{"id":3506,"date":"2015-12-09T13:55:10","date_gmt":"2015-12-09T21:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/?p=3506"},"modified":"2015-12-16T08:21:44","modified_gmt":"2015-12-16T16:21:44","slug":"in-search-of-the-perfect-next-gen-windows-10-laptop-four-laptops-in-one-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.michaellinenberger.com\/blog\/in-search-of-the-perfect-next-gen-windows-10-laptop-four-laptops-in-one-month\/","title":{"rendered":"In Search of the Perfect Next-Gen Windows 10 Laptop: Four Laptops in One Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dec 9, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n

As you know I mostly write about software,<\/em> like Microsoft Outlook, and how to be productive with it. But periodically I write about computer hardware<\/em> since that is what Outlook and other productivity software runs on. Recently I was forced to purchase a new laptop, and it gave me a chance to study the new computers coming out. Here is my assessment of a few of the latest next-gen laptop offerings, and the adventures I had finding one that works.<\/p>\n

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My take is that many of these brand-new, next-gen laptop designs, were released to the public before they were ready\u2014they are full of bugs, some quite serious. But they are still amazing and you might be willing to take the risk. More details below. I hope reading this helps you if you are in the market for a new laptop.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Gotta Buy a Laptop<\/strong><\/p>\n

Five weeks ago on the way to New York City to give some client presentations, my work laptop was stolen. Obviously that was a major pain, but thank goodness the laptop was locked and all my work files were in the cloud. And thankfully the laptop was insured. But I needed a laptop by the next day to present my slides, so I decided to purchase another one that evening after I landed in NYC. I planned to plug in to the Internet that night at the hotel and download PowerPoint software via my Office 365 subscription, and download the presentation-files I needed through my OneDrive account. (Both those downloads worked well by the way). Coincidentally Microsoft\u2019s flagship store had just opened on Fifth Avenue in New York with lots of new models in stock, and the store was right near my hotel and open late.<\/p>\n

Good Time and Bad Time to Buy New Laptop<\/strong><\/p>\n

One might say this is a great time to buy a laptop because a lot of new technologies have just come together in a number of new next-generation laptop releases. When I say next generation<\/em>, I mainly mean a laptop with the latest 6th<\/sup>-generation Intel Skylake processor. These processors consume less battery power and generate less heat than the previous generations, and the onboard graphics are much faster. Next-gen laptops also come with Windows 10 pre-installed, so no need to hassle with upgrade pains, and Windows 10 is a vastly superior OS than Windows 8. Gorgeous 4K resolution screens are also usually part of many of these next-gen laptops, as are other interesting new hardware approaches like those featured on the Surface Book.<\/p>\n

But in other ways this is a terrible<\/em> time to buy a next-gen laptop for the very same reasons: there are too many new things all coming out at once on these new laptops, and in many cases the new elements aren\u2019t working together very well yet. As a result, I went through four new laptops in one month, trying to find one that was defect-free, and whose design worked well. There were an enormous number of serious issues with 3 out of 4 of these laptops. My advice: if you don\u2019t want to get frustrated, either get an older model, or wait a few more months for Microsoft and the manufacturers to sort things out. But if you are willing to endure some hassle and perhaps willing to exchange laptops a few times, there are some really<\/em> cool new laptops out there that may work for you.<\/p>\n

Surface Book Number 1<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019d been itching to try Microsoft\u2019s brand new and first laptop, the Surface Book<\/a>. The Fifth Avenue Microsoft store had a good stock of them that day I went shopping, so I thought I should give it a try. I was a bit hesitant, however, because I\u2019d read so many stories of bugs in the Surface Book. But I thought \u201cwhat the heck I can always return it\u201d using Microsoft\u2019s 30-day return policy, and I would at least have a computer to get through the three presentations I was making in the week ahead. It was almost a month since the Surface Book had been shipping, so I figured Microsoft must have repaired most of the problems by then, right? You\u2019ll see the answer to that is \u201cnot.\u201d And there are some major bugs around sleep mode in some units that Microsoft recently announced<\/a> they cannot fix until next year. So did I get one and how was it?<\/p>\n

Well, I did get a Surface Book that night, but it was definitely a lemon. It worked well enough to get through my presentations, but I recorded at least 13 major defects in it as I used it for several frustrating weeks. The main issues were that it crashed and rebooted three to five times per day, and it refused to go into sleep. It had many, many serious problems. This was true even after another three weeks of Windows updates, including the early November major Windows update and the Nov 18 major Surface Book firmware update. It was also true after working many hours with Microsoft support on the phone, with them installing new drivers and so on. Microsoft Support finally stated that the Surface Book hardware I had was defective and that I should exchange it. So when my presentation schedule settled down I finally made efforts to return it and get another one.<\/p>\n

Surface Book Number 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

To do that, I went to a Microsoft store and traded it for another Surface Book. I spent hours setting it up with the latest Windows Updates, OneDrive file transfers, and core software installs, and I soon discovered it was defective too. This one was<\/em> able to enter sleep, but it would crash or freeze immediately half the times I brought it out<\/em> of sleep, (even with all the updates installed). There were many more (less intrusive but annoying) issues\u2014too many to list. So I returned it too, and decided to stop beating my head against the wall.<\/p>\n

Look, I\u2019ve heard there are many happy Surface Book owners, but what are the odds of my getting two lemons in a row? From reading other\u2019s experiences, this is part of a wider trend. I decided that there are too many new technologies in this laptop. There is the new Skylake Intel i7 processor. There\u2019s the new Windows 10 that is still rapidly evolving. And most importantly, there is a whole new laptop design by a company that has never made a true laptop before (Microsoft).<\/p>\n

So for now, I\u2019ve given up entirely on the Surface Book. Maybe these are just initial-run manufacturing defects, or maybe the whole design is a bit problematic. But at this point, I\u2019m going to wait until the things settle down quite a bit before I waste any more time with a Surface Book. I may even wait for the second generation of this laptop.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too bad, because I really liked many things about the Surface Book (good full review here<\/a>). The screen was sensationally sharp and bright, and I liked the screen\u2019s taller aspect ratio. The detachable large-format clipboard\/tablet surprised me on how thin and light it was, given its ample drawing area. The pen-inking experience on that tablet was sensational, I\u2019ve never experienced such a direct, lag-free connection between the tip of a digital pen and the resulting lines on a tablet. And two-finger scrolling on the touchpad was amazingly fluid. Other than a slightly weak keyboard design and the unit feeling a bit thick and heavy for a 13-inch laptop, the whole computer felt like a top-notch physical design. It\u2019s just too bad both of the units I got simply didn\u2019t work and had so many defects, so I had to move on. And I did, to the Yoga 900.<\/p>\n

Lenovo Yoga 900<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s ironic that just a few weeks ago I was complaining in a blog about how Lenovo let me down on a tablet some years ago, and then I turned around and I chose to buy a Lenovo again. But with both Surface Books returned I still needed a laptop, and another new Windows 10 laptop making headlines in October and November was Lenovo\u2019s Yoga 900<\/a>. It\u2019s not a perfect replacement to a Surface Book since it doesn\u2019t have a pen interface, but I decided I really don\u2019t use a pen on a laptop anymore these days. I really just needed a regular laptop. So I grabbed the Yoga 900 at Best Buy and went to work.<\/p>\n

This 13.3-inch laptop is amazingly thin and amazingly light for the power it delivers. It has essentially the same high-end internals and 4K screen as the Surface Book (without the GPU), but it feels like it weighs half as much and is half as thick. And it costs half as much. Of course it\u2019s not a pen computer, and it doesn\u2019t have the amazing detachable screen, both of which explain a lot of the price difference. But at that point I just wanted a laptop with the new Skylake i7 CPU and Windows 10. By the way, I am already hooked on Windows 10 and cannot go back to Windows 8.1, which now feels painful by comparison.<\/p>\n

The most important feature of this Yoga 900 laptop, given my recent Surface Book issues, was that it worked right out of the box with virtually no defects. In fact, for some reason I found it to be snappier and more responsive than the Surface Book, even though it had the same i7 processor, same RAM, same size solid state drives, and approximately the same ultra-high resolution screen. It did have a few minor out-of-box issues, but in general it has been working infinitely better than the Surface Book did.<\/p>\n

I find that ironic since a few weeks ago I blogged<\/a> that I figured Microsoft would know much better than other manufacturers about how to make a computer work with Windows 10\u2014after all they are designing both the software and hardware and should be able coordinate the two precisely, right? But how wrong I was! This Yoga worked much better.<\/p>\n

All that said, there was one minor defect in the Yoga 900: I found the laptop to occasionally wake up from sleep spontaneously in my briefcase, which of course impacted battery life. But I\u2019ve only seen that a few times (and it goes back into sleep automatically per settings).<\/p>\n

Yoga 900, Pros<\/strong><\/p>\n

Given its comparatively low price and full feature set, I really do like the Yoga 900. Here\u2019s what I like:<\/p>\n