discussion regarding Microsoft Surface pricing strategy. I am a multiple Surface Pro owner and I truly believe they are unique Windows devices when it comes to build and quality feel. That said a price sale is a key buying advantage for Surface products. For me I would choose the Surface Pro9 with 32 gig of memory and 1 terabyte of storage. Unfortunately, that configuration is expensive. But for many Microsoft Surface fans, there is no other choice but Microsoft Surface. I certainly would not disagree with that opinion. I do believe that purchasing the previous Surface generation is a perfect solution to getting a superior premium product for a better price. That is of course there is not a key advantage moving to the newest version. Bottom line is that it is hard to be disappointed owning a Microsoft Surface products today, if it meets your requirements. Microsoft Surface is simply one of the best premium personal computing brands in the industry today.

[@alyx6427]

also did they not still sell 4gb models till recently?? like wtf

[@117johnpar]

That little $10 DDR4 8GB stick of ram is Microsofts biggest product profit margin by the MSRP of a Series X and all the currently produced Microsoft Studios games titles for it. Same thing with car companies. Take a $30K car and put a tuned up engine, some mid performance chassis upgrades. Some modern tech gimics with the already integrated hardware, And maybe some different interior materials and accents. And boom. You got those $30K cars rolling off lots for $120K

[@iamjimbodini]

Matt nailed it - its because the corps will pay upfront for new fleets of hardware and school's never pay that list price. AND NONE OF THEM BUY 16GB OF RAM. Though they should be.

[@tipoomaster]

If they're not going to change the design in years, miss out on more efficient AMD parts with 3+ hours more battery life from /last years model/ let alone the new 5nm hotness with RDNA 2 IGPs, and even refresh pretty late into 12th gen Intel's lifetime, they should at least drop the prices so it's not so close to the M2 Air which demolishes it on every performance and efficiency front.

[@seanwhitman4365]

Why do u need 16 gigs in a productivity laptop? My dell xps with 8 is perfectly fine

[@blueciffer1653]

You said it there in your sentence. "productivity"

[@troylollysaf9311]

16gb ram for heavy duty apps.. normal usage, basic photo video editing 8gb is enough👍

[@KhmerTarotReading]

Microsoft is trying to be *Apple* without 🍎 logo 😂 That’s their downfall in next 3 years if they continue to be *c0cky* about their prices.