the black Surface Laptop will make the Laptop the best selling Surface ever

Just saw the leaked pictures in Brad’s post: WOW! That’s easily the sharpest, coolest looking laptop I’ve ever seen. Arguably one of the best looking consumer electronic devices ever? It’s stunning. This is by far the best looking piece of hardware Microsoft has ever made. In black, it doesn’t look like a MacBook wannabe, and it looks so much more professional and premium than the silver Laptop. It doesn’t look like a toy, it looks serious. I’m pretty sure they’re going to struggle to keep up with demand

Conversation 10 comments

  • Daishi

    Premium Member
    17 September, 2018 - 2:21 am

    <p>If all they do is bump the chip and add a new colour I doubt they’ll move the needle on sales much at all. </p>

  • ecumenical

    17 September, 2018 - 11:46 am

    <p>Like Paul, I've thought Laptop would really take off and have been sort of surprised that it hasn't. It is a fantastically beautiful machine, very light, very well built, absolutely incredible battery, and not priced excessively especially if you get it during one of the frequent sales. With Apple's competing product (MacBook Air) stuck in 2013 with a terrible display and outdated features, I figured Laptop might attract some significant sales.</p><p><br></p><p>Black will help but I think whatever is holding it back is not going to be solved by the color. People scared off by the Alcantara? Shipping with Windows 10 S? Lack of marketing? $1000 still perceived as "too expensive" for Windows computers? The target demo is just glued to Apple regardless of actual product quality? Not sure.</p><p><br></p><p>I am surprised that they would (apparently) stick with mini-DP over USB-C when the rest of the line is standardizing on USB-C. Hopefully a marketing image mistake or something. I was in an MS store the other day and they only have USB-C adapters now if you want to connect to HDMI or VGA, so seems very odd that they would rev the machine with a mini-DP port.</p>

    • jwpear

      Premium Member
      17 September, 2018 - 12:27 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#324021">In reply to ecumenical:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think the big problem with sales is that the Surface Laptop is a premium laptop and priced so, yet it is absolutely not serviceable at all. You literally cannot repair it. That makes it a non-starter for students, despite Microsoft's delusions about that being the market for Surface Laptop.</p><p><br></p><p>Outside of that, you have the limited ports–one freaking USB port, no SD card reader, and no audio port. My wife has one and that's exactly what she dislikes about it.</p>

      • ecumenical

        19 September, 2018 - 11:53 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#324041">In reply to jwpear:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>If reparability mattered no one would buy MacBooks either, yet they do. This is very, very low on most consumers' priority list. Hardly anyone is popping open their laptop. </p><p><br></p><p>If you interviewed the hundreds of thousands of students sitting on college campuses with MacBooks of various flavors, I guarantee you that virtually none of them would cite "I can repair it" as the reason they bought the machine. </p>

    • curtisspendlove

      17 September, 2018 - 12:34 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#324021">In reply to ecumenical:</a></em></blockquote><p>I think the problem with Surface laptop is that it is one of Microsoft’s attempts to be more “Apple”. (Which I think is an excellent move for Microsoft.)</p><p><br></p><p>The problem is that they don’t anywhere near the scale of loyal customers (and they have been burning many of the loyal consumers they did have). </p><p><br></p><p>Call them status concious sheep, or whatever you wish. The fact is that Apple still has a ton of people that love those devices. They don’t care that it is 2013 technology. You and I care, my neice, just starting college doesn’t. </p><p><br></p><p>Also, I would actually consider the Surface Laptop to more directly compete against the MacBook 12” and not the Air. I think the (default) specs and target market are probably more aligned with that device. (I know they *think* they are competing with the Air. But the Surface Latop is even more impressive when going up against the MacBook. There is, essentially, a $400 gap between the entry level Surface Laptop and 12” MacBooks. The Surface has it beaten soundly, technically speaking. Yet the MacBook Air apparently continues to crush *both* machines in sales.)</p><p><br></p><p>It is hard for me to recommend *any* Macs right now, but for a college laptop the Air is still a great machine. </p><p><br></p><p>Even though, in general, people appreciate quality, most normal people don’t care enough about “retina” screens and all that jazz to have it impact their purchase decisions.</p><p><br></p><p>How many times have you heard someone say something like “oh yeah, we spent double what we needed to on our new HDR TV, because man…that color…look at it…LOOK AT IT!!!”</p><p><br></p><p>Yeah. I haven’t heard that either. I hear “yeah, we bought the cheaper one, oh and it was on sale!” (This is when I go weep in the corner.) Now, they actually made the right choice, but for none of the right reasons. But I digress. </p><p><br></p><p>Regardless, I think the real question to ask is “why would someone prefer to buy essentially a five year old tech kit instead of a surface laptop”.</p>

      • ecumenical

        20 September, 2018 - 12:02 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#324054">In reply to curtisspendlove:</a></em></blockquote><p><br></p><p>This could be right. I agree that it sort of sits in between the MacBook and MacBook Air. The fact that the Air keeps selling well really does feel like people are buying purely on fashion, though. </p><p><br></p><p>I'm just a little mystified because I've spent the last decade in academia surrounded by MacBooks, and yet there's been a clearly noticeable trend over the past few years toward more and more premium Windows PCs (including Surface Pros, but also HP Spectres and Dell XPS 13s especially) showing up on campuses. So it felt like that market at least was ready for a really high quality, straightforward Windows laptop. But I don't think I've ever seen one in the wild.</p>

    • Robert-Hostetler

      19 September, 2018 - 8:54 pm

      <blockquote><em><a href="#324021">In reply to ecumenical:</a></em></blockquote><p>My biggest concerns when the Surface laptop launched were long term durability related (1st generation design + Alcantara's ability to continue holding up on a laptop). I can't recall Paul ranting about either of these on Windows Weekly, nor any Apple bloggers or podcasters poke fun at those items over the long term, so I'm assuming nothing significant has come up.</p><p><br></p><p>I think curtisspendlove has an excellent point about it really being a MacBook competitor. I used to only think of it as being the MacBook Air today's Apple / Jony Ive is too arrogant to design. The base m3/i5 models make sense in that way since Microsoft went with a limited number of ports, but the pricier i5/i7 models seem more MacBook Air or MacBook Pro competitors if a potential buyer was primarily concerned about raw performance, not screen size and ports.</p><p><br></p><p>I was in the Apple ecosystem for most of the last 15 years, so I'm kicking myself for not thinking of it that way before. 🙂 </p><p><br></p><p>It would be nice to see Microsoft to make a replica of the MacBook Air, swap the mini display port for USB C, and have a nice quality Retina / PixelSense grade display that is touch enabled, but I'm assuming that would anger HP/Dell/Lenovo, etc… too much.</p><p><br></p><p>If I had an urgent need to purchase a new laptop for myself today, my off of the top of my head list ones to seriously consider would be:</p><ul><li>Surface Laptop </li><li>Surface Book</li><li>ThinkPad X Series (probably the Yoga, though the Carbon and X280 look excellent too)</li></ul>

  • Brazbit

    17 September, 2018 - 1:19 pm

    <p>The most pointless member of the Surface family will be the best seller because of the color? Well we do live in a world where Apple has built an empire out of wristbands and calling pink Rose Gold so you're probably right. </p><p>Up is down, left is right, and sales of identical products can be driven by color alone…. Imagine how fast the processor will be once we add some racing stripes and go fast stickers to the case. </p>

  • Tony Barrett

    20 September, 2018 - 12:03 pm

    <p>No, it's just another Surface device. Stylish on the outside, shite and unreliable on the inside. One day MS might get close to making their own hardware and software work properly together, but right now it's just poor and overpriced for what it is.</p>

  • BlackForestHam

    21 September, 2018 - 1:59 am

    <p>With Surface market share for the Laptop at 2.8%, nestled between the Surface Book 2 and Go, it has a <em>long</em> way to go to unseat the Surface Pro 4.</p>

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC