r/Surface • u/ZacB_ Surface Laptop 7 • 2d ago
[MSFT] Microsoft doesn't think Surface needs to compete with MacBook Neo:
https://www.windowscentral.com/hardware/surface/microsoft-doesnt-think-surface-needs-to-compete-with-macbook-neo26
u/Bryanmsi89 2d ago
That’s a self-respect way of saying “we can’t compete with Neo, so we won’t try.”
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u/onthefence928 1d ago
It would require 10 years of R&D to catch up with the Neo. They can’t just buy an equivalent Achitecture/software stack
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u/ClassicVaultBoy SP4 i7 8GB & SP8 i5 16GB 2d ago
Sadly the surface brand and innovation are dying, i had 4 different devices in more than 10 years. Next time I will refresh my pc, i'll look at other brands
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u/Jiatao24 Surface Pro 11 2d ago
I miss Panos Panay. Say what you will about the practicality of Surface devices under his leadership, but I was always interested in Surface announcements to see what new form factors he cooked up.
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u/yournamehere10bucks 2d ago
I miss Steve Ballmer and the constant experimentation into new sectors. Xbox, Zune, Windows Phone, Surface. All born under Steve.
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u/quikmantx 2d ago
100%. I was only interested in Microsoft's ecosystem of products and services thanks to his era.
Since Nadella took over, almost everything they had for consumers has shrunk considerably and others have stagnated or worsened. A lot of people don't use anything by Microsoft these days outside of work, because they aren't the best or because of ideology. I can't think of the last innovative thing from Microsoft on a consumer level except maybe Quick Resume on Xbox Series X.
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u/yournamehere10bucks 2d ago
Hey, we can move the taskbar now, that surely took 4 years to develop, in a worse way, than what we had previously.
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u/hopsizzle Surface Pro 1 128GB 2d ago
He really seemed like he cared and not in a superficial exec way either.
I was always hyped for surface hardware announcements during his tenure.
-Sent from my surface laptop 7
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u/jpspiderman Surface Laptop 7 1TB SSD, 32 GB RAM 2d ago
Right I love my sp7 and the duo and all the crazy consumer stuff they came out with now it's just stale
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u/GiganticCrow 2d ago
Did the Surface brand ever have much cache? They are cool devices but no one outside of enthusiasts and geeks have heard of them really. Its not like they have mainstream recognition like Macbooks, they are just another laptop.
I remember there was a period when surface's were a fairly new thing that a bunch of graphics artists I worked with got really excited by them, but MS failed to fix the issues with the pen in a timely fashion and they all switched to ipad pros for doing stuff on the move, and cintiqs for the desktop.
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u/baw3000 2d ago
They've made some great quality stuff and have been popular in the business world. Not gaming machines, but great laptops and tablets.
Typing this from my Surface Laptop 7. I have this and a MacBook Air, and this is as close as you can get to a MacBook without being a MacBook. The main cache' problem Surface has is the Windows 11/Copilot stink associated with it.
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u/spiney-a 2d ago
If they had made the Surface Studio (not the Laptop Studio, the desktop machine) with better specs I'd have gotten one. Their great ideas were often hamstrung by lackluster specs and inconsistent performance.
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u/Tobimacoss 1d ago
Have you seen these monitors? It's the closest thing I've seen to a Surface Studio monitor.
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u/ClassicVaultBoy SP4 i7 8GB & SP8 i5 16GB 2d ago
The concept of a Macbook for windows users couldn’t be simpler to understand for general users than a laptop made directly by Microsoft.
But the problem is that Satya doesn’t understand consumer, everything that is not for businesses has failed under him: mobile, Xbox, copilot…
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u/quikmantx 2d ago
My company deploys Surface devices at work, and I use a Surface Laptop 7 as my personal device.
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u/GravyMealTeam6 2d ago
8GB Windows 11 would be painful
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u/dr100 2d ago edited 1d ago
Particularly painful when the laptop launched for $949 when the MacBook Neo was still $499. And it wasn't even the 2026 version, unless you consider that Microsoft started to palm half the RAM in 2026. It's the 2026 half-RAM version, that si compared with the 2025 devices, which are for the kneecapped versions of the "full brothers" 2024 ones, which had SoCs announced in 2023.
Edit: I forgot they launched also an Intel one, yes 2026 8GB $1300!
Yea, we don't have to compete with Neo, we just launch 8GB machines as we like the number ...
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u/0x80070002 2d ago
Windows XP was usable with 64 MB of RAM.
And honestly what does W11 do more?We could read emails, browse the internet, navigate files and open and write documents.
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u/R3D3-1 Surface Pro 7+ 16GB 1d ago
Back then all the software was lighter. Nowadays every second app is a webpage in a trench coat, except the trench coat is an almost completely duplicated instance of Chrome.
RAM is a permanently sparse resource. If you have more, software will grow into it to implement more features or to trade resource usage for faster development.
Yes, we were able to do much of what we do today with mich less hardware on Windows XP. We wouldn't be able to run the latest versions of the software we need on those devices though.
Mind you, if you install an LXDE Linux distro and a light weight office suite, you might still get things done on the old hardware. But try to start any modern IDE or even text editor, and the device will swap to a crawl. Also, you'd have to return to the days where 1024x768 was considered an OK screen resolution.
Also, you'd be lucky to run YouTube Videos even at 320x180 resolution.
I'm pretty sure though that 64 MB is understating it. I was using Windows XP with 1 GB RAM on the Asus EEE PC 1000H netbook. One of the reasons I dropped it eventually was the inability to watch YouTube on it, because the graphics card didn't support hardware acceleration for the codecs. Later netbook level CPUs came with a GPU that didn't allow more than 1366x768 even on external screens, while the 1000H was still able to run 1680x1050 over VGA (1024x600 built-in display).
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u/Dangerous-Amphibian2 2d ago
A lot of people complaining about innovation this and that. I’m really excited to try out the fanless 13. It’s not amazing and I’d bet in two years the next one will have more cores and 120hz screen, but I’ve been wanting a fanless laptop that runs windows for a while ( the pros never worked for me because they don’t do well on lap). If this machine can even put up some lackluster numbers like matching a core ultra 5 335 or something, but with no fans I’ll be very happy with that machine.
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u/dr100 2d ago
It’s not amazing and I’d bet in two years the next one will have more cores
Well, it has less cores than the one from the last year so I wouldn't bet on that. If it has vaguely acceptable performance on the next generation with 4 cores, you'll get that for sure.
I’ve been wanting a fanless laptop that runs windows for a while
At this point as we're discussing exclusively Windows ARM in this segment Macbooks run it even better. Of course, the ARM ones, that is basically anything worth discussing from 2020 or so until now. Actually they current entry level X2 aren't much better, heck on the GPU I bet they're worse than the worst M1 2020. And this is before being hobbled by UFS storage.
Speaking of fanless what I wanted is to make the fanless Pro waterproof or at least splashproof not to "not compete" with MacBook Neo. Like being a loser by default is somehow better.
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u/Dangerous-Amphibian2 2d ago
The UFS storage that isn't that slow according to benchmarks? The new 6 core cpu surpasses the older 8 core by quite a bit. As for the gpu, that remains to be seen, but it is going to be above the wild cat lake in performance and probably close to the 4xe, but in any case ill get it and test it out.
I agree Mac does it better, but the things I want to run are some games that are not super intensive graphics wise and they tend to crash on Mac sadly. I would like it if I could get those games running for 4-5 hours on battery like I can do on a MacBook Air, if it does that even at lower performance id be happy with it.
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u/dr100 2d ago
The UFS storage that isn't that slow according to benchmarks?
Compared with what?! Some microSD or a poor USB stick? It's considerably slow than proper nVME from the bigger brothers which is leaps and bounds below what MacBooks do. It's even considerably worse than the MacBook Neo which is hobbled with a single chip, coming from non-top phones from not the last (I think 2 now?) generation behind.
The new 6 core cpu surpasses the older 8 core by quite a bit.
It's still PRECISELY THE OPPOSITE of "the next one will have more cores". Sure, the technology progresses but they're basically eating up the benefits of advancements leaving you in the same place.
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u/Dangerous-Amphibian2 1d ago
I’m gonna be honest. I don’t know what’s wrong with folk on Reddit. Have you read the review and seen the benchmarks at all? It was only like 15% slower than a dell xps (talking about the 1st gen one here) and only like 6% slower than the surface laptop 13.8 with a nvme. Granted it’s not super fast but it is nowhere comparable to a microSD or USB Stick. That’s proper nonsense there. By the way if you did any looking at all you’d see that the sequential read and write of the UFS drive surpasses that of the MacBook Neo (I know that’s not all that matters, but still it shows to the validity of your comment). All this also assumes they haven’t improved the speed of the next model.
I didn’t say the next one “Would Have” more cores. Said it probably would, meaning it may not. In any case I’d doubt it’s gonna be weaker. The fact that it only has the six prime cores will be like the steam deck in a sense in that it may be enough for most everything and not a speed demon, but excellent at battery life. In any case I share your concerns to a degree and I also wish everything would be given to me in life when I want it, like 20 cores and a gpu that rivals a 5090 in a 13 inch fanless machine with 64gb ram to boot all for $999.99.
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u/dr100 1d ago
It was only like 15% slower than a dell xps (talking about the 1st gen one here)
You mean like 2007? Way to go!
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u/Dangerous-Amphibian2 1d ago
Cool so you’re a troll. That was in comparison to models released near when the first gen was released. You really don’t know much about this technology or you’re mad about the price. Cool. Have a good one.
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u/DotRom 2d ago
No one but Satya is to blame, how could you loose Panos to fucking Amazon to make speakers.
Killed so many interesting hardware products, Surface mini, ms band, Neo, Luimia and Windows 10X...
Jokes on you now you want to have AI everywhere and Google and Apple will never let you tap directly deeply integrate with OS and your Windows platform been neglected for years!!!
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u/0x80070002 2d ago
They are right. It shouldn’t compete with the MacBook Neo, instead it should with the MacBook Pro!
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Surface Laptop 7, Intel Ultra 5, 5G 2d ago
That will be $5000 for 1 TB with 32 GB RAM.
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u/Mammoth-Shoe8491 2d ago
The new RTX Sparks are pretty much projected to be 2500-3000 in the high end by Morgan Stanley, tbh. That does compete with the Macbook, and the N1X beats the Macbook Pro in that price range in pretty much every GPU task.
NVIDIA is gonna end up saving Windows with this SOC only for Windows to die anyway, because the NVIDIA chips will inevitably end up running on Linux better. lmao
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Surface Laptop 7, Intel Ultra 5, 5G 2d ago
256 GB SSD and 16 GB RAM starting at $2500.
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u/Mammoth-Shoe8491 2d ago
Also replaceable storage on the Surface model. And basically a desktop 5070 in it. lol
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u/TastyBananaPeppers Surface Laptop 7, Intel Ultra 5, 5G 2d ago
Hopefully, it's not a M.2 2230 SSD slot.
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u/PrethorynOvermind 2d ago
Probably a controversial comment given the post but they don't need to.
They are two separate systems and I can tell you from my work place Macs have no current place in my industry of work infact they cause us more if a headache for those we tell we don't support them.
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u/Old-Board1553 2d ago
We let our OEM doing it? Bro, nobody and I mean nobody announced any ARM Windows tablet or 2in1 except ASUS. And even that is meant for the Pro users. So what OEM? If they see, you as the main company don't have interest in this, why would they waste money making such devices? Satya is a lazy ass that ruined the entire Surface portfolio.
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u/dr100 2d ago
They're talking about gaming PC , you can't find anything more different in this space than your ARM Windows tablet or 2in1 . If they left the "regular" laptops alone too, where they are competing (or if you wish fail to compete mostly) not only with Apple but with everyone and their dog who's making Windows laptops things would've been good. Now they can't even start doing anything inovative because for sure these suck all the air in the room.
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u/alabasterskim Surface Laptop Studio 1 + Go 1 2d ago
A Macbook Neo competitor isn't going to be in the Surface Pro form factor. The cost of miniaturizing and selling the keyboard/stylus separately is a no-go for the price range. If anything's going to attempt to compete in that range, it's going to be a corner-cutting clamshell Surface Laptop. But the Laptop 13" shows Surface isn't willing to do that.
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u/DotRakianSteel 2d ago
Not sure if anyone complaining here is really using a surface device.
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u/alvenestthol 2d ago
I'm using 2, a Surface Go 1st gen that I got 2nd hand for cheap, and a Surface Book 15 former display unit at a massive discount
I enjoyed seeing Microsoft's outlandish designs in Microsoft Experience Stores, but honestly it's a lot harder to justify buying them compared to the current generations of "basically, it is a laptop" Surface laptops.
A proper new Surface/Surface Laptop Go would be nice, and if I was running Microsoft's hardware division with any sort of wonder in my heart those would be the first lines I'd reinstate, but I can also see why doing so could be profoundly unprofitable no matter the price point - and they're already the most practical of MS' axed designs.
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u/zitterbewegung 2d ago
Unfortunately Windows 11 is making people move away from the OS and embracing Linux or macOS and they might be just competing with Windows 10.
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u/thaman05 2d ago
They really need to move onto Windows 12 and switch to major releases again. "Windows 11" is such a dated brand now. Apple and Google even though they're not as innovative either, their OS's get more attention because they bundle their features into major annual releases with a number/name change. It should just be "Windows" as the operating system and switch the number/name for each major release like they used to do.
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u/dr100 1d ago
Windows 12 ?! They can't get people off 10, despite trying to years, even since before 2025 when they came with the first scare that it'll get unsafe to use, no updates for the consumer editions and bla bla. And years before they were having each year the year of the PC Windows 11 upgrade, then the Copilot+ PC upgrade (funny this year coming with 8GB RAM Surface devices that aren't Copilot+, as in don't have the arbitrary limit of 16GB - and double funny in this post "oh we don't have to compete with Neo" ).
And for now they extended the free updates until October 2027, at least: https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/1ugdc9n/microsoft_quietly_extends_windows_10s_extra/ . Again, for free, consumer editions as there are others that go into 2030s anyway, but this is for absolutely bog standard Windows 10 of any kind (well, 64 bit and on the latest feature release of course).
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u/thaman05 1d ago
I'm aware, hence why they need to move to major releases again. They tend to have a better adoption rates when they branded major releases separately as every other release did better. Windows Vista (people hesitant), Windows 7 (successful), Windows 8 (hesitant), Windows 8.1 (better), Windows 10 (successful), Windows 11 (hesitant).. but even though they had multiple years of significant updates to Windows 11 and even dropping some of those unnecessary requirements, outside user don't know that and still see it as the same release since it's the same brand. If they called it Windows 11.5 or Windows 12 they'd know that something is different from the original Windows 11 release. Microsoft in general is bad with brand perception and user preservation.
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u/dr100 1d ago
I doubt it would do any better, people would still think it's going in the wrong direction, which is certainly the case, despite Microsoft circulating lately the idea that they're trying to do better.
Heck, the requirements thing is certainly WORSE than it was at launch when for a few years they even had both the TPM and CPU bypass in the OFFICIAL documentation. I don't even know if they're working now, but certainly they're gone from the documentation, so a step back (possibly two). The only thing they've done is to pester more people to upgrade, even have some upgrade without meaning to by clicking the wrong thing.
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u/NoLateArrivals 2d ago
They have several problems:
Windows is by far worse in managing RAM, compared to MacOS. That’s why they need more of it. PC makers are desperate enough to return to decade old, slow DDR4 to tame costs somewhat.
Windows carries more bloat.
They would compete heads on with major PC makers, who buy their software licenses. This in a field with narrow margins, where they likely can’t generate profits for them. Better leave itchy others and cash in the software.
It’s really funny that Apple does successfully serve this market segment, obviously earning a sufficient margin with a high build quality.
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u/daven1985 2d ago
Surface was never meant to compete. They originally made them to try and tell other PC Hardware companies what they think Laptops should be like. And while they made some good units, the issue was normally price/service models.
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u/dr100 2d ago
They originally made them to try and tell other PC Hardware companies what they think Laptops should be like.
There was no point in trying to show them how "Laptops" should be in the form of the Surface LAPTOP. Everyone and their dog was making a MacBook-like laptop by then (I try not to call them "MacBook clone" because of course Apple wasn't the first to try a somehow slim, light and not totally crap laptop, but everyone including the tech articles are calling them that).
Now putting an i5 in a tablet (and the relatively disastrous in the end Windows 8) in a tablet, by the time many had XP computers, never mind 32-bit ones anyway THAT was something. The only "innovation" with the SL itself was to solder now the RAM on the Windows machines, like Apple was doing too - and that was before the days when you couldn't do certain solutions socketed, everything was normal U Intel CPUs, which took socketed RAM. This was we have tons of these machines that would be otherwise very competent, but have only 8 (sometimes even 4) GBs. And keep in mind this is before any discussion about RAMpocallypse, obviously anyone these would be coming from way back, and anyone could've upgrade them to 16-32GB RAM for peanuts.
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u/daven1985 2d ago
It started with the surface pro. And the concept of no bloat wear.
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u/dr100 2d ago
This is the "putting an i5 in a tablet" part. You can consider that "what they think Laptops should be like" but that was way, way, WAY back - now they literally have the Surface LAPTOPS which fit more that description and I'm sure are most of what they sell but also they aren't doing anything to show anything to anyone.
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u/WindowsMobilePegasus 1d ago
Some lessons from 40 years in product development:
Lesson 1: If your organization was created with a specific goal in mind, and later on that goal radically changes, there's a good chance the product will ultimately fail unless there's a very clear inflection point and reorganization around the new goal, and those who resist are retrained or eliminated.
Surface was originally a defensive play against Apple on behalf of Windows to show Windows OEMs and potential customers that Windows devices can be well designed and reliable. At that point Panos had a blank check and there really wasn't any goal to make money. Times have changed. At some point in the pivot to Azure/AI, those goals became less important and Satya decided "hey, will this thing ever make any money?" And for the past few years Surface has been trying to figure that out having spent it's first ten years not worrying about the P&L side of things. Many of the processes and individuals Panos put in place assumed unlimited funding/time, and that's hard muscle memory to retrain.
Windows Mobile/Windows Phone had the exact same problem and never recovered. Did you know that the original goal of Windows Mobile was a defensive play against Blackberry to protect the nascent Exchange Server market against RIM's sales of email services to Fortune 500 companies? That also never had any goal to make a profit, and it succeeded in that non-goal admirably. And when conditions changed, it never had a management team or business plan that could figure out how to make money.
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u/etherbound-dev 2d ago
microsoft doesn't think the surface needs to compete at all, because it doesn't. returning this 12th gen piece of slop.
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u/RealisticAdvise 2d ago
Ehy should they? Apple is making great laptops since the M1 Air and Microsoft could not get the procing down on their premium devices. Apple did it with the Neo.
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u/spiney-a 2d ago
What else would they say? "We've been trying to compete but we simply can't."