It costs how much?!? Say that again, I must have misheard you.....

[Jcmg62]

Just had a gander at the ProX on the Microsoft UK website.

£900 for the basic model...

...ramping up to £1,150 for the mid-level machine...

...capping out at over £1,600 for the top-end version.

And let's not forget the keyboard, because a Surface without a Keyboard is pretty much useless. It comes in at an eye-watering £260 for the board & pen variant.

I get that Surface is a premium brand. I've owned an SP3, SP4, Surface Go and a Book 2. All good devices. Not perfect, but good.

I can't work out who the ProX is for?

This device should have come to market in the £750-1000 range, including the keyboard and pen.

It should be the device that MS pushes the hardest. Why? Because it's Windows-on-Arm. It's where Windows needs to be. It's the system architecture that everyone has on their mobile phones, and it's the system architecture that people want on their highly mobile laptops/tablets.

The pricing is insane.

Then again, this is the company that charges £100 for a replacement Surface charger. And boy, do those chargers need replacing frequently. I've had to buy 4 in the past 5 years, on top of the ones that came with my devices. Let's not complain about the cost/frequency of replacing Apple chargers again.

 

[PoliticalAnt]

Dealing with them seems like self-abuse to me.

 

[Razius]

Just had a gander at the ProX on the Microsoft UK website.

£900 for the basic model...

...ramping up to £1,150 for the mid-level machine...

...capping out at over £1,600 for the top-end version.

And let's not forget the keyboard, because a Surface without a Keyboard is pretty much useless. It comes in at an eye-watering £260 for the board & pen variant.

I get that Surface is a premium brand. I've owned an SP3, SP4, Surface Go and a Book 2. All good devices. Not perfect, but good.

I can't work out who the ProX is for?

This device should have come to market in the £750-1000 range, including the keyboard and pen.

It should be the device that MS pushes the hardest. Why? Because it's Windows-on-Arm. It's where Windows needs to be. It's the system architecture that everyone has on their mobile phones, and it's the system architecture that people want on their highly mobile laptops/tablets.

The pricing is insane.

Then again, this is the company that charges £100 for a replacement Surface charger. And boy, do those chargers need replacing frequently. I've had to buy 4 in the past 5 years, on top of the ones that came with my devices. Let's not complain about the cost/frequency of replacing Apple chargers again.

Not defending them, but I see the price as a cost to the R&D of the Pro X. Also I imagine they are trying to stay out of the Surface Go territory to not anger people who just bought Go's or coming out with a better product for similar pricing. I don't think the Go is dead so I believe they are keeping that market open.

 

[theefman]

Do people really want ARM on their laptops?To date the only advantage ARM has shown is still just the battery but everything else you use a Windows device for is a compromise. So who exactly is this sort of "mobile" device for, especially at those prices?

 

[anon(5327127)]

The other oems can sell everyone cheap tat (which they do). There's the high, middle and lower end of the range and MS is slapping this right at the top. if it sells, cool. If not, oh well. I'm not buying one.

"a Surface without a Keyboard is pretty much useless." - For you, perhaps, but not for many, many other people.

 

[Cruncher04]

Do people really want ARM on their laptops?To date the only advantage ARM has shown is still just the battery but everything else you use a Windows device for is a compromise. So who exactly is this sort of "mobile" device for, especially at those prices?

I am getting the best performance out of a passively cooled device possible. I am getting the best battery and longest idle times - very important for my tablet use-case. I am getting one of the best LTE implementations in the industry. There is simply no alternative in the x86 world at any price.

As for the Surface Pro X in particular, i am getting one of the slimmest devices with the largest screen for its form factor in addition to the advantages mentioned above.

If there are compromises just depends on your use-case. In my case there are no compromises at all - just advantages.

 

[Dusteater]

Let's look at just the price to upgrade storage. To go from 128GB to 512GB will set you back $600.

$600 for a simple storage upgrade. Not even Apple comes to close to that on the iPad Pro.

Microsoft really made a bad decision on pricing with all the new Surface devices. There is zero excuse for storage to cost that much.

 

[tgp]

Microsoft really made a bad decision on pricing with all the new Surface devices. There is zero excuse for storage to cost that much.

It's a good decision. There is a very good excuse for charging that much.

Any business will set prices at whatever the market will bear. If customers will pay this much, they'll charge this much. If it doesn't sell, they'll drop prices.

There are some customers who are willing to pay more than others. Airlines have become masters at setting different prices to get each customer to pay the max they will pay. There are very many different fare classes. Take an airliner full of 150 passengers. There are probably 150 prices paid for the tickets. (That might be an exaggeration, but fares do vary wildly). Airlines have very restrictive, low cost fares to cater to the customers who will only pay the lowest fees. They have other fares that are much higher, with less restrictions. This caters to the customers who are willing to pay more for it.

Apple has already become a master at doing this in hardware. Obviously, they cannot have different price tags on the exact same product. Let's imagine that both Jeff Bezos and I are going to walk into an Apple store and buy an iPad. I am broke, but Jeff Bezos is, well... Jeff Bezos. The Apple store has a 64GB iPad for $399 alongside an otherwise identical 512GB iPad for $699. I will buy the 64GB model because I cannot afford the extra $300. I know that it will be limiting, but I have no options. It's either 64GB or nothing. Jeff, however, couldn't care less about the price. That $300 is like a half second of work for him. He'll get the 512GB model because 64GB is very limiting.

This is how hardware vendors can cater to different customers while having the same price tags for all customers, somewhat like how airlines do it. Microsoft knows what they're doing.

 

[Dusteater]

It's a good decision. There is a very good excuse for charging that much.

Any business will set prices at whatever the market will bear. If customers will pay this much, they'll charge this much. If it doesn't sell, they'll drop prices.

There are some customers who are willing to pay more than others. Airlines have become masters at setting different prices to get each customer to pay the max they will pay. There are very many different fare classes. Take an airliner full of 150 passengers. There are probably 150 prices paid for the tickets. (That might be an exaggeration, but fares do vary wildly). Airlines have very restrictive, low cost fares to cater to the customers who will only pay the lowest fees. They have other fares that are much higher, with less restrictions. This caters to the customers who are willing to pay more for it.

Apple has already become a master at doing this in hardware. Obviously, they cannot have different price tags on the exact same product. Let's imagine that both Jeff Bezos and I are going to walk into an Apple store and buy an iPad. I am broke, but Jeff Bezos is, well... Jeff Bezos. The Apple store has a 64GB iPad for $399 alongside an otherwise identical 512GB iPad for $699. I will buy the 64GB model because I cannot afford the extra $300. I know that it will be limiting, but I have no options. It's either 64GB or nothing. Jeff, however, couldn't care less about the price. That $300 is like a half second of work for him. He'll get the 512GB model because 64GB is very limiting.

This is how hardware vendors can cater to different customers while having the same price tags for all customers, somewhat like how airlines do it. Microsoft knows what they're doing.

The thing is that both Apple and Microsoft have the same price per storage upgrade tier across all devices. Apple charges $150 per upgrade and Microsoft charges $300 per upgrade.

I guess it is yet to be seen what sales look like on these new Surface devices, and if their strategy works, but I think it will hurt sales.

 

[Tien-Lin Chang]

But....In real world test not the SD835/850/SQ1 devices had crazy battery life compared to the best x86 device like LG gram in similar price range.

Also, with cross-platform apps, big battery phone and good data plan that everyone have and fast response time from sleep thanks to SSD - I don't really see the huge need for LTE ability to most of the potential buyers.

Not to mention the performance drop and compatibility issue...


I really think ARM devices should target at 600-800 USD range and make it iPad killer, nowadays you go to expo like 50% of the stand showing their powerpoints demo on iPad.

 

[Cruncher04]

But....In real world test not the SD835/850/SQ1 devices had crazy battery life compared to the best x86 device like LG gram in similar price range.

Also, with cross-platform apps, big battery phone and good data plan that everyone have and fast response time from sleep thanks to SSD - I don't really see the huge need for LTE ability to most of the potential buyers.

Not to mention the performance drop and compatibility issue...


I really think ARM devices should target at 600-800 USD range and make it iPad killer, nowadays you go to expo like 50% of the stand showing their powerpoints demo on iPad.

Nothing wrong throwing some cheaper devices on the market with lower performance and build quality and without LTE but i do need a high performance, high build quality LTE device and I am willing to pay for that. So whoever these hypotherical 600-800 USD devices are for, they are not for me.
Have you seen these "Gaming on the Surface Pro 7" videos on YouTube? They all the time talking about using an extra external fan in order to make the device throttle less... I surely do not want a device which i need to externally cool in order to get performance...

 

[Tien-Lin Chang]

Nothing wrong throwing some cheaper devices on the market with lower performance and build quality and without LTE but i do need a high performance, high build quality LTE device and I am willing to pay for that. So whoever these hypotherical 600-800 USD devices are for, they are not for me.
Have you seen these "Gaming on the Surface Pro 7" videos on YouTube? They all the time talking about using an extra external fan in order to make the device throttle less... I surely do not want a device which i need to externally cool in order to get performance...

So where that SQ1 close to high-performance? In passmark test it score only 80% of the 7300U and even you can argue that is not ARM-opt program still it runs only close to 8250U with compatibility issue.

I'll take LG Gram 14 with touchscreen if I want light weight, long battery life and performance.

And still, unless you are working for big company that will give you extra LTE SIM for your laptop. I still don't see any reason normal people need pay for second data plan.


niche product for a tiny group of people won't help to sell the idea to the public and I'm afraid it's a negative loop.

 

[Cruncher04]

So where that SQ1 close to high-performance? In passmark test it score only 80% of the 7300U and even you can argue that is not ARM-opt program still it runs only close to 8250U with compatibility issue.

With native programs you are getting at least 2x speedup for compute itensive programs compared to emulation, all while you consume much less power. Thats a value proposition you just do not get with Intel CPUs.
So yes passmark is meaningless as long as you mostly work with native programs - because it is not reflecting the performance of the decive. How about running the 7zip benchmark, where i linked a native ARM64 version here in another thread?

But even under emulation it can outperform a Surface Pro 7 (with the latest 10th gen Intel core no less) in certain apps. Just look at Dota2 here:

DOTA2 on Surface Pro X

DOTA2 on Surface Pro 7

Note how the Pro7 is running at lower resolution while running slower and getting hot - while the Pro X is running the same game with higher settings faster - under emulation, mind you?

I'll take LG Gram 14 with touchscreen if I want light weight, long battery life and performance.

Nothing wrong with chosing a different device. That is the point about having choice.

niche product for a tiny group of people won't help to sell the idea to the public and I'm afraid it's a negative loop.

Why do you care?

 

[justjun555]

this lte obsession must go away to drive the Windows on arm forward.
if Samsung can make wifi only galaxy tab s6 with latest qualcomm chip then why can't Microsoft do same thing with Windows on arm platform & make devices little cheaper at least.

I suspect it's Qualcomm's demand to bundle their lte radios if Microsoft wants snapdragon processors & Qualcomm to support Windows on arm platform.

the other thing I want from Windows on arm platform is to reach performance parity at lower price points eg. surface go price segment.

apple's a12 bionic chip which according to geekbench benchmarks is as good as Microsoft sq1 is powering 399$ ipad mini and 499$ ipad air. surface go competes in the same segment but with weaker intel chip & average battery life. if only Microsoft manage to provide powerful Qualcomm chip in surface go's segment then Windows on arm will make much more impact.

 

[blazewon22]

Considering the cost of an iPad Pro, i'd say the pricing is in line with the market. Its basically the same price. I can pay $200 more for 16GB of RAM and run native Windows Apps.

The target is executives and business travelers who need full versions of office and productivity apps and not a lot else. Not the gamer, youtube creator, or professional photographer who all seem to be writing the reviews.

I use plugins for Excel and like the handwriting translation on OneNote. Can't get that on an iPad. Plus the multitasking capabilities and true desktop experience versus iPadOS make it much more attractive to me for the price.

Is it expensive? Yup! However, if you're in the market for light, sleek and to the point versus an iPad Pro, this is the one.

 

[sd4f]

Like I understand that this stuff has a place, some people will buy it and be absolutely happy with it, after listening to some other reviews, it appears that the WoA Pro X can't currently do 64-bit emulation, so there are a few areas which some users won't be catered to, for now.

Thing is, we've come to a point in tech where you can see that a lot of it has stagnated, there's a direction that the companies would like for things to move towards, but there's resistance from the market. Thing is, I see no reason for paying a premium, to be an early adopter of anything. There's literally no productivity gains to be had from this stuff, more to the point, you end up being a beta tester for the companies.

I just think for anything new that MS releases, that is a new device, not the next iteration (so something like surface pro's are safe) or where they do something drastic that affects compatibility, just bide your time and wait it out. They're trying a lot of things, and MS is a company, that in order to try to dominate with some of their failures, has tried lots of stuff, and it all failed.

Bottom line is, you won't miss out, they want to sell you stuff, and none of this is limited; if it stops being sold it's because the product was a dud.

 

[blazewon22]

Thing is, I see no reason for paying a premium, to be an early adopter of anything.

I can understand you not wanting to be an early adopter but someone has to take the plunge. People use iPads every day and no one cares whether they are Intel or ARM. As long as the product works for your needs. Most of the reviews here on the form seem to support that it can be an 80-90% daily driver.

It seems that there will be an x64 emulation mode soon. My daily laptop is an i5 w/8GB of RAM. I rarely exceed 30% of the CPU. Its usually my laziness in closing apps after large copy/paste jobs and tabs that drives the memory consumption.

 

[sd4f]

I can understand you not wanting to be an early adopter but someone has to take the plunge. People use iPads every day and no one cares whether they are Intel or ARM. As long as the product works for your needs. Most of the reviews here on the form seem to support that it can be an 80-90% daily driver.

I specifically mean being an early adopter in the sense that a lot of products are released unfinished, and especially, a lot of reviewers make very flippant remarks that software issues can be resolved with an update. Particularly with android phones, those updates usually rarely come, and more often than not, software updates to improve the device are relegated to the next model.

 

[ochhanz]

Bottom line is, you won't miss out, they want to sell you stuff, and none of this is limited; if it stops being sold it's because the product was a dud.

, the way I see it the Pro X is perhaps the best tablet for Office work (and maybe if you require stuff like Citrix etc) and certain art programs since the new pen is apparently really good on the Pro X [SUB](also Adobe said they will make arm versions suitable for WOA products, just note that Adobe also said this for the Ipad Pro and the waiting time can probably take awhile)[/SUB].
It is just expensive so not suited for most people i.m.o., kind of like how I view the Ipad Pro vs the cheaper/air Ipads.

 

[vzw8830]

[FONT=Verdana,Arial,Tahoma,Calibri,Geneva,sans-serif]https://www.bestbuy.com/site/microsoft-surface-pro-x-13-touch-screen-microsoft-sq1-8gb-memory-256gb-ssd-wifi-4g-lte-keyboard-slim-pen-bundle-matte-black/6375053.p?skuId=6375053

Get the 256G model w/ keyboard and pen for less than the retail price of the 256G model.
[/FONT]