Microsoft recently announced its brand new Surface Laptop, and it is beautiful. Taking cues from the rest of the Surface line, as well as some of its rivals, the devices looks premium. Aluminum finish, Alcantara cloth on its keyboard, and an invisible hinge to support that shiny Windows logo on the back, there's no doubt a lot of care was taken in the design. But while the laptop does a lot right, it's probably not the device to shake up the education market.
Let's start with the obvious: Microsoft has two main competitors when it comes to this market--Apple and Google. The latter in particular is winning the "edutech" sector by a landslide with devices that may feel compromised to techies but hit the sweet spot of performance and price for large institutions struggling to get computers into students' hands.
Apple on the other hand, hasn't been as successful when it comes to pushing iPads as learning tools en masse. Lack of a physical keyboard, the limitations of iOS, and the fact that even the cheapest model iPad introduced earlier this year is still more expensive than the average Chromebook are all barriers Cuptertino has struggled with. Where Apple has succeeded is with the higher education crowd: MacBooks are one of the most popular brands of laptop among college students, even as they face increasing competition from Dell, HP, and yes, Microsoft.
So is the Surface Laptop the device that finally gets Microsoft into an already fierce market?
We'll begin with what the Surface Laptop does right (and it does a lot right).
As mentioned before, there's the design. For a device geared toward those most likely to abuse their machines while lugging them from class to class (and dorm to dorm), it's the first thing that hits you about these computers. "Sleek", "sexy", and "shiny" are three words that spring to mind. I'm not sure I've ever been a fan of the cloth keyboard (I'd much rather have a sturdy aluminum bezel), but that's a small point on an otherwise elegant look.
The attention to detail extends even beyond the exterior, as Microsoft has found a way to place the speakers under the keyboard proper, eliminating the need for speaker grills (something that maximizes the limited space of such a small PC), and allowing the sound to flow through the cloth to the user's ears. It's not the lightest laptop on the market at 2.7 pounds, but it shouldn't put too much stress on what is likely an already full school bag.
Second in the win column is hardware. Unlike Apple's ultra-thin MacBook--which uses the lower-powered mobile Intel processors (albeit with the added benefit of a fan-less design)--Microsoft's offerings come with the "latest" Core i5 and i7 CPUs. It's safe to say they will offer a solid power boost as they are already touted to be up to 50% faster than the current model MacBook Air. The devices are configurable with up to 1TB of SSD storage and 16GB RAM, though you'll have to step up to the significantly more expensive Surface Book if you want the extra horsepower of a dedicated GPU.
The screen is also similar to others in the Surface lineup, with the folks from Redmond claiming the pixel density equates this smaller machine to a 14" laptop as far as virtual workspace goes.
This is an all-around solid machine. So what could possibly go wrong?
For starters, there's no USB-C port. That may sound like a godsend to those who have thus far resisted the forward-momentum of the standard. It's certainly a stark contrast to Apple's all-in stance on the port. But for those who have already begun to use USB-C as their day-to-day port, its exclusion here only ensures that we have several years of awkward dongle-switching ahead, especially as more and more smartphones have adopted it as their charging port of choice.
In it's place are a standard-sized USB 3.0 port and mini DisplayPort. I'm sure these were included in the interest of convenience, and not to please the bleeding-edge tech crowd.
Then there's Windows 10 S: the natural successor to the ill-fated Windows RT platform of the early Surface days--with one important change. Much like its ancestor, Windows 10 S is designed to run only the apps available from the Windows Store. This has the advantage of ensuring everything that's running on your PC has passed through Microsoft's (presumably) stringent seal of approval for maximum performance and security, but also nixes the ability to download programs from various websites; even the legitimate ones.
Unlike with Windows RT, where many users were incredulous at finding out the OS's restrictions only after they'd invested in the device, Microsoft is doing its best to make those limitations clear from the get-go. It's also probably safe to assume that the applications students use most are not only available via the store, but in the case of the Office suite, are included in the price tag: a one-year subscription to Office 365 comes with every Surface Laptop.
And for those that still feel cheated by a "stripped-down" version of Windows, Microsoft will allow customers to upgrade to full-fledged Windows 10 Pro for an extra $50. That's a pretty good deal if you absolutely need the flexibility of pure Windows, and it takes the Surface out of the niche category of being "for students" and throws it right into the crosshairs of the competition like Dell's XPS 13, HP's Spectre x360, and Apple's MacBook and MacBook Air line.
Yet even if you were to jump through all those hoops, there's still one more hurdle: price.
By the time I'd reached this point in writing the first draft of this post, Microsoft had launched its pre-order site for the Surface Laptop. Given the specs and premium design, the results shouldn't be too surprising. The base Core i5 model with a measly 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD storage starts at $999. Prices continue to rise as you graduate all the way up to the i7 model with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD. That last configuration clocks in at $2,199. At that point you're entering the range of the Surface Book or even the MacBook Pro. It's unfair to compare this machine to the MacBook Air (whose maximum configuration--Core i7, 8GB RAM, 512GB SSD--is just $1,549) as that model is still running Intel's 2015 chipset.
Whether it's due to our expectations or Microsoft's uncompromising design, it's clear this device will not serve as competition to the influx of Chromebooks in schools today. During his presentation, Microsoft VP Panos Panay said many times that these devices were meant to last students from their first day of orientation to their graduation. That's all well and good, but it leaves gradeschool students with Chromebooks as the substitute.
In that sense, Microsoft and Apple have jumped into the same boat. College students already have plenty of options when it comes to laptops, and some are already using Chromebooks as their main devices. Whether it's researching via Google, creating documents in Docs, or saving files to Google Drive, Chrome OS is a platform that feels more and more complete as wifi access becomes increasingly ubiquitous.
That being said, there's simply no compelling reason to buy from Microsoft unless you absolutely can't live without the Office suite or insist on owning the sexiest laptop money can buy.
Let's take Apple out of the equation and just look at other Windows laptops. Sure, they may not look as pretty, but they run native Windows. $50 is not a lot of money when you're spending thousands already, but it's yet another fee to use something that comes standard with other, less expensive laptops.
It's clear that the Surface line is meant to represent the "flagship" of Windows devices the way Google's Pixel line is mean to represent the very best of Chrome OS-based hardware. The real star of the show is Windows 10 S, which is meant to inspire manufacturers to produce cheaper devices for Microsoft's "walled garden." The Surface Laptop is not that device.
What's puzzling, however, is that the system requirements for Windows 10 S and full Windows 10 Pro are almost identical. That's not to say Windows 10 is a demanding OS, but the Windows brand is not something casual users will associate with a Chrome OS caveat. Until third-party manufacturers start churning out competitively priced machines to stand side-by-side with Chromebooks, it's going to be difficult to convince less educated Windows users to shell out a premium for a device running an operating system that handcuffs you out of the box.
The real danger, though, is that Microsoft is continuing to allow students at younger ages to grow up in a world that doesn't need Windows. Even if the hardware is priced to match those of even the cheapest Chromebooks, it's going to become more and more difficult to convince people to shell out a $50 premium for a device that doesn't appear to do anything their Chromebooks don't. You could argue that Microsoft has the ever-reassuring edge of compatibility on its side with most of the world still clinging to the Office suite, but you could also argue that the generation coming after us will do most of its work in a browser and we'll eventually become less and less reliable on file types and more dependent on simply having wifi access.
I'm sure Microsoft's got plenty of money to play with, so this isn't a make-or-break product launch. This is simply growing the Surface brand, and it's an enticing entry for someone who is in the market for a solid, slinky laptop.
Unfortunately, Microsoft may too late to the party to fundamentally change the vibe.
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