Tablets Microsoft Surface Pro - WTF?

Liquorpuki · Dec 19, 2012

skaertus said:
Well, I don't know about that. iOS is being developed at a slow pace, and most features are for iPhone, not iPad, users. iOS 6 was a disappointment for me. But depending on how Windows RT and Android evolve, iOS will have to catch up.

How do you think RT and Android are going to evolve in the future?

True, but to a certain extent. Developers of Mac software may charge a lot for their apps, but the market is very limited (only Mac computers). Developers of software for iOS devices benefit from a huge market - more iPads were sold in less than 3 years than Macs on more than 20. Price is low, but there are many more consumers using it.

Now, this strategy seems to work fine with small and even medium developers, for simple apps. Among large developers, only a few have embraced this model. Adobe did it, but only to a certain extent - flagship software is not available for iOS devices. And Microsoft is probably debating with Apple right now which model will be adopted for the sale of MS Office in iOS devices.

I don't think it's so much a strategy as it is developers really have no choice. iOS is a budget market and the only way to make a profit on a budget market is to put out budget software. Flagship software isn't available because it's not financially viable.

zhenya said:
The problem with your argument is that there are still plenty of quality games and apps priced much higher than 'the bottom'. The .99 games are the time wasters, the ones that people don't HAVE to have but will take a chance on for a buck. The quality stuff distinguishes itself by offering something that nobody else has - and draws buyers somewhat irrespective of price. I'm not much of a gamer but my take is that people actually want to play Infinity Blade or Real Racing whereas they don't care so much whether they play Angry Birds or Cut the Rope. For the latter developers, they are better off at .99 because they sell hugely more volume.

Infinity Blade and Real Racing are outliers for the following reason. A developer who wants to beat commoditization and maintain a higher pricepoint could typically do so by turning his software into a brand. To create a brand, he needs to elevate his product into the public's consciousness. But the article points out, Apple built an app store using a single storefront distribution model, which creates a bottleneck. The only way to create a brand is to make sure your app debuts and stays the top 100 chart. But like that article also says, you cannot get on the top 100 charts at a higher price point - you need to price your app competitively cheap. So basically you can't win - you can't put out expensive software without having a brand, but you can't create a brand without pricing your software cheap in the first place.

Which is why when you look at game pricing, games like Final Fantasy and NBA2K and GTA are more expensive than original IP - those games are already brands.

Now Infinity Blade and Real Racing are original iOS brands with higher pricepoints. Can your typical developer copy what they did to get the same results? No, because the reason they became brands is Apple demoed those games on an iPad at WWDC and stuck them in commercials. Apple branded those games for them so instead of having to price drop their games to get people to notice them, they could maintain higher pricepoints because people were already looking for them. Epic even stated that Apple demoing Infinity Blade on stage and in commercials is what led to that game's success. This is not typical obviously.

Night Spring · Dec 19, 2012

spinedoc77 said:
That's a very reasonable way to look at things, and actually exactly the same way I looked at things just a few short months ago. I was fairly happy with my MacBook air and ipad combination, but I would certainly look at my MacBook air and wish it detached into a tablet, and I would also look at my ipad and wish it would perform the same functions as my MacBook air. I could never see carrying them both, so I'd compromise and travel with the ipad and leave the MacBook air as basically a home desktop, but I never had the feeling that the ipad was anywhere close to being as functional as the air, it was mainly a consumption device.

It's quite freeing to have that functionality on you at all times though. I gave my wife my ipad, my ipad mini is in the box ready to be returned tomorrow, I just don't see any need for them at all anymore. I also sold my MacBook air a while ago.

Sorry if you've mentioned this before and I've missed it, but which Win8 device are you using?

And I guess the differences in our choice of device depends a lot on our circumstances and usage patterns. For instance, I have an iMac at home, my Air stays at the office most of the time, and I carry the iPad with me on my commutes and when I go out on weekends. Sure, the iPad doesn't do everything my computers do, but then, I don't need it to do everything. Before the iPad, I always looked at my laptops and wished the screen would come off, but once I had the iPad, I never wished that the iPad could attach to a keyboard.

It sounds like you do more traveling than just commuting between home and office, and you want a single device to take with you, so for you, a Win8 converrtible is a better fit. For me, a tablet doesn't need to replace my desktop/laptop. If something like Win8 had been released before the iPad, I may have considered it, but since the iPad was here first, I got it, I'm happy with it, and what I've seen of Win8 doesn't compel me to switch.

spinedoc77 · Dec 19, 2012

Night Spring said:
Sorry if you've mentioned this before and I've missed it, but which Win8 device are you using?

And I guess the differences in our choice of device depends a lot on our circumstances and usage patterns. For instance, I have an iMac at home, my Air stays at the office most of the time, and I carry the iPad with me on my commutes and when I go out on weekends. Sure, the iPad doesn't do everything my computers do, but then, I don't need it to do everything. Before the iPad, I always looked at my laptops and wished the screen would come off, but once I had the iPad, I never wished that the iPad could attach to a keyboard.

It sounds like you do more traveling than just commuting between home and office, and you want a single device to take with you, so for you, a Win8 converrtible is a better fit. For me, a tablet doesn't need to replace my desktop/laptop. If something like Win8 had been released before the iPad, I may have considered it, but since the iPad was here first, I got it, I'm happy with it, and what I've seen of Win8 doesn't compel me to switch.

I'm using an Acer W510, but I just ordered a thinkpad tablet 2 from Lenovo and the Acer is going back, loved it but it didn't have the digitizer like the Lenovo.

I hear you on functionality, but for me even if I don't need "windows" it's there, it doesn't have to be active, but if I do need it for some reason and I'm away from home I don't have to wish my ipad was a laptop. Of course that's my particular use and not yours, you seem happy with the ipad and of course the ecosystem plays a big role and the ipad does have quite a lot of useful apps.

How I replace all my PC's, desktops, laptops, tablets are by using docking stations. At home I don't have a desktop, I just plug my win8 tablet into a docking station, same as at work except there is a protected hard drive/server with sensitive information that doesn't leave the clinic. This way I only have a single device in my entire life, which is incredibly refreshing. I used to have a desktop at home, a desktop at work, a laptop, and an ipad and it was just too annoying to keep everything synced and working properly.

Night Spring · Dec 19, 2012

spinedoc77 said:
I used to have a desktop at home, a desktop at work, a laptop, and an ipad and it was just too annoying to keep everything synced and working properly.

I use Dropbox and iCloud, and everything i need just stays in sync, including Safari bookmarks. The most annoying thing right now is when I twiddle with something in OS X and then I have to repeat that on my other machine. For some reason, once I install Windows and set it up the way I like it (I have Win7 on bootcamp on both my Air and iMac), I almost never have to fiddle with it again. I'm not sure why that is, but well.

BTW, both the Acer and Thinkpad have 10" screens, correct? Another reason why I haven't considered them to replace my Air -- mine is the 13" model, and I don't think I ever want a laptop with a smaller screen than that.

skaertus · Dec 19, 2012

Liquorpuki said:
How do you think RT and Android are going to evolve in the future?

Well, Windows RT is probably going to be more like the real Windows. There's no sense for Microsoft to maintain a stripped-down version of Windows just to run on tablets powered by ARM processors. It will eventually get more powerful.

As for Android, I don't know. Google may want to turn it into a real operating system. It already supports mouse gestures, and that's something iOS can't do. There are software which allows multi-tasking on Android, and Google may want to implement this feature in the future.

I don't think it's so much a strategy as it is developers really have no choice. iOS is a budget market and the only way to make a profit on a budget market is to put out budget software. Flagship software isn't available because it's not financially viable.

Well, flagship software may be sold for a higher price if they are really flagship software.

Microsoft Office would sell well because it's Office. Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator would also sell well. These are the gold standards in their respective fields.

But then, if Apple charges a large chunk of money for each piece of software these companies sell, then they are not going to release their flagship software for iOS.

Liquorpuki · Dec 19, 2012

skaertus said:
Well, flagship software may be sold for a higher price if they are really flagship software.

Microsoft Office would sell well because it's Office. Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator would also sell well. These are the gold standards in their respective fields.

But then, if Apple charges a large chunk of money for each piece of software these companies sell, then they are not going to release their flagship software for iOS.

I think Flagship (branded) software can be sold for a higher price than a non-branded app but it's still possible for branded software to price itself out of the market.

You have Office 2013. The leaked price for Office RT was $140. You stick it on iOS and it's now competing with iWork, which Apple purposely underprices at $30 because they can make up the loss through hardware sales (note that MS and all the other pure software companies can't do this). You also have Documents to Go and other cheap third party solutions that exist because of commoditization. MS wants to maintain their pricepoint so right now they're trying to monetize on iOS through subscriptions instead of a one time purchase. If this doesn't work and they have to do the one time purchase, they're gonna have to pricedrop to compete. The steeper the pricedrop, the more likely features will be stripped to compensate. Which is why when it comes to porting flagship software onto iOS, companies either settle for companion apps (Photoshop Touch) or don't even bother.

skaertus · Dec 20, 2012

Liquorpuki said:
I think Flagship (branded) software can be sold for a higher price than a non-branded app but it's still possible for branded software to price itself out of the market.

You have Office 2013. The leaked price for Office RT was $140. You stick it on iOS and it's now competing with iWork, which Apple purposely underprices at $30 because they can make up the loss through hardware sales (note that MS and all the other pure software companies can't do this). You also have Documents to Go and other cheap third party solutions that exist because of commoditization. MS wants to maintain their pricepoint so right now they're trying to monetize on iOS through subscriptions instead of a one time purchase. If this doesn't work and they have to do the one time purchase, they're gonna have to pricedrop to compete. The steeper the pricedrop, the more likely features will be stripped to compensate. Which is why when it comes to porting flagship software onto iOS, companies either settle for companion apps (Photoshop Touch) or don't even bother.

That's one way of seeing it.

Microsoft Office is still the flagship office suite, and Apple iWork or Documents to Go are simply not contenders in the enterprise market. There are other factors to consider other than price. Microsoft is still able to sell Office for PCs and Macs with a high price tag even though there are free capable alternatives such as OpenOffice and LibreOffice.

iOS is no Windows or OS X, though. Most users are consumers who don't really care for the full package of Office or for 100% compatibility or productivity tools. They just want to read and edit simple office documents, and iWork or Documents to Go or Quick Office or whatever are perfectly fine for that.

Liquorpuki · Dec 20, 2012

skaertus said:
Microsoft Office is still the flagship office suite, and Apple iWork or Documents to Go are simply not contenders in the enterprise market. There are other factors to consider other than price. Microsoft is still able to sell Office for PCs and Macs with a high price tag even though there are free capable alternatives such as OpenOffice and LibreOffice.

Even with enterprise branding on desktop, MS would still have to drop their pricepoint to compete on iOS.

The reason why they're able to price Office higher on desktop is because distribution on that market isn't commoditized. If I want desktop Office I can buy it from multiple brick and mortars, multiple online retailers, or directly from MS. Same with Photoshop, AAA games, etc. You also have better segmentation on desktop distribution - bargain bins, more subcategories, easier search filters, better marketing/branding. On iOS, I have one single store I can buy iOS SW from, the app store, and it's crowded with poor app discovery. Developers compete in the same space and are forced to undercut each other to get on the top 50 app list.

Here's an article from 2009 that has a section on future outlook and what needs to happen to fix race to the bottom pricing

article said:
Indeed, the iTunes Store practice of dividing and conquering among application developers does not create, but destroys value as can be seen from the continual decline in average app price. Schmitt continues If you expect to get apps for 1 dollar you will get the quality of 1 dollar. This observation confirms the necessary emergence of specialized stores; from the cheap & cheerful everything-you-buy-is-1-dollar Store, to the premium Store with perpetual updates and 24 hour customer support for each and every app.

Only thing is it's 3 years later, no higher priced specialized stores have emerged for iOS, there's still only one store, it's a budget store, and we wonder why we can't get more expensive flagship software on mobile.

skaertus said:
iOS is no Windows or OS X, though. Most users are consumers who don't really care for the full package of Office or for 100% compatibility or productivity tools. They just want to read and edit simple office documents, and iWork or Documents to Go or Quick Office or whatever are perfectly fine for that.

I used to think users didn't care but now I think they've just accepted the iPad's faults as normal. They assume the fact iPad isn't good for most content creation means tablets aren't meant to create content. That's not necessarily true.

lordofthereef · Dec 20, 2012

zhenya said:
I'm still not buying that battery life is anywhere near where it is on the ipad yet.

This is unusual, but 20 hours is about the norm for me:

Here is the thing... it doesn't have to be. It needs to last a day. Anything more than that is icing on the cake. At least that is my opinion of it. Twenty hours is about twice what is needed for enterprise and the average user, I would say. Hell, you can even get almost anywhere in the globe via plane on a single charge of eight to ten hours.

By no means am I saying that your 20 hours is useless. In fact, it is quite remarkable. But, we don't NEED that for a successful platform (and that is what this discussion is about).

spinedoc77 · Dec 20, 2012

Liquorpuki said:
I used to think users didn't care but now I think they've just accepted the iPad's faults as normal. They assume the fact iPad isn't good for most content creation means tablets aren't meant to create content. That's not necessarily true.

What I honestly don't understand is this belief that "consumers want" simplicity, that they don't want a full office solution/compatibility, that they only want simplified mobile apps which a toddler can use. For media consumption I do think this is the case, watching videos on the train or whipping out pictures of the kid at a party should be dead simple on a tablet.

But, and I admit I'm projecting my own needs here, I tend to think consumers want to get some work done on their tablets. What makes sense to me is that if consumers wanted life so simple then wouldn't we have something similar to iOS on laptops? The big roadblock to having this was battery life and form factor, and now that these have been conquered it seems that consumers who have been shambling around like zombies with ipad in hand may now wake up and realize that a simplified, really dumbified OS is not in fact conducive to productivity.

I don't know though what is going to happen, and of course we have Microsofts idiot windows 8 launch, with the 3 stooges OEM vendors tablet release to make the entire windows 8 tablet paradigm leave a bad taste. But I just keep going back to the example of why laptops, as mobile devices, were not structured to be lighter, have more battery life, less fans/heatsinks by having them initially released with a simplified OS? I suppose the experiment that is the Chromebook may reveal what could have been, that will be interesting to follow as well.

Night Spring · Dec 20, 2012

spinedoc77 said:
What I honestly don't understand is this belief that "consumers want" simplicity, that they don't want a full office solution/compatibility, that they only want simplified mobile apps which a toddler can use. For media consumption I do think this is the case, watching videos on the train or whipping out pictures of the kid at a party should be dead simple on a tablet.

But, and I admit I'm projecting my own needs here, I tend to think consumers want to get some work done on their tablets. What makes sense to me is that if consumers wanted life so simple then wouldn't we have something similar to iOS on laptops?

*snip*

But I just keep going back to the example of why laptops, as mobile devices, were not structured to be lighter, have more battery life, less fans/heatsinks by having them initially released with a simplified OS? I suppose the experiment that is the Chromebook may reveal what could have been, that will be interesting to follow as well.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not users want simplicity, I think the reason we never had a laptop OS that was simplified in order to conserve battery and processing power is that nobody thought of it, or bothered to make such an OS. Perhaps like yourself, everybody thought that users wanted choice, and therefore portable devices had to run full desktop OS or nobody would buy them. Then came the iPad. It showed that there was a considerable market for a simplified device that DIDN'T do everything. Not only that, but it even seemed to be cannibalizing PC sales. Microsoft panicked, and we have this half-baked fiasco that is Win8-SurfaceRT-SurfacePro.

Back to the question of whether users want simplicity -- I think we both do and don't. We all want things to be easy to use, and one way to make things easy to use is to keep them simple. But we also want our devices to do a lot of things, but that usually makes the devices more complicated to operate.

Personally, I think the main reason I'm in favor of simplicity on tablets is that the screen size is too small for me to do my "real" work on them anyway. I find that even my 13" Air often feels cramped when I'm working with more complex documents, and I feel most comfortable working on my iMac. Well, I suppose if a tablet sized device turned into a full desktop system when docked, and gave me a smooth tablet experience when detached, I wouldn't say no -- and that's what Win8 is aiming at. But it's not quite there yet. Plus, right now I have a situation at my office where I don't have a place to keep a docking setup, so I need to just work on my Air, with just the Air's own keyboard and monitor. If my only portable system was a 10" hybrid, I'd never get any work done.

I do think we will eventually get portable devices that do everything. But Apple, Microsoft and Google each have presented different interim solutions of what to do until the hardware and software gets there. I think Apple's approach is the most deceptive, because it looks like they aren't even aiming for that. They are merrily keeping iOS and OS X developing parallely and separately, and it looks as if never the twain shall meet. Microsoft shoved desktop and tablet into one OS, and ended up with a system that's not quite smooth about how it transitions from one mode to the other. For instance, the new version of Office, designed for tablets, waste a lot of space when used on large desktop monitors. Google is doing its own thing with Chromebook, which I haven't really looked into, but I'm basically heavily skeptical of web-based computing. What happens when you don't have access to the Internet?

But between the chaos that is Win8 and the separate but simple iOS / OS X, I prefer the later. And I do believe that Apple will eventually come up with a device that do switch between tablet and desktop modes. But they will do it only when they can do so simply and elegantly. The best solution is when something is both simple and powerful, and while Apple doesn't always achieve that ideal, they do aim for that. Microsoft, in my opinion, chases after the "do everything" ideal, and trying to get things to be simple and easy to use isn't high on their list of priorities.

throAU · Dec 20, 2012

Michael Goff said:
Why would anyone want the pro to have an atom processor?

Do you want it to be horribly slow and laggy? Atom processors are horrible.

Atom processors are plenty if paired with enough RAM and SSD storage.

I have users still running on pre-core2 machines on Windows 7 to do basic office stuff, WITHOUT ssd and WITHOUT 4 gb of RAM.

Going atom instead of i5 would make a drastic improvement to battery life, reduced cooling requirements, and therefore size, etc.

MuffCabbage · Dec 20, 2012

throAU said:
Atom processors are plenty if paired with enough RAM and SSD storage.

I have users still running on pre-core2 machines on Windows 7 to do basic office stuff, WITHOUT ssd and WITHOUT 4 gb of RAM.

Going atom instead of i5 would make a drastic improvement to battery life, reduced cooling requirements, and therefore size, etc.

We have a Clovertrail Atom tablet/convertible from Samsung that gets 9 hours battery easy, Win8 is pretty fluid, and no fans/no heat.

Its not powerful, but for its use its enough.

Michael Goff · Dec 21, 2012

throAU said:
Atom processors are plenty if paired with enough RAM and SSD storage.

I have users still running on pre-core2 machines on Windows 7 to do basic office stuff, WITHOUT ssd and WITHOUT 4 gb of RAM.

Going atom instead of i5 would make a drastic improvement to battery life, reduced cooling requirements, and therefore size, etc.

Guess I need to get out of the netbook mindset, then...

spinedoc77 · Dec 21, 2012

Night Spring said:
Leaving aside the question of whether or not users want simplicity, I think the reason we never had a laptop OS that was simplified in order to conserve battery and processing power is that nobody thought of it, or bothered to make such an OS. Perhaps like yourself, everybody thought that users wanted choice, and therefore portable devices had to run full desktop OS or nobody would buy them. Then came the iPad. It showed that there was a considerable market for a simplified device that DIDN'T do everything. Not only that, but it even seemed to be cannibalizing PC sales. Microsoft panicked, and we have this half-baked fiasco that is Win8-SurfaceRT-SurfacePro.

Back to the question of whether users want simplicity -- I think we both do and don't. We all want things to be easy to use, and one way to make things easy to use is to keep them simple. But we also want our devices to do a lot of things, but that usually makes the devices more complicated to operate.

Personally, I think the main reason I'm in favor of simplicity on tablets is that the screen size is too small for me to do my "real" work on them anyway. I find that even my 13" Air often feels cramped when I'm working with more complex documents, and I feel most comfortable working on my iMac. Well, I suppose if a tablet sized device turned into a full desktop system when docked, and gave me a smooth tablet experience when detached, I wouldn't say no -- and that's what Win8 is aiming at. But it's not quite there yet. Plus, right now I have a situation at my office where I don't have a place to keep a docking setup, so I need to just work on my Air, with just the Air's own keyboard and monitor. If my only portable system was a 10" hybrid, I'd never get any work done.

I do think we will eventually get portable devices that do everything. But Apple, Microsoft and Google each have presented different interim solutions of what to do until the hardware and software gets there. I think Apple's approach is the most deceptive, because it looks like they aren't even aiming for that. They are merrily keeping iOS and OS X developing parallely and separately, and it looks as if never the twain shall meet. Microsoft shoved desktop and tablet into one OS, and ended up with a system that's not quite smooth about how it transitions from one mode to the other. For instance, the new version of Office, designed for tablets, waste a lot of space when used on large desktop monitors. Google is doing its own thing with Chromebook, which I haven't really looked into, but I'm basically heavily skeptical of web-based computing. What happens when you don't have access to the Internet?

But between the chaos that is Win8 and the separate but simple iOS / OS X, I prefer the later. And I do believe that Apple will eventually come up with a device that do switch between tablet and desktop modes. But they will do it only when they can do so simply and elegantly. The best solution is when something is both simple and powerful, and while Apple doesn't always achieve that ideal, they do aim for that. Microsoft, in my opinion, chases after the "do everything" ideal, and trying to get things to be simple and easy to use isn't high on their list of priorities.

Some great points. I still don't understand the simplicity thing, Metro is just as simple as iOS if not more so, although I do acknowledge that windows desktop manages to slip in much too often, although personally I don't have an issue with desktop mode at all but it seems many do. Of course it ends up being an ecosystem issue and we can only hope that Microsoft pushes ahead with all it's power to get their app ecosystem respectable, heck Google did it when everyone doubted them.

I'm not sure I agree though on the laptop and what OS it had going. There was plenty of opportunity for a mobile OS even at the laptops introduction, and I wouldn't doubt there was a laptop or 2 which maybe tried to do this but was lost to history. Maybe we had stronger backs then, I know I never had much of an issue carrying an 8 lb laptop lol, well yes it sucked but I accepted that I needed my windows wherever I was going.

----------

Michael Goff said:
Guess I need to get out of the netbook mindset, then...

Yes, you need to get hands on with one of these machines. They are VERY smooth, there is no hint or stink of netbook on them. I still relish the feeling of when I first realized I was running full Office, or full Photoshop on my tablet on the train, quite amazing.

Liquorpuki · Dec 21, 2012

spinedoc77 said:
What I honestly don't understand is this belief that "consumers want" simplicity, that they don't want a full office solution/compatibility, that they only want simplified mobile apps which a toddler can use. For media consumption I do think this is the case, watching videos on the train or whipping out pictures of the kid at a party should be dead simple on a tablet.

But, and I admit I'm projecting my own needs here, I tend to think consumers want to get some work done on their tablets. What makes sense to me is that if consumers wanted life so simple then wouldn't we have something similar to iOS on laptops? The big roadblock to having this was battery life and form factor, and now that these have been conquered it seems that consumers who have been shambling around like zombies with ipad in hand may now wake up and realize that a simplified, really dumbified OS is not in fact conducive to productivity.

I don't know though what is going to happen, and of course we have Microsofts idiot windows 8 launch, with the 3 stooges OEM vendors tablet release to make the entire windows 8 tablet paradigm leave a bad taste. But I just keep going back to the example of why laptops, as mobile devices, were not structured to be lighter, have more battery life, less fans/heatsinks by having them initially released with a simplified OS? I suppose the experiment that is the Chromebook may reveal what could have been, that will be interesting to follow as well.

I think a lot of it had to do with processors. Nowadays all the ARM and former phone architectures have evolved and bled over into the laptop arena. But back then there were clear lines.

Right now I'm interested in the software ecosystems of these OS's. I think iOS could've had more complex third party apps and totally killed off Microsoft if Apple hadn't stuck to their strategy of devaluing software to sell expensive hardware. You and everyone that wants a Surface Pro are in the same boat as me in that cheap mobile software doesn't cut it.

Far as the Chromebook, that's the budget laptop to kill all budget laptops. Best analogy I ever heard was that putting 4 Gig ram in a Chromebook is like putting a 60 gallon gas tank on a moped.

If you want to describe each of these companies' strategies - Apple devalues software to sell hardware, Microsoft devalues hardware to sell software, Google devalues both hardware and software to sell ads. Only one of these companies is actually vested in having an ecosystem where quality software is a staple.

VFC · Dec 21, 2012

Night Spring said:
.....
Personally, I think the main reason I'm in favor of simplicity on tablets is that the screen size is too small for me to do my "real" work on them anyway. I find that even my 13" Air often feels cramped when I'm working with more complex documents, and I feel most comfortable working on my iMac. Well, I suppose if a tablet sized device turned into a full desktop system when docked, and gave me a smooth tablet experience when detached, I wouldn't say no -- and that's what Win8 is aiming at. But it's not quite there yet. Plus, right now I have a situation at my office where I don't have a place to keep a docking setup, so I need to just work on my Air, with just the Air's own keyboard and monitor. If my only portable system was a 10" hybrid, I'd never get any work done............
.

I choose the Lenovo Yoga hybrid because of the 13" screen size. For my needs it replaces the full functionality and usefulness of my 15" MacBook Pro and desktop PC. The wide screen format works well with wide spreadsheets. If I need more width, I have the option of hooking up an external monitor.

The 13" tablet mode is actually more functional than my iPad 3. Sure I have to prop it up because of the weight. However, I always have to prop up my iPad for the same reason. Plus the Yoga 360 degree hinge gives me unlimited viewing angles. The iPad is limited to the fixed angle of the case it is in.

BTW - The Yoga screen is 4" longer and 1/2" wider than the iPad. I was reading some PDFs and my bible app in portrait mode on the Yoga. The experience was the best yet; not much different than reading from a sheet of white paper. I think MS & Lenova has hit the "nail on the head".

Night Spring · Dec 21, 2012

VFC said:
I choose the Lenovo Yoga hybrid because of the 13" screen size.

I do find the Yoga interesting, and I admit there are times when I wish the iPad screen was larger. I might give the Yoga a try once the kinks in Win8 are worked out -- one review of the Yoga I read mentioned that in tablet mode, the onscreen keyboard wouldn't pop up in certain contexts. As I said before, right now I'm satisfied with my Air, iMac and iPad combination, and I'll let other people do the early adopter beta-testing of tablet/laptop hybrids.

spinedoc77 said:
Some great points. I still don't understand the simplicity thing, Metro is just as simple as iOS if not more so, although I do acknowledge that windows desktop manages to slip in much too often, although personally I don't have an issue with desktop mode at all but it seems many do.

I haven't really had a chance to work with Win8 in tablet mode, other than the few minutes I spend playing with a Surface the week it was released. But when I tried the preview version on my iMac, I found the constant switching between Metro and desktop annoying, and not simple at all. Perhaps it does feel more simple on a tablet?

I'm not sure I agree though on the laptop and what OS it had going. There was plenty of opportunity for a mobile OS even at the laptops introduction, and I wouldn't doubt there was a laptop or 2 which maybe tried to do this but was lost to history. Maybe we had stronger backs then, I know I never had much of an issue carrying an 8 lb laptop lol, well yes it sucked but I accepted that I needed my windows wherever I was going.

Yes, I'm sure that there were some attempts to come up with a lighter / simpler OS for laptops, but they just never got widespread attention. I think it's easy to forget a lot of hardware and infrastructure limitations that existed back then, too. I mean, when the first laptops came out, the Internet hardly existed, so something like the Chromebook wouldn't have made sense back then. And the smallest CPUs that could be made wouldn't have been powerful enough to even run DOS -- I mean, remember how big some scientific calculators were? iOS may be "lighter" than OS X, but I suspect that the CPUs in earlier laptops weren't powerful enough to run iOS. Now that we have iOS devices running mobile versions of OS X, it seems obvious that that should have been the solution, but that's the benefit of hindsight. Back then, it wasn't really that obvious at all.

Faux Carnival · Dec 22, 2012

Surface Pro will be a solid machine. I currently own a Macbook Air but I'm really thinking of switching. I'll have a wireless keyboard and a mouse at home. When I come home, it is a full fledged PC. When I'm on the go, a tablet.

The only problem is the full HD resolution (1920x1080) on such a tiny display. It seems like a good thing but Windows 8 doesn't have proper dpi scaling at the moment.

spinedoc77 · Dec 22, 2012

Night Spring said:
Now that we have iOS devices running mobile versions of OS X, it seems obvious that that should have been the solution, but that's the benefit of hindsight. Back then, it wasn't really that obvious at all.

Thank god for that!

Tablets Microsoft Surface Pro - WTF?

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