231–240 of 345 posts
It's just sleazy that all of their advertising is centered on how the keyboard differentiates the device from other tablets and then the keyboard isn't included in the base price.
"Checkout the new Surface - it's only $500 just like the iPad, but unlike the iPad it comes with a keyboard, too!
Oh btw, you actually have to pay $130 more for the keyboard."
Wow, at that price point and feature set, I think Microsoft finally has something that can plausibly be considered an iPad-killer.
I hate to say it but I'm dreading whatever awful television commercials they'll start putting out. They really do make it embarrassing to own a Surface Pro 3.
I don't know about you but all I do all day is constantly click the keyboard on and off, and open/close the kick stand... Just over and over again, like I am a QA robot... But seriously, Microsoft has some of the worst advertising period. I cannot think of a major company which is worse than Microsoft at advertising in general.
I own a Surface Pro 3, and when I first got it I'd describe the experience as just mediocre. However Microsoft has been aggressively updating the software as has Intel, and as a result of those effects the SP3 has really stepped up and is now quite a good little tablet/ultrabook combo. I only have two remaining concerns with the SP3: My i5 version continues to get extremely hot near the middle of the device (e.g. whe…
It may not actually be a problem at all. CPUs can run safely up to ~70C or so, which is 160F. This means thin tablets are becoming constrained by what you can safely touch, rather than what is safe for the CPU.
http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/MCEN/MCEN5166/supplement...
I had an ASUS tablet a year ago (sold it to my brother who loves it). I do a lot of coffeehouse meetups with fellow entrepreneurs and one thing I loved about the ASUS was the pen and being able to draw pictures easily in OneNote. Having played with the Surface Pro 3 tablet at BestBuy a few times, it's a dream to use. I've wanted a Surface Pro 3, but the price is prohibitive and I already have a Yoga Pro 2 and a MacBo…
> So the Surface 3 looks about right.
You realize this has much lower performance, and most likely won't give you the same experience, right?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
8 GB is absolute bare minimum in 2015 (I'd say 2012 but the world seems to disagree). I'd be very hesitant buying something today that didn't have 16 GB. Unfortunately that is quite hard to come by in the ultrabook range. But 2 GB? And maximum 4 ? Just kills me inside. Way to ruin the device.
Minimum for doing what? My home workstation has 32GB and I can remote into that anytime I want from every device that I own, so I tend to lean on that.
But of course, the sad reality is that the only reason there is a 2 GB version is so that they can have a ridiculous premium for the 4 GB version yet still lure customers with the low starting price point.
I wonder if, when the market has matured enough, that there will be honest companies making products that tries to make good mainstream products rather than trying to get away with whatever they can. There is no reason what so ever that there should be any high-end smartphone available for purchase with less than 64 GB of storage. But now we have 16 GB and, for a $100 GB premium you get, gasp, 32 GB!
Phone storage has not gone up, in many cases down, in the last five years... And that's like 120 years in the tech world.
But hey, 2 GB of ram is certainly enough for the 5 min demo you get in the store...
Actual product page: http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/products/surface-3 And buy now page with tech specs: http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/productI... Looks like $499 for 64GB storage and 2GB RAM, $599 for 128GB storage and 4GB of RAM (WiFi models; 4G LTE model pricing wasn't showing for me).
That 2 GB, 64 GB model just looks painful to use. I've seen a lot of Windows installs use up more than 64 GB, in particular as WinSXS grows as more updates are installed (thus more duplicate DLLs are stored). If anyone asked me, I'd describe 128 GB as the "minimum" storage needed for Windows. And even then you aren't storing much if any user data on it. 4 GB is the minimum I'd run anything newer than Windows XP on. T…
I may end up replacing my t100 with the 128 GB surface 3, especially given the small price difference.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You'd think it was trivial, but it's shockingly hard to do without using iTunes. For a person who frequents HN, that's extremely unintuitive. And iTunes is terrible, so that solution is out. It took me forever to realize that just because I can kinda-sorta interact with my iPhone as a storage device doesn't mean that it's even remotely going to actually behave as one. The whole process is infuriating if you go in exp…
iTunes is out? Well, that's a pointless constraint if I've ever seen one. Yes it's terrible software, but plenty of people run terrible software once in a blue moon because it's the only way to accomplish some task. Also, you say "For a person who frequents HN that's extremely unintuitive"... are you implying HN users are incapable of using google? That HN users are not aware that a locked-down Apple ecosystem means…
Yep. Exactly. Believe it or not, a lot of technical people use Linux machines.
I own a Surface Pro 3, and when I first got it I'd describe the experience as just mediocre. However Microsoft has been aggressively updating the software as has Intel, and as a result of those effects the SP3 has really stepped up and is now quite a good little tablet/ultrabook combo. I only have two remaining concerns with the SP3: My i5 version continues to get extremely hot near the middle of the device (e.g. whe…
I'm curious, what specifically about SP3 improved your experience?
- WiFi/Bluetooth drivers (they were terrible at release)
- Intel HD graphics drivers (improved battery usage, responsiveness in some applications, and also seems to have reduced heat slightly (when running on battery))
- They improved the touchpad's auto-disable thing while using the keyboard (so it actually worked!).
- Touchscreen accuracy improvements both for pen and finger.
- More pen customisation (with associated app)
- Several crash bugs fix (e.g. BSoD during shutdown)
- A bunch of sleep specific fixes (e.g. faster entry and exit from sleep, a crash bug here too, and so on).
- Others...
Here's a full-ish list:
http://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-us/support/install-updat...
Wish they could have gone with the new USB standard. These form factors would really benefit from it. http://www.anandtech.com/show/8377/usb-typec-connector-speci...
But given that it only has one USB port, I'm not surprised that Microsoft chose not to ship something that would basically require an adapter.
I imagine they are shaving pennies to keep cost down without giving up quality, but I wonder what the added cost would be to have two USB ports? (And how much extra the new USB parts would cost?)