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[–] realitista@lemmus.org 15 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (8 children)

The same people buying the high end MacBook pros I would assume . I guess people working with 3D rendeding and AI workloads?

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I would assume those people will look at Microsoft's track record of supporting ARM hardware, realize that the vast majority of Microsoft's own software still does not run on ARM natively (14 years after Surface RT launched!), and buy a MacBook Pro instead.

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[–] realitista@lemmus.org 0 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I didn't feel it's such a dire situation. I'm curious what MS software is still not ported? I'd assume it's more obscure administrative or programming stuff? I thought all of office, etc is ported. The x86 emulation seems good enough for any other stuff where max performance isn't needed. I think AI is the main workload they are targeting here which I'm pretty sure would work great. But yeah maybe some 3d programs haven't been ported to arm yet.

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 0 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Every single game except Microsoft Solitaire Collection of the Windows Store.

Other than that, the only ARM platforms Microsoft Gaming Studios support are Nintendo Switch, iPhone, and Android.

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[–] realitista@lemmus.org 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

Most non native games run okay under the emulation layers, and more arm games are coming out now with so many arm platforms coming online.

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

Most non native games run okay under the emulation layers

That's not the point. The point is commitment of Microsoft to its own platform and that's lacking ever since the release of the first Surface RT over a decade ago.

Apple doesn't just not port Apple Chess because it would run okay under emulation. Of course they ported everything. For years Microsoft didn't even port VS Code despite the fact that even back then it was based on Chromium which already worked fine on ARM platforms.

Surface RT came out in 2012, VS Code in 2015, and the ARM port only in 2020! Madness! https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/visual-studio-code-c-extension-arm-and-arm64-support/

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[–] Mihies@programming.dev 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Also people who need a workstation at more than one place I'd say.

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[–] DupaCycki@lemmy.world [S] 8 points 5 months ago (1 child)

The weight might be a problem here. MacBook Pros weigh about 1.5kg, while the new Surface Ultra is going to weigh just a little over 2kg, which is almost as much as gaming laptops. Would anyone want to carry this around?

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[–] Mihies@programming.dev 3 points 5 months ago

It depends on the use case. If one wants to avoid having i.e. two workstations at two different places and having instead a beefy laptop.

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[–] galaxy_nova@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (4 children)

Windows no, linux maybe. 15 inches is too big though.

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[–] DupaCycki@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 5 months ago (3 children)

Too big, too heavy, too powerful. Honestly I'd prefer a Snapdragon 870 tablet if I could install Linux on it.

Technically Xiaomi Pad 6 meets these criteria, but unlocking the bootloader is a gargantuan pain in the ass. Hopefully I'll manage by the end of this year...

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[–] galaxy_nova@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago (2 children)

You’re only saying too powerful because of the price I’m assuming? For me if this was in a 14inch chassis, it’d meet most of my checkboxes, especially if it has half decent gaming performance. Don’t know how good fex is though.

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

If only the world's largest game publisher, owner of Activision Blizzard, Bethesda, Minecraft, and Xbox, would port their games to this Microsoft machine. Too bad this will never happen because Microsoft and that publisher, whose name escapes me at the moment, don't cooperate.

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[–] DupaCycki@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 5 months ago

I mean, of course. If it was extremely powerful at a low price, then hell yeah. But personally I ain't paying double premium for that performance.

Fex is making decent progress every week, so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

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[–] Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 5 months ago (5 children)

I kinda want it. Admittedly, not before there is Linux support. And I'd like to see upgradeable internal storage, PTM 750 sheets and all that.

But the reason why is I very much think x86 is a bit long in the tooth and I'm down to replace my desktop with such a device. I've been mulling shoving it in my server rack with wake on LAN and using it to stream games with Moonlight since I doubt the x86 emulation is quite good enough yet for things like Elite Dangerous.

Idk, not having an idle power draw exceed 50W is pretty compelling

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Admittedly, not before there is Linux support.

It's still Nvidia hardware. Fuck Nvidia.

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[–] Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

They've gotten better in terms of linux support. Though yea as a company I don't love them, though no chip makers are really amazing companies they all have issues

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[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 3 points 5 months ago

You'd still be relying on Nvidia's userspace blob for graphics. As you perhaps know, Nvidia drivers are always only one unimplemented feature away from functional parity with Mesa drivers that Radeons and Intel GPUs use.

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[–] DupaCycki@lemmy.world [S] 1 point 5 months ago (1 child)

I'm sure there are people interested in this laptop, and it's good to see there indeed are. Although, they're making it sound like it revolutionizes mobile computing. Perhaps the issue here is with marketing, and not with the device itself?

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[–] Ithral@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 5 months ago

Oh, for sure, the only revolutionary thing here is I could run an LLM on an international flight. That's kinda cool, but not life changing.

The only other thing that's revolutionary is that it's arm, that's where things are going anyway, which can be a huge efficiency win. I've long been wanting devices that can ramp up to several hundred watts of useful power when needed but idle at closer to 10. That might still be a pipe dream, we'll see. But I'm for sure hyped about powerful arm chips starting to show up from not Apple

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[–] unitedwithme@lemmy.today 2 points 5 months ago

Yeah, but need and want are 2 different things. While most people might need something simple, a lot will want to have the latest greatest because they're told it's the only thing that'll work for them, because they won't know any better.

Prove it's going to be stood high though, expensive Nvidia chip plus expensive RAM and SSD = I'm guessing well over $3k USD.

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[–] Sinirlan@lemmy.world 8 points 5 months ago

This time it surely will work!

[–] SouthFresh@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

It will last exactly 6 months and die.

[–] Miller@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Microsoft don't build laptops or desktops or phones, they build operating systems, get back to that and build one that offers people a little privacy, ability to configure and freedom from subscription and information begging.

[–] DupaCycki@lemmy.world [S] 2 points 5 months ago (1 child)

Dekstops - no. Phones - not anymore. But Microsoft does in fact 'build' laptops and tablets, with this new Surface Ultra being one of them.

Admittedly, 'build' may not be the right word, since Microsoft's input is very limited. The same is true for a lot of OEMs though.

At the very least, Microsoft did help Qualcomm with designing SQ1 and SQ2 for the Surface Pro X gen 1 and gen 2.

Personally it's my favourite device ever made by Microsoft, and among my favourites in general. If only we could install Linux on it. Even the newer SQ2 is on the slower side, and just barely manages a mostly smooth experience on Windows 11.

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[–] Miller@lemmy.world 2 points 5 months ago

I was writing as to where their focus should be not where it actually is, I dread to think where their focus actually is.

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[–] FireWire400@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago (1 child)

20-core NVIDIA Grace CPU (Arm architecture, co-developed with MediaTek)

Yeah, good luck with that

[–] OilyArena@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 months ago

MediaTek processors have become pretty competitive in recent years. They're no longer the shitty, awfully slow mobile CPUs that you want to avoid at all costs.

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[–] LemmyEntertainYou@piefed.social 2 points 5 months ago

The average consumer stopped using laptops about 15 years ago once phones became all anyone really needed.