it beats in usability-performance every desktop i see (it really boots in 8 sec to online.. most desktops are still doing it's bios thing at that point..).

Sounds like you haven't used a desktop in a while, Dave. Even my NUC boots faster than that.

it beats in usability-performance every desktop i see (it really boots in 8 sec to online.. most desktops are still doing it's bios thing at that point..).

Sounds like you haven't used a desktop in a while, Dave. Even my NUC boots faster than that.

i work with many machines of different manufacturers, and typically, the surface beats most of them. not all, of course.

but in the end, my main point is: raw performance is, for the most part, not really of any importance. my surface is typically on standby and never off, anyways => never have to boot.

but i see so many going like "i need an i7 quadcore as a minimum, and 16gb ram, etc.. and all". and i look at my device, seing i'm just as efficient in doing all the work they do on their high end super machines.

diminishing returns.. performance even of an ultra portable / tablet etc is nowadays good enough to perform so many tasks at the same speed that it just doesn't matter anymore.

the only moment where i'd like a faster system is when i code on my raytracer. but as that's not where the money is for me, i can live with that.

the portability gains, the flexiblity thanks to touch + mouse + keyboard + trackpad + tablet on the go + kickstand + big touchscreen docked at home + oculus rift + xbox controller, having it all in ONE device, set up once, always ready.. that gains me more speed than any high end desktop would give me.

oh, and a pen. now if i would be any good as an artist.. that would be awesome :)

it beats in usability-performance every desktop i see (it really boots in 8 sec to online.. most desktops are still doing it's bios thing at that point..).

Sounds like you haven't used a desktop in a while, Dave. Even my NUC boots faster than that.

i work with many machines of different manufacturers, and typically, the surface beats most of them. not all, of course.

but in the end, my main point is: raw performance is, for the most part, not really of any importance. my surface is typically on standby and never off, anyways => never have to boot.

but i see so many going like "i need an i7 quadcore as a minimum, and 16gb ram, etc.. and all". and i look at my device, seing i'm just as efficient in doing all the work they do on their high end super machines.

diminishing returns.. performance even of an ultra portable / tablet etc is nowadays good enough to perform so many tasks at the same speed that it just doesn't matter anymore.

the only moment where i'd like a faster system is when i code on my raytracer. but as that's not where the money is for me, i can live with that.

the portability gains, the flexiblity thanks to touch + mouse + keyboard + trackpad + tablet on the go + kickstand + big touchscreen docked at home + oculus rift + xbox controller, having it all in ONE device, set up once, always ready.. that gains me more speed than any high end desktop would give me.

oh, and a pen. now if i would be any good as an artist.. that would be awesome

I'd say 16GB ram is pretty nice(almost a must have) if you are doing cross platform work (a few running VMs or emulators tend to eat up 8GB pretty fast) and since RAM is cheap as .... it really doesn't make much sense to hold back on it. (I'd personally cut back on the CPU and GPU instead, a i5 is more than enough).

Both my laptop and desktop have 32gb ram and i7 CPUs from the fourth generation. The desktop version has 6 cores and slightly higher clock speeds. On my desktop, I can build and launch my debug target in 3-5 seconds. On my current dev laptop, that takes 8-10 seconds. On my old laptop (second gen i5) that took nearly 30 seconds. When doing polish work (ie very short code->run cycles) the productivity impact is huge.

all my code compiles in less than 1sec. good thing i don't use c++, then :) and yes, moar is better. but moar means, too, less batterylife when you're on the go, and less portability in general.

which is a huge thing to me.

and yes, 16gb of ram are very useful once you have 5 vms n stuff running. good thing i don't do that. i remote into real machines instead, if needed. or azure vm's :) both more flexible than local vm's, anyways (different gpu configurations, etc..)

and yes, 16gb of ram are very useful once you have 5 vms n stuff running. good thing i don't do that. i remote into real machines instead, if needed. or azure vm's both more flexible than local vm's, anyways (different gpu configurations, etc..)

To be fair, if you're remoting into extra machines, it's not really true you do everything with just one machine :)

(If they're machines you don't own, not everyone has access to that, so we either have to have multiple machines that we own, or one machine that's powerful enough to run decent VMs, or has a dedicated non-Intel GPU.)