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Surface Pricing Announced - $499 USD

microsoft.com

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Re: Surface Pricing Announced - $499 USD

#32

Post by smacktoward »

gecko wrote: post #14
jtoeman wrote: post #9

I think this is the nail on the already-likely-dead coffin of MS Surface. What's the market they are going after??? "tablet market"? nope - already dominated by iPad "enterprise"? nope - 1) not a market, 2) already dominated by iPad "budget"? nope - priced on par with iPad seriously, how are they going to push this thing? they don't have a channel like Apple nor Amazon, so they need to rely on all their other paths.…

They have a couple of markets they can go after pretty easily. * Gaming. It's fairly easy to port games between Xbox and Windows, and this device has been shown to integrate nicely with Xbox. Whether that's enough is anyone's guess, but it hardly seems like a hail-mary pass at this point to me. * Enterprise. I do not actually see what you're seeing, at least here in New York, that enterprise tablets either don't exis…

The gaming market would seem to be out, since Windows RT devices can only run apps distributed through the Windows App Store, and the Windows App Store refuses to carry any games rated as containing mature content (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/10/11/windows-8-marketp...).

In other words, no matter how easy they would be to port, you couldn't make versions of Skyrim, Borderlands 2, XCOM: Enemy Unknown, or Resident Evil 6 to run on Windows RT, simply because Microsoft will not allow you to sell them to Windows RT users. All those titles have content ratings higher than MS will allow for distribution through the App Store.

Ruling out AAA titles feels like a pretty severe blow to any ambitions WinRT might have to be a gamer's OS. Which isn't to say they won't sell games for it; just that it won't be games driving the sales of WinRT devices.

Re: Surface Pricing Announced - $499 USD

#33

Post by ChuckMcM »

nirvana wrote: post #3

I applaud Microsoft for doing something new-- the new windows UI is very original. Further, they have managed to meet Apple in terms of pricing for a comparable iPad, something others have struggled with. But the big take-away innovation here, and the center of their marketing campaign, is that it has a keyboard cover. This seems to be about 5 years out of sync. 5 years ago, everyone expected the iPhone to fail becau…

The keyboard question will be interesting. I've got an iPad and shelled out the $100 to get a keyboard cover (the Logitech one, where I curse its lack of an escape key sometimes). For general use I don't need a dedicated keyboard and/or the on screen keyboard is fine, but the two problems that the onscreen keyboard has are the fact that it covers half the screen when it appears, and it has some really long multi-key sequences for some characters. If I'm composing email or working on an ssh session I definitely prefer the hard keyboard.

So I'd certainly guess there is a product here, between tablets and laptops, and it will be interesting to see how the Surface fills that role.

Re: Surface Pricing Announced - $499 USD

#34

Post by shanelja »

jtoeman wrote: post #9

I think this is the nail on the already-likely-dead coffin of MS Surface. What's the market they are going after??? "tablet market"? nope - already dominated by iPad "enterprise"? nope - 1) not a market, 2) already dominated by iPad "budget"? nope - priced on par with iPad seriously, how are they going to push this thing? they don't have a channel like Apple nor Amazon, so they need to rely on all their other paths.…

Personally, I'm going to be buying one of these tablets, they look pretty powerful and cool, plus I prefer Microsoft offerings over Apple.

They don't need to own a particular market, sure it helps, but personally, I couldn't care less how much it costs or how powerful it is, I would buy one of these just so I didn't have to buy an iPad.

So to be honest, I think at least one market which this tablet will dominate is the "fuck you Apple" market.

Re: Surface Pricing Announced - $499 USD

#35

Post by luser001 »

grecy wrote: post #23
nirvana wrote: post #3

I applaud Microsoft for doing something new-- the new windows UI is very original. Further, they have managed to meet Apple in terms of pricing for a comparable iPad, something others have struggled with. But the big take-away innovation here, and the center of their marketing campaign, is that it has a keyboard cover. This seems to be about 5 years out of sync. 5 years ago, everyone expected the iPhone to fail becau…

> they have managed to meet Apple in terms of pricing for a comparable iPad No 3G / LTE.

I don't think the $500 iPad has 3G?

Re: Surface Pricing Announced - $499 USD

#39

Post by mandeepj »

Pro version have USB 3 and mini display port. It is a nice combo of mobility and ease like iPad + power like a laptop. It is a full blown mobile machine. Ipad, android are just content consuming devices. You can't do much on them besides just absorbing content. I am glad MS understood the missing features from ipad and came with this beautiful product.
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