Surface with Windows 8/RT

MaxBurn

MaxBurn

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I have to admit I'm pretty interested in this and I'm glad to see them taking control of the hardware, i think microsoft makes some really good hardware. The announcement timing is obvious because of other events surrounding but it still seems a little bit early.

Not a great time to be a PC OEM though. I'm wondering if this is the only way they will go or if they will still allow OEMs to do their own tablets?
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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I think there will be a never-ending comparison to Apple that Microsoft can't possibly win since it's not a sufficiently religious experience, no matter how powerful or capable the devices are.
 
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Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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Apple Store: Filled to capacity with smelly people[1] buying crap for their iphones or waiting in line for someone to fix their broken computers.

Microsoft Store, 100m away: Utterly devoid of consumers, filled with staff who are more than happy to talk about Microsoft's new consumer and business products and how they can or might integrate into a home or business. Want to know how Visual Studio will interact with the new ARM platform? Or how Kinect is being used for medical imaging? Nope. People just the expensive proprietary cable so they can plug their ithing into their coffee maker.



[1] The fact that Apple stores uniformly smell worse than comic book shops on a Pokemon Tournament day in August is entirely germane to this discussion.
 
LunarMist

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Does that tablet have a rotten 16:9 aspect ratio display?
 
LunarMist

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Mercutio said:
Apple Store: Filled to capacity with smelly people[1] buying crap for their iphones or waiting in line for someone to fix their broken computers.

Microsoft Store, 100m away: Utterly devoid of consumers, filled with staff who are more than happy to talk about Microsoft's new consumer and business products and how they can or might integrate into a home or business. Want to know how Visual Studio will interact with the new ARM platform? Or how Kinect is being used for medical imaging? Nope. People just the expensive proprietary cable so they can plug their ithing into their coffee maker.



[1] The fact that Apple stores uniformly smell worse than comic book shops on a Pokemon Tournament day in August is entirely germane to this discussion.
Click to expand...

So that is like standing in line at the DMV in July?
 
LunarMist

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Mercutio said:
DMVs are never that crowded. And the Apple Store people aren't really all that indolent. They're just really happy and want to talk to you about Hare Krish^H^H^H^H^H^Hitunes.
Click to expand...

Even a lesser number of determined people at the DMV can emit a big stink.
 
Handruin

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Mercutio said:
Apple Store: Filled to capacity with smelly people[1] buying crap for their iphones or waiting in line for someone to fix their broken computers.

Microsoft Store, 100m away: Utterly devoid of consumers, filled with staff who are more than happy to talk about Microsoft's new consumer and business products and how they can or might integrate into a home or business. Want to know how Visual Studio will interact with the new ARM platform? Or how Kinect is being used for medical imaging? Nope. People just the expensive proprietary cable so they can plug their ithing into their coffee maker.



[1] The fact that Apple stores uniformly smell worse than comic book shops on a Pokemon Tournament day in August is entirely germane to this discussion.
Click to expand...

Thankfully they must only smell in your isolated part of the country. Even comic book and gaming shops around here don't smell bad.

hXeAU.jpg
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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Handruin said:
Thankfully they must only smell in your isolated part of the country. Even comic book and gaming shops around here don't smell bad.
Click to expand...

Come visit Chicago. I'll take you on a tour of places that smell like moist ass. I don't even care which Apple store you start with, because they're all like that.
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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$500 for a 16GB device, no support for legacy Windows apps and no unified content delivery. Oh yes. This thing is going to set the world on fire.
 
Chewy509

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Simply wait for the returns and bitching from the masses... I certainly hope their sales staff are educated before the launch, however I expect the leagcy side of things will result in low sales (and eventual discountation of product). AFAIC, when people see windows, they expect to be able to run their legacy software...

I wonder what MS plans are for countries where there are not MS stores, and need to rely of third parties to sell Surface? (Queue, clueless sales people, or mass-avoidence of WindowsRT based appliances due to the hassles of dealing with the compatibility problems).
 
Mercutio

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Fatwah on Western Digital
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1. I already had to have the "No, the $500 thingie looks like it could run your line of business app but it's not really Windows"-conversation with one of my customers. Just today.

2. Understanding that I work for a company with just four employees and in the context of Surface Tablets since we all got an email about them, I had to say this to two of my coworkers today: "Hell yes there's such a thing as Android tablets. What do you think all those things on my desk are?"
One of them replied: "Ipads."
No, really. That happened. Just today. Again.

But anyway the commercial for Surface that's on Youtube is a fun watch. Though I'm not sure what's up with the pissed off eight year olds at around the :30 mark.

[video=youtube;8mSckyoAMHg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mSckyoAMHg[/video]
 
J

JKKJ

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FWIW I have a Surface (typing on it right now), and I'm perfectly happy with it. Email works (Office 365, IMAP, Gmail). Word displays text just as quickly as I can type (no, I don't type that quickly, but I do use more than one finger). You can access the file system. You can access files on USB. You can surf the internets. People at work looked longingly in my direction last week. It doesn't smell. The interaction with my Microsoft account, Skydrive and my Win 8 notebook is seamless.

Happy to answer any questions (if I can!).
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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What does the app situation like? Do you have any other mobile platform experience to compare to it? Is Office support the thing that justifies it, or is there something more going on?
 
J

JKKJ

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I have a 1st gen iPad (with 3G, so I will keep it to use when travelling).

Some of the interest in the Surface for me is the similarity with Windows 8 on the desktop. Some is that I'm the person who's expected to have an opinion on new things in my small circle: should I recommend iThings or Win8 things to our staff for instance. Having more control over the ordering and display of photos is nice (at least through Skydrive - the RT photo app seems to have a curious default sort that I haven't yet figured out). Some is simply in it being new and shiny.

Office is nice to have, but not the reason I purchased. Excel on the Surface works so far like the Excel I know and love (pivot tables and all), and my experience with Word is not what the other reviewer had. Just sayin'.

I'm not sure what to say about the apps. I find many interesting ones and many more uninteresting ones, the same for me as on apple and androids.
 
MaxBurn

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Right up in macbook air territory as I was thinking. I assume that is the without keyboard starting price?
 
MaxBurn

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I suppose if you really wanted you could insert the term ultrabook for that but the air generally has more recognition and it doesn't appear ultrabooks are taking off.

MBA, ultrabook and this surface pro are all just small x86 machines the way I see it.

What I was getting at is the air and this surface pro have a lot in common other than the touch screen. Will that get it a lot of attension? I believe the MBA makes up a lot of the Mac line sales.
 
Mercutio

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Fatwah on Western Digital
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One of my customers is talking about buying Surface/Surface Pro devices because the new point of sale system they're looking at will support them. They're the first group of people I've talked to who are genuinely gung-ho about Windows RT.
 
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Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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So Surface Pro is out.

It's fast. It's a real computer that runs full blown Windows apps. It weighs under 3lbs even with the keyboard.
And all people want to do is bitch about how the battery only runs four and a half hours and has a small SSD.

I can't help but think that if an i5 with a 128GB SSD and full blown Windows had been out 18 months ago for $1000, none of us would even be talking about other platforms.

I know at least one of my customers bought one but I'm not sure if she got it yet.
 
ddrueding

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Mercutio said:
I can't help but think that if an i5 with a 128GB SSD and full blown Windows had been out 18 months ago for $1000, none of us would even be talking about other platforms.
Click to expand...

Very true. And if something even half that awesome had beat the iPad to market, Apple would have gone bust. But MS isn't an innovator anymore, so there you are.

I might have to get one of those as the ground station for my drone projects.
 
Mercutio

Mercutio

Fatwah on Western Digital
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I really don't see why MS doesn't shave $100 off current pricing for Surface devices. They're selling a whole ecosystem against a couple different ecosystem. I'm sure they did analysis that set the price points, but the almost universal reaction seems to be "it's too expensive." But these things are going to live and die by their adoption rates and infrastructure. Yes, you can say "We have all of legacy Win32/x86" and that's really compelling, but it's not sexy. The only ideas that seem to be in peoples' minds are that these things cost as much as ipads, but aren't, and they aren't cheaper than the Android systems in similar form factors.
 
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