A "mobile workstation" with a 16:9 display, no 10-key block but lot's of empty space left and right of the keyboard? The Surface Book 2 with a quad core looks better IMO.
16:9 is better for workstation software than 16:10 or 4:3. Most such software makes extensive use of the "sidebar".
Higher power CPU options would have been nice. ECC support too. Larger battery too, at least 100Wh. The ability to use the kickstand as a carrying handle too.
The most negative aspect is they went nuts on the bezels.
Nope, most prosumer software loves wide aspect ratios. To be honest, I'd rather have it even wider than 16:9.
Graphics design, video production, 3d, engineering, audio production, even software development. All of it loves widescreen, all of it is extremely awkward and clumsy on narrow displays.
4:3 and 3:2 are more tailored to casual users and their usage patterns, not prosumers. Which is why overpriced toy makers like m$ and crapple make their products squarer - because they target casual generic users rather than prosumers.
That's utter nonsense. 16:9 lack vertical resolution. While perfectly suited for 1080p movies and games it has always been a compromise for productivity. If you have a monitor that allows it to be turned sideways for portrait mode, it was ok if you had at least a dual screen setup. 16:10 was preferred because you could have your wide format video pixel for pixel and still have enough room for a tool bar. 16:9 became prevalent bc the common std made it cheap. It was a compromise and still is.
And 4:3 lacks horizontal resolution, which is more important for prosumer software. Toolbars... those are not as heavily leaned on in prosumer software as it is in casual usage software. Something like an office application has everything on the toolbar/ribbon. Now, an office application might sound like "prosumer" in your mind, but I can assure you it is not considered "prosumer" in the prosumer world.
Prosumer software means a chunky sidebar, quite often two on both sides, that holds object properties, structure information or huge component libraries. That's an ideal for for widescreen, because it occupies that extra horizontal space, and you are left with a 3:2 or 4:3-ish workspace for the viewport.
Quite often such software also heavily relies on multiple viewports, so the wider the better, and when I say 16:9 is better I mean it is better than narrower aspect ratios. Wider than 16:9 is even better. IMO 8:3 or even 3:1 could be ideal, at about 18 inches of height for desk use, that would allow people that are currently using multi-monitor setups to get a single, continuous, uninterrupted, non-quantized workspace. A 6480x2160 in a 45"-ish form factor will be a personal dream come true for me.
And then we have the difference between "aspect ratio", "resolution" and "working space". 16:9 can offer ample vertical working space, just in case you have missed it, there are huge 43" 4k monitors which offer ample vertical working space.
Finally, when you go big, going wide is a much better deal, because first the human field of vision is significantly wider than it is taller, and second, moving your eyes and your head horizontally is much easier and natural.
Prosumer software doesn't equate to chunky side bars. Most will let you reorder the toolbars. While 4k may becoming more prevalent, 16:9 1080 is still unfortunately what most people have. 16:10 is much better. That little bit of extra vertical resolution makes a big different. I'll agree that no one will miss 4:3 but 3:2 is great. Provides a wide enough screen without compromising vertical resolution.
Come back when you actually know what prosumer software is and have used some. It is brutally obvious you have zero clue what that is.
And no, you cannot reorder sidebars, nor could their type of content possibly fit in a horizontal layout. And while most support temporary hiding, those stay open 99.99% of the time, as they essentially hold the bulk of the functionality, so it is extremely counterproductive to have them hidden.
Quite frankly the only 3:2 advocates are m$ fangirls, and the reason m$ opted for 3:2 themselves is because they neither target prosumers with their devices, nor do they make any prosumer software aside from visual studio, IIRC their main argument in support for 3:2 was because it was more browsing friendly, and just in case you might have the wrong idea, no, internet browsers are not prosumer software.
3:2 is a complete DUD for prosumers, heck even 16:9 is too little, which is why most prosumers use multi monitor setups, and just in case you were wondering, no, they are not being stacked vertically. Prosumers are buying 21:9 monitors like crazy, rejoicing they can finally get rid of some of those multi monitor setups, alas 21:9 is still not optimally wide. That would be 3:1.
Lastly, the hell no, prosumers do not use 1080p, that's where the low end of the mainstream is. Talking about prosumer software and bringing up 1080p is about as silly as talking about prosumer software without knowing what it is or using any.
Sorry, but how many people do you see spending significant amounts of time editing their videos with only a slim toolbar at the top or bottom? Most time is spent with the timeline and multiple toolbars visible, with the video relegate to a quarter of the display.
Only on 4k displays is a 1080p video often edited with its true resolution shown. On mobile devices, the extra power drain of that 4k display is not welcome. Then when we get onto 4k footage...
As for art programs... have you seen the toolbars that flank the canvas? Extra horizontal space is definitely needed.
This workstation tablet is also clearly not designed to be used vertically. Nothing is designed to make it easy to use it that way.
Squarer aspect ratios are only really better for whole canvas drawing, handwriting, and coding (only really in a multi-monitor set up mind).
At least in the US, 100 Wh is the maximum capacity of a single battery that can be carried on an airplane per the FAA. It would have to be split up Surface Book-style. ECC support is dependent on Intel, and since Intel doesn't make any 15W (or 28W) Xeon parts that would be suitable in a tablet like this, it can't support ECC.
I don't think massive bezels on a tablet are such a bad thing, since it gives you ample hand space if you actually want to use it like a tablet. I do agree that 16:9 is great for workstation applications. Taller aspect ratios work well for stuff like word processing and web browsing, but that's not what this is made for.
> 16:9 is better for workstation software than 16:10 or 4:3.
Personally I disagree. My 16:10 screen at work is noticeably more useful than the previous 16:9 model. Using it for Matlab, Lumerical, Origin, MS Office etc. Not sure about 3:2 in a stationary device. But with a laptop I'd rather have a screen of the same size (matching the keyboard, not any larger), but made taller than 16:9. This way you don't loose any width but gain height.
You know how you use that software, so please don't take this too condescendingly, but Matlab has a ton of sidebars. Lumercal and Origin I can understand (though along with Matlab and many other similar programs, I consider them "UI Junk programs"; ones where they don't seem to even bother updating the UI). MS Office is used my professionals, but is hardly a professional program.
Overall though, this device is not aimed at the work you do at all.
Don't confuse aspect ratio for small display. Your problem is not with the aspect ratio, it is with the screen size. If your screen is too small, increase in any direction is more than welcome.
I highly doubt you will consider the above device better if they cut off 2 inches of its width, the problem is the absence of space, so making it narrower won't really do much good if that results in further shrinkage. It would make it significantly worse.
The reality of the situation is 14" is too small for a mobile workstation, regardless of the aspect ratio. They should have minimized those huge bezels and made it 17". Then the deficit of vertical workspace wouldn't be an issue.
Overall HP did rather mediocre for this product, which is pretty much the industry standard. They should have made the display larger, the battery bigger, the CPU more powerful, the cooling solution more efficient - there is a lot of opportunity for improvement there. They should have minimized the bezels aside from the "active" side, they should have put buttons only there, in the center, flipping the layout allowing left-handed people to simply flip the device 180 degree.
It doesn't seem like they tried to make a portable tablet workstation enough. A very mediocre effort.
Reducing the size of the bezels would have made it structurally weaker. It was specifically designed to be semi-rugged. The device was also clearly designed to be used handheld for short periods of time. Increasing the size much more would have made that very impractical.
If one set of hotkeys were to be removed, it would also make the design unbalanced. Further, with only one set of hotkeys, they would have to have completely redesigned the hinge, as it would not work with the device upside down. Such a hinge may well be less stable as well.
In short, it seems it's just not the device for you.
3:2 would work out to 16:10.667, so isn't as big a jump as the one from 16:9 to 16:10. It's not as extreme as 4:3 (16:12) was. (Those were some good displays!)
There's no such thing as wide-screen. For the past ten years, we usually get 1920 (or, now, 3840) across and then some amount of height. 1080p is a short-screen format, the older 1200p gives you more pixels, and a 3:2 gives you even more.
IF we were talking about 1620 x 1080 vs 1920 x 1080, I'd agree with you and say the extra pixels might help. (Like the newer phones with extra screen area instead of chins and foreheads.)
15" can only have 10 key if it has fat bezels (15" w thin bezels is no wider than a traditional 14" laptop and those have never had 10key) and is either thick enough to put ports under the keyboard, or sticks them somewhere other than to either side of it. Ultrabooks are too thin for ports under the keyboard.
And if it somehow was unclear from where it was launched (and Adobe event) and the highlighted signature feature (Wacom digitizer and screen at a comfortable pen angle), it's an artist workstation not an engineer workstation so the 10key isn't a core feature for its target market.
I know "numeric keyboard", "numeric pad", and the shorter and most widely used "numpad" .
"10 key" doesn't sound like anything that makes sense. What it sounds like is a dedicated "10" key, you know, so you don't have to press 1 and 0 to make a 10. Kinda weird to call "ten key" something that usually has 17 keys.
It's like calling a circle a "round line", except it makes even less sense. Must be an american thing, doesn't have to make sense, like still using imperial units.
Your daily dose of obscure trivia. The term 10key dates back to newer mechanical adding machines. Presumably because the number pad part of the layout was standardized prior to the operation buttons/levers around it. (Really old ones had a column of 1-9 buttons for each place value in a giant number grid.) Inertia kept the term alive even after basic digital calculators standardized the layout of all the keys around it 40+ years ago.
Additionally, "tenkeyless" is also a term often used to describe certain compact keyboards.
A lot of terminology out there doesn't make direct logical sense. Just because you're not familiar with the term doesn't mean the term lacks legitimacy.
For example, the term 'drive' is used in all sorts of places (e.g. USB drive, Google Drive) where there aren't drives. But then again, your comments weren't really about the terminology, were they?
What's wrong with imperial units? I've said it before and I'll say it again: pounds, feet, and gallons put man on the moon. Grams, meters, and liters ain't taken no one anywhere. Not my fault everyone else decided to surrender to France.
What's wrong with imperial units is they are morally outdated and lack uniformity. You don't do scientific measurements with units based on body parts LOL.
An inch is a 1000 thou, a foot is 12 inches, a yard is 3 feet, a chain (a chain of black slaves most likely) is 22 yards, a furlong is 10 chains, a mile is 8 furlongs... there is absolutely no uniformity to it, it is primitive and arbitrary.
That being said, imperial units have an advantage, but surely not in science, their advantage is poetic, and that advantage is the product of proper scientific units like the metric sounds terrible in poems or songs. Just imagine a band names "22 centimeter nails... Or getting your "kilogram or flesh".
Outside artistic usage, the metric system is superior in every way, from scientific to casual day to day usage. It is trivial to convert units because the units are uniform and their exponent is contained within the unit name.
NASA didn't use metric during the Apollo era. The Space Shuttle was also designed using imperial units. And they mixed measurements for quite some time, most famously when the Mars Climate Orbiter was destroyed in 1999 due to different parts of the software using different units.
In fact, the modern Constellation program is using imperial, due to the program's heavy use of shuttle technology(to the consternation of the international community).
So... good old imperlal units put over a dozen men on the moon. The use of french units destroyed a Mars probe. One can reasonably conclude metric is detrimental.
Colonial nostalgia? Man, get back to me when you have a better rebuttal than that. Like a space program capable of putting a man into orbit. Your silly french measures may have the moral high ground, but my "morally outdated" numbers have the literal high ground.
It has hotkeys as well, so there's no real need for a 10 key. I mean it would be nice, but at this size there just isn't the space for something not too useful.
I don't really get the desire to have a 10-key for most users. If you're an accountant or deal with Excel spreadsheets often, I can understand how it could be worth the ergonomic tradeoff of having to deal with an off-center keyboard, but for everyone else, it doesn't make a lot of sense to make that sacrifice for something that is so rarely used.
This laptop is geared toward content creators, not finance, so I think it makes a lot of sense that it doesn't have a 10-key.
This goes against Wacom mobile studio pro, shares same digitizer tech. Better display than Surface Book 2, colorwise and in resolution, a detachable functional keyboard is better and max 32GB of RAM. Plus usb-C Thunderbolt ports a big must for workstations lacking on Surface line.
Thunderbolt...no, not soo much for attached storage, USB 3.x is just fine. Would be nice to have but not a deal breaker. The 32GB RAM is nice, as are the FIPS if really needed. Both have USB C. As far as display goes 3:2 is far superior to 16:9 for creative tasks. 16:9 is great for HDTV and video games but 16:10 would have been a better choice and I'd be OK with that. Aspect ratio is a personal preference, but 16:9 drives me nuts at times. 16:10 or even better 3:2 are the way to go for me. As far as the pen goes, MS and WACOM have a cross technology agreement since 2016. All WACOM/MS pens use both AES & N-Trig tech for compatibility. WACOM had the slightly more accurate pen, while N-Trig had a better digitizer/display stack. Eventually N-trig reached parity with WACOM but N-Trig still had a better display stack. AES changes that for WACOM and brings them to parity with N-Trig, but to argue that its better, considering they use each others tech, no. Surface has really great color accuracy and I've yet to test HP's new display so I cant pass judgment yet. The form factor of the surface book2 is superior in every aspect, to include weight. X2 looks like a supercharged Surface Pro with its kickstand, which I don't dislike but, looking at base price, its up there with the SB 2 so its fair to compare them. On a side note, I'm reluctant to buy HP. I work on them every single day and I don't want to work on one at home. I find their product stacks to be horribly unreliable with a high failure rate. That's purely anecdotal as I'm exposed to several thousand HP workstations while SB product maybe a few and have been lucky that I have not had any major issues with any of them.
Also check out Samsung T5. Its USB 3.1, not Thunderbolt and works great, which is why I wouldn't miss TB on a SB2. I would like it but I wont cry over not having it if I bought one.
1. I'll believe your claim that Wacom and Microsoft pens are compatible with each others digitizer when I see it. Video please. 2. Wacom EMR is not inferior to AES and is better suited for graphic design (the target of this device). EMR has far better resolution and tilt recognition while AES does not (at least so far). The only real competitor to Wacom EMR is the Apple Pencil. Also, while EMR (compared to AES) has disadvantages (thicker panel->more parallax, loss of precision near corners) it also has advantages (battery free).
EMR is by far preferred by most people. Recently, the display stack for it has become far thinner. In return there is next to no jitter, and no need for batteries in the pen (one thing less to worry about). EMR pens also tend to have more designs available.
Thunderbolt is better to have. Daisy chaining is very useful. Having two is even better, as one could be saturated, especially for the uses this kind of device is used for.
The Surface devices has slightly less colour accurate displays. This has been objectively shown, as otherwise colour gamuts would not exist. It's also anti-glare on this device.
Overall, you're talking out of your arse, so please refrain from doing so in the future.
I love what they've done here. A very capable and attractive machine and the price seems reasonable. Not too much more I could ask for in a cutting edge device. Even Thunderbolt 3.
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MrSpadge - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
A "mobile workstation" with a 16:9 display, no 10-key block but lot's of empty space left and right of the keyboard? The Surface Book 2 with a quad core looks better IMO.ddriver - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
16:9 is better for workstation software than 16:10 or 4:3. Most such software makes extensive use of the "sidebar".Higher power CPU options would have been nice. ECC support too. Larger battery too, at least 100Wh. The ability to use the kickstand as a carrying handle too.
The most negative aspect is they went nuts on the bezels.
guidryp - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
16:9 sucks for everything except watching movies/TV.Productivity benefits from more square ratios. Especially in a tablet where you want to consider vertical usage.
Microsoft uses 3:2 which is decent compromise.
ddriver - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
Nope, most prosumer software loves wide aspect ratios. To be honest, I'd rather have it even wider than 16:9.Graphics design, video production, 3d, engineering, audio production, even software development. All of it loves widescreen, all of it is extremely awkward and clumsy on narrow displays.
4:3 and 3:2 are more tailored to casual users and their usage patterns, not prosumers. Which is why overpriced toy makers like m$ and crapple make their products squarer - because they target casual generic users rather than prosumers.
Manch - Thursday, October 19, 2017 - link
That's utter nonsense. 16:9 lack vertical resolution. While perfectly suited for 1080p movies and games it has always been a compromise for productivity. If you have a monitor that allows it to be turned sideways for portrait mode, it was ok if you had at least a dual screen setup. 16:10 was preferred because you could have your wide format video pixel for pixel and still have enough room for a tool bar. 16:9 became prevalent bc the common std made it cheap. It was a compromise and still is.ddriver - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
And 4:3 lacks horizontal resolution, which is more important for prosumer software. Toolbars... those are not as heavily leaned on in prosumer software as it is in casual usage software. Something like an office application has everything on the toolbar/ribbon. Now, an office application might sound like "prosumer" in your mind, but I can assure you it is not considered "prosumer" in the prosumer world.Prosumer software means a chunky sidebar, quite often two on both sides, that holds object properties, structure information or huge component libraries. That's an ideal for for widescreen, because it occupies that extra horizontal space, and you are left with a 3:2 or 4:3-ish workspace for the viewport.
Quite often such software also heavily relies on multiple viewports, so the wider the better, and when I say 16:9 is better I mean it is better than narrower aspect ratios. Wider than 16:9 is even better. IMO 8:3 or even 3:1 could be ideal, at about 18 inches of height for desk use, that would allow people that are currently using multi-monitor setups to get a single, continuous, uninterrupted, non-quantized workspace. A 6480x2160 in a 45"-ish form factor will be a personal dream come true for me.
And then we have the difference between "aspect ratio", "resolution" and "working space". 16:9 can offer ample vertical working space, just in case you have missed it, there are huge 43" 4k monitors which offer ample vertical working space.
Finally, when you go big, going wide is a much better deal, because first the human field of vision is significantly wider than it is taller, and second, moving your eyes and your head horizontally is much easier and natural.
Manch - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
Prosumer software doesn't equate to chunky side bars. Most will let you reorder the toolbars. While 4k may becoming more prevalent, 16:9 1080 is still unfortunately what most people have. 16:10 is much better. That little bit of extra vertical resolution makes a big different. I'll agree that no one will miss 4:3 but 3:2 is great. Provides a wide enough screen without compromising vertical resolution.ddriver - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Come back when you actually know what prosumer software is and have used some. It is brutally obvious you have zero clue what that is.And no, you cannot reorder sidebars, nor could their type of content possibly fit in a horizontal layout. And while most support temporary hiding, those stay open 99.99% of the time, as they essentially hold the bulk of the functionality, so it is extremely counterproductive to have them hidden.
Quite frankly the only 3:2 advocates are m$ fangirls, and the reason m$ opted for 3:2 themselves is because they neither target prosumers with their devices, nor do they make any prosumer software aside from visual studio, IIRC their main argument in support for 3:2 was because it was more browsing friendly, and just in case you might have the wrong idea, no, internet browsers are not prosumer software.
3:2 is a complete DUD for prosumers, heck even 16:9 is too little, which is why most prosumers use multi monitor setups, and just in case you were wondering, no, they are not being stacked vertically. Prosumers are buying 21:9 monitors like crazy, rejoicing they can finally get rid of some of those multi monitor setups, alas 21:9 is still not optimally wide. That would be 3:1.
Lastly, the hell no, prosumers do not use 1080p, that's where the low end of the mainstream is. Talking about prosumer software and bringing up 1080p is about as silly as talking about prosumer software without knowing what it is or using any.
Tams80 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Sorry, but how many people do you see spending significant amounts of time editing their videos with only a slim toolbar at the top or bottom? Most time is spent with the timeline and multiple toolbars visible, with the video relegate to a quarter of the display.Only on 4k displays is a 1080p video often edited with its true resolution shown. On mobile devices, the extra power drain of that 4k display is not welcome. Then when we get onto 4k footage...
As for art programs... have you seen the toolbars that flank the canvas? Extra horizontal space is definitely needed.
This workstation tablet is also clearly not designed to be used vertically. Nothing is designed to make it easy to use it that way.
Squarer aspect ratios are only really better for whole canvas drawing, handwriting, and coding (only really in a multi-monitor set up mind).
Inteli - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
At least in the US, 100 Wh is the maximum capacity of a single battery that can be carried on an airplane per the FAA. It would have to be split up Surface Book-style. ECC support is dependent on Intel, and since Intel doesn't make any 15W (or 28W) Xeon parts that would be suitable in a tablet like this, it can't support ECC.I don't think massive bezels on a tablet are such a bad thing, since it gives you ample hand space if you actually want to use it like a tablet. I do agree that 16:9 is great for workstation applications. Taller aspect ratios work well for stuff like word processing and web browsing, but that's not what this is made for.
MrSpadge - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
> 16:9 is better for workstation software than 16:10 or 4:3.Personally I disagree. My 16:10 screen at work is noticeably more useful than the previous 16:9 model. Using it for Matlab, Lumerical, Origin, MS Office etc. Not sure about 3:2 in a stationary device. But with a laptop I'd rather have a screen of the same size (matching the keyboard, not any larger), but made taller than 16:9. This way you don't loose any width but gain height.
Tams80 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
You know how you use that software, so please don't take this too condescendingly, but Matlab has a ton of sidebars. Lumercal and Origin I can understand (though along with Matlab and many other similar programs, I consider them "UI Junk programs"; ones where they don't seem to even bother updating the UI). MS Office is used my professionals, but is hardly a professional program.Overall though, this device is not aimed at the work you do at all.
ddriver - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Don't confuse aspect ratio for small display. Your problem is not with the aspect ratio, it is with the screen size. If your screen is too small, increase in any direction is more than welcome.I highly doubt you will consider the above device better if they cut off 2 inches of its width, the problem is the absence of space, so making it narrower won't really do much good if that results in further shrinkage. It would make it significantly worse.
The reality of the situation is 14" is too small for a mobile workstation, regardless of the aspect ratio. They should have minimized those huge bezels and made it 17". Then the deficit of vertical workspace wouldn't be an issue.
Overall HP did rather mediocre for this product, which is pretty much the industry standard. They should have made the display larger, the battery bigger, the CPU more powerful, the cooling solution more efficient - there is a lot of opportunity for improvement there. They should have minimized the bezels aside from the "active" side, they should have put buttons only there, in the center, flipping the layout allowing left-handed people to simply flip the device 180 degree.
It doesn't seem like they tried to make a portable tablet workstation enough. A very mediocre effort.
Tams80 - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
Reducing the size of the bezels would have made it structurally weaker. It was specifically designed to be semi-rugged. The device was also clearly designed to be used handheld for short periods of time. Increasing the size much more would have made that very impractical.If one set of hotkeys were to be removed, it would also make the design unbalanced. Further, with only one set of hotkeys, they would have to have completely redesigned the hinge, as it would not work with the device upside down. Such a hinge may well be less stable as well.
In short, it seems it's just not the device for you.
mkozakewich - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
3:2 would work out to 16:10.667, so isn't as big a jump as the one from 16:9 to 16:10. It's not as extreme as 4:3 (16:12) was. (Those were some good displays!)Tams80 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Errrrm, for many digital artists, those bezels are a very rare blessing.mkozakewich - Monday, October 23, 2017 - link
There's no such thing as wide-screen. For the past ten years, we usually get 1920 (or, now, 3840) across and then some amount of height. 1080p is a short-screen format, the older 1200p gives you more pixels, and a 3:2 gives you even more.IF we were talking about 1620 x 1080 vs 1920 x 1080, I'd agree with you and say the extra pixels might help. (Like the newer phones with extra screen area instead of chins and foreheads.)
DanNeely - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
14" means no 10 key.15" can only have 10 key if it has fat bezels (15" w thin bezels is no wider than a traditional 14" laptop and those have never had 10key) and is either thick enough to put ports under the keyboard, or sticks them somewhere other than to either side of it. Ultrabooks are too thin for ports under the keyboard.
And if it somehow was unclear from where it was launched (and Adobe event) and the highlighted signature feature (Wacom digitizer and screen at a comfortable pen angle), it's an artist workstation not an engineer workstation so the 10key isn't a core feature for its target market.
ddriver - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
What the hell is a "10 key". Numpad?Manch - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
YesManch - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numeric_keypadFor a know it all, I'm surprised you don't know what it is or have an insane opinion on it ;)
ddriver - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
I know "numeric keyboard", "numeric pad", and the shorter and most widely used "numpad" ."10 key" doesn't sound like anything that makes sense. What it sounds like is a dedicated "10" key, you know, so you don't have to press 1 and 0 to make a 10. Kinda weird to call "ten key" something that usually has 17 keys.
It's like calling a circle a "round line", except it makes even less sense. Must be an american thing, doesn't have to make sense, like still using imperial units.
DanNeely - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
Your daily dose of obscure trivia. The term 10key dates back to newer mechanical adding machines. Presumably because the number pad part of the layout was standardized prior to the operation buttons/levers around it. (Really old ones had a column of 1-9 buttons for each place value in a giant number grid.) Inertia kept the term alive even after basic digital calculators standardized the layout of all the keys around it 40+ years ago.amoledballoon - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
Additionally, "tenkeyless" is also a term often used to describe certain compact keyboards.A lot of terminology out there doesn't make direct logical sense. Just because you're not familiar with the term doesn't mean the term lacks legitimacy.
amoledballoon - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
For example, the term 'drive' is used in all sorts of places (e.g. USB drive, Google Drive) where there aren't drives. But then again, your comments weren't really about the terminology, were they?https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/335105...
Lord of the Bored - Thursday, October 19, 2017 - link
What's wrong with imperial units?I've said it before and I'll say it again: pounds, feet, and gallons put man on the moon. Grams, meters, and liters ain't taken no one anywhere. Not my fault everyone else decided to surrender to France.
Manch - Thursday, October 19, 2017 - link
surrender to France.....said no one ever...ddriver - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
I am pretty sure nasa uses metric internally.What's wrong with imperial units is they are morally outdated and lack uniformity. You don't do scientific measurements with units based on body parts LOL.
An inch is a 1000 thou, a foot is 12 inches, a yard is 3 feet, a chain (a chain of black slaves most likely) is 22 yards, a furlong is 10 chains, a mile is 8 furlongs... there is absolutely no uniformity to it, it is primitive and arbitrary.
That being said, imperial units have an advantage, but surely not in science, their advantage is poetic, and that advantage is the product of proper scientific units like the metric sounds terrible in poems or songs. Just imagine a band names "22 centimeter nails... Or getting your "kilogram or flesh".
Outside artistic usage, the metric system is superior in every way, from scientific to casual day to day usage. It is trivial to convert units because the units are uniform and their exponent is contained within the unit name.
Lord of the Bored - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
NASA didn't use metric during the Apollo era. The Space Shuttle was also designed using imperial units. And they mixed measurements for quite some time, most famously when the Mars Climate Orbiter was destroyed in 1999 due to different parts of the software using different units.In fact, the modern Constellation program is using imperial, due to the program's heavy use of shuttle technology(to the consternation of the international community).
So... good old imperlal units put over a dozen men on the moon. The use of french units destroyed a Mars probe. One can reasonably conclude metric is detrimental.
ddriver - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Yeah, I bet you are also taller when measured in imperial units ;)I guess it is just colonial days nostalgia.
Lord of the Bored - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
Colonial nostalgia? Man, get back to me when you have a better rebuttal than that. Like a space program capable of putting a man into orbit. Your silly french measures may have the moral high ground, but my "morally outdated" numbers have the literal high ground.Tams80 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
It has hotkeys as well, so there's no real need for a 10 key. I mean it would be nice, but at this size there just isn't the space for something not too useful.twtech - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
I don't really get the desire to have a 10-key for most users. If you're an accountant or deal with Excel spreadsheets often, I can understand how it could be worth the ergonomic tradeoff of having to deal with an off-center keyboard, but for everyone else, it doesn't make a lot of sense to make that sacrifice for something that is so rarely used.This laptop is geared toward content creators, not finance, so I think it makes a lot of sense that it doesn't have a 10-key.
evanfotis - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
This goes against Wacom mobile studio pro, shares same digitizer tech. Better display than Surface Book 2, colorwise and in resolution, a detachable functional keyboard is better and max 32GB of RAM. Plus usb-C Thunderbolt ports a big must for workstations lacking on Surface line.Manch - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
Thunderbolt...no, not soo much for attached storage, USB 3.x is just fine. Would be nice to have but not a deal breaker. The 32GB RAM is nice, as are the FIPS if really needed. Both have USB C. As far as display goes 3:2 is far superior to 16:9 for creative tasks. 16:9 is great for HDTV and video games but 16:10 would have been a better choice and I'd be OK with that. Aspect ratio is a personal preference, but 16:9 drives me nuts at times. 16:10 or even better 3:2 are the way to go for me. As far as the pen goes, MS and WACOM have a cross technology agreement since 2016. All WACOM/MS pens use both AES & N-Trig tech for compatibility. WACOM had the slightly more accurate pen, while N-Trig had a better digitizer/display stack. Eventually N-trig reached parity with WACOM but N-Trig still had a better display stack. AES changes that for WACOM and brings them to parity with N-Trig, but to argue that its better, considering they use each others tech, no. Surface has really great color accuracy and I've yet to test HP's new display so I cant pass judgment yet. The form factor of the surface book2 is superior in every aspect, to include weight. X2 looks like a supercharged Surface Pro with its kickstand, which I don't dislike but, looking at base price, its up there with the SB 2 so its fair to compare them. On a side note, I'm reluctant to buy HP. I work on them every single day and I don't want to work on one at home. I find their product stacks to be horribly unreliable with a high failure rate. That's purely anecdotal as I'm exposed to several thousand HP workstations while SB product maybe a few and have been lucky that I have not had any major issues with any of them.Manch - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
Disregard, this doesn't have WACOM's AES. It EMR tech so thicker display stack and inferior.Manch - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
Also check out Samsung T5. Its USB 3.1, not Thunderbolt and works great, which is why I wouldn't miss TB on a SB2. I would like it but I wont cry over not having it if I bought one.alexvoda - Friday, October 20, 2017 - link
1. I'll believe your claim that Wacom and Microsoft pens are compatible with each others digitizer when I see it. Video please.2. Wacom EMR is not inferior to AES and is better suited for graphic design (the target of this device). EMR has far better resolution and tilt recognition while AES does not (at least so far). The only real competitor to Wacom EMR is the Apple Pencil. Also, while EMR (compared to AES) has disadvantages (thicker panel->more parallax, loss of precision near corners) it also has advantages (battery free).
Tams80 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
EMR is by far preferred by most people. Recently, the display stack for it has become far thinner. In return there is next to no jitter, and no need for batteries in the pen (one thing less to worry about). EMR pens also tend to have more designs available.Thunderbolt is better to have. Daisy chaining is very useful. Having two is even better, as one could be saturated, especially for the uses this kind of device is used for.
The Surface devices has slightly less colour accurate displays. This has been objectively shown, as otherwise colour gamuts would not exist. It's also anti-glare on this device.
Overall, you're talking out of your arse, so please refrain from doing so in the future.
Sunday Afternoon - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
Those corners... "So say we all!"Rictorhell - Wednesday, October 18, 2017 - link
I love what they've done here. A very capable and attractive machine and the price seems reasonable. Not too much more I could ask for in a cutting edge device. Even Thunderbolt 3.Tams80 - Saturday, October 21, 2017 - link
*two Thunderbolt 3 portsEven better.