- Hey everybody, Danny Rubino here,
Executive Editor of Windows Central,
and we're back from the Microsoft event
here in New York City, and I'm going to share
some thoughts with you about Windows 10 S,
and that Surface Laptop of what I think,
and I'm gonna answer some of your questions.
Stay tuned.
(downtempo electronic music)
- All right, so the first question is
what's the deal with Windows 10 S?
So if you watched this announcement,
Microsoft gave a pretty good explanation about this,
but I wanted to talk about why this isn't Windows RT,
because I see a lot of people going
"This is just the same thing repeated again."
First of all, there's a lot of differences here.
One, there's a huge ecosystem now involved.
There's of course the Intune management stuff for schools,
there's also this new hardware that's out there,
but Windows 10 S is actually a really interesting place.
So if you don't know,
Windows 10 S can't run executable apps,
so what's known as the classic desktop applications.
But it does run all the applications
through the Windows store.
Why is that not like Windows RT?
Well, for one we have Project Centennial now,
so now Windows 32 apps that go through the store
can run on this device.
This is also a full x86 processor, and not an ARM one,
which is what the original Surface RT did.
So those are some massive changes there.
But there's also this other thing here,
which is if you don't want to stay with Windows 10 S,
you can just upgrade to Pro, it's only $49.
Now to put that in perspective,
a Pro license is actually I think about $200,
so that's quite a bit of savings.
Even better, initially, if you buy the Surface Laptop,
you're gonna be able to upgrade to Pro for free.
So there's actually no lock-in here.
Once you upgrade to Pro,
you can now install any app you want to,
and there's no performance degradation.
Now if you end up installing, say, five antivirus programs,
okay, you're going to probably see some differences there.
But for the most part,
these are the exact same operating systems.
Now I think this is really important.
It's a huge shift for Microsoft.
Because the more they get people
into the Microsoft ecosystem and just relying on the store,
as more stuff comes in through Project Centennial
to that store, well, pretty soon you don't need
to install executable files, and they're gonna get people
onto this sort of Microsoft ecosystem that's tablet-based.
That plays into mobile in a couple years,
so just keep that in mind.
So who is the Surface Laptop for?
Now Microsoft spent a lot of this event covering K-12,
and that's not actually what this device is.
This is meant for college kids.
It's going after the Macbook and Macbook Air markets.
If you've ever been to a college campus,
there are plenty of Apple products on there.
I think this is a smart move for them to do this.
They're offering a premium, really nice device
that's gonna last you four years for college students.
Of course, if you just wanna light laptop computer,
this is also a great solution as well, but don't forget,
this is a Core i5 or Core i7 processor.
I actually count myself amongst the people here
who want this device.
I've talked about it in the past, I'm not a huge tablet fan,
I don't use the pen all that often,
so this device actually seems like a really good play
for me and a lot of other people.
Okay, next question.
How long did it take Microsoft to make the Surface Laptop?
The answer: two years.
Now it's actually a little bit more than that, right?
There was some planning that was involved initially,
but once they committed to it,
decided "We're gonna make this happen,"
it was a two-year project.
Takes a lot of time to invent this technology
that's used here, and there's also a lot of iterations
that they go through.
And I've always mentioned this before,
the Surface team's mantra is
"We don't ship until it's ready."
So it's ready, and it took two years.
All right, next question.
Why would Microsoft even create a laptop?
If you look at Surface history,
it's all about creating new categories.
If you look at the original Surface Pro,
it's a two-in-one tablet that becomes a laptop,
Surface Book is more like a laptop that becomes a tablet,
and if you take a look at the Surface Studio,
it's now a desktop PC that's meant for artists
and those of the creative type.
So why would you make a laptop,
which is just an iteration on a classic design?
Well, at least the engineers really enjoyed the challenge,
so there is that aspect.
They relished the idea of trying to make this thing
even better, and I think they succeeded.
The bigger question, though, is why have this there?
It's not a new category, and last I checked, HP, Dell,
and Lenovo were all crushing it in the laptop range.
Well, when I talked to Microsoft, they said
"Surface is about a family's experiences."
So you're gonna have a laptop, you have a tablet,
you have a two-in-one, you have the Surface Studio.
And so they really wanted this laptop
to sort of finish off that experience.
It's a little bit of a weird explanation,
but I think it totally makes sense.
It also lends credence to the idea
that they're not done with creating Surfaces,
so we can see new devices coming out for new categories,
but maybe some day we'll even see a mobile phone.
Maybe.
All right, and the final question,
I know this is bugging a lot of you,
why is there no USB Type-C?
And I actually kinda agree, I think this should have Type-C,
but here's the explanation when I asked them.
USB Type-A is still used by the majority of people,
and Microsoft absolutely acknowledges
we are in a transitionary period between the two techs.
But you go to a college campus,
most people are going to be using USB Type-A.
You have thumb drives, you have mice,
you have cameras, you have phones,
all those are still on those legacy systems.
So the next question is,
"So why not just put on Type-C anyway?"
And that comes down to room.
There just wasn't any space.
If you go to the videos here,
watching Surface Laptop when they opened it up,
there's no room on the inside to put basically another port,
despite us wanting one.
Now Mark and I were discussing this, our videographer here,
about why not put on Type-C instead of the DisplayPort,
'cause the DisplayPort seems like
Windows technology you can abandon.
And I kinda agree here.
I'm not really 100% sure why they didn't do that.
My guess is because if you put Type-C port in
instead of DisplayPort, then you have to toggle
with Thunderbolt 3, and that's a whole other thing.
That's, you've gotta add more power requirements,
more space on the motherboard,
so there are some constraints there
going with Thunderbolt 3, but Microsoft did tell me
they will do Thunderbolt 3 at some point in the future,
but it considers it a transitionary period right now,
so it's USB Type-A.
So those are some quick answers to the questions
regarding Surface Laptop and Windows 10 S.
Now I know you have more questions, so leave those below,
and I'll try to answer those over the next few weeks.
We'll also be doing a review of the Surface Laptop
in the next few weeks as well, so stay tuned for that.
If you like this channel,
don't forget to give us a thumbs-up and subscribe.
Thanks for watching, take care everybody.
Processor, so it's very powerful, and I count that (bleep).
To get it right, but they're very happy with the way,
nope, negatives again, sorry.