[quitspamming]

A former employer of mine, owned by a retired NFL player, purchased Surface devices for the sales staff in addition to their laptops. This was presumably because Microsoft and the NFL had a deal where everyone on the sidelines were using Surfaces and they thought it was a good idea. I say that because no one was asking for them, and when we received them I was inundated with tickets about poor performance: "my surface is slow", "my surface is glitchy". I dreaded working on these things. Everyone just went back to their laptops. Tens of thousands of dollars wasted.

It's a shame, Microsoft could really do something if they created an ARM device that had the battery life of Apple Silicon, yet was a real computer that wasn't locked down, ensured/promoted ARM compatibility with their ecosystem. Heck, I'd even be OK with Windows 11, I know how to remove all the garbage now and could run WSL (though I'd prefer to just boot Linux on it).

[ilamont]

> This was presumably because Microsoft and the NFL had a deal where everyone on the sidelines were using Surfaces and they thought it was a good idea.

Everyone except Bill Belichick, who famously hurled his Microsoft Surface to the ground when he was first forced to use it:

https://youtu.be/djB2xgALGfI?si=xX-hMibm9OLLAJZ4&t=10

[dpark]

> an ARM device that had the battery life of Apple Silicon, yet was a real computer that wasn't locked down, ensured/promoted ARM compatibility with their ecosystem

Isn’t that what this is? (Or is supposed to be?)

[hnuser123456]

I don't see any real explanation of the CPU in this thing. Is it going to be Grace like on GB200 and Spark?

[fragmede]

N1x, Nvidia's laptop ARM GPU cpu board.

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/317428/20260530/nvidia-ar...

[quitspamming]

> (Or is supposed to be?)

I would be happy to eat my words "later this year" (per their timeline) but past Surface interactions lead me to believe it will be more of the same as in the past. Bad performance, bad battery life, bad build quality, bad compatibility.

For the sake of competition and options, I really hope to be proven wrong... I just wouldn't bet on it.

[dpark]

> bad compatibility

I’m curious what this means. Bad compatibility with Windows software? Or bad compatibility with Linux?

[steveBK123]

In some ways.. since Microsoft is known for maintaining backwards compatibility whereas Apple is not, I think 3rd party devs are just not incentivized to care about Windows ARM compatibility.

Further, it doesn't seem like Microsoft made x86 emulation as seamless or performant as Apple did during the various MacOS CPU architecture changes.

Every use case I've looked at has been a minefield of app incompatibility and poor performance under x86 emulation.

For music production for example - https://www.sweetwater.com/sweetcare/articles/windows-on-arm...

[quitspamming]

I was referring mainly to Windows software, Adobe Illustrator and InDesign were major pain points on the Windows side. Sure though, add Linux compatibility to the list of things that were an issue too.

[vulcan01]

This is an ARM device, so presumably compatibility with third-party software.

[bigyabai]

Sounds like you aren't familiar with Nvidia's dedication to low-power ARM SOCs. Ever heard of the Nintendo Switch before? The Tegra inside that is a 15w TDP gaming SOC. And it supports CUDA (somehow).

[hackyhacky]

> Sounds like you aren't familiar with Nvidia's dedication to low-power ARM SOCs. Ever heard of the Nintendo Switch before? The Tegra inside that is a 15w TDP gaming SOC. And it supports CUDA (somehow).

I think that GP comment is not intending to throw shade at ARM SOCs (many of which are quite nice, including those from Apple an Qualcomm), but specifically the Microsoft products built on them.

[bigyabai]

I'm mostly surprised by the insinuation of bad performance or battery life. That's what will be ostensibly solved by putting an Nvidia SOC where a Ryzen or Intel one used to be.

[sroussey]

Haha, if only it were so easy. Hardware is… eh… hard.

[rsynnott]

Has this chip actually been used in any real product yet? Nvidia has, er, a bit of a historical problem with overpromising and underdelivering with their mobile chips (in particular see the Tegra 2 and Denver); I would be cautious until there are real benchmarks. It's hard to describe any previous Nvidia general-purpose mobile chip as anything other than a failure.

[pier25]

I owned a Surface Book v1 for a couple of days before returning it. It was a garbage device with tons of issues. I will say it had amazing keyboard though.

[mrweasel]

Microsoft doesn't have the focus to do hardware as complex as a laptop. They want to be able to provide hardware, but they won't make the required investments, they won't delegate the responsibility to a single manager, nor would they give that person the power to say "fuck off" when marketing, or who ever dreams this up goes "LOL, make it AI".

The margins on good hardware simply isn't there for Microsoft. It also don't look good if Windows works flawlessly and fast on Microsoft hardware, but craps out on the $300 - 400 shitty laptop their partners make.

[MisterTea]

I have a surface Go gen 1 and its quote snappy for such a machine though I rarely use it. I personally would not touch an MS Arm device.

[chocochunks]

That's what modern Surfaces are. The consumer models have been Qualcomm SnapDragon based since 2024, they are pretty fast, battery life is pretty good and you can do whatever you want. Although native Linux support isn't quite there but I mean MS isn't exactly making it their priority.

[xyst]

Skip proprietary Microshit. Go straight to a framework laptop. Load up your favorite distro and never have to worry about poor repairability or non-upgradeable/soldered components