Daily Authority: Surface updates 👍

Panos Panay, Microsoft’s Chief Product Officer, announced five new Microsoft Surface products yesterday in his always serious, somewhat overdone style.

• It was a smooth show. It even went to a moment when the new Microsoft Surface Studio was being brought from the stage to the production area. Panay “borrowed” someone’s Surface Studio and spun cameras to keep up.
• Of course it was staged. But it was different and fun, and you’ll see it if you missed it this two minute summary on Panay’s Twitter account.
• However, all of these devices will go on sale along with Windows 11 on October 5th.

What’s new

• Microsoft has released a new Surface Pro 8, Surface Pro X, Surface Go 3, Surface Duo 2, and the new Surface Laptop Studio that replaces the Surface Book with a new design that mimics the desktop version.
• Some of them are bigger than others. The Surface Pro X just added a WiFi-only model for $ 100 less than the $ 1000 MSRP and mentioned better Windows 11 support for its arm-based processor.
• And the Surface Go 3 can be described in a few words: The smallest tablet in the range has newer Intel processors and thus remains relevant. Starts at $ 400.

Surface duo 2:

• The Surface Duo 2 looks like a much better, real second-generation improvement over the Duo. On the hardware front, Microsoft bent its display around the hinge to add a useful-looking display for notifications and information.
• The two 5.8-inch main displays are now 90Hz, there’s a triple camera system that we expected, and it supports 5G via the Qualcomm Snapdragon 888. There’s also more RAM with 8GB and NFC.
• Incredibly, it’s actually $ 100 more expensive than the original at $ 1,500.
• And while the hardware looks really good, Microsoft didn’t say much about software, which was a farce for the duo.
• The Duo 2 is running Android 11 at startup, but that’s all I’ve heard. Expect Microsoft to be challenged on this front.

Surface Pro 8:

• This is Microsoft’s brightest star and, after a few years of incremental updates, has had its biggest upgrade since 2014. Now we’re seeing big updates: Microsoft has reduced the bezels and the display quality on a new 13-inch 120 Hz display in 3: 2 – Aspect ratio increased, it has Thunderbolt 4 support and the latest Intel 11th generation processors.
• It also has a nicer new keyboard made with stiffer carbon fiber, a new Slim Pen 2 that is still at home in the keyboard but now has a subtle feel and has carried over some of the Pro X’s nicer design features.
• The battery life with the 120 Hz display and how it handles a normal work day for people with a million tabs and teams or Slack and so on will be interesting.
• It now starts at $ 1,100, although that price should be ignored as the absolutely must-have Type Cover keyboard and trackpad remain an accessory at $ 280. And if you want a device to last a long time, I’d say you get an Intel Core i7, 16GB of RAM, and 256GB of storage, which is $ 1,600. So almost $ 1,880 for a useful device, not $ 1,100.

Microsoft saved a little at the end with the Surface Laptop Studio:

• This is Microsoft’s most powerful device with Intel 11th grade processors.
• It is most unusual.
• It leans on the Surface Studio all-in-one, with a hinge in the middle to bring the screen closer to touch, draw, or ink.
• The display hinge is the big thing. The previous Surface Book had this kind of thick, clumsy looking hinge that was functional for a 2-in-1.
• You can no longer disconnect the tablet. Instead, the touchscreen can be folded forward or back or lie flat:

🔨 Samsung may have resumed S21 FE production, but will it be enough? (Android authority).

📩 No dodgy workarounds required: YouTube now allows downloading videos on desktop, although it’s done through an experimental Labs product for premium members (Android authority).

🤔 The history of the Lithuanian National Cybersecurity Center-Xiaomi Blocked List? It seems that it is embedded in ad blocking rather than general communication. (XDA). Everything is not quite right yet, but that contradicts the NCSC report massively.

👉 For what it’s worth, Xiaomi said Android authority: “Xiaomi has never and will never restrict or block the personal behavior of our smartphone users, such as B. Searching, calling, surfing the Internet or using third-party communication software. Xiaomi fully respects and protects the legal rights of all users. ”The enthusiast’s answer remains: get a custom ROM to avoid data sucking, but that’s a big step for non-techies.

🍎 Review: The standard $ 329 iPad from 2021 is still what most people should buy (Ars-Technica).

🍏 Tim Cook Says Employees Who Leak Memos Are Not Apple’s According To Leaked Memos (The edge).

🔫 Apple won’t leave Fortnite on iOS until the Epic vs. Apple verdict is final, which could take years if constantly challenged (The edge).

👓 Facebook appoints Boz as the new CTO with a focus on hardware (The edge).

💩 Baby droppings are loaded with microplastics, 10 times more than adults (Wired).

🛫 Amazing airborne microchips are the smallest human-made objects that can fly. Flying versus falling in style, mind you (Gizmodo).

☄ The monster comet Bernardinelli amber falling on the sun is larger than a Martian moon, and we will see that it becomes brighter this decade (CNET).

🚀 Oh, that’s great: Inside the Alternative Propulsion Energy Conference, the world’s most exclusive anti-gravity club. Think of doctoral students and the occasional attendance of NASA employees more than aluminum foil, but garage hackers are also invited (The debrief).

☢ “Is the core of Chernobyl still melting today?” (R / question science)

Today is one of those milestone days here: the first Android phone that came onto the market on September 23, 2008, 13 years ago.

The HTC Dream, or the T-Mobile G1 as it was called in the USA:

• It was priced at $ 179 and featured a 3.2-inch, flip-up capacitive TFT touchscreen with a keyboard, a 528 MHz Qualcomm chip, 192 MB of RAM, and 256 MB of storage.
• And for the first time Android and the Android Market for apps, which was only renamed the Google Play Store in March 2012.
• It was early and unpolished, but it was the beginning of something.
• I enjoy reading old reviews of such devices and it’s fun when Joshua Topolsky is at Engadget was so upset when he wrote that the early adopters of Android “shopped into one of the most exciting developments in the mobile world of recent times” via the G1.
• The last time I talked about the HTC Dream, I beat Flack because I said the clickable trackball in the center wasn’t great. A couple of people wrote that they liked it!

Thank you very much,

Tristan Rayner, Managing Editor.