The dealbreaker: soldered SSD

[SL2]

Seriously, this is something I'd expect from a $200 tablet. Although I'm sure it will become more common in the future.
People complain about W10S, and while it's not my cup of tea either, its still fixable. Having to swap motherboard beacuse of a too small or broken SSD is a bad idea.

I have to admit that I was never going to buy one anyway. My Elitebook, which is pretty much the opposite in this regard, will hopefully stay with me for a while.

I don't expect MS to bring the best successor to SP4, it could be HP or Dell.

 

[Drael646464]

Seriously, this is something I'd expect from a $200 tablet. Although I'm sure it will become more common in the future.
People complain about W10S, and while it's not my cup of tea either, its still fixable. Having to swap motherboard beacuse of a too small or broken SSD is a bad idea.

I have to admit that I was never going to buy one anyway. My Elitebook, which is pretty much the opposite in this regard, will hopefully stay with me for a while.

I don't expect MS to bring the best successor to SP4, it could be HP or Dell.

There's no plans for a surface pro 5 AFAIK. MS folk have said basically "unless we can do something truly new with it, there won't be one".

No 200 dollar tablet has an SSD btw, let alone a custom inbuilt one to save on battery life and reduce bus bottlenecks (well literally no one has ever done that). Cheaper tablets use eMMC, like phones do. Sometimes they are erroneously referred to as SSD but nothing could be more misleading given the speed differences between the two technologies (SSD is about three times as fast)

I could see why someone would want upgradeable or swappable parts. That's legit. But a person who wants that, like for example, me or you, isn't the target market. Folks who buy macbooks and googles high end chromebook are.

 

[Mr. MacPhisto]

If you want a thin, light laptop with the best battery life possible, compromises happen. It's easy to criticize, but Microsoft was forthright in this area. This is not something that will be discovered down the road - they said it before it ever even shipped. That means those that care about this are aware and can look at different options.

And there are a ton of GREAT options out there. MS isn't looking to knock out any of the OEMs here. They are setting out to push forward design and create a halo brand that can give everyone some direction. I think the Surface brand has done that. Look at the great designs we have seen since the Surface line was launched. I think Microsoft's entry caused the OEMs to take the design aspect much more seriously and EVERYONE has been rewarded. I don't believe we would have ever seen a design like the Spectre X-360 if not for the Surface pushing OEMs.

 

[Darren Coull]

These days, most manufacturers don't expect you to want to upgrade your device, just pass it down and get something new - even in business it is rare to upgrade anything - the labour + parts is simply not worth it on something that is depreciated over 3 years anyway. Sure my Chinese tablet would be great to have a faster & bigger drive, but every part of it is aging also, so would only then show up the lack of RAM, the slow CPU with not enough cores etc. etc. I think, as mentioned before, the benefit of lighter weight, slimmer profile and don't forget more reliability due to no connectors to come loose or tarnish is much better than the ability for that 1% of customers that find they should have bought the bigger model.

 

[RBuschy]

Upgrade-ability is definitely a selling feature for me, which is why I prefer to build my own PCs rather than Purchase one... I am shocked that they would go this route, just out of the repair ability factor alone.

 

[AndreAC_920]

I really dont mind as it doesnt affect the perfomance. For my kind of job it OK because I rarely trust my PC to save all my stuff

 

[shtajiryan]

Yeah basically if you have a workstation, having a pretty powerful portable device like the Surface Laptop is a go for me!

 

[tgp]

A couple years ago I bought an older Macbook because I wanted to repair and upgrade it myself. From about 2013 or so on you can't. So now here we are with a PC with the same "feature".

I do understand some reasons Microsoft could be doing this. For one thing, it guarantees that only optimized hardware will be used. Remember the strict requirements for the original Windows Phone 7? I don't recall all the specifics, but I believe single core CPU and no SD cards were part of it.

Another reason this could be done is to force replacing rather than upgrading. I'm not big on planned obsolescence like some people firmly believe, but I don't doubt that it could apply.

Something else to consider; in real life, how many people upgrade their machines? I'm guessing very few. This probably only matters to a relative handful of consumers.

 

[SL2]

There's no plans for a surface pro 5 AFAIK. MS folk have said basically "unless we can do something truly new with it, there won't be one".

That's not really the point here, I'm thinking about MS turn towards cheaper solutions.
Besides, I don't see anything truly new with the Surface Laptop HW.

No 200 dollar tablet has an SSD btw, let alone a custom inbuilt one to save on battery life and reduce bus bottlenecks (well literally no one has ever done that).

Now you're just nitpicking, it is a solid state drive, no moving parts. emmc is the technology, just like mlc, tlc or slc (if you're lucky).

I could see why someone would want upgradeable or swappable parts. That's legit. But a person who wants that, like for example, me or you, isn't the target market. Folks who buy macbooks and googles high end chromebook are.

Then why can you upgrade the SP4? A tablet? It makes no sense.

These days, most manufacturers don't expect you to want to upgrade your device, just pass it down and get something new - even in business it is rare to upgrade anything - the labour + parts is simply not worth it on something that is depreciated over 3 years anyway. Sure my Chinese tablet would be great to have a faster & bigger drive, but every part of it is aging also, so would only then show up the lack of RAM, the slow CPU with not enough cores etc. etc.

Not necessarily for that price. You can swap the SSD on an SP4.

The comparison with your low end tablet doesn't hold up. A decent Sandy Bridge laptop can still work great, many people are fine with four CPU threads and 16 GB RAM, but if you need a new SSD and you can't replace it you're in a bad situation. Imagine the same situation a few years from now with a Surface Laptop.
The same can be said about other products, of course. The Surface Studio comes to mind, with its gorgeous display stuck with that proprietary HW...

 

[SL2]

Something else to consider; in real life, how many people upgrade their machines? I'm guessing very few. This probably only matters to a relative handful of consumers.

Maybe not upgrading, but repairing. HDD swap isn't that uncommon.

 

[tgp]

Maybe not upgrading, but repairing. HDD swap isn't that uncommon.

Yes you are correct. I thought of that after I posted. But even so, SSDs do not fail very often. Failure was much more common in HDDs with moving parts.

A certified technician might be able to do a replacement, but the average consumer certainly will not be able to. And the cost of replacement might make someone consider buying a new one.

 

[Gunbust3r]

My Deal breaker is the Avastar WiFi/Bluetooth. Not going to endure the low performance, lack of features, and possible buggy behavior. Microsoft stop with the Avastar in every product already!

 

[SL2]

I'm not shocked that a new model has a soldered SSD, and I understand the reasons why.
My whole point is that it's a dealbreaker for some, including me.
I just want to highlight this, given that some of MS previous computer models had a socket for the SSD.

But even so, SSDs do not fail very often. Failure was much more common in HDDs with moving parts.

That's true, and maybe not everyone needs that much storage spca anyway. I just imagined those who goes for the cheapest variant and intend to upgrade later..

 

[SL2]

My Deal breaker is the Avastar WiFi/Bluetooth. Not going to endure the low performance, lack of features, and possible buggy behavior. Microsoft stop with the Avastar in every product already!

I'm not even familiar with that brand, but maybe it's another sign of the cheapishness of MS.

My rant is like:
Surface Pro 4, Surface Book, Lumia 650 = quality design

Surface Laptop, Lumia 950 = cheap design

This is more about the overall build quality rather than choice of components, and it may not follow a chronological pattern.

Remember, this is a rant..

 

[Jeffery Holderness]

I think the "target audience" doesn't even know or care what an SSD is. They want a functioning, thin, get me through the day laptop. Microsoft delivered.

 

[Indistinguishable]

There's no plans for a surface pro 5 AFAIK. MS folk have said basically "unless we can do something truly new with it, there won't be one".

As far as you know, right. But there are definitely plans for a Surface Pro 5. We just don't know about them. Panos Panay isn't dropping the Surface Pro line. That's for sure.

 

[anthonyng]

Hmm the last laptop I actually upgraded was my Lenovo x200t, that was from HDD to SDD. SSD tech has proven to be so solid that you're going to know if it's either going to work or not work pretty quick. Once working you're laughing.

I've been very happy over the recent years with quality of my hardware purchases. I hated the Lenovo Helix but I made good use of my hardware warranty on that one! lol... but since then, anything "high end" is doing well.... laptops have a tendency to simply wear out for me after a few years or technological needs change and I need a new one nevermind upgrade it... until the SP3.

SSD tech saved some of my other laptops, like my Toshiba M200 Portege. I put a msata card on an IDE sata adapter thingy and that is now repurposed as my pfsense router.

The first SSD I bought was for my Lenovo X200t and that one is still running as my parents computer. I swear it's better now with windows 10 that it ever was with vista/windows 7

I still have my RT, waiting for someone to figure out how to put windows 10s on it :wink::excited:

Not everything has to be "upgradeable" anymore.

 

[SL2]

I think the "target audience" doesn't even know or care what an SSD is. They want a functioning, thin, get me through the day laptop.

Similar things can be said about Surface Pro 4, yet it still has a removable SSD.

I'd actually say that the target audience wouldn't buy such an expensive laptop.

It's built like a chromebook.

The cost is like an XPS 13 (or similar HP, Lenovo, Asus..)

It doesn't add up.

Comparing with Apple doesn't help because they can always sell expensive models.

 

[Jeffery Holderness]

It's built like a chromebook.

The cost is like an XPS 13 (or similar HP, Lenovo, Asus..)

It doesn't add up.


I agree with this. I'm confused to who their customer is. (K-12 too expensive, College Windows 10 S wont work.)

 

[ians18]

Since when did the Laptop have a cheap design?