The Microsoft Surface Pro Proves That The PC Is Back • Hacker News Board

Re: The Microsoft Surface Pro Proves That The PC Is Back

#51

Post by rayiner » Wed, Feb 06, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

funkiee wrote: post #3

I can't agree with the statement, "It's a laptop!". It's almost impossible to use in your lap comfortably the way you would a laptop.

From the Ars Review: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-wit...

"From a laptop perspective, Surface Pro falls down too. The traditional laptop has a stiff hinge to hold the screen at an angle of your choosing. It is hard to understate the importance of this hinge. I use laptops not just because they're small and I want something that won't take lots of space in my home, but because I actually need portable computing. I go to conferences, I stay in hotels, I ride trains, and take planes. My laptop's hinge means I can comfortably use my laptop with coffee tables, dining tables, the little desks you get in hotel rooms, and wherever else I happen to be.

The hinge also means I can comfortably use the laptop even without a desk at all, on my lap. As long as the laptop's center of gravity is over my knees, it will be solid and stable, which means I can keep it a comfortable distance away from me so my arms aren't all scrunched up just typing on the thing. In practice, this means I have the hinge hanging in free space.

The Surface kickstand offers me none of that. It puts the screen at the right angle when my desk is a particular height, but at any other height it's the wrong angle. And worse, when using it on my lap, unless the kickstand is supported the screen flops uselessly. The result? In practice, the Surface RT and Surface Pro have a bigger footprint on my lap even than my old 15-inch MacBook Pro. And if I move a little, whomp, the screen drops off the back of my knees and folds out of sight. The Surface Pro is smaller and more svelte than my MacBook Pro, yet it's far more demanding of space."

Re: The Microsoft Surface Pro Proves That The PC Is Back

#52

Post by InclinedPlane » Wed, Feb 06, 2013, 5:05 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #38

phren0logy wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's pretty much my reaction: Microsoft is being fairly radical, but not radical enough. What Android, iOS, and OS X have demonstrated is that a lot of people can meet their computing needs without Windows. Microsoft's approach seems doomed to hold on to a huge but ever-shrinking slice of that pie. Offering something dramatically different might (from my flawed understanding) demand removing some of the older eleme…

It takes a lot of time to build and release a new OS and then jump-start a community of developers around it. The power of the PC and the reason why we'll still be using PCs for a long time is also due to its legacy ... basically whatever tasks you need to do on a PC, there's already an app for it and most people probably know about it too. Getting rid of this legacy would be Microsoft's poison pill. Unfortunately fo…

This is an excellent point. MS needs to make a lot of changes, but one of the biggest mistakes it could make is trying to copy Apple exactly, and losing out on what it already has while doing so.

Re: The Microsoft Surface Pro Proves That The PC Is Back

#53

Post by dylangs1030 » Wed, Feb 06, 2013, 5:13 PM UTC

samstave wrote: post #47

dylangs1030 wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, did you buy the Lenovo thinking the touch screen would be a plus? I'm not sure a saleperson at Best Buy would be able to sell me a touch screen computer. The mere idea seems unwieldly, like someone desperately trying to make innovation in consistently wrong directions.

This is a work provided machine, not my choice :)

Ah, sorry to hear that :)

Re: The Microsoft Surface Pro Proves That The PC Is Back

#54

Post by dylangs1030 » Wed, Feb 06, 2013, 5:14 PM UTC

But...how? Tablet is becoming a buzz word that makes consumers forget themselves so they buy a trendy thing. Here's why:

Hackers won't want to buy the Surface. It's got a touch screen. What do they want with a touch screen? They want a full powered, no proprietary Linux installation; a Mac OS X Unix with a lot of freedoms and some great proprietary software; or, if they love ASP or Visual Basic, maybe Windows. But not Windows developed for a touch screen tablet. Actual Windows, on a computer screen.

And users who think critically probably won't want the Surface because, after the glitzy touch screen and processor speed holds no more euphoria, they realize that they're not holding Windows Vista or Windows 7. They're holding Windows 8, which is not really a full operating system on a tablet. Microsoft advertises it this way, but in fact, Windows 8 looks better on a tablet than it does on a laptop. So really, Microsoft just switched the discrepancy such that it could claim the tablet had a "full operating system" - a full operating system would be a hackable Windows 7 implementation, and all the processing demands that would carry with it.

Windows 8 doesn't seem to be progress to me. It seems to be part of the trend to slowly fuse tablets and laptops into this strange combination that will universalize every computing need.

And that's crap. That's something like saying an iPad can replace your laptop (it just can't, most of the time).

People are confusing trending with progress. It's not progress to try to universalize your devices. You can't forget that hardware still has software needs. What's the point of calling it a tablet if you're just going to make it a less powerful laptop? Microsoft gets away with this because of terminology. Let's change tablet with "less powerful laptop":

If I have the choice of a less powerful laptop with a touch screen, and a laptop with a superior processor, more hard drive space, more RAM and a larger screen, I'm going to buy the second, especially if it's proportionately priced to its advantaged.

This is a dumb trend, don't buy into it.

EDIT: I venture a theory that Microsoft is trying to defeat Apple's iPad with the Surface by redefining tablet (no, literally, not in a marketing campaign kind of way). A tablet is useful under certain circumstances, the same way a computer is. It's SUPPOSED to be streamlined. So if you completely un-streamline a tablet, what do you have? A computer that is bloated and less powerful. It manages to be less able to satisfy the demands of either.

A tablet is specialization. So when the specialization is removed, it's no longer worth it.

Re: The Microsoft Surface Pro Proves That The PC Is Back

#55

Post by recoiledsnake » Wed, Feb 06, 2013, 5:19 PM UTC

nextparadigms wrote: post #25

cooldeal wrote: post #8

Here's the Anandtech review featured on HN just a few hours ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5175190 If that one got flagged off the front page then this one stands no chance. No point in wasting time writing up comments. Save your breath for the extremely negative posts, those will stay on the front page for days.

It did not get flagged off the front page. I watched it myself how it dropped to the bottom of the page. Getting flagged off the page would've meant disappearing from the top early on. Maybe it's too hard to admit people just don't care much about it.

>Maybe it's too hard to admit people just don't care much about it.

Or maybe people who might be interested have already left HN in disgust over a bunch of fanboys and zealots flagged stories that don't fit their worldview, just like it happened to this article too as predicted which is sitting on the 3rd page now although it should be on the front page.