It would match my F150 KR. I've always liked the solid colors and solid plastic bodies of the lumias. They're very sturdy so a screen protector and that's it is all I've ever put on my phone. Screen protector bugged the hell out of me. It made it where I couldn't use the screen with gloves on so I took it off. Removable battery and SD card! Same specs as the Nexus 6Pwith a few nice differences. I'm tempted.
If they don't someone else probably will. I'm with Sttm though, the black leather cover they show is the first leather cover I've ever considered using. LG's G4 had an OK one but the stitching killed it for me.
@Brett - Can you ask some of the Microsoft staff there why they're still against including Thunderbolt or USB Type-C with PCI-E enabled, especially given the surface connector? AFAIK the primary reason is Microsoft's stance against DMA ports as a security threat (DMA attacks), but IOMMUs have been available on VT-d equipped CPUs for quite some time now, which can solve the issue (if Windows supports them though, last time I checked, it didn't... bummer).
Alpine Ridge is a separate chip, adding it would add cost, power consumption and take up valuable motherboard real estate. It's a trade-off, it's not as simple as just picking a different chipset.
"My next laptop will have a TB3 plug, so I can use it with an external GPU enclosure."
Good luck with that. Intel seem to be blocking certification of enclosures that would make that possible.
Yeah the extra power draw, space, and cost for something 1% of users would use?
I think in general most people seriously considering an expensive external housing and GPU dedicated for use with their mobile device is probably already looking at higher-powered quad core i7 laptops anyway. Not a 2C/4T tablet/ultrathin hybrid.
Don't get me wrong I'd like to see this go mainstream. Maybe someday when the capability is integrated into the SoC without any additional costs, and when your compact dock/cradle doubles as an MXM GPU housing. :D
Actually there are quite a lot of people looking for a highly mobile device that can be paired up to a desktop-class GPU. Such devices exist - take a look at the techinferno eGPU forums. It's just that tablets have been missing from the picture for quite some time now.
Here's MS's stand on the issue, at least according to what I managed to dig up: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn6321... Read the "Protection during Pre-Boot: Pre-Boot Authentication:" part, the second half has the relevant info.
Actually another issue might be the IOMMU using lots of CPU resources to acquire/release new mappings, thereby wasting CPU (and battery) power if it is used for built-in devices as well. There are ways to mitigate this, but it's not very easy to fit them in the current OS architectures. I'm wondering if the IOMMU can be configured to only be used for external ports, while presenting a 1:1 mapping of physical to device-logical memory addresses for built-in devices...
We'll have to agree to disagree. The only people I've ever known who were seriously interested in plunking down hundreds of dollars for an external GPU housing plus hundreds more on the graphics card itself, for the sole purpose of hooking it to a mobile device (along with an external monitor and other devices)? They were looking at laptops with true quad cores, not tablets.
You know I think my 1% figure might be generous. It's arguably a waste of power, which would end up hurting the tablet in actual use, as well as reviews and sales. IMHO it's not worth it to please a handful of users who would probably be better served with a laptop anyway. Anyway like I said when the capability can be supported without any negative impact, then it'll happen.
There is already speculation that Surface Book actually uses Thunderbolt 3 as the connecting port between the "tablet" and the "keyboard". Look closely at the SB keyboard, almost sure this is a USB-C connector. Only Thunderbolt 3 can meet SB's requirement to transfer 40Gb/s between two parts. However, the question is will Microsoft let you use this port to do other thing?
You give me hope. IF this turns out to be the case I will buy a Surface Book. If not I too will be looking for a laptop/tablet with TB3. I see all the new Dell models have TB3 so Microsoft are behind in this area.
What's going on with the heatpipes? What's the large copper block at one end? Where's the other one go? One is the processor I assume, but there's no dGPU.
Maybe just helping passively cool it I guess, hence their "hybrid" cooling?
Honestly surprised that there's no mention of what CPU and GPU the Surface Book is using or that the author didn't ask.
Microsoft made bold claims here - that it's twice as fast as the rMBP13. There was talk to 'two extra processors'. It all suggests a quad-core i7, but 12 hours of battery life would be unprecedented there.
We also need clarification on the Nvidia GPU and the amount of VRAM. It's staggering that MS is inviting pre-orders without telling us exactly what form the two most important components take.
I suspect not even Microsoft knows which SKUs they will put in the final device. That's my only explanation for this strange behaviour.
Quadcore i7 with 12 hours of battery life (light load with the dGPU disabled) seems entirely possible considering they have so much room to fill with batteries.
Dell XPS 15 and the rMBP15 are the only devices that have decent battery life on a quad-core i7 and those are 15-inch laptops crammed with batteries. I'm sure Skylake is more efficient than Haswell, but not to the extent this implies.
And of course they know what SKUs they'll be using - those decisions would have been taken months ago, and the devices have been on the production line for weeks at least!
No this is Microsoft's playbook. Every Mac introduction was accompanied by the number of cores, the CPU Base and/or Turbo clock frequency, and the performance number (i5 or i7) From that I have ALWAYS been able to look up the part on Intel ARK website.
Well if you're hands-on with the device, why don't you just look at basic system information? One of your competitors did and it looks like the display models at the hands-on event have a Core i5-6300U with 8GB of RAM.
Somewhat offtopic but I find it interesting how we're seeing a revival of the mobile dGPU, only a few months ago everybody expected them to die with Skylake. Guess Intel's bold roadmap did not work out as expected.
I suspect Apple has their even thinner (sigh) iGPU-only rMBP redesign well on their way and will attempt to bypass this issue with external GPUs via Thunderbolt 3.
I think this product was in development for so long...they didn't realize that Skylake would be able to offer comparable performance to entry-level discreet GPU's. I fully expect the next MacBook Pro to dump the dGPU entirely for a smaller circuit board, thinner design, and relatively more battery space.
I think part of the issue is AMD's flub-up with Bulldozer, so their APU products have been of the question when it comes to traditional single-threaded CPU performance.
It will probably stay this way until we get Zen APUs, and that's assuming it isn't Bulldozer MKII.
>The Windows key on the side has been removed, >which is a good thing since it is not needed with Windows 10 and I >found myself bumping it by mistake too often.
This is what I've been waiting for. Putting that Windows button where a hand naturally rests while drawing was a serious design flaw.
Only the Vaio Z was so bold as to go with a dockable GPU. However MS actually improved this by making the keyboard the actual dock. The system is split between the 2 halves of the notebook. It allows much more efficient cooling than mixing both CPU and dGPU in the base like every other laptop.
I've owned 1 Apple tablet, 2 Android, and still have the Surface 2. Granted, it's been a while since the others, I find the Windows interface amazing for mobile, and have been waiting for a nicely spec'd Windows phone for a while. Looking forward to it.
i just don't see how Microsoft can compete with those lumia prices. My daily driver is a lumia 930, and there are sacrifices you make when you chose Microsoft's platform, like the lack of apps, or apps of lower quality compared to their ios and android equivalent. This should be reflected with a lower price point. You can't expect people to just pay the same as the high end android and apple phones. Heck some top notch android phones are selling at discounts in order to gain market share, so i seriously doubt Microsoft's strategy.
For some of us its all about having quality hardware and the core 6-8 apps we actually use/need. Having 1000000 apps in your store is pointless if 999990 are useless or copies. I see so many people complaining that their battery life sucks and they have no storage on their phones. You look at their phones and they have 300 apps installed. They only use maybe 15 or so of them but then you tell them "Why not uninstall the ones you don't really need/use and free up some space?" they look at you dumbfounded and say "Why would I do that?" Muppets!
I'm in that category. I don't need/want a ton of apps. But the situation is really bad on windows phone. BBC news app? there was a decent one that BBC forced out, so it stopped being updated. LinkedIn? terrible. Whatsapp? way behind competitors. Banking apps? good luck. Then i got myself a dji phantom drone, was happy it had a windows phone app, install, open.. doesn't work. sigh. Might be time to leave..
Remember that the liquid cooling only transfers heat. It doesn't magically make it disappear.
So if the SoC is using 10 Watts (don't know what the real number is), the liquid cooling is moving those 10 Watts from the SoC to somewhere else. If you are holding it, a lot of the heat is entering your hand. If it is docked, air convection is whisking the heat away, and since you aren't touching it, it can run hotter. (Don't like this scenario either).
If you're holding it, it will throttle just like other devices do as peoples hands don't really like holding things that are hotter than body temperature. So 40° C is about it and it'll throttle. The only thing the liquid cooling may do is spread the heat across a larger surface area so more of the device gets warmer resulting in overall less surface temp on the device. Not sure if this much of a win though.
First, it's about increasing surface area, and distributing the heat more evenly throughout the whole chassis. Basic physics. Second, this isn't about *eliminating* throttling all together, but keeping it at a minimum during the relatively short occasions the SoC is pushed to the limits, improving the experience further and minimizing hickups.
The significant implication this might have is on battery life. Since the SoC isn't throttling as much, it'll be consuming more power. But logically speaking, Microsoft is probably doing this with continuum in mind which is where these phones will be pushed to the limits. But even then, the phone would be docked, and most likely provided with external power (charging).
We’ve updated our terms. By continuing to use the site and/or by logging into your account, you agree to the Site’s updated Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
48 Comments
Back to Article
Sttm - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I never really like the leather case idea, but that left one looks pretty great.Manch - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
It would match my F150 KR. I've always liked the solid colors and solid plastic bodies of the lumias. They're very sturdy so a screen protector and that's it is all I've ever put on my phone. Screen protector bugged the hell out of me. It made it where I couldn't use the screen with gloves on so I took it off. Removable battery and SD card! Same specs as the Nexus 6Pwith a few nice differences. I'm tempted.Laxaa - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I hope MS will release some bright colored plastic backs for the 950 series. Rocking a bright orange back on my Lumia 830 and it looks great!Alexvrb - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
If they don't someone else probably will. I'm with Sttm though, the black leather cover they show is the first leather cover I've ever considered using. LG's G4 had an OK one but the stitching killed it for me.Hiiklstt - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
100% agree with this. If they release a bright yellow polycarbonate shell/back then i'm sold.nikon133 - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Yellow Lumia 920. Love it... and so easy to spot ;)Lwerewolf - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
@Brett - Can you ask some of the Microsoft staff there why they're still against including Thunderbolt or USB Type-C with PCI-E enabled, especially given the surface connector?AFAIK the primary reason is Microsoft's stance against DMA ports as a security threat (DMA attacks), but IOMMUs have been available on VT-d equipped CPUs for quite some time now, which can solve the issue (if Windows supports them though, last time I checked, it didn't... bummer).
MrSpadge - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
They're not in the Intel chipset, so they're not included. Could be as simple as that.schizoide - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
They are in the alpine ridge chipset. If MS chose to use another chipset, that's on them.My next laptop will have a TB3 plug, so I can use it with an external GPU enclosure. This one won't be it, unfortunately.
Gigaplex - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Alpine Ridge is a separate chip, adding it would add cost, power consumption and take up valuable motherboard real estate. It's a trade-off, it's not as simple as just picking a different chipset."My next laptop will have a TB3 plug, so I can use it with an external GPU enclosure."
Good luck with that. Intel seem to be blocking certification of enclosures that would make that possible.
osxandwindows - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Intel said that thunderbolt 3 can support OgpuThey are working with AMD
Alexvrb - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Yeah the extra power draw, space, and cost for something 1% of users would use?I think in general most people seriously considering an expensive external housing and GPU dedicated for use with their mobile device is probably already looking at higher-powered quad core i7 laptops anyway. Not a 2C/4T tablet/ultrathin hybrid.
Don't get me wrong I'd like to see this go mainstream. Maybe someday when the capability is integrated into the SoC without any additional costs, and when your compact dock/cradle doubles as an MXM GPU housing. :D
Lwerewolf - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Actually there are quite a lot of people looking for a highly mobile device that can be paired up to a desktop-class GPU. Such devices exist - take a look at the techinferno eGPU forums. It's just that tablets have been missing from the picture for quite some time now.Here's MS's stand on the issue, at least according to what I managed to dig up:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn6321...
Read the "Protection during Pre-Boot: Pre-Boot Authentication:" part, the second half has the relevant info.
Actually another issue might be the IOMMU using lots of CPU resources to acquire/release new mappings, thereby wasting CPU (and battery) power if it is used for built-in devices as well. There are ways to mitigate this, but it's not very easy to fit them in the current OS architectures. I'm wondering if the IOMMU can be configured to only be used for external ports, while presenting a 1:1 mapping of physical to device-logical memory addresses for built-in devices...
Murloc - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
most people don't even know what a GPU is.Quite a lot is very relative.
Alexvrb - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
We'll have to agree to disagree. The only people I've ever known who were seriously interested in plunking down hundreds of dollars for an external GPU housing plus hundreds more on the graphics card itself, for the sole purpose of hooking it to a mobile device (along with an external monitor and other devices)? They were looking at laptops with true quad cores, not tablets.You know I think my 1% figure might be generous. It's arguably a waste of power, which would end up hurting the tablet in actual use, as well as reviews and sales. IMHO it's not worth it to please a handful of users who would probably be better served with a laptop anyway. Anyway like I said when the capability can be supported without any negative impact, then it'll happen.
mkozakewich - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
"Such devices exist - take a look at..."...Microsoft Surface Book.
Egdeen Li - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
There is already speculation that Surface Book actually uses Thunderbolt 3 as the connecting port between the "tablet" and the "keyboard". Look closely at the SB keyboard, almost sure this is a USB-C connector. Only Thunderbolt 3 can meet SB's requirement to transfer 40Gb/s between two parts. However, the question is will Microsoft let you use this port to do other thing?DrJulle - Sunday, October 11, 2015 - link
You give me hope. IF this turns out to be the case I will buy a Surface Book. If not I too will be looking for a laptop/tablet with TB3. I see all the new Dell models have TB3 so Microsoft are behind in this area.tipoo - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
What's going on with the heatpipes? What's the large copper block at one end? Where's the other one go? One is the processor I assume, but there's no dGPU.Maybe just helping passively cool it I guess, hence their "hybrid" cooling?
DryAir - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Yes. Both heatpipes are connected to the CPU, one for passive cooling, other for active. Its written on the text.OrphanageExplosion - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Honestly surprised that there's no mention of what CPU and GPU the Surface Book is using or that the author didn't ask.Microsoft made bold claims here - that it's twice as fast as the rMBP13. There was talk to 'two extra processors'. It all suggests a quad-core i7, but 12 hours of battery life would be unprecedented there.
We also need clarification on the Nvidia GPU and the amount of VRAM. It's staggering that MS is inviting pre-orders without telling us exactly what form the two most important components take.
ydeer - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I suspect not even Microsoft knows which SKUs they will put in the final device. That's my only explanation for this strange behaviour.Quadcore i7 with 12 hours of battery life (light load with the dGPU disabled) seems entirely possible considering they have so much room to fill with batteries.
OrphanageExplosion - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Dell XPS 15 and the rMBP15 are the only devices that have decent battery life on a quad-core i7 and those are 15-inch laptops crammed with batteries. I'm sure Skylake is more efficient than Haswell, but not to the extent this implies.And of course they know what SKUs they'll be using - those decisions would have been taken months ago, and the devices have been on the production line for weeks at least!
schizoide - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
They're taking money now, and shipping in 3 weeks. They gotta know.It is fishy that they won't say anything about the GPU. You just know it's going to be slow, like a 950m.
tipoo - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
In that form factor? The 15W U series is far more likely, and those are all dual cores.Ryan Smith - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Microsoft isn't disclosing specific CPU and GPU models at this time.vFunct - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Taking another page out of the Apple playbook..TEAMSWITCHER - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
No this is Microsoft's playbook. Every Mac introduction was accompanied by the number of cores, the CPU Base and/or Turbo clock frequency, and the performance number (i5 or i7) From that I have ALWAYS been able to look up the part on Intel ARK website.OrphanageExplosion - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Well if you're hands-on with the device, why don't you just look at basic system information? One of your competitors did and it looks like the display models at the hands-on event have a Core i5-6300U with 8GB of RAM.Murloc - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
I guess pre-orders aren't binding?ydeer - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Somewhat offtopic but I find it interesting how we're seeing a revival of the mobile dGPU, only a few months ago everybody expected them to die with Skylake. Guess Intel's bold roadmap did not work out as expected.I suspect Apple has their even thinner (sigh) iGPU-only rMBP redesign well on their way and will attempt to bypass this issue with external GPUs via Thunderbolt 3.
TEAMSWITCHER - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I think this product was in development for so long...they didn't realize that Skylake would be able to offer comparable performance to entry-level discreet GPU's. I fully expect the next MacBook Pro to dump the dGPU entirely for a smaller circuit board, thinner design, and relatively more battery space.Nintendo Maniac 64 - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I think part of the issue is AMD's flub-up with Bulldozer, so their APU products have been of the question when it comes to traditional single-threaded CPU performance.It will probably stay this way until we get Zen APUs, and that's assuming it isn't Bulldozer MKII.
Nintendo Maniac 64 - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
...lack of edit."APU products have been OUT of the question"
JeffFlanagan - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
>The Windows key on the side has been removed,>which is a good thing since it is not needed with Windows 10 and I
>found myself bumping it by mistake too often.
This is what I've been waiting for. Putting that Windows button where a hand naturally rests while drawing was a serious design flaw.
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
You can rotate it to the other side?londedoganet - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Not if you want to use the kickstand.id4andrei - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
Only the Vaio Z was so bold as to go with a dockable GPU. However MS actually improved this by making the keyboard the actual dock. The system is split between the 2 halves of the notebook. It allows much more efficient cooling than mixing both CPU and dGPU in the base like every other laptop.Gigaplex - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Dell/Alienware and I believe a few others have tried out the dockable GPU too.Tchamber - Tuesday, October 6, 2015 - link
I've owned 1 Apple tablet, 2 Android, and still have the Surface 2. Granted, it's been a while since the others, I find the Windows interface amazing for mobile, and have been waiting for a nicely spec'd Windows phone for a while. Looking forward to it.maximumGPU - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
i just don't see how Microsoft can compete with those lumia prices.My daily driver is a lumia 930, and there are sacrifices you make when you chose Microsoft's platform, like the lack of apps, or apps of lower quality compared to their ios and android equivalent. This should be reflected with a lower price point. You can't expect people to just pay the same as the high end android and apple phones. Heck some top notch android phones are selling at discounts in order to gain market share, so i seriously doubt Microsoft's strategy.
jabber - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
For some of us its all about having quality hardware and the core 6-8 apps we actually use/need. Having 1000000 apps in your store is pointless if 999990 are useless or copies. I see so many people complaining that their battery life sucks and they have no storage on their phones. You look at their phones and they have 300 apps installed. They only use maybe 15 or so of them but then you tell them "Why not uninstall the ones you don't really need/use and free up some space?" they look at you dumbfounded and say "Why would I do that?" Muppets!maximumGPU - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
I'm in that category. I don't need/want a ton of apps. But the situation is really bad on windows phone. BBC news app? there was a decent one that BBC forced out, so it stopped being updated. LinkedIn? terrible. Whatsapp? way behind competitors. Banking apps? good luck.Then i got myself a dji phantom drone, was happy it had a windows phone app, install, open.. doesn't work. sigh. Might be time to leave..
jabber - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Well I feel your pain, I would go MS phone tomorrow if it had the Google support.Le Geek - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Again no mention of liquid cooling of the new 950s. This to me is the most interesting new feature.Le Geek - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
in the 950s*Aenean144 - Wednesday, October 7, 2015 - link
Remember that the liquid cooling only transfers heat. It doesn't magically make it disappear.So if the SoC is using 10 Watts (don't know what the real number is), the liquid cooling is moving those 10 Watts from the SoC to somewhere else. If you are holding it, a lot of the heat is entering your hand. If it is docked, air convection is whisking the heat away, and since you aren't touching it, it can run hotter. (Don't like this scenario either).
If you're holding it, it will throttle just like other devices do as peoples hands don't really like holding things that are hotter than body temperature. So 40° C is about it and it'll throttle. The only thing the liquid cooling may do is spread the heat across a larger surface area so more of the device gets warmer resulting in overall less surface temp on the device. Not sure if this much of a win though.
lilmoe - Thursday, October 8, 2015 - link
First, it's about increasing surface area, and distributing the heat more evenly throughout the whole chassis. Basic physics.Second, this isn't about *eliminating* throttling all together, but keeping it at a minimum during the relatively short occasions the SoC is pushed to the limits, improving the experience further and minimizing hickups.
The significant implication this might have is on battery life. Since the SoC isn't throttling as much, it'll be consuming more power. But logically speaking, Microsoft is probably doing this with continuum in mind which is where these phones will be pushed to the limits. But even then, the phone would be docked, and most likely provided with external power (charging).