41–50 of 102 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hence the keyboard and trackpad. There is a benefit of having both the desktop and "Metro".
Well here's the problem I've seen: the trackpad is (or should be) mostly useless in tablet mode, and the touchscreen is impossible to use in desktop mode. I much prefer a dual boot setup, so you aren't mentally switching every few minutes.
The Surface is "Bad" because you're comparing it with the iPad 4, the Kindle Fire HD, the Asus Transformer (3rd or 4th gen), etc. Microsoft missed the first 3 or so iterations of touch-only tablet computing. There are bug fixes and refinements to come I'm sure. Compare the Surface to original iPad when it first came out and maybe it's not so bad? Granted, the surface isn't competing with the original iPad, it's compe…
Now when MS releases a subpar tablet, they want to claim that it's new, and fragile, and shouldn't be compared to the competition; compare it to a two year old iPad instead!
Get real. This is the same MS that we've all known for decades. The hardware isn't too bad, but as usual, the OS is a kludge that makes poor design decisions, is poorly optimized, and performs terribly in comparison to its competitors.
I own a Surface and disagree with everything in this article. The Surface does have quirks, but as a v1 device from a company that has NEVER designed a commercial PC let alone a tablet, I think it is nothing short of fantastic tech. I just sold my Couch-MacBook over the weekend because the Surface satisfies every single casual at-home PC scenario I have.
Not true. In the 1980s Microsoft attempted to standardize the 8-bit home computer market, and developed the MSX architecture, exemplars of which were built and sold by a few Japanese companies. The MSX did not see much traction in the United States but was popular in Japan and Russia.
The Surface is "Bad" because you're comparing it with the iPad 4, the Kindle Fire HD, the Asus Transformer (3rd or 4th gen), etc. Microsoft missed the first 3 or so iterations of touch-only tablet computing. There are bug fixes and refinements to come I'm sure. Compare the Surface to original iPad when it first came out and maybe it's not so bad? Granted, the surface isn't competing with the original iPad, it's compe…
Well, those are its competitors.
I kind of buy the 20 grams thing, actually. When I went to look at the iPhone 5 I noticed it felt lighter and discovered that it's only 28 grams lighter. Still, the surface didn't feel particularly heavy to me and I use iPad every day. It's really not a bad first stab from Microsoft. I hope we can assume that the next rev will be even better a la Xbox (and not what happened with Zune).
Can't make the same comparison for 20 grams (~30% less of a difference) on a much larger device.
I don't know WHY its so bad, I just know that based on MSFT's commercials, that it IS bad. They don't even show anyone using the damn thing. Its just a bunch of choreography.
I agree the ads are bad, but to say that it IS bad because of the lack of usage??
When I first got an HP Touchpad, the touchstone stand, and the keyboard I understood what the "post-PC" era really was. It was perfect: physical keyboard for productivity, yet a touchscreen with a tablet interface, and the mouse had finally seen its end. The Asus transformer was the next big step, I think. Again, keyboard and touchscreen, but this time a 19 hour battery. If it allowed dual booting it would be perfect…
Having used the HP Touchsmart 2500 (2007 laptop/tablet convertible), I feel the same about the "post-PC" era. Moving my hand from keyboard to screen became more natural than moving from keyboard to touchpad, or keyboard to mouse. At the time, I physically administered rackmount servers through a console with a trackball - it was painful in comparison to the touchscreen. Ever try using classic windows interface with y…
When I first got an HP Touchpad, the touchstone stand, and the keyboard I understood what the "post-PC" era really was. It was perfect: physical keyboard for productivity, yet a touchscreen with a tablet interface, and the mouse had finally seen its end. The Asus transformer was the next big step, I think. Again, keyboard and touchscreen, but this time a 19 hour battery. If it allowed dual booting it would be perfect…
Office on the other hand is a production app. Not a consumption app. It's workflow fits best on the Desktop PC with a keyboard.
When Apple brought OS X out to the world for the first time, it was extremely slow, basically unusable, hideous to look at, and Microsoft fans laughed at the effort. In fact, the industry jumped on Windows XP and IE 6. However, Apple rev'd, and rev'd and rev'd and polished and brought things to OS X that were innovative and eventually surpassed Windows as an OS people actually wanted to live in all day long. All the while Microsoft seemingly sat around and watched it happen.
So for the Surface, at this point, it comes down to execution. Can the Windows team rev and rev and rev? Can marketing push it in a way that gets people buying it? Can evangelism bring enough top-tier designers and developers on board to write grade-A apps for it? If they can do that, then this sloppy launch will be simply labeled a turning point for Microsoft. Otherwise, it will be another failed product that just deserved a tiny pat on the back.
I don't know WHY its so bad, I just know that based on MSFT's commercials, that it IS bad. They don't even show anyone using the damn thing. Its just a bunch of choreography.
It is just too easy to show off a few "happy path" scenarios in 30 seconds.