I'm surprised they didn't stress Windows 8.1 more. I have an original Surface RT ("O.G.") and it was essentially unused in my house until I got Windows 8.1 on it...changed everything. It's a much more usable OS.
Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
151–160 of 255 posts
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#152Dear Microsoft: Out of ARM and x86, choose one. Just choose one. For the love of god, choose ONE. Can you imagine Apple, or anyone else, deliberately releasing two different tablets, with the same name, which can not run each others' software? It is inconceivable, and for good reason. MS cannot make decisions. That's what will kill them, long term. Just choose one!!
> which can not run each others' software? Windows Store apps run on both of them.
I don't believe this is true. Most windows store apps run on both of them, but I think there are some, e.g. graphics, API's that your app could access that would limit it to x86 only
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#153Earlier quoted context omitted.
I write essays for my classes and even code a little bit pretty much everywhere. In the car, lying in bed, on the sofa. The funny thing is, I did most of this on an iPad with a Clamcase Pro. If someone didn't want to do productive input-oriented work, why would they need a tablet with a Haswell processor?
Couldn't you get something like the clamcase pro then for the surface? This type of cover is for people who want something as minimal as an ipad smart cover.
No one has made one yet, because the Surface wasn't popular enough to make it profitable.
Microsoft proved with the first generation that they have the chops required to make hardware that's just as nice as Apple's. Everyone praised the Surface's hardware, they just didn't like the battery life of the Ivy Bridge version nor Windows RT. Unfortunately, the inability of the Surface to be used as a laptop makes it a secondary device for most people. A $900 secondary device is going to be way too expensive for most people, who as I already said, pay less than $700 for their primary devices.
1st party devices are almost universally better than third-party devices. For example, while I loved my Clamcase Pro, I bet it wouldn't have died after less than a year if it had been made by Apple. That's why I was hoping that Microsoft would see the potential in making a proper keyboard for the Surface 2.
The closest thing we have right now is the Lenovo Helix. It's a nice device, but it was launched with Ivy Bridge right around the time Haswell was released, and it costs a fortune when compared to the surface or a Macbook Air.
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cygwin + MinTTY can make Windows bearable, but, if you have already moved to Mac, why bother? OSX combined to MacPorts makes for a very functional development environment. The only very specific downside is that it won't run Visual Studio. BTW, can the Pro 2 run Linux?
if you have already moved to Mac, why bother? Because there is no Surface Pro 2 equivalent that will run OSX. And by "run OSX" I mean "made by Apple" because there's no other way to run it. And I doubt very much that the Pro 2 can do Linux well - can any tablets? I'd be interested to know the state of Linux touch interfaces/drivers.
Ubuntu has been working with touch for some time now and I would expect it to work adequately. I assume the keyboard/cover emulates a keyboard, so keyboard access should not be a problem. My worst fears come from hardware support. After having bad experiences with laptops that come bundled with Windows, I am fully aware hardware can be designed not to work with Linux.
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#155Microsoft should never have released Windows RT. The one reason, and the one biggest reason that people use Windows is backwards compatibility... By breaking that, they essentially undermined their own monopoly power, and now everyone is developing to be platform-agnostic.
And let's face it - no one has actually liked MS products in a decade, they've simply put up with them. Now that people aren't forced to use MS products, they don't. It doesn't matter whether or not the Surface 2 is any good, MS killed the only thing going for them...
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#156As a Surface Pro owner [1], I like: * Surface 2 loses the low-density screen. I enjoy that low-density has been deprecated. * The names are right. Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2. No "Surface with Windows RT 8.1" nonsense. * Haswell, yes please. Longer battery life may assuage some popular criticism. * Backlit type cover. I hope this is compatible with my Surface Pro. * Two-position kick stand. I will be envious of this.…
> I hope this is compatible with my Surface Pro Everything's compatible with the SP. Only the original Surface is missing the extra contacts on bottom for some of the new hardware. Myself, I'll be picking up the Power Cover when that shows up (I'm expecting 2014), but not replacing the tablet. 8ish hours of battery life is plenty for me. I'll save the big money for a real laptop when the rest of the PC makers finally…
Any word on why it's taking manufacturers so long to get Haswell-based devices out?
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
FYI with OneNote and a digitizer stylus as the Surface Pro comes with you can just write your notes on the screen. OneNote will recognize the handwriting and allow you to search through it etc. Sorry if you already know that, from the way your comment is phrased it looks like you don't so I thought I'd throw it out.
I don't think it'd be particularly efficient. I need to be able to write proofs (which include lots of math symbols) and draw diagrams very quickly. I've seen people do it with digitizers, but the results ends up being rather poor. Pen & paper still looks best.
Is there a usable handwriting recognizer which can deal with heavy math notation?
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Why does Apple get a pass on this? Here's why: Last November when the iPad Mini and the iPad 4 launched, Apple sold 3 million iPads over the weekend. Surface has sold about 1.7 million devices total since it launched. http://bgr.com/2013/07/31/microsoft-surface-sales-2013/ It's hard to argue with success. > As a consequence, this is one area where MS is ahead of Apple The numbers seem to disagree with you. The reas…
That's a false argument. These are separate points of discussion. You're arguing that they're right because they were first to market in a new space and have achieved significant momentum. Momentum is just that. They've been riding on it for a while. The last significant innovation was iPad, which was just an evolution of the one real innovation: iPhone. That's only going to carry them so far. Android is eating their…
Actually. Apple was really late to the market with the iPad. Microsoft had been doing tablets for 8 years before Apple came along (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC).
Apple was the first to bring down the price, make it holdable (in your hand), give it a battery that you don't need to worry about. Give it apps that were only designed for touch.
Android is iterating as much as Apple is. They will probably keep iterating until some big hardware breakthrough, maybe when someone releases a ARM86 (compatible ARM and x86 processor)? One major breakthrough of the original iphone was smooth finger tracking made available by the new capitative touch screen.
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm a student also, but I've been using the iPad for this. I don't take any notes on the iPad itself because the courses I need to take notes on are mathematical, so I simply write on paper and then when I come back home I scan it and append the scans to an evergrowing PDF file that is synced to my iPad. I'm looking for a replacement for my iPad 2, but I can't settle on anything because all the non-iPad tablets have…
FYI with OneNote and a digitizer stylus as the Surface Pro comes with you can just write your notes on the screen. OneNote will recognize the handwriting and allow you to search through it etc. Sorry if you already know that, from the way your comment is phrased it looks like you don't so I thought I'd throw it out.
You really need a 600 dpi screen to do math notes.
I used to do math notes on my ipad goodnotes since it has a zoom window.
Re: Microsoft’s Hardware, Round 2: Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2
#160As a Surface Pro owner [1], I like: * Surface 2 loses the low-density screen. I enjoy that low-density has been deprecated. * The names are right. Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2. No "Surface with Windows RT 8.1" nonsense. * Haswell, yes please. Longer battery life may assuage some popular criticism. * Backlit type cover. I hope this is compatible with my Surface Pro. * Two-position kick stand. I will be envious of this.…
Interesting that it wasn't announced anywhere, but during a Reddit AMA, the VP in charge of the Surface said an LTE model was coming early next year.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1mz20e/hi_im_panos_pan...