Yeah, for a while my favorite laptop was the Surface Book 2. Decent specs, does what I want it to. Then Microsoft started going through "Marketing Driven Development" for Windows and its just been downhill for my experience with that laptop. It's not just the marketing trash, the OS has gotten noticeably slow despite me keeping it pretty vanilla. It's downright insulting. As for my desktops, I just smoosh over Windows and install Linux over now, I don't care about anything on Windows enough to keep it. I can play all my games on Linux just fine. I can do all my dev stuff on Linux too.
lol i just posted about how I was also scorned by MS/Surface Book 2.
What a potentially amazing device. I hated that if you were playing a game or doing many video encodes, the charger (100w?) could not provide enough power -- so your battery drained. And make sure you don't let your base drain completely after being stored for a while -- the main computer won't be able to recognize it to even charge it again. And these were all known faults with no solution for the consumer other than to "buy the newer model." And you could never disable the damn windows update nag screens entirely. And you knew that you'd lose functionality if you upgraded something.
I had a Surface Book 2 WITHOUT the base i.e. just the screen. Best tablet I've ever had. 15" and yet thinner (then) and lighter than an iPad Pro which still doesn't come bigger than 13".
Two useful accessories I had were 'surface connector to USBC' adapter (to mitigat the small battery) and a ring mouse. Scrolling on touchscreen for Windows has been as good as MacBook haptic trackpads, certainly better than most Windows oem trackpads.
There was brief moment in time where Panay was poised with the Surface Book and Surface Studio (just wish they made a monitor version of the studio) to give Apple a run for their money. But they replaced the Surface Book with Surface Laptop studio, devolved the OS with ads and AI and now I'm mainly only on the Mac...
an underrated reason for the decline in windows is that it went from a core product focus to being crowded out. I wouldn't be surprised if azure, sharepoint, office 365, devices, GH/Linkedin, bing/copilot, etc are all more important to msft leadership than windows.
I put Linux on an old Surface tablet. Works better than Windows on the same device. The only thing that isn't working under Linux is the camera. Built in extra privacy as a bonus!
I have thought about it, and I guess you bring up a good point, if I absolutely want a webcam, I guess I can plug in one... Maybe the camera "not working" is a hidden bonus for me.
