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Should Microsoft's Rumored Gaming Focus Laptop be branded "Surface" or "Xbox"?

Victor Omega

Victor Omega

Member
Rumor has it Microsft is making a Surface Gaming Laptop.

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But some, however, feel that the Surface brand is and should be what it always represented: Productivity.

www.techadvisor.com

Four reasons why a Surface gaming laptop is a terrible idea

Rumours that Microsoft was working on a Surface gaming laptop were false. Here are 4 reasons why no-one should have believed them in the first place
www.techadvisor.com www.techadvisor.com

It’s important to consider what the Surface brand represents for Microsoft, and the computing market more generally.

Ever since that original device launched a decade ago, Surface has always been about productivity. It’s helped popularise the 2-in-1 form factor for work, but that philosophy has been extended to include regular clamshell laptops and other hybrid PCs. Even the Surface Duo. is pitched as a mobile productivity device.
Click to expand...

Semantic for the sake of discussion but consider the Xbox and Surface Design and consider which would be suited for a Mircosoft Gaming laptop.
 
R

reksveks

Member
Good question and I would probably say it will fit into the Surface naming convention 'less poorly' than the xbox one, which is the problem.

I think it's just going to be another surface laptop studio and a small marketing push on the gaming side.
 
Victor Omega

Victor Omega

Member
Mr Moose said:
Xbox isn't a PC/laptop, Surface is, so that one.
Click to expand...
At face value, yes. But to Microsoft, Xbox is a service than hardware. Xbox would be a software to this laptop like Office 365 to a PC. Yeah... there are some redundancies with that sentiment, but "Software sells hardware".

A Surface Gaming Laptop powered by Xbox sounds kinda .....asymmetrical.

But an "Xbox Series Laptop" ..."Xbox Series L" seems more understandable to that particular target consumer.
 
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Bernkastel

Bernkastel

Ask me about my fanboy energy!
Its just the 16" version of Surface Laptop Studio with better specs. If it does not run Xbox OS, comes with Xbox Store(including all BC games) and all the features in the Xbox(including party chat) why call it "Xbox".
jigglet said:
Let's hope they get some competent designers next time. My last surface with a GTX GPU in it drained more power than the adapter could supply:

www.pcworld.com

Microsoft’s Surface Book 2 has a power problem

Microsoft's Surface Book 2 has a power problem that causes it to drain the battery even when plugged in, when playing 3D games on certain settings, PCWorld has confirmed.
www.pcworld.com www.pcworld.com

What a fucking joke.
Click to expand...
Surface Book has been discontinued and replaced with Surface Laptop Studio.
Rudius said:
Surface: very expensive.
Click to expand...
Surface price is partly due to the screen. Gaming laptops on that price, won't include a touch screen(or a competent one). So if you buy a good PC plus a Wacom screen, Surface suddenly looks cheaper. And now you can use desktop apps like Medibang Paint Pro or Clip Studio Paint or Krita or Sketchbook on a drawing tablet with good specs.
 
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jigglet

jigglet

Banned
Bernkastel said:
Surface Book has been discontinued and replaced with Surface Laptop Studio.
Click to expand...

It's such a staggering flaw that it's something that can't be overlooked going forward. It's a legitimate question to ask even years after. It's only the sort of thing you'd let go of maybe 10 years after the fact as you have to assume most of the same team/s are still there.

There's no way I will ever overlook buying an expensive laptop where my GPU turned off once it hit a certain battery level, and plugging it into the adapter still wasn't enough and required a full reboot (and like an hour of charging) to continue playing with graphics again. And then to add insult to injury they literally said it was a feature not a bug.

"What we’ve discovered after talking to Microsoft is that it’s not a bug—it’s a feature."

DISGRACE

It's not a flaw. It's not an oversight. It's incompetence of the highest magnitude.
 
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O

Ozriel

M$FT
No reason why it won’t be Surface branded. Doesn’t matter if it ships with a powerful GPU. There’s a lot of productivity workloads that are significantly boosted by GPUs.
 
Deputy Moonman

Deputy Moonman

Member
Victor Omega said:
But some, however, feel that the Surface brand is and should be what it always represented: Productivity.
Click to expand...
Animated GIF
 
SportsFan581

SportsFan581

Member
Xbox should only be in the name if the system can dual boot into the Xbox OS and run the Xbox ecosystem natively. That would make the base spec be a XSS at minimum, which might be a bit too much power draw unless this is a lot chunkier than the typical surface products. Though there are certainly laptops out the power range of XSS.

If it's just a gaming laptop that runs on Windows, I'd give it a different name.
 
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M

M16

Member
jigglet said:
Let's hope they get some competent designers next time. My last surface with a GTX GPU in it drained more power than the adapter could supply:

www.pcworld.com

Microsoft’s Surface Book 2 has a power problem

Microsoft's Surface Book 2 has a power problem that causes it to drain the battery even when plugged in, when playing 3D games on certain settings, PCWorld has confirmed.
www.pcworld.com www.pcworld.com

What a fucking joke.
Click to expand...

oh the outrage...lol

SB2 is not considered a gaming laptop, and most customers are not buying it for such, therefore microsoft is not gonna make you carry a big ass brick for a PSU. instead they used such a clever compromise in tapping into the battery for some extra power when you need the most peak performance.
 
Eddie-Griffin

Eddie-Griffin

Banned
It's not happening guys, that was debunked long ago.

Plus, the higher-end surfaces serve as gaming laptops anyway. I doubt Microsoft is going to spread their Surface line thin which they have been avoiding. That has always been the productivity line primarily anyway, look at the Surface phone Duo 1 and 2, bare minimum for games. All-in productivity.
 
K

ksdixon

Member
Depends what it does?

Surface usually means it's pushing the device type or creating a new one. How would a gaming laptop differenciate itself from running the Xbox/GamePass apps on Windows?

Unless you're just talking about throwing an XB OS onto a Surface Laptop form factor? But you wouldn't need a keyboard for most XB games.

Woulnd't MS buyout X-Screen and try to push Series S sales that way rather than create a new device type or further muddy the both muddied branding of Xbox's and Surface's across their various device types?

Edit: If it's gaming it's Xbox. If it's productivity or flexibility, it's Surface.
 
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