[komali2]

The biggest thing for me has been the consistency. They already had an amazing IDE (Visual Studio), then they buckled down and made an amazing paired-down version (VSCode). It works well, does all the things I'd want and then some.

Compare to Google releasing a chat client / message handler (google voice app), another one (hangouts), taking away functionality (removing shared sms/hangouts convos), then releasing two more chat apps (allo/duo). Or countless other occasions they've done this.

I was just thinking today after yesterday's HN thread on the new Macbook and "everything wrong with it." People were complaining that nobody can really match the build quality of Apple, which is a shame because it'd be great to have a windows / linux device with high build quality (that isn't hacky). Imagine if Microsoft put their weight behind manufacturing a dope laptop like Google has been trying to do with the Pixel phone?

[scott_karana]

> an amazing paired-down version

FYI, and no judgement: the word is "pare", meaning "to trim" or "to cut down".

Also seen in "paring knife" :-)

[komali2]

Hah, thank you. I also always confuse "here here" and "hear hear," amongst a million other things.

Would you believe I spent 4 years getting a Bachelor's in Writing? :P

[sxg]

What about the Surface Book?

[tjohns]

Regarding Linux... the Surface Book (and Pro) are rather unique devices, as far as hardware is concerned. You loose a lot of core functionality if you run anything except Windows on them. I've tried.

If you want a strictly Windows-only device, they're not bad. (Buggy drivers aside.) The N-trig stylus technology is absolutely amazing if you do graphic design. But if you want to dual boot into Linux, you'll be happier with a more traditional laptop.

To be honest, I tried both a Surface Pro 3 and a Surface Book as my primary laptop. In the end, I keep going back to my 2012 MacBook Air. At least for me, Apple still has an edge in overall experience.

[Diti]

If you do graphic design, you may not want N-trig styluses. The biggest drawback of their system is that it requires a certain, higher amount of pressure to register a stroke—higher than the Wacom or Apple Stylus counterparts.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/3ttia5/sp4_pen_not... and how people seemed considerably more happy with the Wacom technology in the Surface 1, than the N-trig with the latter iterations of Surface tablets.

[Matthias247]

Tried that this week in a shop after the week Apple announcement. I think although it's very cool as a laptop it didn't beat the old Macbooks for me: Downsides were the thick & heavy screen which made it a little bit unbalanced and also shaky while typing on it. Besides that a touchpad which felt worse than what Apple has (although better than what most other Windows laptops have) and a cheaper looking finish (surface/painting looked more plastic like than the aluminum surface of the macbook). As an upside it had a really great keyboard, which might not be the case for the 2016 Apple models.

[Devagamster]

the surface book is getting there but it still crashes occasionally when disconnecting the screen. not build quality per se but definitely not apple-like

[chrismorgan]

I’ve had a Surface Book for five months or so and used it heavily, detatching it quite commonly; I’ve had it BSOD from detaching the screen once, 22 days ago. But I’m in the Insider Preview so I’m using pre-release software, so my experience is not necessarily representative. (It could plausibly crash more or less commonly.)

But on the build quality thing: I got a Surface Book because, as David said concerning the sword of Goliath, there is none like it. It’s not just build quality (which is really solid), it’s also the touchscreen and pen input and detachability.

[JBiserkov]

Or the Surface Pro for that matter.

[nick_]

You can pretty easily run Windows natively on a MacBook Pro. I've been using a MacBook Pro as my full-time Windows machine for about seven good years.