Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

ignorethecode.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 162 posts

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#91

Post by GSimon »

nacs wrote: post #68
GSimon wrote: post #33

I think this year and the next few years should be promising for Windows in the Tablet/Phone market. They were behind in specs for a while but their products are improving and are getting harder to ignore. I recently ordered Lenovo's ThinkPad 8 and can't wait for it to arrive. I think this is the first good alternative to the Windows Surface (it's lighter, higher res, better battery, smaller bezel, usb 3.0, sd card s…

> I really think the tides will start to turn in favor of Windows' mobile devices if they continue to improve they way they have recently. Well it's hard for them to get worse so I guess 'improve' is the only option.

Obviously.

What I'm saying is if they continue to improve their tablets at their current rate it will be to their benefit because other manufactures (i.e Apple) have been slacking in the specs department as of late. If this keeps up Microsoft will be able to close that gap.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#92

Post by GSimon »

pedalpete wrote: post #65
GSimon wrote: post #33

I think this year and the next few years should be promising for Windows in the Tablet/Phone market. They were behind in specs for a while but their products are improving and are getting harder to ignore. I recently ordered Lenovo's ThinkPad 8 and can't wait for it to arrive. I think this is the first good alternative to the Windows Surface (it's lighter, higher res, better battery, smaller bezel, usb 3.0, sd card s…

I'd love to see a ThinkPad 8 with a i5 or i7 processor. Small and powerful, would be my full time machine.

Would be nice, however it's current processor is decent enough and including an i5/i7 would likely sacrifice battery life.

Maybe when Windows 9 is released next year something like that would be available.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#93

Post by LukasMathis »

glasshead969 wrote: post #73
LukasMathis wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno, they're extremely popular in Switzerland, where I live. I think among consumers, Mac market share is quite high. It's different in businesses, but businesses don't buy that many games :-)

i agree among consumers its high, but its still 4mil per quarter compared to 100s millions windows, android and iOS move per quarter. Also developer support is pretty poor when it comes to games on Mac and usually are buggy ports which are released 6-12 months after windows release. Part of the problem is Apple being lazy with Open GL support on OS X platform which just recently hit 4.0 with Mavericks. The situation…

Yep, availability of current games probably plays a role. Though the Mac App Store does show a pretty good selection of games.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#94

Post by lstamour »

eropple wrote: post #82
doorhammer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The digital pen part is the one that keeps tempting me to check out the surface pro 2. I'm no artist, but having a digital notebook would be really nice. I want something that really comes close to the fidelity and feel of a notebook and a pen. For instance, when I'm sketching out a design or an idea, I like to jot down the ideas, connections, etc, and move them around. I like doodling random notes during meetings, a…

I bought one yesterday on the strength of the pen alone. It was an impulse buy and I may return it (14 day return, no-restock-fee), but it is really, really impressive and I'm digging it. It'll also let me build a touch version of my game on a system I can also build on, which is pretty handy. I wasn't looking forward to deploying to Android ten bajillion times. Also, oh my god is OneNote wonderful with that pen. It…

I'm the same way. But I found that the Surface was, compared to the iPad, not as nice for tablet-y things like reading PDFs. And when I wanted to get real work done, the screen was smaller than any 13" or 15" laptop. Using it with a larger display connected was confusing because you couldn't always take advantage of the pen or move seamlessly from one screen to the next. And I missed the Mac's Terminal app -- PowerShell doesn't have tabs.

So don:'t get me wrong, I kept the surface, but my dream tablet is 13-15" with a pen that runs OneNote on Mac ;-)

Oh and for Android dev, turn off Hyper-V and install Intel HAXM to speedily use Intel simulators. That said, for testing on device, it's really fast with Android, no signing issues as with iOS, though they're easily overcome too.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#95

Post by tanzam75 »

dade_ wrote: post #74
mnglkhn2 wrote: post #67

Windows 8 is great once you learn two shortcuts: First, Win+Q for searching and starting any program you need. Second: Win+R to get to the Run window. With these two you just move very fluidly to where you need to be on a Win 8 machine.

And Win+L to lock. Locking the device from the GUI is a ridiculous process.

> And Win+L to lock. Locking the device from the GUI is a ridiculous process.

Start - username - Lock. But yes, Win+L is faster.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#96

Post by LukasMathis »

smegel wrote: post #76

Blah blah blah Surface is good for bland office related productivity tasks. Yeah we've heard it all before. Microsoft shills are truly the worst shills.

That's funny. Did you miss the part of the article where I write that Windows is "technically terrible" and that its "UX is erratic"? If Microsoft pays people to say things like these, they're doing something wrong.

I have a thought, though: if your world view only works if everybody who says anything positive about Microsoft is a shill, then perhaps it's not the "Microsoft shills" who are the problem.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#97

Post by seanmcdirmid »

smegel wrote: post #76

Blah blah blah Surface is good for bland office related productivity tasks. Yeah we've heard it all before. Microsoft shills are truly the worst shills.

Microsoft haters gotta hate I guess. If you even just skimmed the article, you'd realize this was quite balanced and critical that pointed out the good, bad, and ugly. But let's just resort to name calling instead of actual facts.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#98

Post by kbaker »

nacs wrote: post #85
dangrossman wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shooting the mouse into a corner is actually one of those gestures that is hardest to get wrong, which is why we've placed the window's close button up there for decades. Your mistake is aiming for the side instead of the top right corner of the screen; you can't overshoot it, so it never takes more than one physical gesture. You can also swipe from the right edge of your touchpad as if it were the screen.

> Your mistake is aiming for the side instead of the top right corner of the screen His mistake or just UI design so bad even a techie can't figure it out? The amount of "you're doing it wrong" when it comes to addressing Windows 8/Surface UI issues is mind boggling.

Yes, and inexplicable why they carried this behavior over to Windows Server 2012. It is not likely we will see touch interfaces in rackmount servers any time soon.

It is nearly impossible to hit the charms hot corner inside a windowed RDP session when the window is not full screen.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#99

Post by eropple »

lstamour wrote: post #94
eropple wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought one yesterday on the strength of the pen alone. It was an impulse buy and I may return it (14 day return, no-restock-fee), but it is really, really impressive and I'm digging it. It'll also let me build a touch version of my game on a system I can also build on, which is pretty handy. I wasn't looking forward to deploying to Android ten bajillion times. Also, oh my god is OneNote wonderful with that pen. It…

I'm the same way. But I found that the Surface was, compared to the iPad, not as nice for tablet-y things like reading PDFs. And when I wanted to get real work done, the screen was smaller than any 13" or 15" laptop. Using it with a larger display connected was confusing because you couldn't always take advantage of the pen or move seamlessly from one screen to the next. And I missed the Mac's Terminal app -- PowerSh…

Android emulators are largely junk, even the Intel ones, and they're double-junk for game development to actually take advantage of the platform's features--I need a gesture-capable touch interface to test gesture-capable touch stuff, you know?

I would like a bigger tablet, but I run all my Retina Macs at max resolution so 1920x1080 at 10" isn't really a big deal for me, you know? The biggest complaint I have is the idiotic DPI controls on Windows. They're stupid, and Photoshop is extra-bad at them.

Re: Windows 8 and the Microsoft Surface

#100

Post by eropple »

slantyyz wrote: post #88
eropple wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bought one yesterday on the strength of the pen alone. It was an impulse buy and I may return it (14 day return, no-restock-fee), but it is really, really impressive and I'm digging it. It'll also let me build a touch version of my game on a system I can also build on, which is pretty handy. I wasn't looking forward to deploying to Android ten bajillion times. Also, oh my god is OneNote wonderful with that pen. It…

>> Mac laptop, Windows tablet, Android phone. My digital ecosystem is confused. Is it though? I know a lot of pundits like to use the phrase "Post-PC", but I think of it more like "Post-OS". I am in the exact same boat as you, except that I have a Nexus 7 in addition to my Surface Pro. Contrast that to 2010, when iOS was much more compelling at the tablet and phone level. Android, Windows Phone and Windows have prett…

I have a Nexus 7 and a Nexus 10, too. :-P I just don't carry them around all the time. If I keep the Surface Pro, I think that'll take their place - it's not great for reading but I do most of that on my rMBP anyway.
Post reply on HN