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The Microsoft Surface Isn’t Rosy
51–58 of 58 posts
Re: The Microsoft Surface Isn’t Rosy
#52The strange thing is, in his self citing comment about it been a turd, it becomes apparent he hasn't touched one. This is the issue MS have, not some cries of false advertising of free space. No one is buying them, no one is seeing them. A guy I work with commented that he's not seen one despite it been months after the RT launch. He quite liked it, just not the price tag.
I've used one.
Re: The Microsoft Surface Isn’t Rosy
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
The screen isn't "super-tiny". It's 10.6". Compared to an 11" ultrabook, you're not loosing a lot of screen space (especially when you consider the 11" ultrabook probably has a much lower resolution than the Surface Pro). If you're comparing against 13" or larger ultrabooks, then sure, the Surface Pro's screen is small (though still higher resolution than most 13" ultrabooks), but then that's a different conversation…
The popular ultrabooks and all of the ones I've seen in real life are 13". My comparison is between 10.6 and 13, which is a pretty big difference. Regardless, I can see how this is arguable.
Definitely, if you want a 13" screen, the Surface is a poor substitute. But by the same token, if you want a 15" screen, a 13" Ultrabook is a poor substitute. It's a tradeoff between portability and screen size. If you're willing to go down to the low-end of screen size for sake of portability, the Surface Pro looks very competitive with 11" ultrabooks. If you're not willing to go to that screen size, then the Surface Pro isn't really an option.
Re: The Microsoft Surface Isn’t Rosy
#54More FUD about the disk space issue... yes - there is a large recovery partition and yes - you can delete it to free up space. Any yes - perhaps MS would have been better off if they included a USB drive for recovery purposes (although I imagine trying to walk the average user through "booting from USB" to restore their partition would be a support nightmare). This is just like the "omg - the desktop is gone and all…
>although I imagine trying to walk the average user through "booting from USB" How is that any worse than the current status quo of every Windows product ever sold? I'd say it would be harder to walk mom through deleting the restore files when she calls and says her tablet won't hold all her movies and music. Let's just face it, MS made a very stupid decision. I could see this happening during the Vista era, but SSDs…
> MS should never have bothered with the Pro line and instead should have made a proper android and ios competitor.
What for?
MS competitive advantage is backwards compatibility with an EXTREMELY HUGE catalog of Windows apps. Nothing more. Anything else doesn't matter.
A 'proper RT tablet' would throw away that competitive advantage and sell as well as the Windows Phone 7.
In fact, the mere existence of an 'RT runtime Store' practically throws away that competitive advantage. Specially now that Steam is expanding from selling games to sell some Windows applications.
What is the right way to me: sell Windows (7 is good enough) computers, with good hardware (competitive with Apple laptops) and with a Full Windows App Store. Not RT Store, Full Windows API applications Store.
I should be able to buy Office, Autocad, Adobe Acrobat, etc from there. Now that would have been huge. The first week would have been a financial success for WinRar, Sublime Text, Ditto, and lots of other programs people use everyday.
Re: The Microsoft Surface Isn’t Rosy
#55I actually own a Surface RT and I like it. I get the feeling that a lot of people try out Windows 8 or the Surface RT for a few minutes and pan it as crap. There's definitely a learning curve associated with it but the payout is that it's got advanced gestures that allow you to do more without a keyboard. One thing that could be impacting sales is that you have to go to a Microsoft Store (brick-and-mortar) or online…
> it's got advanced gestures that allow you to do more without a keyboard. I really like the edge swiping. I miss it on other devices where menus and such are wasting my screen space all the time. One thing I don't like is the "swipe from left to change apps". There's a setting to adjust that, though, so the left swipe pulls up the app switcher instead.
Coming from WebOS I love swipe gestures and am more sad more OS's don't utilize them.
I didn't know about that setting. Thanks, I'll have to check that out!
One other thing that I do like is the ability to show more than one app on the screen at the same time as appropriate. So you can see your music app in the left 25% of the screen while you type up a document or surf the web. Really underrated.
Re: The Microsoft Surface Isn’t Rosy
#56I actually thick the Surface Pro, or something like it, will be the future of home computing. It is exactly what everyone with an iPad, including myself, wishes the iPad would actually do. It is a tablet form factor with a the guts of a true computer and support for multiple peripherals. Dock it wherever and have a real computer system or take it on the go like any other tablet.
I just want an ipad with a file system and the ability to move data easily in and out. The lack of easy workflow destroys the iPad as a serious device for me.
Re: The Microsoft Surface Isn’t Rosy
#57My take on this is that the Microsoft's strategy for the Surface wasn't necessarily to sell a ton of Surface tablets and take out the iPad. I think it was to illustrate what Windows 8 brings to the table in terms of a hybrid tablet experience. This is similar to how Google had lackluster sales of their Nexus phone but it was a reference model of what you could do with Android. The Surface opens up some eyes to the id…
I think Windows RT is an amazing tablet experience. As others have mentioned some of its UI conventions are different and require learning. Overall, its a very well made and pleasant to use device that does what I need it to do.
Though I should note that I've loved them Metro UI since I saw it on the Windows phone.
Re: The Microsoft Surface Isn’t Rosy
#58More FUD about the disk space issue... yes - there is a large recovery partition and yes - you can delete it to free up space. Any yes - perhaps MS would have been better off if they included a USB drive for recovery purposes (although I imagine trying to walk the average user through "booting from USB" to restore their partition would be a support nightmare). This is just like the "omg - the desktop is gone and all…
>although I imagine trying to walk the average user through "booting from USB" How is that any worse than the current status quo of every Windows product ever sold? I'd say it would be harder to walk mom through deleting the restore files when she calls and says her tablet won't hold all her movies and music. Let's just face it, MS made a very stupid decision. I could see this happening during the Vista era, but SSDs…
We are buying two PROs the minute they come out. They have expandable memory slots and the beauty of having a nice tablet and a full blown laptop is great. My wife can't wait for it to come out.