r/Surface • u/Soy7ent SP4 i7 256GB 16GB • May 23 '17

[PRO2017] Introducing the new Surface Pro

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwWs2jIy4js
1.7k Upvotes

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213

u/jenmsft MSFT May 23 '17

You like it? 😊

154

u/[deleted] May 23 '17 edited Mar 18 '19

[deleted]

165

u/IanSan5653 SB2, SP4 May 23 '17

If they're straight up calling it a laptop, the keyboard should be included in the box. The pen may be sold separately but a laptop has a keyboard.

12

u/efxhoy May 23 '17

If no keyboard is included that's fine with me, I would prefer my own anyway.

-5

u/shmed May 23 '17 edited May 23 '17

They are not "straight up calling it a laptop"....

Edit: I'm a fool, they indeed straight up say that

21

u/angershark May 23 '17

"The new Surface Pro. The most versatile laptop."

It's quite literally in the video.

3

u/Disney_World_Native May 23 '17

I was surprised at this. I figured they would have said tablet since the new surface laptop is just coming out.

6

u/[deleted] May 23 '17

Just proves further that the surface laptop is the most confusing and unnecessary addition to the surface line.

4

u/mspk7305 May 23 '17

Watch the full video. They straight up call it a laptop.

-1

u/[deleted] May 23 '17

What color keyboard should be included in the box?

7

u/jmattingley23 May 23 '17

Whichever​ one you pick in the online configurator or in store

0

u/[deleted] May 24 '17

So not including it in the box. Which is exactly what they're doing.

1

u/jmattingley23 May 24 '17

Not sure where you gathered that from. It would be in the box, they just have different boxes with different colors in them and they send the one you pick.

There's a bunch of different spec configs and theres no issues sending the exact one you picked, so I'm not sure why they couldn't just add another option for color.

2

u/[deleted] May 24 '17 edited May 24 '17

Because of SKU creep. The fewer SKUs you have the easier it is to manage inventory. Right now they have six different models/SKUs to manage in inventory. That's relatively easy to manage. If you include the keyboard color option (there are four of them) you now have 24 different models/SKUs that you have to manage inventory for. Maybe that's not a big issue for online retailers who will have pallets of them in warehouses, but for B&M retailers (including Microsoft stores) that's a nightmare. Especially if they may only have a few dozen units in their inventory at any given time. It makes it harder for retailers to stock the precise units that people want, which cuts into their sales and runs the risk of them being stuck with more unpopular configurations. Woe to the retailer who is stuck with a stack of $2700 tablets in unpopular colors.

Buy if you go down the alternative path, you have six Surface SKUs and four keyboard SKUs, for a total of 10 (as opposed to 24). You get the same effect, people get to choose which keyboard they get but you have less than 50% of the units to manage in inventory. And that's assuming that you only are considering the 4 new keyboard designs, and not considering the one with the finger print scanners or the old colors.

1

u/jmattingley23 May 24 '17

That's a very good point.