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Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

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Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#11

Post by agrias »

No one should be surprised Microsoft is trying to do their best to improve the Surface and converse with customers. They are great at requirements gathering. However all of this is their job and not solely out of good will. As a huge company that makes grand promises, they are expected to deliver a product that works for their customers. Would you expect any less?

As customers we should care about the best products that help us achieve our end goal. If you absolutely have to give your 'loyalty' to a company, your 'loyalty' should be given (in my opinion) to the company that is predictable, consistent, and reliable.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#12

Post by rhizome »

neltnerb wrote: post #8
programminggeek wrote: post #5

The one thing that nobody seems to appreciate when it comes to pushing forward towards retina displays is just how many more pixels, how much more memory, and how much slower everything is on the same hardware. Yet, anyone who has ever been a gamer knows that changing your resolution has a huge impact on your FPS. It is foolish to think that Microsoft can make the screen much higher resolution, have a similar chip, a…

As someone who is not a gamer, I am curious -- why is it not the GPU that is the most critical when talking about the FPS and refresh rate for things like pen input? Is the issue that the CPU is "in the loop"? Is this a matter of the built in graphics on the Haswell chips not being quite good enough for this application, or is it actually the CPU? I mostly wonder because I've found the improvements to the GPU in the…

It's really a question of faster motherboards.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#13

Post by neltnerb »

rhizome wrote: post #12
neltnerb wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who is not a gamer, I am curious -- why is it not the GPU that is the most critical when talking about the FPS and refresh rate for things like pen input? Is the issue that the CPU is "in the loop"? Is this a matter of the built in graphics on the Haswell chips not being quite good enough for this application, or is it actually the CPU? I mostly wonder because I've found the improvements to the GPU in the…

It's really a question of faster motherboards .

Wait, really? What is the bottleneck on the motherboard?

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#14

Post by programminggeek »

LordIllidan wrote: post #6
programminggeek wrote: post #5

The one thing that nobody seems to appreciate when it comes to pushing forward towards retina displays is just how many more pixels, how much more memory, and how much slower everything is on the same hardware. Yet, anyone who has ever been a gamer knows that changing your resolution has a huge impact on your FPS. It is foolish to think that Microsoft can make the screen much higher resolution, have a similar chip, a…

Agreed, and it's not limited to Microsoft. The iPhone 4 and the iPad 3 both had 2x the resolution of their predecessors but barely managed to keep the same level of performance.

That's one reason Apple kept the iPad 2 around for so long. It still performs really well and for most users that makes a bigger difference than higher resolution.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#15

Post by jsmthrowaway »

jychang wrote: post #3

Great to see Microsoft listening to issues with the Surface and attempting to fix them. Hopefully they can polish it up into a machine that can be competitive in the market.

At the last startup I worked at, Microsoft sent designers and engineers that worked on Windows Server to better understand why we deployed on CentOS. They flew in from Redmond and spent a couple hours with us. We were forthright with them and they seemed to take the feedback to heart (differences in automation being the biggest solid need we could offer, since "running a Windows shop is just different" isn't really tangible feedback).

It impressed me, honestly, and it's good to see them listen to the failings in some of their product lines.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#16

Post by dman »

dublinben wrote: post #9
jychang wrote: post #3

Great to see Microsoft listening to issues with the Surface and attempting to fix them. Hopefully they can polish it up into a machine that can be competitive in the market.

It sounds like it's already competitive in the market of nerds who draw cartoons on their computers, and need to be mobile. The Wacom Cintiq is probably much better for serious drawing, though you give up the portability of a self-contained tablet computer.[1] I'm not sure the Surface will succeed in any markets other than that though. It just solve any common problems significantly better than the alternatives. [1]…

I think it has pretty good potetial in hospitals, education and insurance where ability to take notes is important. Especially the use case where you are expected to stand and jot down things on a tablet sized device.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#17

Post by TwistedWeasel »

It's admirable that MS is responding to criticism of their device and working for a solution.

However, all the issues he experienced seem like they would be quite obvious to anyone testing the device usage for any kind of drawing application (which, for a device with a stylus seems like a common enough use case to be testing), perhaps Microsoft needs to spend more time and effort on their QA process for the next round of the Surface instead of playing catch up after release.

Re: Penny Arcade – Surface Pro 3 update

#20

Post by GodEater »

It's great to read that Gabe has had such a positive experience with a Microsoft product team - but it seems pretty obvious to me that it's because he's a somebody. His posts on penny-arcade reach an enormous audience, and so of course they're going to do their damn best to make sure he sings the product's praises.

My experience is very different. I've been working for an enormous organisation for the last 4 years, and we're a tier 1 client of Microsoft's. I've had numerous occasions where I've tried to get anyone on the product team for my specialisation at Microsoft, that my company literally drops millions of pounds on to pay any attention to our requirements. And every time I've had that conversation, with the same requirements, it's like this is the first time they've heard it. They make great promises that they'll go away and think about it, and then nothing happens. And that's because I'm a nobody. I don't have a blog with a massive audience, and so they really don't give a sh!t.

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