PCWorld Nov-15

WOW. JUST…WOW. Going into Microsoft’s massive device launch event, everyone knew that the focus would squarely fall on the intersection of physical and digital—new Microsoft devices that showcase everything possible with Windows 10. What we didn’t expect was just how convincingly Microsoft would manage to push its vision for convergence between hardware and software, or how damn sleek and sexy Microsoft’s in-house hardware would look. From a Surface-powered MacBook rival to Lumias that appear well worth the wait, here are the seven biggest reveals from Microsoft’s hardware blitz. Surface Book The surprise star of the show, the 13.5-inch Surface Book is the result of the Surface team’s wondering “what if we can do for laptops what we did for tablets?” The answer: something awfully compelling. The sleek, sexy Surface Book leans on Microsoft’s decade-plus of…

Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/surface bookvid MICROSOFT CALLS THE new Surface Book two-in-one the “ultimate laptop.” As a 2-in-1, it’s more than that. Undocked, the Surface Book is a massive 13.5-inch 3K tablet. Dock it to its base and it becomes a notebook capable of gaming, complete with its own discrete Nvidia GPU. And it’s twice as powerful as Apple’s MacBook Pro. The secret? A flexible, articulated hinge that stabilizes the entire laptop, allowing it to recline and fold forward like a regular laptop, and fold backward to a comfortable angle. In terms of flexibility, the Surface Book doesn’t quite match up to the Surface Pro 3. But that’s forgivable, given its other advantages. All told, the Surface Book reminds me of the Chromebook Pixel: the premier example of what its ecosystem can…

Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/surface pro4vid A MONTH BACK, and we’d likely be trumpeting Microsoft’s new Surface Pro 4 as the next-generation of Surface. And it is. It’s just that, compared to its newly announced, mic-dropping rockstar cousin—the Surface Book—the Surface Pro 4 loses a bit of its luster. Shade your eyes from the Surface Book’s dazzle, and the Surface Pro 4 has a lot to offer. Bumping up its processor to a sixth-generation Core, or Skylake, has boosted the performance by 30 percent over the Surface Pro 3 and 50 percent over the Apple MacBook Air, according to Microsoft. At a starting price of just $899 (and available for pre order on Oct. 7, with availability on the 26th) the Surface Pro 4 is priced right, too. Externally, the Surface Pro 4…

MICROSOFT HAS CLEARED up the mystery about what processors are inside the new Surface Book and Surface Pro 4, and here’s the answer: The high-end Surface Pro 4 contains a dual-core Core i7 Skylake chip, while the Surface Book uses a faster, also dual-core, version. Specifically, the high-end “clipboard” tablet portion of the Surface Book uses a dual-core Intel Core i7-6600U chip with Intel’s HD Graphics 520 integrated GPU inside, Microsoft confirmed. The premium version of the Surface Pro 4 uses a Core i7-6650U with Intel’s premium graphics, the Intel Iris 540. Microsoft also confirmed some details of the GPU inside the base of the Surface Book. “[The] Surface Book with the optional discrete GPU uses a custom Nvidia GeForce GPU designed for Surface Book and based on the Maxwell architecture. Featuring…

Watch the video at go.pcworld.com/lumia950xlvid I HELD THE Lumia 950 XL in my hands. This is the Windows Phone flagship we’ve been waiting for, the phone that will lead its ecosystem. But where’s Windows Phone going? Logic tells me there’s no way Microsoft can resuscitate the market. Simply gaining a little ground won’t be enough—it can’t survive unless it can sit respectably near to Android and iOS in market share. After spending a little time with the Lumia 950 XL, I can consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, not all is lost. A solid CPU and camera make the new Lumia A nonstop trickle of rumors slowly revealed the specs of the Lumia 950 XL (as well as the 950 and 550) before Microsoft showed it off at its press event, so the announcement…

MICROSOFT’S AUDACIOUS VISION for Windows devices that seamlessly blend hardware with software in a unified, holistic experience is finally bearing fruit, after being stuck in a morass for years. The company’s been inching toward this experience ever since it revealed Windows 8, with its touchscreen support and Metro interface. Just last year, the Surface Pro 3 finally became the first piece of kit that truly delivered on Surface’s core ideals, one-upping its flaw-ridden predecessors by delivering no-compromise hardware built around key Windows features; witness how pressing the Surface Pro 3’s pen summoned OneNote, for example. But the Surface Pro 3 still wasn’t immaculate. The reason: Windows 8. The hardware may have matured to match Microsoft’s vision, but Windows itself still hadn’t. Everything’s different with Microsoft’s just-revealed hardware lineup, from the Lumia 950 to…