I'd be interested in knowing how many people switched from the MBP to the Surface(Book) due to delays and changes/issues in the MBP range.
I bought a first generation Surfacebook a few years ago because I couldn't wait any longer for Apple to release their new MBP range, and I'm glad I didn't wait. It's the best laptop I've ever owned.
Even though I've moved away from .NET dev and work mostly with Ruby and Node it's still my favourite machine to use. I run Debian with minimal problems, and I'm started to get more into WSL, which seems to work brilliantly for all the use cases I've thrown at it.
If the numbers are strong on people moving from MBP to the Surfacebook, then it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for it to become a real option for developers, regardless of whether they want to use Windows or not.
Count me in, for one. My main machine is still the 2013 MBP (2015 MBP at work). But every laptop / portable / desktop I've bought since then has been a Windows machine, because they offer either 1) similar value at a cheaper price, or 2) greater flexibility and usability at the same price. The Surfaces are the best laptops a non-Apple-dev "Pro" can get right now, in my experience. They've got ports, they've got portability, their hardware is now up to par with the best of the Macs.
I still love my 2013 Macbook Pro, but I'm probably not going to be buying a Mac again until they make something of similar usability and flexibility (mostly the keyboard and the ports).
Agreed. I also have the 2013 model and it's a great machine, but it's starting to show its age now, and the keyboard on the Surfacebook is now light years ahead of the MBP. Unless Apple can release a laptop on par with the flagship Windows laptops I cannot see myself buying one.
Coming from windows to mac I just love the simplicity. In windows you have so many options, so many updates, preinstalled apps which I never use. I open the mac, click the app in the dockbar, that's it. All apps scale nicely on the screen, unlike windows on a 4k display, terminal is great.
This. I love this about most modern PC laptops. Sometimes you get some driver issues like I did on this MSI where I had to go through a kernel mailing list and use some python scripts to extract the firmware from Windows to get Wi-Fi working:
But that was also a gaming laptop. Every Dell and HP I've purchased in the past few years works perfectly with the mainline kernel. I've never had an issue with missing Wi-Fi, Bluetooth or video drivers for years in a PC laptop.
Trying to get Linux working on a MacBook is a fucking nightmare:
I bought a first generation Surfacebook a few years ago because I couldn't wait any longer for Apple to release their new MBP range, and I'm glad I didn't wait. It's the best laptop I've ever owned.
Even though I've moved away from .NET dev and work mostly with Ruby and Node it's still my favourite machine to use. I run Debian with minimal problems, and I'm started to get more into WSL, which seems to work brilliantly for all the use cases I've thrown at it.
If the numbers are strong on people moving from MBP to the Surfacebook, then it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility for it to become a real option for developers, regardless of whether they want to use Windows or not.