Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#281

Post by goggles99 » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 6:26 AM UTC

BrentOzar wrote: post #252

goggles99 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL there is so much bias from this "review" (if we can even call it that) It is oozing out of my speakers. The Drama in the reviewers voice is so unmistakable that it is almost sickening. Did he write a "B" script for this and rehearse too? I would not be surprised. Why would you return a device after 24 hours of owning it? Do you not expect any learning curve here? This is pretty much a Mac user attitude. Macs and…

Goggles - thanks for taking the time to explain your thoughts, and I can totally see how it would see like I'm a raving fanboi intent on destroying Microsoft. Most of the time when I read gadget reviews, that's how they sound, and it frustrates me too. You asked, "Why would you return a device after 24 hours of owning it?" Because I was frustrated with it. I know this is going to sound corny, but I want my gadgets to…

thanks for the reply - Your videos were annoying. You clearly had already isolated problems you were having and played a drama of whining, moaning, fake surprise reaction, per-meditated build of growing frustration as you failed at things repeatedly, it was a bad script and clearly not a fair shake for the tablet. You were trying to convince the viewer to sympathize with you and thus not buy this tablet.

A good reviewer does not seethe drama all over - he states the good and bad points without being overly dramatic or going over long poorly written scripts. He does not write a review in the midst of being pissed off. This explains your emotional outbursts and bias/drama in the review and vids - but does not do service to your credibility.

I felt like I was watching an election video when I watched your YouTube vids. Just a one sided mud sling. I was embarrassed for you just watching them.

I understand being frustrated but 24 hours? You need to learn a little patience. When I started using IOS and OS X (for iPhone Dev) I hated it for weeks. I had all sorts of issues. After learning the ins and outs though, I generally have mostly favorable things to say about it.

I don't know about the camera thing. How tall is your desk? I am 6' but I know the average person is something like 5' 9-10". Strange that I have not had or heard much on this issue for others.

I don't understand your issue with updating Word - It is a simple update.

I don't know why you reboot your tablet on flights? I fly a lot too but why would a flight mandate that you power off your tablet? Please explain your logic here.

For the Mail Setup and SkyDrive problem I can only guess because again, I have not had nor heard of others having the problems.

I just feel like for whatever reason you had a bad experience and wrote a seething review in the heat of your frustration. I think that if you had my (or many others) experiences, your review would be much different. I don't know why your experience differed so much from mine and others - either you got a lemon, messed up the tablet somehow, or are a troll. IMO, your emotion/dramatics would suggest the latter.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#282

Post by jrockway » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 7:44 AM UTC

cageface wrote: post #226

Splines wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "So quickly, in fact, that I can outrun Microsoft Word on the Surface. I get the feeling that the Surface RT’s CPU or Word code just can’t keep up with my typing. Here’s an example video:" I'm on the Word team in Office and I'm coming into this thread incredibly late, but FWIW the slow typing on ARM was something we couldn't fully address in time for the preview release. Word RTM (ARM and x86/x64) has much better p…

Interesting. Thanks for the insider's insight. Is Microsoft really serious about challenging the iPad juggernaut with this kind of inattention to detail?

Or, it could be that writing software is significantly more difficult than complaining on the Internet.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#283

Post by vidarh » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 11:03 AM UTC

jonaphin wrote: post #259

vidarh wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [0] Note: not hyperbole. Two megabytes versus two gigabytes. If anything, you were generous. You could run WYSIWYG word processors on a 512KB Amiga or Atari. Both with a single M68k CPU at secpnd generation ARM CPU's used in the Acorn Archimedes range, and while there were numerous discussions about which were faster, a 7MHz-8MHz M68k is at least in the same magnitude performance wise as an 8MHz ARM2 CPU.. (EDIT: A…

"...my 1988 Amiga 500+" Vidarh, you just brought tears to my eyes!

Heh. I still miss my Amiga's (I got the A500+ first, then an real Frankensten's monster of an A2000 which had a bridgeboard + 286 accelerator + a 68020 accelerator for the main A2000 + a SCSI card with a Z80 on it - including the CPU's not in active use, plus the 6502 compatible CPU on the motherboard, that machine had 6 CPU's in it, of 4 distinct architectures....; then an Amiga 3000). The amazing thing is there's still an active Amiga community (over at amiga.org, amigaworld.net, eab.abime.net and a number of other places), and new semi-official PPC hardware as well as a number of new M68k compatible machines (mostly FPGA based)....

I spent last night hacking on FrexxEd (Amiga editor; one of the authors went on to write CURL) and ACE Basic...

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#284

Post by djbender » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 1:59 PM UTC

Splines wrote: post #222

Anechoic wrote: post #23

"The diagonally-oriented camera is strange. In the one orientation it’s optimized for, it’s slightly annoying. In any other orientation, it’s almost intolerable. " "The built-in front-facing camera for Skype is angled so that it’ll work great when the kickstand is open, but again, only for Danny DeVito, or maybe for people who want to show off their chests in Skype." ------ "The Touch Cover is one of the Surface’s bi…

> "So quickly, in fact, that I can outrun Microsoft Word on the Surface. I get the feeling that the Surface RT’s CPU or Word code just can’t keep up with my typing. Here’s an example video:" I'm on the Word team in Office and I'm coming into this thread incredibly late, but FWIW the slow typing on ARM was something we couldn't fully address in time for the preview release. Word RTM (ARM and x86/x64) has much better p…

I for one appreciate your candid response.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#285

Post by cboss » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 2:00 PM UTC

Quote: "The problem with Windows "apps" is that they are made inefficient and un-optimized by default"

As a WIN32 developer for the last ten years I would have to agree that a good bit of software today for Windows lacks performance. Why ? IMO a lot has to do with mindset of not only developers, but also those who produce the programming languages developers use. I would venture to say that most programmers would admit that the computer they develop on is likely a more advanced computer than most mass market PC's. They like i5 or i7 CPU's, 8,16 or more gigs of memory, SSD's, etc. The mass market PC though, to be affordable comes far less equipped. This is why when I write software, my development PC is closer to a more mass market PC. I need to feel the problems with performance the moment I compile and run. Now if you write apps which run fast on a slow PC, imagine how they will run on the higher end devices.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#286

Post by actsasbuffoon » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 3:25 PM UTC

Zak wrote: post #192

powertower wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But from the multiple Surface reviews posted here over the past few days You mean all those negative reviews that get upvoted to the front-page. Thats what happens here, the positive reviews usually get ignored, get flagged, or die quickly. Unless it's an Apple product. "Surface RT" is not "Surface for Windows 8 Pro". Windows RT is a stripped down version of Windows designed for lower power CPUs. It's also designed…

I don't have a horse in the iPad vs. Surface race. I don't care for closed ecosystems or walled gardens and have little desire for either device. I'm either a neutral party, or hostile to both camps. The use-case of an attached keyboard and the fully fledged Office app suite is not what this device is primarly for. That may be true, but it's a poor excuse. The basic function of a word processor is to easily generate…

A little historical context:

Back in the early 1970s Xerox PARC created a WYSIWYG text editor called Bravo. It ran on the Alto which had a maximum of 128K of memory. Approximately 3/4 of that memory was consumed just to store the bitmapped screen, so Bravo would have had to run in about 32K.

As a side note, Charles Simonyi (of Microsoft Office fame) worked for PARC at the time. I might be misremembering, but I think he had some involvement in Bravo.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#287

Post by greedo » Mon, Oct 29, 2012, 6:23 PM UTC

kyberias wrote: post #225

BrentOzar wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brent the author here. I'm heading out on a two week road trip to speak at a few conferences. I hurried to get the device usable before I fly out to Vegas on Sunday for DevConnections, and I started putting it through its paces right away. I wanted to feel confident that I'd be able to rely on it as a backup presentation device and leave my iPad at home. After the 2-week road trip, I'm home for a few days, then out o…

A lot of reasons but none of those are related to the device itself. I think it's fairly obvious that you could have waited a while and the software (!) problems you experienced would be fixed with an update. I think you just originally wanted to write a negative blog post about "returning the device". Weird.

So in other words, the Surface wasn't ready...

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#288

Post by hp79 » Tue, Oct 30, 2012, 9:54 AM UTC

I love my surface, and I have no slowdown in Word and OneNote after installing the 600MB or so update. I have a touch keyboard.

What I'm disappointed about is that the bottom edge of the glass is not completely flat. This shows poor build quality, and I expected at least Apple quality from this device. I also tried a second one, and it also has non flat glass on the bottom edge. All the demo units had this problem too. Try reflecting a straight line on that part of the screen and you will know what I mean. It does bug me a bit because I expect a high standard for a $600 ARM tablet.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#289

Post by rlu » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 1:57 PM UTC

chris_wot wrote: post #238

rlu wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. However, given that your problems other than the kick stand are rather odd bugs specific to you (haven't seen anyone else have the problems you had with Mail and saving in Word) would you not consider perhaps getting the device replaced over straight up returning it? As for Word being slow...I agree that is inexcusable. If I were you I probably would have tried getting the free update to the final versi…

I don't think those bugs would be fixed by replacing the device.

Well neither mine nor my friend's experience the problems that he was having.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#290

Post by rlu » Fri, Nov 02, 2012, 1:59 PM UTC

zohebv wrote: post #280

stevesi wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This issue is known, intermittent and dependent on a number of factors. It has been addressed and an update is forthcoming. This type of issue would be identical across NVIDIA based ARM PCs and large numbers of the reference platforms were available at the same time they have been available to external developers. Developers on the Office team (and Word team) that needed to contribute to the ARM focused work had acce…

Off topic comment. Just tried the surface RT at the Microsoft store today. I think its awesome. I am considering the surface PRO for purchase. However, I am concerned that I cannot use it as a "laptop" i.e. balance the surface while typing with the keyboard on my lap. This is probably 50% of my usage scenario. If there is a heavier version of typecover that can support the tablet without a kickstand when placed on th…

I can type on my lap with touch cover just fine. Not quite as fast as when on a desk but I think that is true (for me) even with normal laptops. I think it just has to do with the angle that your arms/hands are in.

I was also a little skeptical but I was pleasantly surprised by how natural and easy it felt.