Microsoft Details Surface Pro Pricing Amidst Reports of Poor Sales of RT Version

OriginalClone said:

The fanboy behavior is childish and petty. I don't know why people would not want competition. They cry when there's a monopoly, but laugh at companies for trying to innovate and keep competition alive.

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You do have a point.. Now can you please go and buy a surface. We need you to keep the competition alive.

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VenusianSky said:

I think I am more interested in the Windows 8 device offerings from Dell, HP and Asus. The Dell XPS 12 looks like the device to get for Windows 8.

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i can tell you that screen will fall apart after a year.. mobile devices should have very little moving parts.

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MuffCabbage said:

MacBook Air 11" compared to Surface at $1000:

MBA is 27% fatter (17 vs 13.5 mm)

19% heavier (2.38 v 2 lb)

Gets less battery life (~3-4 (Anandtech) vs ~4.5-5 hr (Speculation based on half Surface RT))

Doesnt have a touch screen

Doesnt have an active digitizer/stylus

Doesnt have a detachable keyboard (Pro or con...)

Doesnt have 1080p display (1366 x 768)

1 vs 2 cameras

It gets throws around a lot that Microsoft failed with the Pro, but to me it looks like they did pretty good for what it is. Sure, people expect stellar (8+ hr) battery life from tablets, but thats why there's always Clovertrail or ARM Windows tablets.

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Did you buy one yet.

saberahul said:

Played around with the MSFT tablet at their Apple copied store. This thing was nothing but lag. Spell check was horrible as it would only correct common spellings - not the ones you would expect on a touch screen. Many apps like Mail and Messenger would take 20+ seconds to open and when I asked the guy about why it's so slow and expensive, he said "you should probably go to Apple since you anyways have an iPhone." I find this whole thing to be a joke… really.

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So you played around in a store format that Apple stole from BOSE and Sony And cell phone stores? And Multiple retailers have been using since before Apple ever opened their own stores?

Right.

Spell check? The Surface RT virtual keyboard does spellcheck just fine.

With the type or touch cover? Learn to spell.

Mail and messenger take 20+ seconds to open? Thats ********. Because I'm typing this one a Surface RT right now, and the Apps all open pretty much instantly, with a couple seconds for the bigger ones.

And, an Microsoft retail employee would never say that, as it would offend a customer.

I think you made the entire thing up.

One stupid move microsoft is doing with the surface is little advertise even on the hotmail website/welcome also its hardly available outside the states and major citys? Here in the caribbean/latin america is nowhere to be found, other products are easy available even those no name android tablets.

rgeneral said:

You do have a point.. Now can you please go and buy a surface. We need you to keep the competition alive.

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I bought an RT, can't wait to get a Pro to go along side it, thank you very much. I'll have access to the largest Software Ecosystem in the world on a convertible tablet. ( Yes the Windows eco system is FAR larger than the Apple one )

i can tell you that screen will fall apart after a year.. mobile devices should have very little moving parts.

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Do you have proof? Do you know what its made of? Do you know how durable it is? Do you know how well it did in stress testing?

Unless you work for Dell, you didn't see those results, you don't know what its made of, and you don't know how durable it is.

Personally, I hope the Windows 8 devices do well, because it'll eventually force innovation on Apples part instead of rehashing the same products over and over.

G51989 said:

Do you have proof? Do you know what its made of? Do you know how durable it is? Do you know how well it did in stress testing?

Unless you work for Dell, you didn't see those results, you don't know what its made of, and you don't know how durable it is.

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Hey, even I'm kinda suspicious of that thing. I have no proof of how good or bad it is. It could end up being perfectly functional for years on end as far as I know. But at first glance, it looks like an accident waiting to happen.

As much as I hate to agree with whatshisface, the Lenovo Yoga is about the best Win8 convertible out at the moment.

DeathChill said:

It's very strange how annoying they are about the demo's. I was down in San Diego and went to the Microsoft Store in Fashion Valley and I was playing with a Surface RT. I told the employee I was playing and didn't need any help but she literally forced me to watch her demo it.

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She 'literally' forced you to watch? She hold a gun to your head? Tie you up and tape your eyes open?

G51989 said:

I bought an RT, can't wait to get a Pro to go along side it, thank you very much. I'll have access to the largest Software Ecosystem in the world on a convertible tablet. ( Yes the Windows eco system is FAR larger than the Apple one )

Do you have proof? Do you know what its made of? Do you know how durable it is? Do you know how well it did in stress testing?

Unless you work for Dell, you didn't see those results, you don't know what its made of, and you don't know how durable it is.

Personally, I hope the Windows 8 devices do well, because it'll eventually force innovation on Apples part instead of rehashing the same products over and over.

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Good for you. Now take the RT and convince your friends to buy it too. the more the better. this will only help apple or ms fans.

i don't know if it will break for sure but it would only seem logical. perhaps you can buy one and let us know in a few years.

Renzatic said:

Hey, even I'm kinda suspicious of that thing. I have no proof of how good or bad it is. It could end up being perfectly functional for years on end as far as I know. But at first glance, it looks like an accident waiting to happen.

As much as I hate to agree with whatshisface, the Lenovo Yoga is about the best Win8 convertible out at the moment.

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I mean I am not one to defend any company, sometimes I do ( even Apple! ), Dell is not one of them.

Don't get me wrong, the Yoga looks friggen awesome,.

But for me, the Dell is the way to go., OR the surface pro, I have y et to decide.


I HIGHLY doubt a company like Dell would put something so fragile out, those days of " Dude you got a dell " are over, I've bought some of their low end Mid Towers for servers in my basement, and the build quality is very very good for the money. I think newer dells are pretty good.

I would bet that little frame is made out of something very strong.

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rgeneral said:

Good for you. Now take the RT and convince your friends to buy it too. the more the better. this will only help apple or ms fans.

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I don't tell people what to buy or what not to buy, its not my money, so I don't care. I don't go out telling people to buy a Surface RT, or an iPad, just because I like one more than the other.

i don't know if it will break for sure but it would only seem logical. perhaps you can buy one and let us know in a few years.

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How does it seem logical? And yes, I am in the market for one.

If apple made that device would you be prasiing how innovative and incredible it is?

StyxMaker said:

She 'literally forced you to watch? She hold a gun to your head? Tie you up and tape your eyes open?

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Yes, I was terrified. Also, she threatened my cats.

G51989 said:

I mean I am not one to defend any company, sometimes I do ( even Apple! ), Dell is not one of them.

Don't get me wrong, the Yoga looks friggen awesome,.

But for me, the Dell is the way to go., OR the surface pro, I have y et to decide.


I HIGHLY doubt a company like Dell would put something so fragile out, those days of " Dude you got a dell " are over, I've bought some of their low end Mid Towers for servers in my basement, and the build quality is very very good for the money. I think newer dells are pretty good.

I would bet that little frame is made out of something very strong.

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I don't tell people what to buy or what not to buy, its not my money, so I don't care. I don't go out telling people to buy a Surface RT, or an iPad, just because I like one more than the other.



How does it seem logical? And yes, I am in the market for one.

If apple made that device would you be prasiing how innovative and incredible it is?

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haha. if apple made that, i would say the same thing.

if you say you don't tell people what to buy, then why even comment on this thread. most people just wish to say I bought the right device. at the end, just buy what you want.

rgeneral said:

haha. if apple made that, i would say the same thing.

if you say you don't tell people what to buy, then why even comment on this thread. most people just wish to say I bought the right device. at the end, just buy what you want.

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Good man.

Now, I do like to stop spreading FUD, and mis information about any product, weathjer is be from Apple, ASUS, or Dell, or Microsoft.

G51989 said:

Good man.

Now, I do like to stop spreading FUD, and mis information about any product, weathjer is be from Apple, ASUS, or Dell, or Microsoft.

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Although it is very interesting to see folks get very emotional about it.

it is very simple. just buy what you are comfortable with. Currently, i imagine it is the iPad for most. But you never know. it might change in an instant.

What we need is these devices to come in price so more people can get them.

rgeneral said:

Although it is very interesting to see folks get very emotional about it.

it is very simple. just buy what you are comfortable with. Currently, i imagine it is the iPad for most. But you never know. it might change in an instant.

What we need is these devices to come in price so more people can get them.

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Yeah, they do. I don't understand why.

iPad for most, but I see a Windows vs Mac 1990s situation happening again.

Microsoft is a company to be feared in the marketplace, Sure apple is bigger right now, but Microsoft has buried companies many times its size in the past, and became the biggest, theres no reason they can't do it again. Pretty much no one has ever survived a direct encounter with Microsoft in the history of the company. Because Microsoft knows how to make Software, mock them as much as you want.

Compatibility, Speed, ease of use, enterprise, consumers, and even in a couple other markets, No one can touch Microsoft in software.

Apple will keep doing very well, but I would really hate to see a repeat of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, when Microsoft and their allies just hammered away at Apple until they were nearly gone.

Which is why Apple needs to keep the innovation going. Because right now Apple is " cool ".

Apple is the cool fashion store, and Microsoft is the bank. If Apple wants to stay number 1 and stay super competitive, they will have to innovate, soon.

DeathChill said:

Yes, I was terrified. Also, she threatened my cats.

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The gun, and the restraints, I could forgive but threatening your cats is just unacceptable.

Re: comparisons to the MBA 11"

- you need to include the type cover in the surface when comparing weight/cost
- the MBA has been shipping for 2+ years now
- MBA has thunderbolt for things like external GPUs and storage
- MBA has a proper keyboard
- MBA can actually be used in your lap, like a normal laptop

throAU said:

Re: comparisons to the MBA 11"

- you need to include the type cover in the surface when comparing weight/cost
- the MBA has been shipping for 2+ years now
- MBA has thunderbolt for things like external GPUs and storage
- MBA has a proper keyboard
- MBA can actually be used in your lap, like a normal laptop

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Proper keyboard is subjective i guess (some people wont consider the mbp/mba keyboards "proper").

External GPU ? When and where ? Storage the rt and pro version of the surface have usb port so i assume they can handle that.

Using in your lap that means you wont be doing any serious typing or work at all (again subjective) il say the surface win on that one in "tablet" mode imo.

BUT like you mention the mba is a tried and tested machine

VenusianSky said:

I am not sure what the memory (RAM) limitation is for ARM.

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ARMv7, used in the Cortex-A8, A9 and Apple's A6 is a 32 bit architecture, thus it is limited to 4 GB of RAM.

However, ARM ltd has added support for what it calls LPAE, a 40 bit addressing scheme, bumping up max addressable RAM to 1 TB. This is quite similar to what Intel did in the late 90s with PAE (Physical Address Extension) for x86 at the time, to compete with other 64 bit architectures like SPARC, MIPS and Alpha.

lol c'mon, not a day goes by where something doesn't crash on my iPad (3rd gen), I like it a lot but it's nowhere near perfect

Switchback666 said:

One stupid move microsoft is doing with the surface is little advertise even on the hotmail website/welcome also its hardly available outside the states and major citys? Here in the caribbean/latin america is nowhere to be found, other products are easy available even those no name android tablets.

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Here in Canada, you can hardly turn on the TV without seeing ads of people randomly clicking together their keyboards and surfaces while performing dance steps. There's no shortage of ads here. My reservation with the ads is that none of the ones I've seen so far show people actually doing stuff with the Surface (other than modern dance, of course! )

Switchback666 said:

External GPU ? When and where ? Storage the rt and pro version of the surface have usb port so i assume they can handle that.

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http://www.anandtech.com/show/5352/msis-gus-ii-external-gpu-via-thunderbolt

USB 3 can't do that. Thunderbolt can as it is essentially PCIe on a port. USB3 is a CPU driven bus.

Using in your lap that means you wont be doing any serious typing or work at all (again subjective) il say the surface win on that one in "tablet" mode imo.

BUT like you mention the mba is a tried and tested machine

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I've done plenty of typing on my machine without a desk. Its the point of a laptop. The surface is desktop or tablet only. Its a severely compromised desktop and a fairly compromised tablet.

For the cost, i could buy a mac mini form factor desktop PC and a tablet that doesn't suck.

G51989 said:

Yeah, they do. I don't understand why.

iPad for most, but I see a Windows vs Mac 1990s situation happening again.

Microsoft is a company to be feared in the marketplace, Sure apple is bigger right now, but Microsoft has buried companies many times its size in the past, and became the biggest, theres no reason they can't do it again. Pretty much no one has ever survived a direct encounter with Microsoft in the history of the company. Because Microsoft knows how to make Software, mock them as much as you want.

Compatibility, Speed, ease of use, enterprise, consumers, and even in a couple other markets, No one can touch Microsoft in software.

Apple will keep doing very well, but I would really hate to see a repeat of Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT, when Microsoft and their allies just hammered away at Apple until they were nearly gone.

Which is why Apple needs to keep the innovation going. Because right now Apple is " cool ".

Apple is the cool fashion store, and Microsoft is the bank. If Apple wants to stay number 1 and stay super competitive, they will have to innovate, soon.

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I beg to differ. Microsoft is very good in leveraging their Office and Window monopoly into dominance. But in this round, both of these software doesn't help very much. IBM used to have 80-90% market share in mainframe computer too until PC and UNIX based server took over the world. The same transition is happening from PC to mobile device. The key is the software cost. The component cost for putting together a PC and a laptop is very close now (Intel processor is much more expensive than any of the ARM processor, but the memory price is similiar, the LCD screen is similar, battery is similiar). But you can buy a game in mobile world for $5 where you will spend 30-40 for one that run in PC. It will be interesting to see how much Microsoft will price IOS version of Office. I bet it will be much cheaper than Window version of the product.

A fair number of users only use their device for surfing the web, reading email etc. Those user already find out that they can do better with tablet in term of cost and availability of new software. And now as more and more new application are written for mobile device running on IOS or Android, Window competitive position become weaker and weaker. You can see the trend in the demand for programmer who know IOS and Android vs programmers who know Window. The software development economic is working against new Window based device (or for that matter RIMM's new OS). If you can only sell a piece of software for $5 to $10, you need to sell 4x to 5x more than the same piece of software priced at $40 a piece to make it attractive to a software house. No large machine base -> no new software -> no additional machines sales.

We will see in a few months how the sales number of Window RT and Window Pro based tablets stack up against Ipad and Nexus. But so far the buzz are muted at best for Window based tablet and nothing on the horizon seem to change that.

rgeneral said:

i can tell you that screen will fall apart after a year.. mobile devices should have very little moving parts.

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I'd rather you tell me the upcoming lottery numbers.

Yes, mobile devices should have very little moving parts. That is why the display is usually the first to crap out on any laptop. Apple, HP, Dell... I've seen them all eventually fail.

throAU said:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5352/msis-gus-ii-external-gpu-via-thunderbolt

USB 3 can't do that. Thunderbolt can as it is essentially PCIe on a port. USB3 is a CPU driven bus.



I've done plenty of typing on my machine without a desk. Its the point of a laptop. The surface is desktop or tablet only. Its a severely compromised desktop and a fairly compromised tablet.

For the cost, i could buy a mac mini form factor desktop PC and a tablet that doesn't suck.

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Im aware of external GPUs mate question is can you go buy it now ? Plus what makes you think its a no on the surface pro ?

kalsta said:

How so?

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That's not the same as trying to marry the two together in one device—not even close. OS X remains a pointing device platform (the Magic Trackpad might well be magical, but it's still fundamentally a pointing device), while iOS remains a touchscreen platform.

We've been enduring these predictions of Apple merging the two together for some years now. Many people talk like it's a guaranteed thing. Why? Because the Mac now has Dashboard? Please.

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Well, you said MS fumbled by completely combining both touch and pointer, then turn around and blast Apple for not doing like.
I guess you mean something in the middle.

I think Apple is trying to ease users transition to a touch/pointer world for desktops/laptops with 10.8

uknowimright said:

lol c'mon, not a day goes by where something doesn't crash on my iPad (3rd gen), I like it a lot but it's nowhere near perfect

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Hardware cannot fix crappy software development. If an app developer is not experience or rushing, or cutting corners, poor software can result causing crashes and other issues. Not necessarily conducive of the device quality.