Tolerating the Surface Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro

#61

Post by muyuu » Fri, May 17, 2013, 9:24 AM UTC

lmm wrote: post #54

muyuu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working in the office is not working on the go. Working on the go is finish up stuff and send it before boarding a plane, or work on that same plane, or during your train commute. If you're going from home to the office and back, I don't see the point in carrying anything other than your smartphone. Talking about the general case, obviously, there are justifications for bringing a medium-sized laptop.

I get things done in all those cases on the setup I mentioned. Obviously if you're taking 8-hour flights then you need that much battery, but is that a common case?

It's a very common case that you have a hard time finding a socket in some places. It happens a lot to me that many others are working on their laptops and all sockets are taken, or even that there are no sockets at all in some trains.

Introduces an extra dependency.

Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro

#62

Post by PaulHoule » Mon, May 20, 2013, 8:26 PM UTC

canthonytucci wrote: post #45

PaulHoule wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A big part of the Metro nightmare is that the built in apps (other than the core shell) suck. For instance, Metro lacks a file chooser where you can easily find files anywhere in your system. If the Metro interface had a good file chooser, you wouldn't have to drop out to use the file desktop chooser to find a file on any filesystem. If Windows 8.1 adds a good file chooser and if Microsoft addresses a few specific pr…

Why are you trying to work with files in the metro interface? I'm having trouble coming up with a use case where I'd need the file chooser to do any of the things you'd want to do in the touch interface. I can't speak to the music file thing because I haven't dealt with music files in years, it's always been an annoying and tedious experience for me (as is working with any large number of files with wonky metadata),…

It's fair to expect to write a document in Microsoft Word on the Desktop and then view the file, or a PDF copy, when it is in tablet mode.

A good file chooser enables that scenario and generally, maximizes the benefit that Windows 8 brings to a tablet OS, which is the Windows desktop. If Metro can stream, read from memory cards, view files from Desktop apps, etc. the high purchase price of these systems would be justified.

Re: Tolerating the Surface Pro

#63

Post by Samuel_Michon » Thu, May 23, 2013, 8:32 PM UTC

WayneDB wrote: post #57

dangrossman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what conceivable purpose would you want to compare average thickness? I own an SP; it does not get 3.75 hours of battery life no matter what I do with it, and I could pull out a dozen review links to say that as well. Why are you trying so hard to make it look worse than it is?

That's 3.75 hours with a video continuously looping. I get 6 - 7 hours on a low brightness with normal usage (web, email, visual studio, sql server, etc.)

When they performed the same test on a 13" MacBook Air, it held on for 6.5 hours. That jibes with Apple’s stated battery life of ‘Up to 7 hours wireless web’. Apple states the MBA 11" has battery life of ‘Up to 5 hours wireless web’, so it’s definitely more than 3.75 hours.

http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/18/macbook-air-review/