- On this episode of Ask Dan,
we're gonna talk about coil whine and the Surface Book 2,
whether it's a problem or not
and whether or not we can still expect
Windows 10 on ARM this year.
Stay tuned.
"How do you see Cortana
"expanding to other parts of the world
"where it isn't available at the moment?"
All right, so this is the question that we're asked often,
and I totally understand and feel for people here,
and I do agree, Microsoft
appears to be dropping the ball here
again with Cortana.
Now, let's not underestimate the problems here.
We're trying to expand Cortana in different languages,
AI, machine learning.
It's complex stuff, and they're very much taking their time
before they release Cortana on other markets.
Now, they've always given the excuse,
is because they don't want Cortana
just to be a voice assistant but, rather, AI
and to know the market it's in
so that people get a personalized experience.
So if you look up a movie
or want to know where the local supermarket is,
it's going to give you that information.
It also respects cultural differences
around those countries.
So, I agree, it's complicated stuff, but still,
why not release the stuff in other countries?
Even in a beta form or an earlier version without that stuff
just so people have some sort of voice assistant.
It's nice to have high standards,
but when it prevents it from launching in other markets,
especially this late in the game,
I think it's a little bit disconcerting.
I have heard they are doing a lot of
backend changes right now for Redstone 4 and 5.
We're going to be seeing deeper integration with Cortana
into things like Xbox and other services.
But unfortunately, I don't have anything concrete
to offer at this time.
We'll just have to wait,
and that's gonna be a loss for Microsoft.
Next question is a two-parter, it's sort of related.
Number one, "Are we still going to see Windows 10
"on ARM devices in 2017?"
And, "Will those devices be able to run power applications
"and do some heavy lifting?"
Windows 10 on ARM I think is one of the most exciting things
that's happening with Microsoft and its manufacturers.
And there's a lot of questions we have about this product,
and I don't want to set expectations too high.
Regarding, are we gonna see it in 2017?
Yes, I don't know if those will actually be on the shelves,
but do expect information coming in the next few weeks.
Qualcomm is supposed to have their conference out in Hawaii,
and rumors have it we're gonna hear something out there,
which would totally make sense,
since that is about the time that Microsoft said,
end of the year.
I think, however, we're going to see a soft rollout
for Windows 10 on ARM.
Obviously, they missed the holiday season.
So we're not going to see a big push now.
I think we'll see some devices trickle out
over the next few months,
and it'll slowly build momentum up,
they'll get feedback and see how it goes, but
don't expect this to be like a huge push.
Now, regarding the second part,
can these run power applications?
Microsoft has shown in a demonstration the ability to run
Photoshop and some games on these devices.
I think people have really high expectations.
I'm a little bit more cautious here.
These are Windows 10 on ARM,
so we're talking about a Snapdragon 835 at this time.
Now, what's cool about Snapdragon, what Qualcomm is doing,
is those processors are advancing quite rapidly.
So, the 840 or whatever comes next
I think will even be more powerful.
And we are moving towards these processors,
approaching the x86 level,
but we're still pretty far from that.
Nonetheless, I expect the performance to be okay.
I'm talking about maybe Core m3.
If we can do that, I'd actually be happy.
I don't think you're gonna be able to run
compiling apps on this, heavy-lifting video games.
I don't think that's gonna be quite possible,
or rather, if you can, it should be like
running maybe on an Atom processor,
where it'll run, it just won't be ideal.
Let's temper expectations right now.
I think this will have potential here,
but I think these first devices will perform okay.
I think the more interesting part
is gonna be the fact that they get very good battery life
and they're going to be instant-on.
They'll always be connected,
they'll always be pulling in data,
but you're not gonna have to recharge them very often,
and maybe it'll go a few days,
and that's where the initial benefit will be.
"I've noticed a faint hissing and static noise
"in my Surface Book 2 13-inch with a Core i7.
"Is this normal or not?"
Okay, so this person asking this question
has already exchanged their Surface Book 2 for another
due to this coil whine issue.
And that's what it is, this is coil whine.
And I actually wrote about it in my 13-inch review,
saying I heard it,
and the only reason I brought it up was because
I'm normally not sensitive to coil whine.
So people bring it up all the time
and I don't really notice it.
You do have to be sort of sensitive to high-pitched noises
for it to bother you.
Having said that, I did notice it
on the Surface Book 2 13-inch,
specifically when it's plugged in to AC
and was running on high-performance mode.
You can notice it in some other modes as well
or not plugged in, but it's very, very faint at that point.
So, the question is, is this normal?
Unfortunately, it kind of is.
Now, it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer.
Some companies use different components and it's not as bad.
Sometimes they use dampeners to affect it.
We're also dealing here with the Intel Core i7
eighth-generation processor, which is now quad core,
and I think there's a lot more going on there
in terms of power drain
that's going to affect this.
Now, what coil whine is, it has to do with
the coils on the board itself,
and there's a vibration and a resonance.
It gets very complicated.
You can look it up,
other people have done a better job explaining it,
but it's very common to electronic components.
Now, as far as returns,
Microsoft is pretty good with that with Surface,
and you can try to exchange it,
but I wouldn't get your hopes up
in getting a device that doesn't have this as an issue.
I think it just is with the hardware right now.
In fact, we are seeing an uptick in coil whine reports
for these newer devices
with the Intel Core i7 eighth-generation processor.
So I think it's kind of a byproduct.
Now, that doesn't mean that Microsoft
can't do something later on to maybe fix this.
They may try to patch it with a firmware update
that may adjust the regulation of the power coming in,
and it may dampen the noise a little bit.
They may also do a hardware change down the line
that fixes it, I don't really know.
What I can tell you, though,
is most manufacturers do not consider this to be a defect.
You could try to return yours.
I don't have high hopes, though, that it will be fixed.
So you just have to kind of live with it.
Everybody has different sensitivity levels.
Now, I'm not very sensitive to this stuff.
I run the 13-inch every day,
and unless you're in a super quiet room like a library
and you're plugged in and running a powerful application,
you may not notice it.
So just keep that in mind.
The best bet here is,
read reviews of what people are saying
and seeing what they say about it.
If you are sensitive to coil whine, though,
you may want to avoid this Surface Book 2.
So that does it for this episode.
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Thanks for watching, take care, everybody.
This is a two-parter.
- [Mark] Can you pull this down?
- Is it okay if I say it's a two-parter question?