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Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

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Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#261

Post by mmind »

BrentOzar wrote: post #251
mmind wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Brent, I tried to repro a worst case based on your info: http://youtu.be/V01zgACyAF4 as you can see, 20 pages full of errors, spell and grammar correction enabled, writing in the first page. It clearly shows more CPU usage than the first test, but always below 40% for every core. Please, note that I am not trying to say that you did not hit a bug or even a faulty device, just that I have not been able to repro it…

Jorge - thanks! Based on the sounds in the video, you're using a Touch Cover. I wonder if it's related to me using the Type Cover instead?

Yes, I used a touch cover, I do not have a type cover. It may have been multiple things, a defective surface, a bad cover,... impossible to tell, I doubt is a generalized type cover issue as I would assume people would be reporting it all over the place.

I am a really happy camper, today I tested the RDP connection to my main server and works really well, you can get real stuff done using remote desktop. I was sure I would need the Surface Pro and now I am not so sure as I can do heavy lifting with more battery life and lighter device (and I will always need a "real" computer in the home anyway). Surface Pro looks awesome for pen and I am a big fan of ink well done (need to test a capacitive pen with the RT but usually they do not meet my bar). In any case, I will surely keep my unit, I did not feel so happy with a new gadget since the ZX spectrum, my first HP48 (yes, I am that old) or the iphone. I was not sure after reading some of the early reviews but this device is a geek's playground, I will be discovering new tricks for a while, the connection to the XBOX is pretty cool too and seems to work fine for movie navigation but did not play much with it yet.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#262

Post by AJ007 »

mcherm wrote: post #240
pinaceae wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i know you mean well, but you really shouldn't be posting this. it does not reflect well pn MS if one of their major differentiators, Office, was not in the loop during this major new product's development. by the way, it is even worse with Powerpoint. every few lines typed i had the screen go white to redraw the whole UI.

That depends on your perspective. I, for one, am put off by excessive "corporate image". Perhaps some people are put off by hearing that sometimes one department doesn't talk to another. For me, I'm just pleased to hear that there is an explanation of some sort. And that there is an actual human being somewhere within the company, not just an anonymous collection of robotic drones. And guess what: I already knew that…

Users become a lot more accepting of problems when there is a feedback loop acknowledging and explaining those problems. It certainly does not mean the problem will be fixed, but it is a starting point.

When there is no communication, then the users are left to imagine all kinds of wild theories of what went wrong and why. It is a waste of time for all involved.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#263

Post by Too »

mortenjorck wrote: post #93
jimbobimbo wrote: post #51

The lag in Word is more likely caused by an option that makes Office use accelerated graphics. I don't know why this option even exists - I've yet to see someone liking how typing in Office applications works with it being on...

Shouldn't accelerated graphics result in screen redraws that are... faster?

Usually accelerated graphics are pretty bad at adding new stuff, due to the overhead of moving things from cpu to gpu. Instead they are crazy fast at drawing the same stuff over and over again with slight modifications by simply rotating and moving the already loaded objects.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#264

Post by MaysonL »

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…

[0] Note: not hyperbole. Two megabytes versus two gigabytes.

Heck, back in 1972, I was running, and writing, page layout software on machines with almost a million times less RAM than my current MBP. (16K 18-bit words vs. 16GB). And the editor had no trouble keeping up with typing, which was limited more by the 10 cps limit of the Teletype than anything else.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#265

Post by MaysonL »

tensor wrote: post #126
nextstep wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently, HN is quick to yell "fanboy" at anything critical of a direct competitor to an Apple product. But from the multiple Surface reviews posted here over the past few days, it seems like the consensus (even among those that aren't labeled "fanboys") is that the surface has considerable drawbacks while costing more than an iPad.

I think part of the issue with tablets is that there are people who really want something like the windows 8 tablet to work. Speaking for myself, hearing people chime in "but iPad!" in discussions of new tablets I might be interested in is maddening. It's maddening because I don't want an iPad. An iPad doesn't fit my requirements, one of which is side loading. It can't share data between apps easily either. Android h…

I've been wondering how hard it would be to do the hackintosh thing with a Lenovo Twist - I can imagine running the iPad simulator full-screen might be fairly interesting.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#266

Post by Variance »

mtgx wrote: post #245
Locke1689 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. I've tested it (like many other people). My 2011 Macbook air boots 4 seconds faster into Windows 8 than Windows 7.

Wow. A full 4 seconds? How exactly is that perceivable to anyone without having a timer nearby? Besides, for the faster booting they used another trick, replacing the "true Shutdown" with Hibernate, which makes waking from Hibernate faster than waking from a true shutdown.

Your sarcasm aside, 4 seconds can be very perceivable when you can already do a full cold boot in Win 7 in just 15-20 seconds with a good SSD.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#267

Post by goodereader »

We did a review of the surface tablet here - http://goodereader.com/blog/tablet-slates/review-of-the-micr...

also vs the ipad 3 here - http://goodereader.com/blog/good-e-reader-videos/microsoft-s...

the pro might be a better investment, but most of the apps crash/buggy, not really worth being an early adopter with this product.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#268

Post by Locke1689 »

mtgx wrote: post #245
Locke1689 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. I've tested it (like many other people). My 2011 Macbook air boots 4 seconds faster into Windows 8 than Windows 7.

Wow. A full 4 seconds? How exactly is that perceivable to anyone without having a timer nearby? Besides, for the faster booting they used another trick, replacing the "true Shutdown" with Hibernate, which makes waking from Hibernate faster than waking from a true shutdown.

First, no, 4 seconds is very noticeable, as my boot time in Win7 is 18 seconds. That's 22%, about 1/4 faster.

Second, what the hell is a "trick?" It achieves basically the same result, but faster. That's called performance optimization.

I once doubled a hot area of compiler performance by doing aggressive inlining and removing some tuple allocation for closure conversion. It couldn't be performed in every possible situation, obviously, but the 99% case had a 100% performance improvement. But I shouldn't have bothered because that was all a "trick", right?

A brief look at your comment history says you only comment on political stories, so I don't know if you're a developer or one who has worked in performance optimization, but let me give you a little advice -- it's all tricks. It's all shuffling around your I/O patterns to avoid cache misses and reducing allocation to lower memory pressure and all that other crap. If you increase performance by caching the kernel on disk, which has the same impact for 99% of people as doing a cold boot, that's a performance optimization, not a "trick."

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#269

Post by stevesi »

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…

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 access to the tools and hardware needed, including Surface specific hardware. There was no shortage of knowledge, hardware, or communication.

Re: Why I'm returning my Microsoft Surface RT

#270

Post by edandersen »

stevesi wrote: post #269
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…

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…

Steve, when will you update the image that ships on Surface RT devices? I had to download around 600MB of Windows Updates on day one before Office was in it's final usable state. Once updated though, Office is great - I didn't realize Word had a blogging client built in that rivals Windows Live Writer!
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