Surface Pro 11 and Laptop 7 review: An Apple Silicon moment for Windows
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So one of the issues with Qualcomm SoCs has been lack of long support; at least in part, this is why Google has moved to their own chipsets, as a part of a bid to be able to match other vendors offering 5 to 7 years of OS (Android) upgrades and patches.
I haven't seen this issue discussed within the context of Windows-on-Arm.
If I buy one of these systems, how many years of life can I expect to get out of them? Am I looking at a new laptop in just 3 to 4 years if I want to continue running Windows in a secure fashion?
I haven't seen this issue discussed within the context of Windows-on-Arm.
If I buy one of these systems, how many years of life can I expect to get out of them? Am I looking at a new laptop in just 3 to 4 years if I want to continue running Windows in a secure fashion?
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Intel is probably kicking themselves for segmenting (patent protected) AVX instructions out of the lowend market for so long and so strongly encouraging developers to keep compiling the (patent expired) SSE code paths into programs.
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I have to admit what I was most interested in was the performance (and perf/watt) vs current AMD and Intel notebook chips, which is unfortunately lacking. However it was interesting to note the gap between Qualcomm and Apple Silicon, and how much this has closed.
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Microsoft needs to set driver signing requirements that mandate ARM drivers along with the x86 and x64 versions.
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Tell that to the people with GMA500 graphic cards stuck on Windows 7.
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I truly believe Linus Thorvalds care more about me than Satya Nadell.
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what about sleep/standby?
Can I leave this in my back pack sleeping and not open the lid to a dead battery?
Do I still have to hibernate?
Can I leave this in my back pack sleeping and not open the lid to a dead battery?
Do I still have to hibernate?
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I really want to like this platform. I think it is a huge step in the right direction,and I think the AI features , while not being terribly useful right now, will be an absolute game changer over time.
I actually was planning on buying the Lenovo 7x on launch day, but when I went to buy it, I tried it (and several other CoPilot+ PCs out, and honestly I was not impressed. On easily-available benchmarks like Speedometer 3.0, my four year old M1 Macbook Air blew them out of the water, some of the programs I downloaded (thanks BestBuy guy who wanted to see them too) ran poorly or not at all, I got the kind of segfaults and program bombs I haven't seen since NT4.
The hardware was beautiful. Very well done. the OLED screen was extremely good on the Lenovo, but they are priced in Macbook Air territory, and unless you need Windows applications? They are just not there in terms of user experience.
Apple did a fantastic job with Rosetta while the programs caught up with the then-new ARM architecture. Microsoft does not seem to have done as good a job.
I was quite prepared to drop $1200 on one of these. In fact, that is why I went to the store. But comparing that to a similarly-priced M3 Air? The Air is just substantially ahead.
Maybe in a few months, when more of the issues have been ironed out, I might buy one, but right now? I have seen absolutely nothing to justify giving up my old, base M1 Air.
I actually was planning on buying the Lenovo 7x on launch day, but when I went to buy it, I tried it (and several other CoPilot+ PCs out, and honestly I was not impressed. On easily-available benchmarks like Speedometer 3.0, my four year old M1 Macbook Air blew them out of the water, some of the programs I downloaded (thanks BestBuy guy who wanted to see them too) ran poorly or not at all, I got the kind of segfaults and program bombs I haven't seen since NT4.
The hardware was beautiful. Very well done. the OLED screen was extremely good on the Lenovo, but they are priced in Macbook Air territory, and unless you need Windows applications? They are just not there in terms of user experience.
Apple did a fantastic job with Rosetta while the programs caught up with the then-new ARM architecture. Microsoft does not seem to have done as good a job.
I was quite prepared to drop $1200 on one of these. In fact, that is why I went to the store. But comparing that to a similarly-priced M3 Air? The Air is just substantially ahead.
Maybe in a few months, when more of the issues have been ironed out, I might buy one, but right now? I have seen absolutely nothing to justify giving up my old, base M1 Air.
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Some nice perseverance on the part of Microsoft - sticking with their long ARM quest.
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I think ARM Windows is just a matter of when and not if at this point, although it is probably 10 years out.
Many of the big fortune 500 companies are running old proprietary desktop applications that have 32 bit dll's that take years to refactor until they can be compiled in 64 bit.
Hopefully the people purchasing the laptops at those companies don't rush out to buy ARM laptops for the general population.
I hope to have my code refactored by end of this year where it can natively run on ARM PC's, I don't trust the IT purchasing department to inform me of their decisions.
Many of the big fortune 500 companies are running old proprietary desktop applications that have 32 bit dll's that take years to refactor until they can be compiled in 64 bit.
Hopefully the people purchasing the laptops at those companies don't rush out to buy ARM laptops for the general population.
I hope to have my code refactored by end of this year where it can natively run on ARM PC's, I don't trust the IT purchasing department to inform me of their decisions.
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If you want to be secure, you still need driver updates. Drivers regularly have security flaws of their own. You may still be able to update Windows without Qualcomm's support, unlike Android, but that's not enough.
Other than that, these are relatively impressive looking SoCs. It's disappointing that single-thread performance is still so far behind Apple, though. I had really hoped Qualcomm would outdo Intel and AMD on that front.
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6 years, until June 18th, 2030.
Surface devices driver and firmware lifecycle - Surface
This article provides detailed lifecycle information to help plan and manage hardware and software deployments for Windows-based Surface devices.
learn.microsoft.com
BTW, that was a major concern for me as well, and one of the first thing I checked before buying a surface laptop 7 for my wife this morning.
I really have no idea of what will happen afterward. Would Windows still be able to update itself without the producer support (as for any x86 CPU) or not?
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I work on CAD/Design software that uses it's own proprietary JIT VM on Windows. We are not done any work on making an ARM version of that.
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There was a break in driver compatibility with Windows 8 which dropped support for Windows 2000 XDDM drivers. WDDM was introduced with Vista, but Vista and 7 supported both.
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Intel is probably kicking themselves for a lot these days.
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I really want to like the Surface Laptops (not just the new versions), but the extreme glossy screen kills it for me. Just give me something non-mirrored.
On to this specifically, definitely like the improvement of efficiency. Really do not need or want all the new AI integration - that's a negative, not even a neutral for me.
On to this specifically, definitely like the improvement of efficiency. Really do not need or want all the new AI integration - that's a negative, not even a neutral for me.
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6 years, until June 18th, 2030.
Surface devices driver and firmware lifecycle - Surface
This article provides detailed lifecycle information to help plan and manage hardware and software deployments for Windows-based Surface devices.learn.microsoft.com
BTW, that was a major concern for me as well, and one of the first thing I checked before buying a surface laptop 7 for my wife this morning.
I really have no idea of what will happen afterward. Would Windows still be able to update itself without the producer support (as for any x86 CPU) or not?
6 years is pretty bad. Google will support the relatively inexpensive Pixel 8a for a year longer than that.
AFAIK Intel supported things for longer as well. For example, Ivy Bridge launched April 29, 2012 and Intel's last graphics driver for that platform was released on October 23, 2020. That's a bit over 8 years.
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Sure, why not? You really think wanting to use an off the shelf solution for SCM is somehow equivalent to what Nadella is pushing for? Especially when he created Git BECAUSE THEY CHANGED THE LICENSE TO FUCK EVERYONE OVER?
How the hell are these things even remotely comparable? One does actively bad things. The other made a practical engineering decision like 15 years ago that you think is unideal. What kind of ideologically purity bullshit is that?
Again, I don't like Linus, I'm not some mouth breathing sycophant who defends his abusive, dickish behavior. But be fucking real.
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Considering that MS already pulled similar shenanigans with Windows 10 and then with W11, they will be more than happy to double down with now having Qualcomm as a possible scapegoat.
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Oof! No manufacturer/custom printer drivers and no colorimeters/spectrophotometers is a great way to have a product be largely irrelevant to photographers. Color management is about more than screen calibration and many wouldn't trust manufacturer profiles for that to be accurate on principle anyway. It might resign it to intake-only use. It might make video a non-starter for some too, but I bet that's a bit less color-critical since the audience has a profiled screen statistically never.
It would probably be worth Microsoft's time to pay out to get drivers developed cooperatively with manufacturers for critical bits of hardware for high-visibility creative industries, if only for the halo effect Apple benefits from.
It would probably be worth Microsoft's time to pay out to get drivers developed cooperatively with manufacturers for critical bits of hardware for high-visibility creative industries, if only for the halo effect Apple benefits from.
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This is a strong entry. It is clear comparing the single to multi core benchmarks that they are throwing more cores at the problem to keep up on benchmarks, but this is definitely "good enough".
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I'm glad PCs have (mostly) caught up with Apple Silicon. I just wish I could get a version of Windows without ads and superfluous notifications. Does upgrading to W11 Pro eliminate the ads. Even on my PC with a "clean" install, I get sponsored apps.
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Wasn't Windows CE technically the first version of Windows that Microsoft tried to shoehorn onto ARM?
And didn't it fail for more or less the same reasons as RT: just different enough and incompatible enough to be not worth the trouble?
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I'd say you'd very, very likely still have OS updates after that point until Microsoft determines the latest Windows just needs more than the SoC can provide. Window's driver model is a lot more flexible than Android's; I am still getting Windows 10 updates on a Sandy Bridge desktop that hasn't seen official Intel support in years and years. OS updates aren't beholden to component vendor or driver support almost at all these days (I think Vista was the last time a major Windows version required driver updates in a broad way).6 years, until June 18th, 2030.
Surface devices driver and firmware lifecycle - Surface
This article provides detailed lifecycle information to help plan and manage hardware and software deployments for Windows-based Surface devices.learn.microsoft.com
BTW, that was a major concern for me as well, and one of the first thing I checked before buying a surface laptop 7 for my wife this morning.
I really have no idea of what will happen afterward. Would Windows still be able to update itself without the producer support (as for any x86 CPU) or not?
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What point do you think you are making here?
If he was happy using a proprietary SCM, why did he design and implement Git?
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It sounds like sleep/idle battery life is a true game changing step up to Apple Silicon Mac/smartphone like, overnight sleep barely uses any power, and it delivers an AS like experience there. But at peak core power it still draws more power for lower performance than Apple's, and is more like midway between the x86 camp and Apple Silicon at full bore power perf/watt.
This is a really nice update for Windows then that delivers a lot of the power saving benefits for most people, as most people don't have a laptop doing a full load most of the time. However, if Lunar Lake delivers even close to that increase in battery life, I wonder if that could defend that camp and will people bother switching and dealing with compatibility uncertainty if the benefit ratio is much smaller or even in Intels favour.
This is a really nice update for Windows then that delivers a lot of the power saving benefits for most people, as most people don't have a laptop doing a full load most of the time. However, if Lunar Lake delivers even close to that increase in battery life, I wonder if that could defend that camp and will people bother switching and dealing with compatibility uncertainty if the benefit ratio is much smaller or even in Intels favour.
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That's about all you need to say about these devices. When you're relieved to find there is a native app for a program that is just text and photos (slack), that tells me that the entire experience is going to be sub par.
Unlike Apple, the pc industry isn't just going to flip all of the applications over in a couple years. So I fully expect you'll be living with the same subpar experience that's only going to get worse as the device ages for the majority of applications.
I do wish you would have had the previous generation surfaces to compare to. It's a bit odd to be talking about Mac vs Windows when most of the buyers looking at these are going to be windows users. It would be nice to know if these devices are regressions from the previous versions.
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The launch of the Snapdragon X Elite (and associated lower parts) has been pretty interesting. It's, in a lot of ways, a watershed moment for Microsoft (and Qualcomm, who has been failing to succeed in this space for quite some time). But I wonder if it will be a bit underwhelming in the grand scheme of the market at the end of 2024.
The performance is pretty good - when supported by a fan and on main power. The efficiency is pretty great, when compared to Meteor Lake (last year's product) and Zen 4 (last year's product). Qualcomm's biggest advantage is the 1-4 month lead they have over their x86 counterparts. They made some pretty big promises that feel partially fulfilled, but they're staring down the barrel of Lunar Lake, Zen 5, and Apple's M4, all of which are poised to either make pretty big gains (both Intel and AMD seem pretty happy with efficiency gains on those chips) or make modest gains that still will extend a class leading part (in the case of the M4).
I have a M1 macbook air right now that is a bit long in the tooth (pandemic sales on the base 8GB model). I'm hoping to upgrade it but I'd be hesitant to pull the trigger on anything before seeing everything everybody has to show this year.
The performance is pretty good - when supported by a fan and on main power. The efficiency is pretty great, when compared to Meteor Lake (last year's product) and Zen 4 (last year's product). Qualcomm's biggest advantage is the 1-4 month lead they have over their x86 counterparts. They made some pretty big promises that feel partially fulfilled, but they're staring down the barrel of Lunar Lake, Zen 5, and Apple's M4, all of which are poised to either make pretty big gains (both Intel and AMD seem pretty happy with efficiency gains on those chips) or make modest gains that still will extend a class leading part (in the case of the M4).
I have a M1 macbook air right now that is a bit long in the tooth (pandemic sales on the base 8GB model). I'm hoping to upgrade it but I'd be hesitant to pull the trigger on anything before seeing everything everybody has to show this year.
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Windows CE had its first release in 1996 and its most recent (and final) release 8 months ago.
Weird kind of failure.
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i don't follow the development of OSes and APIs.. i know that generally speaking Windows has supported a lot of backwards compatibility over the years.. and Linus' personal opinion is "DO NOT BREAK USER SPACE" .. so what's with the hate on either of them for long term support?
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