Time to Jump Off the Vaio Train? New Windows Laptop!

So Microsoft is releasing a laptop that seems to be the best possible Z replacement. Is this the legendary laptop the scribes foretold but thought they would never see?

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Surface-Book/productID.325716000
(It also comes in 1 TB, but it sold out.)

The only issues I see are...
- It doesn't come in black (that silver is kind of ugly to me and it overall looks a little plastic-y).
- The mobile processor. It has the i7-6600U with 2 cores vs. the i7-4770HQ on the Canvas with 4 cores. The Z3 also had the QM with 4 cores, though it is clocked lower than the 6600U. This just means you can't run as many things simultaneously, right?
- The super HD resolution might be going overboard and make older applications look ugly or not scale correctly (though the new Canvas and Z also have higher-than-HD resolutions too).

But other than those issues, we get 1 TB, 16 GB ram, a DEDICATED graphics card (hello 2010 Z), the duality of a tablet and laptop, something you can use on your lap (unlike the Canvas), and most likely wider support and more updates, especially with Microsoft Stores around.

What do you think of this new Windows laptop? Will you replace your Z with it? Or get it over the Canvas and the new Z that may never be released here?

 

Does it say which dGPU? The specs on that page just say NVIDIA. I like the weight - or lack thereof.

As far as the display goes, perhaps Razer is the better choice. I still feel it should be possible to run that 3200 x 1800 beast at 1600 x 900 (what Z1 users are used to) without compromising quality - straight 4 native pixels for each pixel at the selected resolution. Might need to tweak the overscan settings a bit to avoid fractional scaling.

 

Yes, it's a dedicated GPU.

I tried out the Razer's super HD screen and it was the worst LCD I've ever used. I sent it back because the colors were just so downright awful. Hopefully the Windows machine has a better screen.

 

By which dGPU I meant which chip. E.G. the Razer Blade 14" has GTX970M. Does this have something better? And how does it tackle the problem of heat dissipation? Ok, the dGPU is in the keyboard, but the CPU itself is no slouch in the heat generation department. Then there's the RAM. Are there any fans on the screen side?

The ads say it can be used as a tablet and docked for accelerated graphics. Does that mean I can seamlessly design in AutoCAD in tablet mode and dock for dGPU assisted 3D rendering without closing and restarting the program? I thought programs only checked for dGPU resources on launch. And what if I decided to undock while it was rendering? Will there be a 'safe to undock' scheme like we have for USB drives?

 

I might be wrong but I thought the 4770HQ was a quad core, not an octo-core (Although it can process 8 threads due to Hyperthreading). The i7-6600U is also a dual core from what I can see - although, again, it can process 4 threads with hyperthreading.

It doesn't hurt to have extra cores if you're using software that makes good use of multiple cores. I have both dual core and quad core machines and in day to day use they both handle multitasking fine, although for things like video encoding it does make a worthwhile difference to use the quad core machine.

 

Sad to hear about the Blade's LCD. Did you try various colour profiles to see if things improved?
http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/maybe-im-a-bloody-idiot-maybe-its-microsoft.720352/

 

Yes, but you can't fix ugly.

 

Z canvas is a quad core processor

Surface book is a duo core processor

In terms of CPU performance, Z will beat it hands down

Now for the GPU section, it remains to be seen what's the model being used. I believe it's around nvidia 950 or so

The resolution of the screen is high, so I think performance might end up similar to Z canvas instead

Final issue is when you are using the tablet as standalone. You will only get 3 hrs life and no discrete GPU

As most of the batteries & GPU is built directly into the keyboard

 

Well...after thinking about it alot...I ordered a Canvas Z...

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