In 2020, New Zealand created 80,000t of e-waste – only 1600t (or 2%) of that was recycled. When it comes to computers, the majority of e-waste comes from business.

Because of this, Microsoft has launched a local repair service for its Surface range of laptops and tablets for business. Where previously Surface devices were swapped with replacements (and faulty devices exported for refurbishment), they are now repairable within New Zealand through The Laptop Company – the country’s first Surface Authorised Service Provider.

With 88% of overall CO2-equivalent emissions coming from initial device production and shipping, repairing otherwise-perfect devices is the single largest way to reduce CO2-e and e-waste, rather than chucking and replacing with new.

“We’re thrilled to be able to offer this service to our Microsoft customers in a really great step forward in terms of sustainability,” says The Laptop Company’s CEO, Mark Mayo. “By opting for repairs over replacements, the carbon footprint of broken or faulty devices is drastically reduced, as faulty units are no longer exported for remanufacture. Being able to repair Surface devices here in NZ means things like broken screens and ports will no longer result in people sending otherwise perfect devices to recycling or landfill.”
 
The Laptop Company will offer the repair service to fleet owners including through their Renew service, which takes broken and out-of-warranty devices, repairs them and reinjects them into fleets to reduce e-waste and unnecessary replacement device purchases.
 
“We’re pleased to be able to locally employ technicians. Our service centres in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, and Dunedin mean fleet owners can access prompt and reliable repairs and get their users back to business quickly,” says Mayo.

By extending the useful life of broken devices that are otherwise perfect, The Laptop Company is helping deliver Microsoft’s vision for reducing the carbon footprint of New Zealand workplaces.
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“Repairability is a huge issue worldwide, and the average New Zealander produces more than 21kg of e-waste each year. We believe everyone should have safe, reliable, and sustainable options to repair devices rather than sending them to landfill, but sending them to repairers offshore also had an environmental impact. This announcement by The Laptop Company means Kiwis can not only cut emissions by having their devices repaired, but have them repaired locally by a trusted partner, which is great news for our planet and for our customers too,” says Menisha Naran, Senior Marketing Lead, Surface Devices for Microsoft Asia.

About The Laptop Company
The Laptop Company is a multi-award-winning New Zealand-owned Microsoft Surface Partner. Based in Wellington but operating nationwide, The Laptop Company is a trusted supplier to corporate fleets and an official supplier of Surface devices to Government agencies through the All of Government IT Hardware Contract. The Surface ASP programme adds to The Laptop Company’s suite of whole-lifecycle Modern Fleet Management services, which includes asset and user-device management through TLC’s industry-leading Intune device management team.
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About Microsoft Surface:
Microsoft Surface is a line of innovative, premium-quality computing devices that seamlessly combine cutting-edge technology with versatile design for a diverse range of user needs. Designed for Windows 11 and Microsoft 365, the Surface range provides flagship performance and usability in the Modern Workplace. The new generation of Surface devices is the most repairable to date, reflecting the company's commitment to sustainability and customer satisfaction.

Find out more about Microsoft Surface at The Laptop Company >

This is Microsoft's Surface flagship convertible. With a pull-forward display, the device switches from laptop, to easel or tablet without the user needing to undock or unplug their device during use. ​It is one of the only mobile workstations on the market that provides pen and touch interactivity, which can be a boon for creatives, especially at the concept stage. The device is pitched at power users including GIS, engineering, architecture, motion picture, modelling, game development, forecasting, creative, developer, AI, and data science teams. 

This improves the experience when modelling, coding, editing, rendering and encoding. 

It now features a 13th gen Intel Core i7-13800H processor as standard. With Six Performance Cores, plus Eight Efficiency Cores, the new 14 core processor provides considerably more performance than the first Surface Laptop Studio's Four Core 11th gen processor. The Intel Core i5 option has been removed, which makes sense for a mobile workstation device.
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The new model provides considerably more power than the 10 core Surface Laptop 5 and Surface Pro 9 tablets.

The Movidius VPU AI Accelerator is optimised for efficient AI and computer vision, which bodes well for users of software that can make use of it for activities including video tracking and recognition, object recognition, 3D scanning, and image restoration, among other emerging technologies.

The lowest cost NVIDIA option (RTX 4050) benchmarks at an average of 70% more powerful than the old model's NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 Ti. Source: NotebookCheck.com 

The Surface Laptop 2 has VESA DisplayHDR400 certification with up to 500 nits brightness for standard content, and a very high 650 nits for HDR (High Dynamic Range) content including 3D and 4K video.
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Finding a monitor that can match the quality of the Surface Laptop Studio 2 may be challenging - we recommend something like a 27 inch or larger HP Z series 4K display with DreamColor, or a Philips 4K Mini-LED Thunderbolt 4 monitor for similar pixel density, scaling and display performance.  

The new model now supports up to 64GB memory with 16 and 32GB options available. Memory is not upgradeable, so choose wisely based on your application workloads. Memory has also been upgraded from LPDDR4x to LPDDR5x for faster throughput and lower power consumption. 

The new model adds a USB Type A port for legacy devices including wireless keyboard dongles. Bluetooth connectivity is also upgraded from 5.1 to Bluetooth 5.3, and wireless networking is upgraded from Wi-Fi 6 to Wi-Fi 6E with 6GHz compatibility.

Repairability remains the most important way to reduce the carbon foot print and e-waste associated with your devices - especially when minor components are damaged on otherwise perfect devices.
​The Surface Laptop Studio 2 features the most repairable design to date, including replaceable display, mainboard, casing, and ports - making things like accidental cord-trip damage a much lower risk to your total cost of ownership.

The Surface Laptop Studio already provided an exceptional end-user experience with one of the best displays on the market, and a high level of flexibility for user interaction.

Weight has increased with the very heavy-duty performance components to just under 2.0kg for NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada models, this compares well with other equivalent mobile workstations on the market (few of which offer the flexibility, interactivity or display quality of the Surface Laptop Studio 2 as standard).

The Laptop Company is a multi-award-winning Microsoft Surface Reseller and an official supplier of Surface devices to the All of Government IT Hardware Contract. Contact us for pricing, and to access a demo device.

We have a number of fleet users who are ready to replace their HP EliteBook G7 fleets. With major changes introduced in the G8 and G9 ranges and carried through to and improved in the new G10 range, the upgrade is fairly significant for end users. We've listed the main differences for the HP EliteBook 800 series below.

Bold = advantage

The new Intel Performance Hybrid Architecture in the EliteBook G10 is a two generation leap from that used in G7 models. It uses a combination of P (Performance) cores for high performance and responsiveness in user applications, and E (Efficiency) cores for efficient processing of background and multi-core tasks. Intel Thread Director selects the most suitable cores for each task in Windows 11 for optimal performance and efficiency. Windows 10 users also gain a noticeable performance bump with the new multi-core architecture, even without Intel Thread Director support.

Intel iRIS Xe graphics provide equivalent performance to the optional upgrade discreet NVIDIA and AMD graphics options offered on selected HP EliteBook G7 models. 13th gen Intel Core i7 models get 96 Execution Units for additional graphics horsepower while Intel Core i5 models have 80. By contrast the older Intel UHD 620 graphics found in G7 devices were based on an older architecture with just 24 Execution Units.

The taller 16:10 screen format increases the vertical height and resolution of the display to enable more content to be displayed on screen before scrolling. Display brightness options are consistent across the two generations with both starting at 250 nits brightness, and the option of 400 nits with auto-dimming and increased colour quality, or 1000 nits with switchable Sure View Reflect privacy filter. Touch is optional on most models.
The 15.6" model now measures 16 inches with the new taller aspect ratio.

Lockdowns and work-from-home proved the need for better quality and more useful webcams since the G7 was introduced. As well as improving the physical hardware with much higher quality 5 megapixel sensors, HP has introduced automatic panning and zooming with a follow-me feature. Low-light, backlight and appearance filters improve the appearance and professionalism of presenters. Multi-camera support automatically switches between the presenter's webcam and an external subject camera in Teams and Zoom. This includes keystone correction for improving the readability of whiteboards and documents presented to virtual audiences. 

Starting weights are broadly equivalent between generations - add approximately 100 grams to each to calculate the weight of touch screen models. Narrower screen bezels (borders) and the new 16:10 screen format make the newer models squarer in shape than older models. This, and the removal of the optional pointing stick and buttons, has allowed HP to increase the size of touch pads on all models relative to previous versions.
Overall design and construction are otherwise consistent with the G10 further refining the EliteBook design.

If your organisation uses any of the following features that were previously marketed as Intel vPro, you should opt for Intel vPro Enterprise processors:

• Out-of-band KVM remote control
• Wireless Intel AMT
• Fast call for help
• Intel Remote Secure Erase with Intel SSD Pro.

With a large number of organisations using alternatives to Intel Active Management Technology for device management (including services provided through The Laptop Company Modern Fleet Management solution), Intel vPro Essentials provides the core functionality and security required by most enterprise teams in New Zealand.  

​Microsoft announced its new Surface Laptop Go – a few of you might want to know whether it’s worth buying for business and how it compares.  As with most Surface devices, there's no direct competitor for the new entry-model. Here’s the run-down.

Microsoft's new entry-level laptop offering.  With a smaller 12.4 inch display, the Surface Laptop Go, slots in below the Surface Laptop 3.  Like the Surface Go 2 tablet, it's smaller, lighter and less expensive than its larger peers. 

The closest alternative in the Surface range is the entry-level Surface Laptop 3 with Intel Core i5.  
We’re omitting the entry level Surface Laptop Go from this comparison.  Although it’s powered by the same processor as the upgrade models, we don’t recommend the entry-level model’s 4GB of RAM or 64eMMC storage for business users. That model also misses out on the fingerprint reader that's standard on the upgrade models.

Bold indicates better.  *4GB Surface Laptop Go available in consumer range, 16GB model available in Platinum

Application performance from the Intel Core i5 1035G1 is generally excellent, and roughly equivalent to both the entry-level Surface Laptop 3 and other current 10th generation Intel Core i5 business laptops. It’s notably more powerful than the Surface Go 2 tablet.
The Surface Laptop Go uses the latest version of the Intel UHD ‘G1’ graphics, which is competitive with most other brand devices – but it can’t match the Intel Iris Plus ‘G7’ graphics that’s standard on the Surface Laptop 3.  The upgrade options available on the Surface Laptop 3 are also more powerful – if you want an i7 processor, or more 256GB storage, opt for the Surface Laptop 3.

The Surface Laptop Go has a smaller 12.4 inch touch screen – as with other Surface Devices this is the squarer 3:2 aspect ratio shape than most competitors widescreen displays.
The display resolution is noticeably lower the Surface Laptop 3’s 13.5 inch display with approximately one third lower horizontal and vertical resolution.  At 1536 x 1024, its resolution is lower than the typical 1920 x 1080 displays seen on other laptops.  This may be a good thing for business users given many in-house legacy software interfaces don’t work well with small screens at high resolutions.  The pixel density is roughly equivalent to a 15.6 inch Full HD screen. Not recommended for users who stack multiple documents or applications on their laptop screen at the same time, unless they want to use an external monitor. 

The Surface Laptop Go is the first Surface device not to support the Surface Pen for on-screen writing and drawing.  That's probably a moot point for most Surface Laptop users.  Unlike the Surface Book, Surface Go or Surface Pro, the Surface Laptop 3 does not have a detachable or reversible keyboard for dedicated pen users.

Both SSD versions of the Surface Laptop Go include an integrated fingerprint reader for Windows Hello authentication.  This is in place of the infrared facial recognition of the Surface Laptop 3.  The fingerprint reader is integrated into the power button for instant-on authentication. 

​Both the Surface Laptop 3 and new Surface Laptop Go are good choices for commuters, students and travellers – both are light, slim and offer good battery life.  Surface Laptop Go users miss out on the illuminated keyboard of the Surface Laptop 3, which is invaluable for presenters and travellers.
Power users, heavy admin-users and creatives should opt for the Surface Laptop 3 to enable stacking of documents onscreen, better graphics performance and should consider the 16GB upgrade. Further up the tree, the Surface Book 3 with dedicated graphics provides the highest performance and greater versatility for power users, professionals and content creators.

This provides sufficient storage for most business users and application performance that's competitive with any other 10th generation business laptop powered by Intel Core i5 despite the entry-level billing. 
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​If you’re considering switching your users to the Surface Laptop Go, please contact us for deal pricing and to book in a demo when these become available.  Being a new form-factor, it's worth trying before buying under our seed programme.
If you’re looking to switch to Surface, ask about our fleet and user migration services to make the move painless.

Microsoft has announced a major update to the Surface Book range. While appearing fundamentally unchanged from the Surface Book 2 on the outside, there have been some important changes for power users.

Increases are bolded.

Increases are bolded.

An NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 Max-Q option is available for users seeking workstation-class driver certification and ray-tracing support.  For professionals seeking ultimate stability in engineering, architecture, VR, game design and motion pictures, the Surface Book 3 allows access to one of the best on-screen Pen experiences in a device that supports 3D work spaces.

For pricing and availability, please Contact Us or speak to your account manager at The Laptop Company.

Benchmarks source: https://www.userbenchmark.com/

Microsoft has just announced the new Surface Go 2 tablet.  With the new Intel Core M3 CPU option, this is now a viable solution for a greater number of staff.  The lightest Surface understands your handwriting, lets you draw on almost anything in Windows 10 and secure by design with S mode.  With a larger 10.5" display, the 544 gram tablet features more battery life and a new performance option for workplace applications. The following outlines the differences between the two generations:

Increases are bolded.

The entry-level Intel Pentium Gold processor receives a modest performance bump.
The most important change is the new 8th Gen Intel Core M3 option, a dual core ultra-low power processor that increases performance by approximately 64% according to Microsoft.  Faster graphics and increased SSD transfer speeds for the M3 also provide more power for teams using enterprise applications and Windows 10 Pro. 
Surface Go 2 with Core M3 and 8GB memory should exceed the performance of the entry-level 2018 Surface Pro 6 with 7th Gen Intel Core M3 and just 4GB memory.

All models now support Wi-Fi 6™, which provides more reliable high speed connections in crowded network environments. 
The Surface Go 2 can also be optioned with 4G LTE Advanced data for remote teams.

The high-quality PixelSense™ display has been increased in size to 10.5" without the overall size of the device increasing.  An increase in resolution from 1800x1200 to 1920x1280 increases usability for office applications and makes monitor resolution matching easier for users.

Manufacturer-rated battery life is increased from 9 to 10 hours, which should be sufficient for field workers and staff who are mobile throughout the day.  USB-C charging allows staff more charging options when away from their workplace

For pricing and availability, speak to your account manager at The Laptop Company or Contact us.

Wellington, New Zealand – October 17, 2019 – Microsoft New Zealand has celebrated its outstanding local business partners at the 12th annual Microsoft Partner Awards. The Laptop Company was a winner in the Surface Partner category.

Mark Mayo, CEO of The Laptop Company praised staff and clients saying “We’re proud of the work the team’s been doing with Surface for our fantastic customer partners.  To receive this award two years in a row from Microsoft is an honour, and with the great new Surface devices announced this month, we’re looking forward to helping our customers do even more with their technology.”

The Microsoft New Zealand Partner Awards recognise innovative partners who are demonstrating inventive use of digital technology, with the awards open to all Microsoft partners big and small. The streamlined ceremony saw the awards pivot to a greater focus on customers.

Sarah Bowden, Microsoft New Zealand One Commercial Partner Director says, “We congratulate The Laptop Company for winning in the Surface Partner category. It’s been a real pleasure learning about the achievements of this year’s entrants and seeing how they’ve used Microsoft technology to empower their own customers in so many innovative ways. The Laptop Company is an example of the fantastic work being done right here in New Zealand to unlock even greater potential.”

“Most of our 1,200-plus Partners are small and medium businesses creating massive change for Kiwi organisations right across the country. They really are punching well above their weight when it comes to digital transformation and the calibre of the Partner Awards entries this year gives me great confidence that New Zealand is set for a very bright future,” says Bowden.
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The Partner Awards took place in a special ceremony at Auckland’s historic St-Matthew-in-the-City last night, with 56 finalists across a range of sectors.
 
The full list of 2019 winners are:
 
Winner & Highly commended list
 
New Zealand Partner of the Year (awarded globally)
Winner - Umbrellar
 
Azure Innovate Award
Winner - Aware Group – Port Otago
 
Azure Migrate Award
Winner - The Instillery – Carter Holt Harvey
 
Business Applications Award 
Winner - Datacom
 
Empowering Employees Award
Winner - Information Leadership Design – Todd Energy
 
Modern Workplace Award
Winner - Intergen – Te Wananga o Raukawa
Highly Com - DXC Eclipse – Fonterra
Highly Com - Information Leadership Design Services – Todd Energy
 
Engaging Customers Award
Winner - Intergen – Lumino the Dentists
 
Optimising Operations Award
Winner - Intergen – Les Mills
 
Transforming Products Award 
Winner - Enlighten Designs – Sitecore on Azure
Highly Com - Datacom – UDC Finance
 
Surface Partner Award
Winner - The Laptop Company
 
Channel Development Award
Winner - Exeed Ltd
 
Cloud for Good Award
Winner - Enlighten Designs – Sustainable Coastlines
Highly Com - Fusion 5 – Barnardos
Highly Com - Spark New Zealand – Oranga Tamariki
 
ENDS
 
About The Laptop Company
Founded in 1985, The Laptop Company is New Zealand's leading laptop and mobile device specialist. With locations in Auckland, Christchurch and Dunedin and headquarters in Wellington, we work with corporate, government and educational institutions throughout New Zealand.
 
For additional information:
Contact: Mark Mayo, CEO
Email: [email protected]
 
Product or service names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.