Microsoft Surface Pro 4

Because it doesn’t work reliably on the surface pro 4. Yes, I have tried surface-linux, and no it doesn’t work well enough. When shutting down, the machine actually doesn’t shut down and my battery was dead the next morning. The boot process sometimes hangs. The OS doesn’t properly differentiate between finger and stylus. It doesn’t seem to do palm recognition. Etc… I know this is a special case: hardware with specific Microsoft firmware. But I imagine that other people have other specific cases.

I tried installing Ubuntu on my surface pro 4. But the support for touch and stylus is bad. Also it didn’t properly shut down and emptied the battery that way. It’s still a great device, it just sucks I’m stuck with windows (10).

I like the hybrids/detachable form factor, as a mean to merge tablets and laptops in a single device, but the whole software/hardware stack was not yet ready then, especially for those attempting to use Linux. List of problems: 1. x86(-64) power saving (sleep) capabilities are poor; tablets are expected to consume very little battery (ie. last weeks in standby mode), while x86 eats batteries for lunch (in S-whatever); this doesn't even take into account Windows arbitrarily deciding to wake up the machine while in a bag/backpack 2. Surface Pro's and Surface Book's (the latter was state of the art in terms of tablet hardware by the time of SB1 and SB2) had OK hardware support from Linux, but it took a long while, and it wasn't very stable (eg. wifi) 3. Hardware touch support itself is not enough; software needs to be good, and there was (likely, is) no document reader with good UX and annotation capabilities on Linux The solution for my use case was to dual boot, but points 1 and 2 were still a serious issue overall. Nowadays: 1. there are ARM tablets, with performant power saving (sleep) mode 2. WSL sidesteps Linux hardware compatibility issues (assuming one tolerates running Windows as underlying O/S), and avoids dual boot 3. WSL also allows using better document readers/annotators I fear WSL, but as a matter of fact, it's changing the landscape for Linux users. In theory, Ipad Pro's would be the best of both worlds, but they have a toy O/S by design. /shrug

Surface Pro 4 had broken OpenGL driver. Every software that requires OpenGL (basically all CAD software) crashes on it. Microsoft has all the incentive to cripple OpenGL. A generic Intel graphic driver cannot even be installed on surface. You have to use the Microsoft supplied one. Never bought a single surface again.

The M1 is neat but it's not worth it for me. I hate everything about OS X. BSD command-line tools, a slow-as-most-glaciers Terminal.app, constant nagging about some menial task I need to perform for the computer. Nope, nope, nope. ("But if you just screw around with it for 20 years, then it will be just perfect." I already spent 20 years screwing around with Linux, so that cost is sunk. Sorry.) I really don't like doing "computery" stuff on more than one machine, and I already have a 32 core desktop workstation for normal work. That will never go away, which means the laptop can't be at all "computery". I want to touch an app with my finger and have the app start up. Every time, no matter what. (And to be fair, the iPad Pro absolutely delivers on that.) To me, a laptop will always be the second fiddle, something I use once a month or so. I find that if I don't screw around with my computer for a month, everything has stopped working -- but with a tablet, it just turns on and all is well. So you just throw the thing into your backpack for a trip, then when you get to the airport it turns on and 4G connects to the cell network, and everything is great. You have a computer, not computer problems. (Other laptops I've used in the past... Surface Pro 4. Left it turned on on my desk, went to get it ready for a trip... BAM brand new version of Windows and everything was broken. I didn't take it on the trip and just used my phone to browse the Internet at night. Chr

I recently trashed my 2011 MBP (oops) and spent a month without it. I decided to try using my corporate-provided Surface Pro 4 instead to see how I could get on with a similar-spec Windows 10 PC for personal use. By the end of the month I had gone slightly loopy (seriously - MacBook withdrawl is real), gave up and bought a 2015 rMBP. Personally I find macOS, and its deep integration with Apple's hardware, too intuitive and 'invisible' to the way I work to give up on it.

Every hardware vendor has problems. Suggesting that Apple is uniquely bad while others “stand behind their products” doesn’t hold up. The difference is that Apple, after enough pressure, actually fixes things. They create repair programs, offer recalls, and have the infrastructure to make things right. Most vendors don’t. Let’s look at the examples you listed. Butterfly keyboard Yes, a bad design. But Apple launched a repair program that covered every affected MacBook for multiple years. I was affected by this, and had my keyboard replaced twice. Compare that to Lenovo’s ThinkPad coil whine and sleep bugs, which they never publicly acknowledged and never fixed. Users were told it was “within spec.” Batterygate Apple throttled devices to preserve battery life and didn’t communicate it well. After the backlash, they launched a battery replacement program and settled a class-action lawsuit. HP had massive issues with failing batteries and Nvidia GPUs no meaningful recall, just silence. MBP GPU failures Apple ran logic board replacement programs for both sets of failures. They repaired machines years out of warranty. Microsoft, on the other hand, ignored Surface Pro 4 screen flickering for over two years, then limited their replacement program to a narrow window, leaving many customers stuck. Bendgate Apple initially downplayed it, but the iPhone 6 Plus was later included in a touchscreen repair program. Compare that to Asus ROG Zephyrus early models that ran hot, warped, and suf…