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Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
51–60 of 127 posts
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#52I think they priced themselves out of the market.
If the pen input is comparable to that of a Wacom tablet, I'd buy it in a heartbeat. Its closest competition sells for $2,200 in Sweden.
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#53Everyone seems really blown away by the pricing and I'm not sure why. This isn't an iPad, it houses a fully functional operating system that lets you run existing Windows 7 desktop applications. In a use-case scenario I see it being more similar to a laptop than to the iPad. If I can run Visual Studio on it and it handles all my existing Windows 7 applications correctly, I'd consider purchasing it. I don't look at it…
The problem is that the pricing puts it into a weird space in the market. If you want to use it as a laptop, you have to add one of the covers (the $120 Touch Cover or $130 Type Cover) so you have a keyboard, and that puts the price of the package over $1,000. You can get a "real" laptop (even a Macbook Air!) for less than that.
An argument could be made that Surface Pro isn't just a laptop, but a laptop plus a tablet, in which case the appropriate price comparison would be the cost of a Macbook and an iPad. But the extra horsepower the Surface would require to run like a laptop would mean lower battery life and greater weight. So you get a tablet, but one that's less appealing than a tablet designed to only be a tablet.
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#54Before even clicking the link, I thought to myself, 'What would I pay for a Windows 8 tablet?' Not more than $500 I thought. When I saw they priced it at $900 I laughed. Microsoft is a non-stop train wreck of misery at the moment. It's like Window ME and Windows Vista combined. I hope they come out of this beating with a renewed sense of reality. Maybe shed a few layers of management..
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#55Everyone seems really blown away by the pricing and I'm not sure why. This isn't an iPad, it houses a fully functional operating system that lets you run existing Windows 7 desktop applications. In a use-case scenario I see it being more similar to a laptop than to the iPad. If I can run Visual Studio on it and it handles all my existing Windows 7 applications correctly, I'd consider purchasing it. I don't look at it…
I don't get it, really. They designed a tablet whose primary use-case is in laptop mode? Why not just buy a better-spec'd laptop for the same price? And why does Surface have a mission-critical piece of hardware (the keyboard) missing from it? Sorry, but at a whopping $1050 after purchasing this critical component, I'd rather just buy a 11in Macbook air for cheaper.
I see it as an answer to this question: when I leave home, should I bring my MacBook Air, my iPad, or both? None, take the Surface.
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
You mean, as opposed to a MacBook air at 999 to 1199? This is a full-fledged laptop running the full version of Windows.
Well, it's a full-fledged laptop that has no keyboard. A keyboard will cost you more- a type cover is about $149, right?
Wow seriously? I bought a mechanical keyboard with gold plated switches for each single key for that price!
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#57After trying Windows 8, I'm not convinced "hybrids" are the future anymore. Everything about such a hybrid will be a compromise one way or the other. You won't get the best desktop experience as Windows 8 is annoying you with Metro, and you always have to bypass it, a 10" screen is pretty useless for any real work on a PC (too small). You'll also get about half or less the battery life of an ARM tablet (and probably…
My old Sony 505g had a 10.4" screen and was plenty useful.
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#58I don't get the general perspective that the concept of what the Surface Pro is trying to be is a pointless/undesirable thing.
Now, I totally understand the Surface Pro and Windows 8 might not be a _good_ solution to a problem... but there is a problem. And that problem is that I have too many devices. I have a tablet. I have a laptop. And I have a desktop. They all serve their function well, but I do imagine that in the future all of these devices will be combined into one. I believe that's inevitable. The Surface Pro is trying to be this solution (again, whether it's a successful solution is TBD). A device with no keyboard when I want a tablet. Attach a keyboard when you need it for whatever reason when you're on the go. Throw it in a dock when you're at your desktop to get your main work done, with multiple monitors, a comfy desk and chair, etc.
To scoff at this idea as not being a valid problem to tackle, and suggest the Surface Pro has no reason to even exist, seems short-sighted to me.
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#59Everyone seems really blown away by the pricing and I'm not sure why. This isn't an iPad, it houses a fully functional operating system that lets you run existing Windows 7 desktop applications. In a use-case scenario I see it being more similar to a laptop than to the iPad. If I can run Visual Studio on it and it handles all my existing Windows 7 applications correctly, I'd consider purchasing it. I don't look at it…
Everyone's blown away because they priced themselves out of their target market. Whether they agree or not, this is going to be compared to the other tablets (i.e., the iPad) out there, and for the base models, the cost is almost double. For a company attempting to play catch-up, their giving themselves such a tremendous handicap is pretty unexpected.
I don't think their target market for the Pro is the hobbyist, or Mom and Pa, it's the enterprise business market, where the iPad has seen little penetration.
This market doesn't care if the kickstand works on your knee. Or about a few hundred dollars here or there. Exchange integration, legacy internal applications, these things matter.
Note taking in meetings.
Re: Surface with Windows 8 Pro – Pricing
#60[deleted]
It was written by Microsoft.
>The following is a post from Panos Panay, General Manager of Microsoft Surface.