The Verge’s David Pierce takes a look at the Boox Palma, a phone-shaped e-reader that runs Android. He also compares notes with Clockwise’s Matt Martin and writer Craig Mod. Later, The Verge’s Nathan Edwards and Tom Warren join the show to discuss their experience using Microsoft’s new Surface Copilot PCs.
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TechTranscript
00:00:00Welcome to the Verge cast the flagship podcast of the many many definitions of electronic paper
00:00:05I'm your friend David Pierce and I am at the park for research and journalism as you do
00:00:10So I have this new device. It's called the daylight DC one and it's a tablet obviously
00:00:16But the idea is that it's a different kind of tablet
00:00:19It doesn't use a big bright colorful screen like the iPad
00:00:22But it's also not an E Ink screen which has sort of slow refresh rate and doesn't have some of the things that you want from
00:00:28Like a smoothly scrolling easy typing tablet
00:00:31It tries to be a middle ground and I find that middle ground really interesting. I've been using this habit a lot
00:00:37They really want you to use it outdoors. It's called the daylight
00:00:40It comes in this like plush sort of outdoorsy case instead of like the sleek metallic
00:00:46fabric II thing you normally get with a tablet and
00:00:49It's designed to just be a simpler kind of technology and I have a lot of testing left to do with this thing
00:00:54But so far, it's not that impressive a gadget
00:00:56But I still find it fascinating because I think this idea that what if instead of totally, you know ground up reinventing
00:01:02Every kind of gadget that exists in the world
00:01:05We just tweaked the formula a little bit different kinds of screens different sizes different shapes different fabrics different textures
00:01:12and maybe that
00:01:13Changes the way that we'll feel about these things and the way that we use them in more interesting ways than just you know
00:01:18Throw it all away and try again
00:01:19To some extent that is actually what we're gonna talk about in this episode first
00:01:23We're gonna talk about an e-ink device called the books Palma that I'm sort of obsessed with
00:01:28We'll talk about why in a few minutes after that
00:01:30We're gonna talk about the new surface laptop and surface Pro from Microsoft, which are still very gadgety gadgets
00:01:36But they're making this big bet that AI and a new kind of chip from Qualcomm
00:01:41Can change how you feel about something that still looks like a tablet and still looks like a laptop
00:01:45But might mean something else to you. It's a very gadgety episode
00:01:48But it's also I think gonna get strangely philosophical in spots. I'm very excited about it
00:01:52We also have a question new from the hotline lots to get to all that is coming up in just a second
00:01:56But I have never played pickleball before and those people are playing pickleball. I'm gonna go learn how to play pickleball
00:02:02This is the verge cast. We'll see in a sec
00:02:06Welcome back. So one of the things that happens when you write about technology is that you tend to accumulate a lot of technology
00:02:13This is like the world's best problem to have by the way
00:02:16I just have a million
00:02:17Gadgets around all the time and the truth is very few of them have much staying power in my life
00:02:23I test something out maybe to write about it
00:02:25Maybe just to understand all this stuff a little better and then it goes in a drawer or sits in a desk or goes back
00:02:31To whoever sent it to me until I have another question about it
00:02:34I try new stuff for a living which again, it's great cannot recommend it enough
00:02:38Which is what makes the books Palma kind of remarkable. I've got it right here
00:02:43I almost always have it with me now
00:02:45Actually, it's a device that on paper is pretty much a smartphone
00:02:486.1 inch screen 6 gigs of RAM camera on the back runs Android
00:02:53But it's not a smartphone because that 6.1 inch display is an e-ink screen the e-ink
00:02:58Carta 1200 if you're really curious
00:03:00Which makes the Palma kind of the exact middle between a smartphone and a Kindle and for me that turns out to be kind of
00:03:07Perfect. The Palma launched last fall and I remember being sort of interested in it back then
00:03:12Books the company its boox, by the way has been making these interesting e-ink Android devices for a while
00:03:19And they started out kind of clunky but have steadily gotten better over time
00:03:23The Palma launched last fall and I remember being sort of interested in it back then books the company
00:03:28It's boox, by the way has been making these interesting e-ink Android devices for a while and they started kind of clunky
00:03:36But have steadily gotten better over time
00:03:38It's a China based company and it sells like a million different devices
00:03:42there's the books note air 3c and the books tab ultra and the books page and the books leaf and the books leaf 2 and
00:03:48The books note air 2 and the books go and the books go color
00:03:51Basically every size of e-reader you can imagine you can get I already have a lot of e-readers though
00:03:58I read a lot on my iPad. I have a couple of Kindles of various sizes and generations
00:04:03I have a remarkable tablet that I really like I'm honestly good on e-ink devices
00:04:07The Palma is also two hundred and eighty dollars, which is a lot for an e-reader
00:04:11But I ended up getting one anyway, because over the months since it launched
00:04:14I've seen a surprising number of people talk about how much they love this thing
00:04:18So I got mine a couple of months ago and I have to say I understood the appeal pretty much right away for me
00:04:24There are two things about the Palma that have actually made it stick in my life
00:04:27The first is just the size the fact that it fits in my pocket and is really easy to hold in one hand is a total
00:04:33Game-changer that sounds sort of ridiculous to say but it's really been true. It's easier for reading in bed
00:04:38It's easier to bring with me on a walk or to a coffee shop
00:04:41I can lug the Palma the same way I lug my phone and that has just made me have it around more often
00:04:47The second thing is the fact that it runs Android which I mean, obviously, right?
00:04:50That's like the whole books thing instead of just having to do everything through
00:04:55Amazon on a Kindle or through Barnes & Noble on a Nook you get the whole
00:04:58Universe of Android stuff for me as a reader
00:05:01That means I can have three crucial things on the device at the same time the place I read books
00:05:05Which happens to be the Kindle app the place I read articles
00:05:08Which is an app called read wise reader and the place that I save web pages and other links to get to later
00:05:13Which is an app called raindrop all of my reading no matter what form it takes now lives on this one device with an e-ink
00:05:19Screen any app with pagination you can scroll with the volume buttons on the side
00:05:23Which I really love the battery lasts a long time somewhere between like a few days and a week
00:05:27Depending on how I use it
00:05:28I'm not distracted by other stuff because I don't have any other stuff because tick-tock and YouTube all really suck on an e-ink screen
00:05:34It's just perfect. I did also install pocket casts and Spotify which are where I listen to podcasts and music
00:05:40So now this thing is both my Kindle and my iPod
00:05:43I go online to download new stuff. Then I put the thing in airplane mode and I'm good to go
00:05:48Anyway, I sound like I'm shilling for the books Palma and I kind of am I love this thing
00:05:52But it's not because this is some magnificently perfect unique gadget
00:05:57It's kind of flimsy. I wish the screen were higher res. I wish it supported a stylus
00:06:00It's pretty slow. Even when you're just trying to get to the home screen and most problematically by far
00:06:05It's running Android 11, which is now four years old and I am deeply worried
00:06:10It's never going to get updated past that the upside of Kindle is that my Kindle from whatever six years ago still works great
00:06:17There are lots of things about the Palma that I wish were better and very little about it
00:06:21Actually that someone else couldn't do better, but that's actually what's been so fun about using this thing
00:06:26It has totally proven to me that there is something in this hardware combination
00:06:29An E Ink display in the body of a smartphone with all the apps I need. That's it
00:06:33It's worse than my phone at a lot of things but
00:06:36Massively better than my phone in just enough ways that it's worth having around
00:06:40I've spent a lot of time testing out new kinds of gadgets this year smart glasses and AI pins and foldable devices and
00:06:47Weird new ideas about tablets and as it turns out the thing I like the most is just a new take on the smartphone
00:06:54Anyway, I wanted to know what other people liked about the Palma and why this thing has been such a hit with people who have
00:06:59Tried it. So I called up a couple of them to chat about it. The first person I called was Matt Martin
00:07:03He runs a company called clockwise and I actually caught him a few weeks into parental leave
00:07:07He said he found the Palma the same way I did because people just wouldn't stop talking about it
00:07:12People in my feed that really loved good products look good design
00:07:16It seemed like hit the zeitgeist somehow and like a little tech world that we live in
00:07:19I also am having a kid and I was like, well, I aspire to read I aspire not to you know
00:07:25Spend my 30 minutes before bed on sure, you know Instagram reels
00:07:30And so I got it and I have to tell you like the thing that I find really quite compelling about it
00:07:36Even after using it for a month or so is having a full OS on it
00:07:41Like the Kindle you're in Amazon's little world where you know, it's the Kindle
00:07:45Operating system running on top of Android, but you only have access to what Amazon gives you
00:07:50It is basically a full version of Android. You can go to the Google Play Store. I downloaded the New York Times app
00:07:56I downloaded instant paper. I downloaded Libby and I download the Kindle app
00:08:01which by the way makes for just as good a reading experiences on a Kindle and
00:08:04That's actually it's the combination of the portability and be able to like flip through
00:08:09Online articles that are cultivated and the New York Times and actually flip through things. It's actually pretty um
00:08:15I wouldn't say it's revolutionary
00:08:16But it's it's an evolution that transforms that device for me to make it pretty compelling and something I reach for
00:08:22I totally agree the argument I have heard against this device is basically like just
00:08:28Download those apps onto your phone you do this
00:08:31Like what is the point of having a whole separate dedicated device just for this?
00:08:35And I think to some extent the answer is like ink is nicer to look at right?
00:08:40But it also feels like there's some there's something about having a thing that feels like a dedicated device
00:08:46Yeah
00:08:46even though it's not a totally dedicated device that it's like I could put all the stuff I don't want to look at on the
00:08:52Palma and for some reason I haven't and I don't feel tempted to
00:08:56There is a web browser and no part of me is tempted to go look at the web browser
00:08:59And I like I have a hard time figuring out why that is
00:09:03So I am addicted in New York Times little games
00:09:07Friends and I and I was like, oh I could play connections on here
00:09:10Even that I find not
00:09:11compelling to do like if it's outside of reading I don't really want to do it on the Palma and I think that the
00:09:16The answer is um, probably not a very exciting one, which is that you know as humans, you know
00:09:22There's the old anecdote that we were probably all taught in psych 101
00:09:26Which is that physical environment matters like if you set up an environment for a specific context
00:09:31Your brain actually is kind of part of where to take in the context and get prepared for that
00:09:35And I think a separate device matters here a bit like if I'm on the context of my phone
00:09:40There's just like that muscle amount like, you know
00:09:43iOS has become so refined at getting between the applications so quickly
00:09:47Like I can have a random thought and this happens all the time
00:09:50Like sometimes you're reading you're in a slow section. You have that random thought about like
00:09:54Oh, what was that thing that I wanted to buy on Amazon and you're there without even thinking about it
00:10:00And now I'm on like a rabbit hole of attention that I didn't mean to be on
00:10:04This is part of the reason I've been so interested in this gadget ecosystem for so long as I think anybody who says
00:10:10Oh just use your smartphone differently. It's a matter of willpower. It's just like no
00:10:15You're wrong. And that's not how it works. And also I don't my phone is very good at a lot of things. I'm happy
00:10:21It's good at those things. So what give me the full list of the apps you have on there
00:10:24You mentioned Kindle New York Times. What else you have? That's basically it man. I mean, so it was kind of wild
00:10:30I realized when I was logging into everything that I could install one password and like it would just work
00:10:34That's integrated with this, you know, it's a full install of Android
00:10:38So I have in addition to those I have one password audible Wikipedia, but I really the home screen is just four apps
00:10:45It's just Kindle into paper New York Times a lady because again, it's a dedicated device for me
00:10:51I don't really even seek out the other applications
00:10:54You said like you said there's a web browser and I don't I don't really have any impulse to go
00:10:59Use that do you wish there were things this thing could do that? It doesn't what do you dislike about the Palma not yet?
00:11:05Honestly, I'm I'm very happy with it. So I'll answer it's all this was like, let's just acknowledge that we're weirdos
00:11:11I wouldn't scream for the mountaintops that everybody should go get in books
00:11:15You're more like my mom would probably love this thing
00:11:18But also she probably shouldn't get one like it's fine
00:11:21And I'm also not like I don't quite nerd out despite my profession
00:11:25Being in a company that focuses on focus time and helping you people more time in their day
00:11:29I actually don't geek out on like all these different apps that try to you know
00:11:33Give you more time to focus or prune your little garden when you're trying to focus your elements
00:11:38But I just find the thing compelling because it helps you read like that's it full stop full story
00:11:44Yeah
00:11:44I was at a pediatrics appointment and I stuck in my pocket
00:11:47Because I knew we'd be waiting around and I was sitting there and I pulled it out and read an article that I'd say
00:11:52Instead of pulling out my phone and looking at some dumb crap on Instagram and like I don't know small wind but kind of feels
00:11:58good
00:12:00the way Matt put that was something I've been thinking about a lot ever since when I have my phone in my pocket my
00:12:06Impulse when I pull it out is to open threads or tick-tock or Instagram
00:12:09I can fight that impulse and be productive and do the thing that I wanted to do
00:12:13But that's still the impulse when I have something like the Palma in my pocket
00:12:17I open it up and my impulse is to open up readwise or the crosswords app
00:12:21It just incentivizes a different kind of behavior in a way that I really like
00:12:25After I talked to Matt the next person I called is probably the single person most
00:12:29Responsible for all the other people in my threads feed talking about the Palma. It's this guy
00:12:34I'm Craig Mudd and I'm a writer and photographer and I make books
00:12:38Craig wrote a blog post in early May about why he loves the Palma which got a lot of people excited
00:12:43Craig has been thinking and writing about digital reading for a really long time
00:12:47So for him to love a reading device is a pretty meaningful thing actually
00:12:51Especially because as he told me he never expected to love a digital reading device ever again
00:12:56Oh, I totally stopped helping for the best a long time ago. That's why I stopped writing about it
00:13:00That's why I stopped talking to companies that would like, you know, people would email me be like, hey
00:13:03I'm doing a startup around digital books. It's like instantly into the trash. No. Yeah. Good luck with that
00:13:09I know how that song ends earlier this year though
00:13:11The folks that read wise called up Craig to talk to him about some digital reading stuff
00:13:16He's actually an advisor to the company these days, but he also does just like the app and so do I it's very good
00:13:21And they ended up showing him the Palma
00:13:23He bought one along with one of the other larger books tablets and immediately fell in love with it
00:13:28So we compared notes for a little while
00:13:30I'm excited about this idea that E Ink screens are cheap enough that anyone can kind of produce
00:13:36These devices now and Android is an operating system and you know in general touch based tablet operating systems like whatever
00:13:43We've figured them out. We figured them out a long time ago. There's no cancer to be solved in tablets anymore
00:13:50It all works the same. They're all they're all fine. And so like Android is totally good enough
00:13:55so like the fact that you can kind of stick an Android computer into a device that has a great E Ink screen and
00:14:00Run the Kindle app which by the way Kindle devices are just Android devices. Oh, yeah, that's true
00:14:06They're just running the Kindle app and that's all they run and the books
00:14:09Folks runs every Android app in the App Store runs the readwise reader app
00:14:14So suddenly you have all your long-form reading beautifully synced between all your devices
00:14:19The readwise reader app is actually really thoughtfully done the scroll design that they released earlier this year
00:14:25Do you do the paginated scroll? Yes. Yes, and I love it. I think it's so good
00:14:30I turned that on the second they launched it and I yeah, it was I have switched to and from Instapaper a
00:14:37100,000 times just because it paginates. Yeah, and I don't especially for very long things
00:14:42I just don't want to scroll it like a web page
00:14:44No, I told the readwise folks like a year ago, like please dear God, just give me pagination. They were like, I don't know
00:14:50I'm not sure anybody except you wants that and I was like, all right fair enough understood and then they launched it and it was
00:14:55Instantly everything about my reading life got better. Yeah. No, and they did a really good job with it
00:14:59I love how they do the breaks and
00:15:01With like the books palma, you can set the volume buttons as the scroll buttons and it's just perfect one-handed reading and there is something
00:15:09You're absolutely right
00:15:10Scrolling and reading long text sucks. It sucks. And this is one of the reasons why I think if you looked at engagement on
00:15:17Laptop screens like long text. I can't read something over a thousand words on a laptop
00:15:22I just can't do it. And so I've given up on it. So everything gets sent to reader
00:15:25You know, you just click the little icon, you know in your extensions bar and Chrome or whatever and boom
00:15:30It's in reader read wise reader and you know, it's on all these devices waiting to be read beautifully paginated
00:15:36You can do note-taking highlighting synced beautifully. It goes into obsidian the obsidian synced notes
00:15:42You can see them you click on them
00:15:43it opens and read wise reader on the web all the loops are closed for engagement around long-form reading and
00:15:49I have found since getting these devices because I used to send long-form articles to the Kindle
00:15:54But it was such a clumsy affair and the notes weren't really synced and saved and it just felt like I was throwing
00:15:59Things away and I'd never be able to go back to them in the in the archive was bad
00:16:03Now that I can use read wise reader and I have an E Ink device that has essentially a week-long two-week-long battery life
00:16:09I never think about charging these things even now. It's like 44%
00:16:12I've been using this for the last week and now that I can do that that ecosystem is completely reinvigorated
00:16:18All of my digital reading and long-form reading
00:16:20I've read more long-form articles in the last three months than I have probably in the last year and I just love it
00:16:26I love it
00:16:27I love that everything that the Kindle had a monopoly on which was mainly hardware and screens. That's gone
00:16:33The mode is totally gone and it feels like we're at this now at this precipice
00:16:38high refresh E Ink screens low-cost Android devices
00:16:43Let's go like let's do something interesting around this space. Like it's just really exciting
00:16:47What is it about the Palma in particular that sort of speaks to you? Oh, it's you can just have it in your pocket
00:16:53This is one of the things that drove me insane about the Oasis is like I like the Oasis
00:16:57The shape of it is shaped so it can't fit in any pocket known to man. It's the craziest
00:17:03I've ever seen in my life. It doesn't fit into any pocket. I don't know how they did it
00:17:08They like it's like they went around the world and they checked every pocket and they're like, okay make it one millimeter bigger
00:17:12Every single angle, you know, so this you know this Palma I'm holding right now. It's so light it fits anywhere
00:17:20You can just have it in your breast pocket. You can have it in your pant pocket, whatever
00:17:22So it is my like go-to thing to have on trains whenever I'm traveling. I pull this thing out and I'm reading on it
00:17:29It's also my bedtime computer, you know
00:17:31It's like you can be in bed. All the lights are off the all the backlight stuff on these books devices are pretty well done
00:17:37It's kind of like a I don't know if it's a warm backlight
00:17:40But it's like you can have it low enough where it doesn't really feel like it's affecting sleep. It's just perfect one-handed
00:17:45It's not heavy. It's not gonna fall on your face in a weird way
00:17:47You can be on your side
00:17:49You got it in your hand with your thumb on the the volume controls and you can just
00:17:52Easily go through an article until you fall asleep. It's like a gentle lullaby of a reader
00:17:57It's great. And it makes you wonder why hasn't someone made an e-ink phone because yes, it's so
00:18:04Everything that I'm looking for in a device is like a these palm this the palm of the refresh rate is high enough
00:18:09I mean, have you watched video on these things? It's really wild like it
00:18:13Disincentivizes you from watching video
00:18:14But the fact that this e-ink screen can update fast enough to show you video and it looks like video and it doesn't have that
00:18:21Much ghosting that just means that you can do
00:18:24Highly interactive interfaces that wouldn't be annoying to type messages on do the basics
00:18:29You could run Google Maps on this thing and zoom and do searches and it'd be fine
00:18:32And I would love to have this as my main driver so much more than you know
00:18:39the dopamine casino
00:18:40iPhone where it's like vying for your attention every two seconds and all the notifications look so good and it's just such a juicy
00:18:46device to be spending time with but this palma it really has reconfigured like because I hadn't been paying attention to
00:18:53The state of the ink and so, you know
00:18:55the state of ink for me was whatever the latest Kindle was doing and you know
00:18:59you don't really get a sense of how good it is with the Kindles and
00:19:02these books devices have really blown my mind just how fast ink can be and
00:19:08How joyful it is to run all these different apps in the ink, yeah, what do you do on the Palma other than read?
00:19:14That's it. So that's I mean, that's the other great
00:19:16All I all I run is reader and Kindle
00:19:18But I've you know poked around on though if I need to do a web search
00:19:22which I very rarely do but if I need to I can and if I need to buy a Kindle book I can go
00:19:26to the Kindle website and run that and like
00:19:29The fact that I can do that and it doesn't feel like a burden or like I'm taxing the machine
00:19:33You know, whereas like on the Kindle anytime you had to load up the
00:19:37Experimental for the experimental not like 14 years later still experimental browser disaster doesn't work doesn't work. Well at all. Yeah
00:19:44No, it's absolutely terrible. Yeah, it's just maybe go. Wow. There's a whole world of eink
00:19:49Exploration that hasn't happened and can happen now and the the technology is clearly like the IP is I think there's a lot of IP
00:19:55Issues or whatever. It's expense. It was expensive to license before maybe that's all changed
00:19:58Yeah, and yeah, and now you can make things like this, which is incredible. I love it
00:20:03more more ink, please
00:20:05I agree and I actually think the what you said though
00:20:08Like if you need to you can to me is like the perfect description of everything about the Palma because like yes
00:20:13You can watch video, but it sucks. Like it's not you want to sit and watch a video
00:20:17But ultimately it's like if I need to watch a video in service of the thing that I'm reading for a minute
00:20:22It's there I will get through it
00:20:23I will get the thing that I need out of it and then I'll go back to reading which is what I'm after here for
00:20:28And so that to me is like the fact that it does all of these things
00:20:32The fact that it does them poorly has actually become a feature not a bug for me
00:20:35Which is not what I expected when I first got this device. It's the absolute perfect amount of friction. Yeah
00:20:40Yeah, whereas the Kindle is too much friction for doing most things the books devices
00:20:45It's like just a little bit of friction where it's like as you say
00:20:47It's like you wouldn't want to go surf YouTube and be like, all right
00:20:50Let me watch MKBHD, you know his most recent video on this thing
00:20:53but if I needed to watch a little interview with Dennis Johnson talking about
00:20:59train dreams or whatever like I could pop into that for a second and be like
00:21:02Exactly, like you said get what you need to get out of it and go back into the reading and that's that's exciting
00:21:08you know and I think the perfect amount of friction is
00:21:11Exactly what no one is willing to bake into most devices
00:21:13and this is kind of happening almost like as a byproduct a natural a natural byproduct of the technology and that feels
00:21:20Organic and really lovely totally. Is there anything you would change about the Palma like as a as a gadget?
00:21:26I'd probably get rid of the camera. I'd simplify it even more
00:21:28I forgot it had a camera just this moment was the first time I've thought about the Palmas camera since the second I got
00:21:34Yeah, I've taken a few photos with it. It's kind of funny to then look at them, you know later and it's like oh, yeah
00:21:39That's right. I could take photos of this but like I would probably
00:21:42Put the volume rockers on both sides
00:21:45so you could do page change on both sides of it and just really optimize for like if you're holding with your
00:21:50Right hand or left hand you have the exact same kind of a hardware interaction model
00:21:54I'd probably move the power button at the top because I think that's the best place for all power buttons
00:21:59I think the iPhone power button on the side was the worst hardware change
00:22:02They made to the iPhone in the history of the iPhone
00:22:04I mean just because how many times do you accidentally, you know do screenshots and yet, you know
00:22:10Anyway, I love power on the top which by the way this other books model does power on the top in there
00:22:16In their tablet and that feels really good
00:22:19And then just yeah, just have those have those page turn buttons on both sides
00:22:22And then I think that's it. Maybe the screen like I do feel like the screen on this thing is not
00:22:27Extremely well protected, you know, I'd interesting. Yeah, I would love to see a gorilla glass version of this
00:22:34What would that feel like how much heavier would it make it? I wouldn't want the body to be metal
00:22:39I think this plastic body. I think the texture on the back of it is fine
00:22:42I think lightness is is is a huge bonus when it comes to devices like this and
00:22:48I just worry like sometimes when I put in my bag, I'm like is this screen gonna get messed up?
00:22:53I'm still treating it. I'm not babying it at all
00:22:56I'm just throwing it in my bag and I'm like, okay, whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen
00:23:00But I do feel like a stronger even just like a couple generations old gorilla glass might be a really interesting
00:23:08Modification, I don't know what the IPX rating is, but I'd want to make sure it would be like fully submergeable
00:23:12Those would be you know, I see the palm of more is like a long-form reading Renaissance device rather than a digital book Renaissance device
00:23:18I buy it. Hopefully it can be that too though
00:23:20Hopefully it can create better interfaces for digital books as well. Not just for long-form articles. Totally
00:23:26Yeah
00:23:26and honestly
00:23:27like I have spent so many years wondering why Amazon has not just built a decent way to read web articles on the Kindle and
00:23:34If if books just makes Amazon do that it will have done the world a great service, but I don't think it's ever gonna happen
00:23:39It's never gonna happen. No, no, like you just have to accept that
00:23:42There's a certain size of company that internally just doesn't doesn't have the willpower
00:23:48Yeah to do these things that where that you look at the spreadsheet and you go. What's the market cap of this?
00:23:52What's the you know, and it's essentially a rounding error, you know, it's zero and
00:23:57It's just not gonna happen
00:23:58Unless you have a sea-level person who owns it and I think with Jeff out of Amazon
00:24:04I don't know anyone there who is an avid old GQ, you know Esquire reader or whatever
00:24:10It's like we've got to make this amazing to read old gay Talese articles or it's like yeah
00:24:17so
00:24:18Thankfully, we don't have to because the e-ink technology is now trickled down to everyone else and companies like books
00:24:25Which we should say and I think it's important to say books is a bad open-source citizen
00:24:29I don't know if you know about this, but like they are using I think Android models or
00:24:34Android software in a way that breaks the the terms of the open-source license
00:24:38Oh interesting, like if hacker news ever like of a books to like device article comes up on hacker news
00:24:43You know people go nuts about this and I think it is. I think it is important to bring up. Yeah, because
00:24:49They are effectively violating the license and I and I think it would be very easy for them to not violate it
00:24:54And I think we should talk about this in podcasts like this and say hey books. Can you just be a good citizen?
00:25:00It's like such a dumb easy thing to do. Why aren't you doing it? And we'd love to you know, it would help me even
00:25:07more
00:25:08Enthusiastically recommend these devices, you know, I I know anecdotally I have probably sold
00:25:13At least a couple hundred of these things in the last couple of months at least these are people just messaging me directly
00:25:19So I may it's probably in the thousands of folks who bought Palmas and are using them
00:25:23And in fact anyone listening to this who has bought a Palmer and has that you know
00:25:27I had an interesting experience with it. I'd love sent. Please write into us
00:25:31Tell us what changes you would like to see I'd love to I'd love to hear what people how people are using these things are
00:25:35Thinking about it, but it does seem like we're in this moment where maybe maybe just maybe
00:25:40digital reading of long-form stuff could the interfaces for it could change the way we
00:25:46Interact with these libraries could change and it's it's an exciting moment. I
00:25:49Really agree with what Craig said there. I do think this is an exciting moment
00:25:53I think there are a lot of companies out there being like we will replace your smartphone and I think that's mostly ridiculous
00:25:59But I also think that there are a lot of things that can be done better than the way our phones do them and it's fun
00:26:05To watch gadgets explore that sometimes they get it wrong like the humane AI pin
00:26:10But there's still something to the idea that not everything should be inside of your smartphone
00:26:14I've been using the Ray-Ban meta smart glasses as a way to take photos without sticking my phone in my kids face
00:26:20I've been using the Apple watch as a faster way to set reminders or take notes and
00:26:24I've been using the Palma as a way to read and listen to stuff without the rest of my digital life getting in the way
00:26:30None of these things replace my phone all the time, but they do some of the time and I think that might be enough
00:26:36All right enough about a yank for now
00:26:37We got to take a break and then we're gonna come back and talk about some Windows computers. We'll be right back
00:26:45All
00:26:47Right, we're back we've talked a lot on this show over the last several weeks about this new generation of Windows PCs
00:26:54Thanks to a new set of chips from Qualcomm and this new co-pilot AI stuff from Microsoft the whole co-pilot
00:27:01Plus PC idea, which is a name. I really hate but a concept
00:27:05I think is very cool feels like it might be a moment in the history of
00:27:09PCs if these computers are as good and as versatile and as long-lasting and as powerful as
00:27:15Microsoft and Qualcomm would like you to believe this could be really exciting for the whole laptop and desktop industry
00:27:20It's been kind of a weird rollout though
00:27:22There was the whole issue with recall which was Microsoft's big new AI feature that would let you search through and organize
00:27:28Basically everything you ever did on your computer turns out giant security disaster at least in the way that Microsoft initially implemented it
00:27:36So that's been slowed way down
00:27:37I don't think a lot of people are going to be excited about it at first
00:27:40So suddenly recall feels less cool and exciting and like the future of Windows than it once did
00:27:46But we're still getting some of these devices. I still have lots of questions
00:27:49Companies basically across the PC industry are all in on this co-pilot plus PC idea. We're starting to see tons of new models
00:27:56We're gonna have lots of new reviews
00:27:57But personally the ones I'm most excited about are the ones that come from Microsoft
00:28:01Microsoft has been at I think the forefront of Windows hardware for a pretty long time and
00:28:05With the new surface Pro and the new surface laptop is really trying to I would say show the rest of the industry
00:28:11How this co-pilot plus PC thing can work so Tom Warren and Nathan Edwards on our team have been reviewing those devices
00:28:18They haven't told me anything about how it's going and I am desperate to find out
00:28:22So I'm going to use the fact that we are here on the verge cast to make them tell me things about these new devices
00:28:28Let's get into it Tom Warren. Hello. Hello, Nathan Edwards. Hello. Hi David first. Let's just level set a little
00:28:36I want to know the Microsoft gear you both currently have right now Tom
00:28:40What do you have in your possession that you've been playing with?
00:28:43So I have the 13-inch surface laptop 7th edition not 7 7th edition
00:28:50It's very important. Yeah
00:28:52The 15-inch model as well, okay, there's a laptop and I've also got the surface Pro
00:29:0011th edition. It's the 11th edition. Yeah 11th edition. Yeah for our purposes
00:29:04We're just gonna call them the new ones because God help anyone who tries to keep all these numbers in there in their brains
00:29:09Yes, and that's both of you. So God help both of you Nathan. You're on the pro. Which pro are you on?
00:29:15I have the top-of-the-line new pro. It's also 13 inches
00:29:20It's got they of course sent the tricked-out version 32 gigs of RAM one terabyte of storage and the elite
00:29:288100 processor so this is like if if there is going to be one that kicks ass it's gonna be this one. Yes
00:29:34This is their
00:29:36$2,100 without the keyboard model. Okay, that's serious business
00:29:41So I have a lot of questions for both of you about both of these devices
00:29:44But I feel like the place we have to start is with the chips, right?
00:29:47Like that is there there are lots of stories of this thing
00:29:49But I feel like the question most people want to know is like did did Qualcomm do the thing here are these things actually good?
00:29:56So Nathan, let's start very top-of-the-line and then Tom I want to hear you're more like mainstream experience
00:30:02But what have you what have you seen so far Nathan? How do these things hold up? It does not disappoint me. Really?
00:30:07Yes, that's so exciting. I don't have to think most of the time
00:30:11I don't have to think about the fact that it's not x86
00:30:14It's not perfect and there are like places in which it's like not the top runner, but it's a good laptop
00:30:20It's a good laptop a good Windows laptop with an arm processor, which you like really cannot
00:30:26Overstate how big a thing that is to be able to say at this moment in time
00:30:30Yeah
00:30:31and Tom has the Pro X and I he's done a little bit of like digging it out and
00:30:36Brushing the dust off and I'd want to hear more on that. But like this I'm not fundamentally fighting the thing
00:30:42Except in the sense that I would be fundamentally fighting Windows anyway
00:30:45Yeah, generally with a few edge exceptions it like just works Tom. Has that been your experience, too?
00:30:51Yeah, pretty much and I'm I'm also using the
00:30:54999 99 cent
00:30:57Surface laptop and that's the base model
00:30:59so I've been using that one primarily for the past week because I mainly because we also didn't get these
00:31:05Beforehand for reviewing bargain was the stuff. So I was like, I don't want the tricked-out one
00:31:10I want to test what the base model one is because it's got 16 gig around
00:31:14256 gig of storage and in the X plus
00:31:17Processor, which is I think for me now testing the the elite is around about 20% better performing, but roughly
00:31:25So that that's kind of the gap but in real terms if you're just using it a state
00:31:29You're probably not gonna notice that unless you're really pushing it. But yeah in terms of app compatibility
00:31:34I'd say like, you know, like the 90% of the apps you're gonna use aren't gonna be emulated
00:31:40And the key one being the browser, right, which obviously everyone kind of lives in these days, but then outside of that
00:31:46Yeah, there's gonna be some app compatibility things some weird things like Google Drive desktop still doesn't work
00:31:52But that isn't necessarily because it can't emulate it's probably because Google's just flagged it not to
00:31:58So it's like these weird things of like the past 10 12 years of Windows and on being a bit
00:32:04Crappy coming back to sort of hornet this time
00:32:07But Microsoft and Qualcomm done a quite good job at like getting these software vendors to sort of play ball
00:32:12And it's definitely a lot better than I've ever used in the past. That is super exciting Nathan
00:32:17Have you run into anything that just like flatly didn't work?
00:32:20I mean, yeah, so Premiere Pro does not work, but they told us it wasn't gonna work. You're gonna hate this arc
00:32:26Refuses to run that's disappointing. It's my browser of choice on
00:32:30Both Mac and Windows these days, although it's much better on Mac still and they were just like sorry
00:32:35We don't support it arm 64. Let us know if you want us to to put my name in a little form
00:32:40Please let me know. Yeah, please please let it be known that we want it to if you're listening
00:32:45Yeah, we would like that
00:32:47But I would say that alone
00:32:49Those are things that presumably will get updated over time and Tom your point about the history of this maybe being a problem that there
00:32:55are a lot of folks who were like
00:32:57Actually turned it off because the experience was so bad who are now gonna have to be convinced to turn
00:33:02Emulation stuff back on my hope would be if the performance is as good as you guys are describing that that'll start to happen fairly
00:33:08Quickly, so even the stuff that exists
00:33:10Hopefully won't exist for too much longer
00:33:12Yeah, and with the Adobe stuff like so we've Premiere Pro is quite a funny one because they disabled it or like blocked it on
00:33:19The X elite but they forgot to do on the X plus so I got it installed and then I think they realized like a day
00:33:25Later, and then it like dropped out my credit card
00:33:28But I still have it installed and I can understand why they blocked it because so I tried to process like a 4k a 20
00:33:3622nd 4k video right on this thing and it was like stuttering
00:33:40Like you couldn't just play it without skipping and dropping frames and all that sort of stuff
00:33:44I tried to explore and it was gonna take five minutes to export and I was like for a 20 second 4k video
00:33:50That's like obviously way too long and for comparison. This is really unfair comparison, but I'm gonna make this comparison
00:33:57Anyway, I tried out my desktop PC, which is a 4900 K and a 4090 and it exported in seven seconds
00:34:04I can see where they have Premiere Pro blocked on there because it's not good good experience
00:34:09I feel like if you were trying to edit in that
00:34:11You would come like I feel like you'd make editing mistakes just from the basic like trying to crop a video or in the time
00:34:18I know that sort of stuff. It's just very laggy because it's obviously yeah
00:34:22It's not been optimized and that is a heavyweight app that will hopefully be better later this year once they release the actual
00:34:28Arm 64 version we say they've promised a got it
00:34:31Okay, so it seems like the the performance promises that we've gotten
00:34:36Some of it is like you won't notice the difference and Nathan
00:34:40It seems like that's kind of in your experience that most of the time you don't have to think about the fact that this is
00:34:43An arm processor instead of an x86 processor which on its own giant terrific win
00:34:49Microsoft in particular has also made a lot of noise about how it like beats the crap out of Apple Silicon and everybody is making
00:34:55large grandiose
00:34:56performance
00:34:57Claims here like in terms of actual raw performance like good enough is is a huge deal
00:35:03And that's frankly I would say like that's the benchmark and it sounds like we've mostly cleared it and that's very exciting
00:35:08How good are these actually that you've seen so far?
00:35:11Well, I want to preface by saying join. Amelia's has our big benchmark article coming in a few days
00:35:16That'll be the big word on it the official word, but they are single core they're not as good as
00:35:22The m3 at all. Okay, they do pretty well on most things compared to the core ultra stuff and compared to
00:35:31Ryzen 8000 but it's like it's not like it's not crushing anybody. They do that on the reviewers guide that it's very funny
00:35:3858% faster than the m3 it is on very specifically on Cinebench multi-core
00:35:47Notably, it has about 50% more course each of those courses slower
00:35:54Single-core there's just more of them, which is you know, sure. Yes. Sure fair. You did it like good job, but it's competitive
00:36:00They're competitive which is more than I could say for any
00:36:05Snapdragon based
00:36:06Windows laptop before yeah just to be in range feels like range. Yeah victory. Yeah battery life is decent
00:36:13Yeah, that was the next thing I was gonna ask about because this is hopefully the other big byproduct of switching to arm
00:36:19What what have you seen on the pro battery life wise?
00:36:21So I haven't gotten a full day of battery out of it, but I've been doing a lot of benchmarking
00:36:27Okay, I haven't had like a full day of what I would consider my normal
00:36:31Workday just like doing
00:36:34Spreadsheets and word docs and slack slack is still a battery killer every time I look at the battery usage thing slack
00:36:40It's right up there. Maybe not as bad as it used to be on arm slack is pretty bad on everything to be fair
00:36:45We should just do an episode at some point where we just sit and yell about all the apps that are
00:36:49Grossly an inefficient and messy on computers and we would spend a lot of time talking about slack. I suspect it's funny
00:36:56It does to the computer what it does to our attention span
00:36:59Just slowly destroys it Tom, what are you seeing on the laptop?
00:37:03Um, yeah, really really good battery life to be honest on the first day
00:37:07I was like working outside and it was like I had this screen at 100% brightness
00:37:11So downloading like multiple steam games didn't video calls working in Photoshop all that sort of stuff
00:37:16So I say that was probably more than my sort of average workday of using a laptop
00:37:22But I still got around about seven hours battery life on that day
00:37:25And then in the evening, I charged up to like a hundred percent. I was using indoors at like, you know
00:37:3050% brightness you didn't need the hundred percent brightness
00:37:33And I think in around four hours it only drained 25%
00:37:37So, okay. I was like, okay, that's good. And then I closed the lid and it had like 70 whatever percent
00:37:44Remaining at like 11 p.m. And I woke up the next day did some stuff and then I ended up grabbing the laptop about midday
00:37:49And it still had that 70%
00:37:51It was like I think I went to went to sleep at like 72 and it had 70%
00:37:56I was like, okay, that's that's good as well. But that's pretty exciting the time
00:38:00Yeah, half time you close a little on Windows laptop. You're kind of like is it gonna wake?
00:38:04I might just keep this thing plugged in because it's not actually gonna it's gonna just drain the battery overnight
00:38:10So I've never seen you do that. It's usually like one or two percent. It drains overnight. Yeah
00:38:16And it's because I haven't left it long enough for like, you know
00:38:18five six nights to see whether that is one or two percent per day or for that's just a
00:38:23you know every time you sort of
00:38:25Sleep it. But yeah, the battery life is phenomenal as long as you're in the native apps
00:38:31Yeah, as long as you're doing sort of the lightweight stuff
00:38:33So if I had a day
00:38:34I think I had a day where I was working predominantly in like slack and discord and chrome and and what's up?
00:38:42Not not too heavy lifting apps
00:38:44And I think I charged it and I think I got sort of sort of like something like six hours
00:38:50And it was about that down 30% in those six hours. Wow. Okay, which is pretty yeah, which is quite surprising
00:38:57So, yeah, but but then if you start downing stuffing on Steam like which is an emulator that sure like I
00:39:04Could notice it drop by like five to ten percent just from downloading a big game on Steam not even playing just downloading
00:39:11Just as soon as it needs to do an emulated app
00:39:14You can feel it working harder and and steams quite vigorous when it's downloading and unpacking games on the CPU
00:39:20Yeah, so it's understandable. It's done that but yeah, it's emulated
00:39:24So I'd be very curious to see if there's ever gonna be a on 64 steam client and whether that would improve that
00:39:30I'm sure there will be yeah, it feels like it's coming
00:39:32but it seems like to me that the the two levels of battery test are like the first is
00:39:38Sort of the the cross-country flight test where it's like I can I can use it in the airport and then like watch two movies
00:39:45On it and then get to wherever I'm going without it dying
00:39:49That's like that's test number one. It feels like any laptop that can't pass that test sucks. Yeah, and then there's the like
00:39:55Use it all day and you know use it and don't charge till the next morning and this doesn't seem like it's quite gotten there
00:40:02But it does seem like it probably passes the cross-country flight test
00:40:05Which again for a pretty powerful Windows laptop is a big victory and at least it's like it's not as good as Apple
00:40:12Which is pretty easily in the like I can use it all day and then charge it at lunch the next day with a lot
00:40:18Of things this doesn't feel like it's quite there, but it's almost there and that's something I think it probably is
00:40:23Okay, if you're not doing the emulated stuff. Yeah, as long as you're not doing emulated stuff
00:40:27I think so
00:40:28like I don't do the battery tests that other sort of reviews do where they just have a bunch of tabs or a bunch of
00:40:34Videos going because that stuff is it's not real world
00:40:37You know, that's the stuff that Microsoft always says, you know, 15 20 hours of video offline video playback
00:40:43Like who is that for? Yeah. Yeah
00:40:45But I do the real-world stuff and I think I charged it on Friday and I used it a bunch over the weekend
00:40:51And then I haven't charged it since Friday and it still has 27% Oh, all right. Then. Yeah, we're on to something there
00:40:57Nathan it sounds like the pro is not quite as good though. It doesn't it doesn't quite hang as well
00:41:01I would say I haven't had the time. I haven't had the like extended amounts of time to test it
00:41:06So it was yeah, let me tell you a Cinebench murders
00:41:09Murders the battery life as does actually what killed it was blender
00:41:13So if you use blender don't get a snapdragon thing yet
00:41:16Like if that's part of your slow it is emulated and it's not hitting the GPU cores at all
00:41:22It's just pure CPU compute. It's brute forcing it. It takes a long time
00:41:27And it's not pretty that will like right now like if there's an app that you need that's not native yet
00:41:33That's not to say this won't be a good choice, but I wouldn't go for it yet
00:41:38yeah, and also if ever a
00:41:40Setup was going to set your computer on fire
00:41:43Blender running on the CPU would be it would be the answer. Yes
00:41:49But not on the keyboard because that's detachable. Oh, yeah. Okay. Wait, I want to get into all the AI stuff
00:41:55We have to talk about that for a minute. I totally forgot about that. This is very exciting
00:41:58Tell me about this new keyboard setup and how you've been using it
00:42:01So the surface pro has a detachable keyboard it connects by pogo pins. That is the way it's always been pull it off
00:42:07It's like a little folio thing this year. They finally put a battery in it. Not all of them, but there's the
00:42:14Proflex keyboard it's Bluetooth. It's got a battery
00:42:17You want to take it off you pull it off and it still works and that feels like obviously this is the way
00:42:24Detachable keyboards ought to be yes
00:42:26like often they're just like here is a
00:42:28Bluetooth keyboard or here is a pogo pin keyboard and you sort of have to pick pogo pin is great because
00:42:34Doesn't run out of battery
00:42:36But also if you're in a situation where you want to detach the keyboard then all of a sudden it's dead
00:42:40But I love this thing. So how have you actually used it in practice?
00:42:44Like what give me the the detached use case?
00:42:46well
00:42:47for example it for ergonomics if you want to put the
00:42:49Screen on like a big pile of books to get it higher up and keep your keyboard down below you can do that
00:42:55that's kind of the use case as someone I spent years with like the I would have the screen in the middle and I would
00:43:01Put my laptop up on a stand next to it as kind of a second display
00:43:04Having being able to use the surface keyboard as the keyboard down on my desk for that
00:43:10Incredible. I will say that it is
00:43:12$350 and if you're if your use case is like you're mostly at home with the thing running this as like
00:43:19Your desktop basically and then you shove it in a bag once and I'll take it with you
00:43:23You can buy a lot of really nice keyboards for
00:43:26$350 and then still have room in the budget for like the regular flex keyboard to take with you
00:43:31Yeah, you can buy several really nice keyboards for $350. You can buy one really nice key. You can also buy one
00:43:38Yeah, it's like a third of the price of the surface. I know it's nuts. Yeah, it's truly nuts. It's
00:43:44$350 or
00:43:45500 bucks basically with the slim pen and like many people consider a keyboard to be an important part of a laptop
00:43:52People are saying yeah, but Microsoft their big thing is like listen, we give you options
00:43:57You can have the regular pogo pin one
00:43:58You can have the Bluetooth one if you already have a flex keyboard from a previous surface pro you can just use that it's backwards
00:44:04Compatible. It's fine. So like I used to be like, oh why why this isn't really a $999 laptop
00:44:11It's 1,200 bucks when you have the keyboard, but like I do actually appreciate the optionality. Yeah. No, I I totally buy it
00:44:16Is there any other hardware stuff we should talk about?
00:44:18I feel like for the most part the hardware is as it has been and it's still pretty good
00:44:22I guess the OLED screen is new. Yeah, it's nice. Is that exciting? Has that changed your life in any meaningful way?
00:44:27It doesn't change my life. I mean, so it is 120 Hertz variable
00:44:31It goes up to 600 nits and then I think 900 nits of peak brightness for HDR. It's a nice screen
00:44:37I will say 50% brightness or whatever not quite enough
00:44:40I keep having to crank it up a little bit and it does have a little faint grain to it at peak brightness where you
00:44:45Can see the the touch sensors in the panel several years. I've noticed this we were talking back channel
00:44:51I usually write this up. So like mmm, you haven't noticed and several viewers like
00:44:56They're like, don't worry about it. You're not
00:44:59Doesn't bother me
00:45:00Well, she noticed it. No, it's a nice thing. I will say you're still in dongle life to USB C ports
00:45:06They do still have the surface connector on the other side
00:45:09Which is like a magnetic proprietary connector, which again Microsoft is like listen one charge with that. That's fine
00:45:14You can charge by a USB C. That's fine
00:45:17I have it connected to my usually have it connected to my like 32 inch 4k monitor
00:45:21With a USB C and it powers the laptop at full speed
00:45:25It runs all this stuff, but right now when you're not hooked in to USB ports C ports is still pretty limiting
00:45:32Yeah, especially cuz there's no headphone jack. Oh, yeah, it's not enough. I agree
00:45:37I've gotten used to it as a MacBook Air user for years
00:45:40But then yeah every every time I am forced to encounter a computer with more it's like oh, this is delightful
00:45:47Like I have I have a surface laptop studio from a couple of years ago and that thing just feels like it has infinite ports
00:45:52Compared to this one. It's just nice like right now
00:45:55We're so we're recording and I have my headphones plugged into you a USB C dongle and that takes up one port
00:46:02And I have our microphone plugged into USB C and that takes up the other port and that's all the ports
00:46:07I'm charging from the surface connector. So I'm glad that that's there. Uh-huh. That's it
00:46:11yes, I have dongles and gizmos and gadgets galore, but like
00:46:15It'd be nice. What do you think of the trackpad? It's fine. It's a trackpad. I don't hate it
00:46:21I don't love it
00:46:22So I started using it today after using the bigger surface laptop trackpad for the last week and I keep hitting
00:46:29The bottom the key like that because it's they've made it vertically smaller. Yes. It is a little compressed. It's small. You're right
00:46:36I don't like that because because the the slim pen is always on display now as well up top. Oh interesting
00:46:41Yeah, so you've lost a little bit of like they just sort of shifted the keyboard down accordingly
00:46:46So yeah, I don't love that the little cradle for the slim pen does charge the pen which I do like that's nice
00:46:52Because I have an air with the new pencil Pro that thing just goes flying all over the place
00:46:57Like it Magnus to the top to charge but it's just it's just every time I pick it up the pen flies off into the distance
00:47:03I'm amazed. I haven't lost it yet. You might have a magnet problem, but that's that's for another day
00:47:07So wait, let's just talk about the AI stuff here for a few minutes before we switch gears
00:47:11The promise of all of this stuff is that it will do on device AI things that will make everything wonderful
00:47:18Recall obviously its own story not here. We'll worry about that another time
00:47:23What stuff have you guys noticed in the course of testing these things that feels like it is part of the sort of AI
00:47:29PC future
00:47:30I just want to say as soon as I said that
00:47:33Nathan's webcam started moving around which I suspect is an answer to my question a lot of gimmicks and a couple
00:47:39Slightly useful features. Okay hit me with the useful ones first. So the
00:47:43Windows Studio effects on the webcam
00:47:46Some of them are kind of nice like so that they use this absurd like ultra wide webcam on the surface Pro
00:47:52That like makes you look like you're being looked at by a four-year-old
00:47:55you're looming over them and
00:47:56So they they use the studio effects to crop that down to like
00:48:00Center you and it follows you around the frame like you've got your dedicated camera person like the nest hub max does
00:48:05It's also got fake eye contact thing like in video uses. Oh, no, that stuff creeps me out. I mean, yeah
00:48:13It feels like a good idea. It's one of those things that like once that's not
00:48:17Creepy it'll be great. But at least everything I've seen so far it veers toward creepy. Is it creeping you out right now?
00:48:24Now you pointed it wasn't until you pointed it out and now I feel like I'm looking too deep into your eyes through a webcam
00:48:30So there's that it does have live captioning which is on device and it can caption any video
00:48:36That's playing on your computer. Oh, that's cool. I tried it a couple times. I tried it in a video call
00:48:42With Antonio and with Joanna and it translated Italian like spoken on the fly pretty well
00:48:49But it was like, you know, where's the library level Italian? Sure. I tried playing it on Netflix
00:48:54I was watching delicious in dungeon. You will be shocked that it could not keep up nor did it match the quality of the
00:49:00actual human translated
00:49:03Subtitles, but it's serviceable in a pinch. I guess it seems to be okay a little slow
00:49:08But like it's cool that it can do that on device. That's a cool use of the NPU
00:49:12I've not been that impressed with any of the image creation or co-creation stuff
00:49:16Although I'm curious if Tom has a different experience. Yeah, Tom
00:49:19Have you have you seen any features that have jumped out to you? I mean, there's not a lot. Let's be honest
00:49:25That stuff feels like a bit of a sideshow to the the windows and arm stuff
00:49:28really, I don't know why they need to make such a big deal out of it because
00:49:32It's like they're laying the foundations for this stuff, but it's not quite there yet
00:49:36So you've got like paint in paint
00:49:38They've got image co-creator
00:49:40which is which is interesting on the surface laptop because one thing I should say is that it doesn't support pen input anymore like
00:49:46Where's you could use this name pen before on the previous models?
00:49:48You can't know the image co-creative feature here pretty much relies on you drawing what you want to see
00:49:54Which you obviously can do on a trackpad, but it's kind of a little bit not the best way to draw
00:49:59You just want to do on the screen and what you'd have to touch
00:50:01So, yeah that feature seems a little bit less useful than on the pro
00:50:06If I'm honest, it's just way more easy just to draw but even still it just uses like a local AI model
00:50:12Which I think it's using
00:50:14Is this table diffusion? It's using I think yeah, they told us it was stable diffusion and the results are pretty bad
00:50:22Yeah, I mean, what would you expect from paint? I like I don't know how high my
00:50:26Bar for quality would really be there. Yeah
00:50:29I tried to draw like a dog on a beach with a ball and it drew the dog fine
00:50:34But it just refused to pick up the fact that I'd drawn a ball and in the prompt I'd said I wanted a ball
00:50:39It was just like this lonely dog looking all sad on the beach and it's just yeah, it's just junk anyway
00:50:46But even though it's using a local AI model
00:50:48You still need to be connected to the internet and I know this because when I first did hands on May 20th
00:50:54You could turn off the Wi-Fi and do the image creation in in
00:50:59Photos app and it had no field so you could pop Bill Gates, you know, whatever
00:51:04Sure, do the typical Mario stuff and it would generate it and it was really bad because stable diffusion
00:51:09It wasn't very good, but you could do it, but they've changed that now
00:51:12So you have to sign in you have to be online
00:51:14Even though it's using like AI local model to do that. The same is true for co-creator
00:51:19Yeah, like it generates it on device with the limited model that it has and then it runs it by the safety filters just in case
00:51:26That's right. Yeah, but it could just why not just send it off to a more powerful model somewhere else
00:51:31Yeah, it's an odd way of doing that
00:51:33You're actually doing all the hard stuff in the place where you wouldn't want to do the hard stuff
00:51:38It's a very weird system in general though
00:51:41It feels like the read on these so far at least to me seems like the basics are good, right?
00:51:47That like Tom what you're saying is that the windows on arm thing is a much bigger deal that it's like, okay
00:51:50We've now done the thing that yeah windows now works pretty well on arm
00:51:55we'll solve some of these last remaining apps and use cases, but
00:51:59The question of like so what do we do with that doesn't really seem like it's been answered yet that like the and and I guess
00:52:06Maybe that's supposed to be recall right that like this is what we get with all this new stuff
00:52:11But the like what is now possible and cool and new and exciting
00:52:15Because we've made windows on arm work and because these Qualcomm chips are good
00:52:19Doesn't really feel like either of you have found a super exciting compelling answer to that yet. Is that fair?
00:52:25No, I think it's because they're pretty much laying the groundwork for this stuff
00:52:30So it's kind of like build it and they'll come that's that's their approach, right?
00:52:33And obviously recall is supposed to be the flagship feature here, but obviously we can't we can't try it yet
00:52:39So, I mean I have been using it for like two weeks on the surface Pro X when it was, you know
00:52:44You could hack it to get it working
00:52:46So I've got some thoughts on it. But yeah, I feel like even with that
00:52:51It's not like a massive selling point like that. That's that's not really I don't think the reason you're gonna buy this this laptop
00:52:58It's mainly because you want a good performing laptop that's thin and light and that actually has good battery life
00:53:03You know and this as a base model at 999 bucks is like pretty compelling like a hundred dollars less than the MacBook Air
00:53:11M3 model that in itself is compelling enough. I think to get people to buy it
00:53:15So I don't I don't know why Microsoft had to kind of like put these AI tricks in there that aren't
00:53:20They're not really that impressive. Maybe we cool. Yeah, sure
00:53:25Impressive controversial Nathan. Is that where you've landed to kind of very good device nice job
00:53:30But there is this is not like a brand new day for the PC era yet
00:53:35Yeah
00:53:36I mean
00:53:36I think that all of the AI stuff is they have this processor and they're trying to figure out reasons to use it
00:53:42It's free real estate. They're looking for something to do with AI because AI is buzzy. It's on the chips
00:53:47Anyway, they've got the NPUs. What do you got to find something to do?
00:53:50But the reason to buy this thing yet, like Tom said it's got good battery life. It's a it's nice
00:53:56It's it's it's a third option
00:53:58It's a good option not for gaming but for like normal productivity stuff like seems like a good value
00:54:04Yeah, and yeah, I just kind of ignore the AI stuff for now
00:54:08If somebody will find something useful to do with it
00:54:10Maybe probably like they've got to compute there even just as it is if that if that module wasn't there at all
00:54:15I don't think I'd notice and it wouldn't change my opinion that much. Yeah, that's fair
00:54:20Yeah, that's fair. I'm sitting here looking at my new iPad Pro and I feel precisely exactly the same way about it
00:54:27I tried to work on an iPad a couple weeks ago on vacation and I hated every
00:54:32Second of it and I was like, why can't they just you know the refrain? Oh, yeah, just put Mac OS on it
00:54:38Whatever. Just put a real operating system on it
00:54:40I will say I got the surface Pro and I opened it up and I was like a real operating system
00:54:45I can have two windows side-by-side. I can run something in the background
00:54:49I can do stuff. I can download utilities. I have a clipboard manager
00:54:53You know what and I can still watch Netflix if I really want to it's not a bad setup
00:54:57Alex Kranz has been running around for two months saying everybody who thinks they want an iPad Pro actually wants a surface
00:55:03And I think she's not crazy about that. No, she's not wrong
00:55:08I mean you very much still are using Windows 11 and therefore you're on you're like, especially on a surface
00:55:14Especially on a surface you're like fully locked into Microsoft's vision of the future of Windows which
00:55:21Involves a lot of opting out of things in my experience
00:55:25They're just really trying to push certain things like would you like to use edge?
00:55:29How about binging it at a very funny moment where I logged in to my edge account?
00:55:34So I use edge on by a normal Windows laptop and it's like fantastic. Thanks for thanks for using edge the default browser
00:55:40Now you're binging stuff again. That's not the search engine I asked for
00:55:44Thank you. Yeah. No, I'm good on that. I'm good on that front. All right
00:55:48This is actually a good segue into a question. We got on the hotline. We need to take a break really fast
00:55:52Can you guys stick around and help me answer this question? Yes. Sure. All right, cool. We'll be right back
00:56:06All right, we're back let's do a question from the Vergecast hotline as always the number is 866 Verge 1 1 send all of your
00:56:13Questions, you can also email Vergecast at theverge.com
00:56:15Send us all of your questions the weirder the better we've gotten some weird ones and I enjoy it very much this week
00:56:20We have a question about precisely what we've been talking about and it comes from Dean
00:56:25Hey, my name is Dean. I'm from Northern, Virginia
00:56:29The question that I have is regarding Windows 11 computers and what's going to happen in the market now that the new
00:56:37Windows on ARM
00:56:38Units are being released
00:56:40Will the market be some new style Windows 11 and some of the old ones?
00:56:46Still on the market or do you think soon the x86 architects will be completely gone?
00:56:52And people will only be able to purchase the so-called AI
00:56:56PCs and I was wondering if there'll be a massive you think that we massive fire sale as the x86 inventory
00:57:03Gets cleared out
00:57:05Do you think it'll be a high-end low-end situation where the new architecture will be at the high end and the x86 will be at?
00:57:11The low end just wondering how you see the PC market shaking out once the AI
00:57:17PCs Windows on ARM PCs come on the market. Thank you
00:57:21Alright, Nathan. You were making several faces during that. Tell me what you think
00:57:25I do not think that snapdragon and with the arm is going to wholesale replace x86 for Windows computers
00:57:32Certainly not on the low end because at least for now Microsoft has mandated 16 gigs of RAM and I think it's 256 gigs of
00:57:39Storage and the cheapest copilot plus PC we've seen so far. It's about a grand
00:57:44I don't think we've seen anything under the 999 mark at the moment
00:57:48They don't really have anything that can compete with like a $400 Windows laptop on price nor do they have anything for gaming?
00:57:55They don't work right now with dedicated GPUs
00:57:58The internal GPUs are not for gaming at all. No, I mean you can do some casual stuff, but they're not gonna wholesale replace
00:58:06I don't think it's gonna be a high low either because I think there's still gonna be
00:58:09Your high-end x86 stuff not just for gaming but for anything that requires serious graphical processing
00:58:15Also compatibility issues like I think this is gonna end up at best
00:58:20It'll be a third option at the soda fountain and I think a good option for a lot of people especially for the productivity thin
00:58:27Yeah, we have a lot of unknowns about how Intel's next processor architecture is gonna go Lunar Lake
00:58:33Like and Tom I think can speak much better to that. Yeah, Tom
00:58:36I'm curious your read on this because you've been reporting a lot on how
00:58:40Bullish Microsoft is on all of this and how much kind of muscle and marketing weight
00:58:46It's putting behind this and I feel like if I were to
00:58:48Squint at it a little I could imagine a world in which Microsoft is really excited about you know
00:58:53Arm being the future of everything on Windows
00:58:55What is your sense of where we're headed there?
00:58:57Yeah, I think it's like they obviously tried to start doing this since 2012 and it's been a long time coming
00:59:03I mean, this is the beginning of a transition. I don't know if it will fully, you know displace Intel and AMD
00:59:09But I do wonder if AMD really has much of a market in the laptop
00:59:14Side of things going forward because they're always a second choice anyway, and now this kind of does this make them a third choice?
00:59:20I don't know like it's it's gonna be interesting to see to see how that shakes out
00:59:24But then Qualcomm about about to rev their chips next year as well
00:59:28So which will probably be coming around about the same time as we see m4 MacBooks. So that's gonna be interesting
00:59:33So I think this is this is a train that's not gonna slow down now. It's kicked off the way it should have done
00:59:39Originally or at least a few years ago. Anyway, and I think it's definitely not gonna say that
00:59:43I wouldn't be surprised if we see a lot more
00:59:46Um sort of PCs and and cheaper ones in like sort of like the 20 20 25 20 26 era
00:59:53So it seems like best-case scenario is
00:59:56Not that arm wins, but that this just makes everything more exciting and more competitive, right?
01:00:02that Intel has to get its act together because there's real competition and so it starts doing better and AMD starts doing better and all
01:00:10of a sudden we have a bunch of
01:00:12Really good options instead of a bunch of I would say increasingly
01:00:16Non-competitive options, which is where we've been for a while now. Thanks to Intel
01:00:20I also wonder about that because then it's like, okay
01:00:23How do you make a Windows that works with everything all of these ways?
01:00:27So I guess Nathan is the best outcome here that we get
01:00:30one winner or the other in some meaningful way because it'll like make the software better and make everything make more sense or
01:00:36Should we you know, let a thousand chip flowers bloom and everything will be fine
01:00:40I mean, that's Windows isn't it?
01:00:43Thousand flowers bloom like the whole thing backwards compatibility forwards compatibility
01:00:48Sideways compatibility like but that's been part of the challenge, right?
01:00:51Like I think yeah, if you want to describe whatever mess exists inside of Windows
01:00:55I think you can ascribe a lot of it to that exact thing. Yeah, you can
01:00:59I mean, I don't think if there's gonna be a winner an overall winner. I don't know. I just don't see it
01:01:04There's so much on x86. I don't think it would be arm like they don't have the pull
01:01:10They're they're beholden to huge enterprise deployments in a way that Mac frankly is not they can be like hey
01:01:17Heads up. We're switching silicon entirely
01:01:20and
01:01:21You're gonna have to deal with it and I don't think
01:01:25Microsoft can or wants to do that. But yeah, maybe this makes things more complicated for developers. They're like, okay great now
01:01:32I got to make an arm 64 version 2
01:01:35So it does seem like the the idea that these copilot plus PCs are going to like
01:01:40Immediately sweep the market and be so much better that they're going to like take over
01:01:45At least from y'all's experience so far it doesn't seem like we're there yet that this is what we have is like a meaningful new
01:01:52Competitor not an entire new paradigm that is so much drastically better than anything we've had before
01:01:59Maybe we'll get there maybe buying an arm thing right now is a smart future-proofing decision as this stuff gets better
01:02:05but it doesn't sound like either of you would sort of going away say
01:02:09This is the obvious new future and everything else is going to be relegated to the side quickly, right?
01:02:14So fair, it's definitely important to point out that the the copilot plus stuff
01:02:19Isn't just on so there is gonna be Intel and AMD ones coming
01:02:24And even even like that listener who asked the question like is is this gonna be like a transition?
01:02:29There's gonna be a fire style
01:02:31No
01:02:31like that's not really gonna happen because
01:02:33Essentially the premium end of the market is gonna be all copilot plus PCs from now on
01:02:38But that's just the the standard thing apart from like maybe the gaming laptops are slightly different
01:02:43But even some of those are gonna be copilot PCs. We've seen those from Nvidia and AMD
01:02:47But yeah, no, I don't think it's like a sweeping transition to arm instantly
01:02:52But I think it's like a slow burn like AMD and Nvidia are both rumored to be doing arm chips for 2025 for PCs
01:02:58So if they do that, then that puts a lot of additional pressure on Intel. So it's gonna come interesting
01:03:05yeah, we it does seem like
01:03:072025 is shaping up to be a pretty
01:03:09Fascinating year in this space that like we're gonna see everybody's chips on the table in a pretty new way
01:03:17With all of this coming out and we're gonna have some real answers to like, where is all of this headed?
01:03:22Whereas right now even with the arm stuff in front of us
01:03:24What this whole market looks like is is still just like this much theoretical. We don't have quite the features
01:03:30We don't have Intel's new stuff. We don't have AMD's new stuff
01:03:32Like we're almost to knowing everything but we haven't quite seen all of it yet. And I think next year it might be that time
01:03:39Tom and Nathan, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you
01:03:43All right, that is it for the verge cast today. Thanks to everybody who came on the show and thank you as always for listening
01:03:48there's lots more on everything that we talked about from those surface laptops to my story on the books Palma and
01:03:54Lots of other stuff at the verge comm I'm gonna have a story about the daylight
01:03:58DC one probably sometime this week's keep an eye out for that
01:04:00We'll put some links in the show notes, but as always read the verge comm
01:04:04And if you have thoughts feelings questions or you live in the DC area and want to teach me how to play pickleball
01:04:10You can always email us at verge cast at the verge comm call the hotline 866 verge 1-1
01:04:15We love hearing all of your questions and thoughts and ideas and feedback on everything
01:04:19We have lots of fun stuff planned for the rest of this year and we're trying to do some weird new stuff on the show
01:04:24So if you have ideas of stuff you want us to do we'd love to hear it
01:04:27This show is produced by Andrew Marino Liam James and will pour the verge cast is a verge production and part of the Fox Media
01:04:33Podcast Network Neal I Alex and I will be back on Friday to talk more about some copilot plus PCs
01:04:38Lots of other gadget stuff more AI news and everything else going on in tech. We'll see you then rock and roll