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Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

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Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#41

Post by mhurron »

IBM wrote: post #23
bane wrote: post #16

I'm starting to see more and more Surface devices in my area. It seems to be getting popular with the Starbuck's salesguy crowd who need something as compact as a tablet, but they can use real applications on. I know that's kind of cliche, but you don't really "get" that meaning until you walk into a coffee shop and see 2 or 3 people sitting around with tablets sticking up on the tables. The Android and iPad guys are…

They've kind of killed this whole angle of "Surface is for getting work done" after they hedged by releasing Office on iPad.

Office isn't the only thing people use to 'get work done.' One of the reasons I'm planning to get a Surface Pro instead of a Android tablet or a iPad is it is a full, real windows OS on an intel processor. I can install and run ALL my existing Windows applications on it.

For me it's more of a light laptop then a limited tablet device.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#42

Post by yulaow »

JimmaDaRustla wrote: post #9
rbanffy wrote: post #5

Looks good, but I was expecting a screen with the same specs as Google's Chromebook Pixel. I understand that, beyond a certain point, pixel density ceases to be relevant, but the different numbers mean this is a different part. Now, I wonder how good would Linux support be. Also, weighting a keyboardless tablet with a MacBook air is disingenuous at best.

They put the typecover on - stills weigh less.

Image link that prove it: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoF3_u-IgAE2WBh.jpg

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#44

Post by rubiquity »

Deinos wrote: post #34
rubiquity wrote: post #19

> When you write notes using OneNote you can then click the top of the stylus again, just like an ordinary pen, and it will sync those notes up to the cloud instantly so they're available elsewhere. Elsewhere -- as in the laptop you will inevitably go crawling back to when it's time to get real work done. It's always humorous when an article about a device that is supposed to kill the laptop ends on a note like that.

Yeah, he could not have possibly meant your phone, work issued pc/laptop, etc...

Why differentiate between a personally owned and work issued desktop/laptop?

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#45

Post by bcoates »

I was holding out for this announcement to upgrade my Surface Pro, which I've been happily using as a main work PC for more than a year now. I'm not big on the size/aspect ratio change--I don't carry a bag around, and the current surface is about as large as I'd want to handle. A bigger, presumably floppier keyboard isn't too enticing either.

3:2 makes the portrait mode go from silly to potentially useable, except for the part where almost no Windows programs are actually usable in portrait mode, and of course the keyboard requires landscape mode anyway.

With no interesting spec upgrades over the Pro 2 (I was hoping for LTE, or more ports) I think I'll get one of those instead.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#46

Post by mikerg87 »

Small things continue to kill the surface pro acceptance:

- The Surface site on the surface site hasn't updated with surface pro 3 info/pricing. The run way for this is long, why isn't the site updated or ready to go?

- Accessories are notoriously out of stock. Why are they hard to get? Docking station, keyboards, mice. Fix that.

- The dock has 10/100 Ethernet. In 2013-2014? Why?

- Updates for firmware and drivers assume enterprise infrastructure. Without the infrastructure you need a manual upgrade using command line tools. The updates don't come through the normal windows update channel. You have to discover them on your own.

- The track pad on the type/touch cover is flaky . Its forever getting stuck in a fixed place and stuck on gestures you cant turn off or control. You end up having to disconnect the cover and reconnect. this is stupid for an elite/pro device.

Despite the gripes these devices continue to show promise and I see them more and more around airports and coffee shops.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#47

Post by grayclhn »

higherpurpose wrote: post #43
sz4kerto wrote: post #4

3:2 screen ratio is a killer feature. The size (800g, 9.1 mm) is quite unbelievable as well.

Except there's not much point to a 12" portrait tablet. How often do you think you'd be using such a tablet in portrait mode?

I use my ipad in portrait mode for reading pdfs and because it's easier to hold; I don't think that changing the aspect ratio would make much of a difference for either of those tasks, but it would make typing in landscape mode much better

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#48

Post by robotresearcher »

mhurron wrote: post #41
IBM wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've kind of killed this whole angle of "Surface is for getting work done" after they hedged by releasing Office on iPad.

Office isn't the only thing people use to 'get work done.' One of the reasons I'm planning to get a Surface Pro instead of a Android tablet or a iPad is it is a full, real windows OS on an intel processor. I can install and run ALL my existing Windows applications on it. For me it's more of a light laptop then a limited tablet device.

And then there's the ARM version, which manages to not have the single best feature of Windows: the outstanding backwards compatibility. A very weird decision. Maybe they'll kill it with the 3rd gen.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#49

Post by pedalpete »

ssdfsdf wrote: post #13

Why are they still trying to turn a tablet into a desktop? They are different things, with different purposes - not everything needs to be the same thing. Tablet All The Things!!

Try looking at it another way. I have my laptop plugged into my monitor 90% of the time, and I use it with a keyboard and mouse attached. So, I rarely touch the hardware.

When I do, use my laptop, I'm using it for the same type of things I would use a tablet for 70% of the time. Rarely am I actually doing any coding on it, but when I need to, I need to.

Therefore, I can add a 3rd device, a tablet, into the mix, but why bother? One well built device now handles 100% of my use cases.

I suspect many people don't use the surface as a tablet most of the time, but when you want to, it's nice to have that capability.

Re: Microsoft announces the Surface Pro 3

#50

Post by ggreer »

That's a really nice piece of hardware. I've used MacBook Airs since 2010, but the Surface 3 looks to be strictly dominating in the hardware department.

Unfortunately, I don't think Microsoft will convert many OS X devs unless they make some changes to their software. One of the advantages of OS X is that it's a Unix, and lots of Unix software runs on it. It's not hard to compile tools such as nmap, Vim, or steam locomotive.

It would be very interesting if Microsoft made Windows a Unix. They could bundle bash or zsh, add the typical BSD tools, and (most importantly) build a cc front-end for the Visual Studio compiler. They'd also have to ship a libc of their own. To save effort, they could base it on BSD's libc. It'd be like Cygwin, but installed by default and officially supported and maintained.

With such a set-up, you'd be able to run your unix tools alongside Adobe CS and Outlook. You wouldn't have to worry about driver support, since Microsoft made the hardware and the OS (just like Apple). The only thing missing would be the ability to dual-boot OS X (to test on Safari or other OS X stuff).

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