A New Product “Surfaces”
On October 6th, Microsoft held a big event in New York City to announce their new and improved product line. It included, the Inter Alia, new Lumia phones, the Surface Pro 4, and what caught everyone’s eye, the new Surface Book. It is the first official laptop that Microsoft is selling, representing a big change in the technology markets. In other words, this is their first big step into the hardware market, expanding their portfolio from primarily selling software. Bill Gates’ old company has tried to make an entrance, however it did not work out well. For example, the Zune received good praise in the beginning, but the excitement quickly died out to leave place for the almighty dominating iPod. Nevertheless, Apple and other competitors might have a good reason to start panicking, because the Surface books were sold out online for preorder in just five days after their announcement.
The new Surface Book, weighing roughly 1.5 kg, boasts a 13.5 inch display, the latest generation of Intel core processors, eight gigabytes of ram and available upgrades for more ram or a more powerful processor. It starts at $1949, which is at par with Apple’s MacBook Pro at $1549. You can also add on a graphic processing unit (GPU). Here’s the cool part: the display is a detachable touch screen, which means it can also function as a tablet, and the graphic processing unit (GPU) is in the base along with the keyboard. This “transformer” will be able to accomplish much more thanks to its GPU. A discrete graphics card is a processor entirely dedicated to rendering the visuals of the computer, unlike integrated graphics, where the central processing unit (CPU) is in charge of handling the graphics in addition to acting as the brains of the computer. Therefore, by lessening the load of the central brain, and “outsourcing” the work to a devoted processor, the overall speed increases. Compared to the MacBook Pro, experts predict that it will be able to run two times faster.
The flexible laptop is certainly one of a kind right now in the market, appealing to a wide range of customers for its features and its competitive price. Its manoeuvrability as well as its power combine to make a versatile laptop fit for the most demanding of tasks to the creative mind of a cartoonist. This time, the window of opportunity seems to be wide open for Microsoft.
Sources:
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-ca/devices/surface-book
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/microsoft-surface-book-sells-out-in-5-days-2015-10-14
http://www.apple.com/ca/macbook-pro/features-retina/
Written By: Charlie Tang
Originally Published: December 2015
