- On this week's episode of Ask Dan,
we talk about Thunderbolt 3
and Microsoft's aversion to it.
And should the company sell it's own Android phone?
Stay tuned.
(intro theme)
Why is Microsoft so cautious about implementing
Thunderbolt 3 ports in Surface devices?
With the release of Surface Book 2,
Microsoft has finally USB Type-C 3.1.
But that's not Thunderbolt 3.
Now, this is a complicated specification.
Thunderbolt 3 is kind of evolving.
Intel has just announced some changes recently.
For instance, if you do Thunderbolt 3 as a manufacturer,
you have to license the technology.
Plus, you have to build the chip and module
into the motherboard.
That takes up space so you have to consider engineering.
You're going to lose some battery.
There's a lot of kind of issues around it.
You don't get Thunderbolt 3 for free.
And I mean that in a literal sense.
Plus, there's this issue of PCIe lanes.
Some devices are dual PCIe lanes.
Some are quadruple.
You want quadruple because that's going to give you
the full bandwidth using that port for external GPUs.
Dell uses 2X lanes and that's kind of problematic.
You can use an eGPU but it'll max out and you may not
be able to connect external peripherals to it.
So, it's a little bit complicated.
And Microsoft decided Enterprise is being an issue
for USB Type-C and Thunderbolt 3, specifically.
That they weren't really caught up to it.
They weren't ready to buy all-new peripherals for it.
And there's some truth to that.
But I think Microsoft was caught a little bit off-guard
with that because Enterprise is moving closer
to Thunderbolt 3 faster than expected.
And Microsoft's still going to release
that Surface connect-to-Type-C adapter.
I don't expect that til first quarter, 2018, though.
They're actually re-engineering it a little bit
because they're concerned about power draw,
it getting too hot, and what it's going to be able
to do when you connect it up to AC and try
to charge a device with it.
They're also going to be working closely
with Enterprise for it and they seem to be positioning it
for those kind of companies.
Having said that, we're going to have to wait until
the next generation until Microsoft
fully embraces Thunderbolt 3.
But by then, the ecosystem should be more mature.
In order to get 4K on the Xbox One X,
do you need a 4K and HDR TV?
So, this is a kind of fun question.
There's a lot of issues around buying a 4K and HDR TV.
I talked more about this in Episode 29 of Ask Dan.
So, make sure you go check that out
where I go into more detail.
The short answer, though, is no.
You only need a 4K TV if you want 4K gaming.
HDR is nice to have but it's not necessary.
I will say, though, most 4K TVs,
or a lot of the ones that go from mid-range
to high-range already do have HDR built in.
It's not really considered to be a bigger deal
once you're hitting that 4K
and hitting premium panel levels.
But, yeah, you don't need HDR.
It's nice to have.
I wouldn't say it's game-changing but once you do go to it,
especially if you use an OLED display,
it's pretty awesome.
Could Microsoft go the route of Blackberry
and make Android devices?
This is a great question.
We're asked it a lot.
With the demise of Windows 10 Mobile or, at least,
phones as we know them from Microsoft,
should they just create their own Android phone
and sell it? I say no.
And I don't think this is actually
a realistic scenario for them.
First of all, they have a couple of options
if they wanted to do this.
They could go and make a white label phone;
sort of what Blackberry is doing with Alcatel.
But that'd be kind of a generic device.
It may be nice but it's not going
to be anything groundbreaking on it.
The other route is they could bring in the Surface team,
engineering this thing from scratch
and use all their prowess and powers
to make an awesome Android phone.
That's going to take at least 18 months
to make that happen.
These processes are very long and they just can't
do it overnight.
So, we have that problem and I'm not really sure
what the end goal here is.
Samsung, LG, Huawei, OnePlus, even Razer
are making awesome Android devices
and really pushing boundaries on these things.
What could Microsoft do here in their phone
that'd be so radically different in terms of hardware?
Then, there's the problem with Android itself
which totally undermines Window 10 and UWP.
Now, they do create apps for Android and iOS.
That's true.
That ties into their own services, though,
and also connects back up to Windows 10,
and that helps.
I think they'd rather not have to do that
than have to do it.
Still, I don't see them selling their own Android phone
anytime soon and there's just too many obstacles
and not enough return.
And that market is super-crowded already.
I just don't see how they could really stand out.
Don't forget, whatever you can do with a Samsung phone
to make it a Microsoft Samsung phone,
you could do on your own for free as it is today
on any Android device.
So, I'm not really sure what they would bring
to the table that would be so radically different here.
So, that does it for this week's episode.
Remember, if you have a question,
use #AskDanWindows on Twitter
or go to our Ask Dan forums at Windows Central.
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Thanks for watching.
Take care, everybody.
...with the Xbox One S, I asked (censor beep)...
What was it? 4k?
It was the phone...
The first question.
What was the first question?