Today Microsoft announced the next generation of Surface Pro. This new laptop has been redesigned inside out and greatly improves the battery life as well as performance, and even introduces LTE Advanced for working anywhere. Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Devices Panos Panay called the new Surface Pro a “powerhouse laptop and a mobile creative studio” all “in one thin, lightweight device.”
What’s New
The new Surface Pro steps up battery life from the Surface Pro 4 by 50 percent, giving it 13.5 hours of power (measured by video playback time). It’s now 2.5 times faster than the Surface Pro 3 as well. The thinner, lighter design measures in at 8.5 millimeters thin and 1.69 pounds. The new Surface Pen, now sold separately for $99, is twice as accurate as the previous version with 4,096 levels of pressure sensitivity and better accuracy and responsiveness. An updated hinge can now adjust to 165 degrees and put the Surface Pro into a Studio Mode for writing and drawing comfortability. Coming later this year, Microsoft will make the Surface Pro available with LTE Advanced “to provide even greater mobility to let people work, collaborate, and create from anywhere.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCTExFYvL1g
Inside, the new Surface Pro sports a Kaby Lake processor. The Core m3 model and now the Core i5 model are fanless for silent operation. The Core i7 model features improved hybrid cooling. The machine can be upgraded to a maximum of 16 GB of RAM.
There are six configurations to choose from as shown below.
- 128 GB, Intel Core m3, 4 GB RAM - $799.00
- 128 GB, Intel Core i5, 4 GB RAM - $999.00
- 256 GB, Intel Core i5, 8 GB RAM - $1,299.00
- 256 GB, Intel Core i7, 8 GB RAM - $1,599.00
- 512 GB, Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM - $2,199.00
- 1 TB, Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM - $2,699.00
You can preorder now through the Microsoft Store online and orders will begin shipping on June 15, 2017.
Check out this hands-on video from Austin Evans for a closer look:
It's crazy to see MS really have caught up if not surpassed Apple's computer line in just a short past few years...It now has a beautiful line up of devices.
I'm officially done with apple. Their specs to price has come completely absurd. I could see spending a couple hundred dollars for apple but not $2k. **Macbook Pro**
I'm not looking to wade into a mac vs pc debate but I just haven't found a reason to upgrade in any direction. I put an SSD in my 2011 iMac that pushes two 1440 external monitors and I churn through 645z files without a problem. LR could be faster, I guess, but I'm never aware of being held back. Nothing feels "slow."
Apparently, Apple plans on releasing more "pro" centered Macs over the next 18 months, which they should because they HAVE neglected that user base. But apart from touch, which isn't for everyone, I'm not really clear on what's been a must-have leap forward on any platform.
I did the same thing with my 2008 Macbook. It does take a far amount of time to upload my 7d2 files. I might have to try a card reader. My iMac is a boss and will last at least another 10yrs. My original point was that the price difference from a windows to mac was negotiable. Now with the new Macbook I'm spending at least $2k more than what I can get with better specs on a windows. If I ever decide to upgrade my laptop it wont be Apple. LR has nothing to do with your computer. A lot of people with decked out computers find the program horrendously slow, even me.
I'm probably skewed here because I just don't really want a laptop. I flirt with the idea of the Wacom MobileStudio, but I really don't know exactly when I'd use it right now, and it'd be the 3000 dollar model and at that point, I don't know what I'm even talking about anymore because Windows really does drive me insane.
Apple's kind of caught this odd contradiction: On one hand they want to discount the idea that professionals want touch, on the other, they pit iOS against the full Windows environment, and then this is all in the context of killing off the Macbook Air, which from what I've heard was a pretty good little computer for working light on the go. The choices are either iPad (crippled) or overly-expensive, big laptop. There's lots of room for good ideas in there!
I found specs that I wanted and tried building it on all the major name brands of Windows manufacturing. I still came back to HP as the clear winner and only spending $1300. I don't see any use of an iPad or any other tablet. I will do any kind of editing on the iMac when I get home. The laptop doesn't even need to spec'd out either just good enough to transfer files while mobile. For the average person I don't see a laptop even being a choice these days.
Would the lowest spec one be good enough to work with d810 files?
I think it depends on how good is "good enough" in your dictionary. The files from D810 will take a longer time to process on the lowest spec than on the higher ones, that's it. I personally think, the Cm3 processor wouldn't manage my expectations regarding the image processing speed.
Going from experience the main limitation is the RAM especially if you're creating multi-layer PSDs. In my experience a Core i5 with 8Gb is the minimum I'd even consider for a high res sensor. Personally I'd prefer an i7.
Probably not
It'd probably be fine. When I had a D800, my old 2012 MBP did the job just fine in LR.
Hmmm... very nice looking product. Hmmmm..... hmmmmmm... hmmmmmmmmmm.......
I really enjoy using my SP4. My biggest let down when I got it was that the pen is no where near as good as Wacom input. Happy to see they're improving it. If they can eventually get close to Wacom levels (complete removal of activation pressure) then oh boy, they'll be on it.
I think it's very interesting that Microsoft is heavily marketing to creative professionals, yet when you visit a Microsoft store, they don't have any Adobe software to demo on their computers. I'm mean....seriously? What's that about?
As a mac user pretty much my entire life, I've gotta say I'm extremely impressed with what Microsoft is doing for the creative community. Not only do the tools look a amazing, their ads are extremely enticing. I think the price points are pretty high for the specs though. Solid state drives are great, but seriously the price needs to come down on them. By the time you download the creative cloud software your hard drive is full. I guess it depends on your portability needs, but for the cost of higher end models, I'd still rather have a 27" 5K iMac with 32GB of ram and a Wacom tablet
The Microsoft Store here is right across from the Apple Store in the mall. It's always empty with employees staring out the door at Apple which is packed. I want to walk in and check stuff out, but I feel like they would be all over me like a pack of hungry wolves being one of the only people in there. Had no idea they don't have Adobe software to demo. That's too bad because like Will commenting above, I do wonder how much you have to upgrade to get to a point of being useable for photographers.
Ryan, the $1,299 configuration should work just fine for Photoshop or Lightroom.
Guess it depends on what you're looking to do. Personally, for me the $1,299 wouldn't really cut it. As a commercial photographer, my Photoshop my files get to be really large (large photoshop format .psb size). I also shoot video. My iMac has 32GB of ram. No way I could do 8GB. Plus a 256GB hard drive is easy to fill up, even if you're using external drives. That's just me though
Brian, you are right it depends. For light use it would work. If you are trying to bring your desktop into the field then there is this: http://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/productdetails/precision-17-7720-lap...
Wow, that's crazy expensive! LOL 64GB of ram in a laptop would be pretty rad though
We have some of these at work and they are expensive, but they are the only Xeon CPU equipped laptops I know of.
That's really odd, did you try multiple computers?
The one here in Vancouver, BC has Photoshop installed on most of their PC's. I sat down and used one for 20 minutes while I retouched some photos I downloaded.
Yes, they even have seats :)
I went to the Microsoft store in Indianapolis. I only went up and checked out the Surface Studio desktop computer. It's a beautiful machine, but sadly no creative cloud on it. So I couldn't demo Photoshop or any other Creative Clouds applications unfortunately. I don't believe they had it on any other computers either.
I dislike Apple as much as the next person, Low specs thin and shiny for a laptop running Linux at a super high premium cost, Not to mention subpar battery life, and no upgrades cause everything is on the board.... YUCK! No thanks!
Being a tech geek/junky I've also had plenty of time with all the windows surfaces products, I must say. It's exactly the same garbage Apple is feeding you the consumer but with a square logo rather than an Apple. These things are riddled with bugs from type covers not connecting right, wifi dropping. device screens freezing. I've used them all and they all suffer from the same issues. Surfacebook has GPU switching issues all the time when you disconnect the keyboard with dedicated GPU, this is not just me, who encountered the issues, look at Microsoft's own forums page, they had to stop letting people submit for the same issues over and over again.
Before you get all upset about my comments above just hear me out. Computers are simply a terminal to an online network. If you take away the internet from a computer, you have a very expensive paper weight that would become super boring quickly. You would not have applications on it like adobe, music, netflix, facebook etc...
The second thing to understand is specs of a unit to real world use. We can have spec wars all day long, which is currently Microsoft's game they are playing with you the consumer. "We have the new intel i7 7th gen blahhhh it's better than Apple specs at a lower cost blahhhhhh". This is a hand fed script.
"But I need a beefy machine for video editing, and gaming, and photo editing", Build a PC then! Real world use is not practical on these devices today, I've never seen any successful people make anything on a 13-15inch screen alone.(I'm not saying you can't create things on these machines, you can but at a cost of time) Professionals typically need a larger monitor and mouse+ keyboard Not to mention a lot heavier spec equipment that can actually do what it was intended to do.
You have all seen the Surfacebook/Apple MacBook can edit 4K video just like a normal desktop blahhhh. Yeah, it can, but it also takes 16 times as long. I've done it I've tested it on apple and surface, I used proxies that take hours and hours to render, sometimes even days to get subpar playback. When all this footage could simply be placed on a desktop built to handle those types of workflows. I didn't even mention the 30 min video I exported that took over a week. Lol its just not practical to create things on these devices for production. If you want to surf the web then buy a way cheaper option, If you want to create things and be efficient build a desktop.
Check it out... I have a 2012 Lenovo x230 that can outperform all the surface laptops and MacBooks and it cost be $100 used on amazon! Would i ever use it for a final production hell no, it faces all the same issues as every laptop ever made, it's a damn laptop.
Had to stop reading when you mentioned Linux. It' just not really an option for creatives I believe.
Actually MacOS is a BSD UNIX derivative. So much for that IT background.
if I would have written that 90% of the f-stoppers community would have possibly left the site.
You should see a therapist. Seriously. You have absolutely no bloody clue what you are talking about.
"I've used them all and they all suffer from the same issues."
"I've never seen any successful people make anything on a 13-15inch screen"
"Yeah, it can, but it also takes 16 times as long."
"I didn't even mention the 30 min video I exported that took over a week."
"I have a 2012 Lenovo x230 that can outperform all the surface laptops and MacBooks and it cost be $100 used on amazon!"
Sure. Right. Good for you.
Please keep the discussion civil, Anders.