Surface Book

MS states that biometric data never leaves the device, it's only used to unlock locally. Any assurances or guarantees to this are pretty much meaningless, but if the NSA wanted your face scan they'd just stick these cameras on every street corner.

To be fair saving Hello info to AD would be neat.
 
So the tablet will take an external GPU input of "somekind".....

How long before we see hack / mods to allow different GPU's?
I don't understand the way this works with the weird hinge connector dealy,
is this even possible?
 
Inu said:
So the tablet will take an external GPU input of "somekind".....

How long before we see hack / mods to allow different GPU's?
I don't understand the way this works with the weird hinge connector dealy,
is this even possible?
Click to expand...

Not sure if I follow you. However if the PCIe lanes are running out of the Surface Connector then it's pretty clear the ability to use any type of external GPU should inherently be there. Indeed I wouldn't be surprised it Microsoft came out with a dock with powerful mobile class GPU in it. That could really drive this this over the top as a Swiss Army knife device.
 
I mean it obviously accepts a GPU externally because of the one in the Keyboard, although im not sure it's an even remotely traditional connector in any way.

So i imagine people are going to be trying to hack a way to use a desktop GPU somehow. I mean the market is definitely there, it's just a matter of time, regardless of whether Microsoft offers an alternative.
 
So today I had a few friends over to watch some football games and I attempted to show off the Surface Book. This thing just kept crashing and freezing and throwing up errors when I was trying to detach the screen from the base. I think I'm done. This thing is getting returned back to Microsoft tomorrow morning. I really do like the style of the hardware but it's clear that this is a gen 1 product that needs a ton of software and firmware updates to get it working correctly.
 
Sorry to hear that. Certainly having you new hot device give up the ghost like that in front of friends is A MAJOR disincentive to keep the thing.

Since last Monday I've probably converted mine over a hundred times under all the scenarios I could think of. Two things I noticed. I ALWAYS locks up or blue screens when it's asleep and I try to detach. Every single time. And if I convert to drawing mode it does the same thing if I reattach to quickly, before the detachment sound goes off. And every now and then and the GPU driver will stop responding especially when using Edge.

Sounds like a lot of issues but they do have one thing in common, GPU drivers. Looks like Microsoft didn't get those up to snuff at release which is unfortunate as it does seem like it is one problem causing so many others.

However I've owned a number of convertible laptops over the years and while the GPU issues are not good this is still by far the best hybrid experience I've seen on a device out of the gate. There's always been quirks with these things especially around the conversion process. I think that's one huge reason they've never been big.

The next two weeks will be telling. Threshold 2 will be coming out probably in the next week or two and there's likely to be firmware and driver updates along with that. Should improve things for these new Surface devices, or ma he them worse.
 
There was a briefing in Belgium this morning. They stated that they will not bring out the Surface Book and Active stuff in Europe. The UK and France are still in negotiations, so there is a small chance that those countries will ship them in a few months.
I'm just going to order it in the US...
 
Well downloading the HUGE update for windows 10 to my book.... lets pray it fixes some issues that I never really experienced and offer some other substantial cool things. It has been downloading for quite some time and I am on a fast cable connection here.
 
-Dragon- said:
MS states that biometric data never leaves the device, it's only used to unlock locally. Any assurances or guarantees to this are pretty much meaningless, but if the NSA wanted your face scan they'd just stick these cameras on every street corner.

To be fair saving Hello info to AD would be neat.
Click to expand...

I don't know about the SB. But the biometric processor used in a lot of devices does everything internally and simply passes the "yes" or "no" off to the OS. This is done because you can't hash (it'd have to be a perfect scan every time) a biometric and still have quick access, so because everything is stored with minimal protection, they put it on a chip as a safe guard.

..now knowing the NSA's track record, those chips are probably made by a shell corp that simply offloads everything to their data center.
 
tangoseal said:
Well downloading the HUGE update for windows 10 to my book.... lets pray it fixes some issues that I never really experienced and offer some other substantial cool things. It has been downloading for quite some time and I am on a fast cable connection here.
Click to expand...

Been running Version 1511 since it was officially released on Thursday. I had to use the media creation tool, it wasn't showing up in Windows Update. Seems to have smoothed out the battery drain issue with Windows Hello on. And also Cortana with voice activation is much more reliable. Still seeing flashing during video playback with Hyper-V on and the GPU driver crash bug a couple of times a day. But I've not had any blue screens attaching or detaching the screen since then, even with the device in sleep, knock on wood. That was my biggest irritant.

So since the device was released just three weeks ago it looks like all of my issues save two, the video playback flashing in Hyper-V and GPU not responding issue, which doesn't seem to cause any problem that a second or two pause while the driver is recovering, have been resolved.
 
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heatlesssun said:
Been running Version 1511 since it was officially released on Thursday. I had to use the media creation tool, it wasn't showing up in Windows Update. Seems to have smoothed out the battery drain issue with Windows Hello on. And also Cortana with voice activation is much more reliable. Still seeing flashing during video playback with Hyper-V on and the GPU driver crash bug a couple of times a day. But I've not had any blue screens attaching or detaching the screen since then, even with the device in sleep, knock on wood. That was my biggest irritant.

So since the device was released just three weeks ago it looks like all of my issues save two, the video playback flashing in Hyper-V and GPU not responding issue, which doesn't seem to cause any problem that a second or two pause while the driver is recovering, have been resolved.
Click to expand...

No problems here. Well... last night stupid AutoRotation on kept flashing over and over, but some hardware driver update installed when I checked Windows updates and it went away. Must have been a super quick and last minute bug fix by microsoft. I have had ZERO problems with my Book now and it is running flawlessly.

Just can't figure out why Onenote 2013 takes so long to load on certain wifi connections and within 2-3 seconds on my home connection. Probably an office issue.
 
It arrived in EUROPE!!
Against all messages from Microsoft, they are now bringing the Surface Book to Europe. I have seen the first ones in stock yesterday in France. (sold out now)
 
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