First Reviews of Microsoft Surface Pro: Good Display, Full Windows 8, Compromised Experience

[1Alec1]

So you basically can't have a 32GB version of this at all.

[KPOM]

Originally Posted by Squilly

I haven't played around with it yet but I want to. Looks promising.

I agree. This is a "Version 1.0." Haswell ought to allow for thinner, lighter designs. There may well be a market for a "toasterfridge" device in the future. Hopefully Apple is paying close attention and doesn't miss market signals the way it did with larger phones.

[Rad99004]

Originally Posted by violaboy

Or just buy an 11" Macbook Air. I know it's not a tablet, but it would get the job done better and would be cheaper!

The question is when will the Mac Book air have a touch screen?

I think I might buy a surface or yoga until then. If the RT drops in price I might buy one of those.

Without office on the IPad apple has lost the business side.

The iWork apps are not even close. Why can't they import something as simple as filters for sorting?

[Stella]

Tablets are not yet mature.. they are still in a state of flux.

The iPad maybe easy to use but the applications are one trick pony's due to Apple's AppStore rules. The iPad would be a great device if the software rules were relaxed.

Surface tries to be both a laptop and tablet, but may not work so well.

Maybe the Surface today is what OSX would be like on an iPad... not quite a good fit.

[monkor]

Originally Posted by shiseiryu1

In order for the pressure sensitive table to be any good for serious artists it would have to be bigger than 10". My wife does work on 1.2GB photoshop files and her 21" Cintiq doesn't even feel big enough.

Microsofts tablet is too expensive to be a toy and too diminutive to be a production machine. I can't think of anything serious that I'd want to do on a 10" M$ tablet. If it's something quick like browsing/email then an iPad would be better. If it something serious like graphic design or programming then I want a bigger screen.

Maybe not graphic design or programming, but the journalism field has been looking for something like this for awhile. We've been stuck between gimped BlackBerry's for quick text editing, to suffering through touch-screen phones which are painfully slow at typing, to lugging around a laptop. There's no real solution currently when you want to carry around one device that does everything necessary. It's that hard keyboard that makes all the difference to a lot of people. I still hate typing on a touch screen.

Enter the Surface Pro, which should presumably be able to handle all these needs. I don't doubt that programmers might not love this thing, though.

[1Alec1]

Originally Posted by Stella

The iPad maybe easy to use but the applications are one trick pony's due to Apple's AppStore rules. The iPad would be a great device if the software rules were relaxed.

Agreed. I like Apple's strategy except for this part. They're sitting on what could be a ridiculously powerful platform.

[osaga]

Google should re-brand "chrome os" to "android os" and let pc manufacturers proliferate it. Shoppers in Costco, Wallmart, and developing countries would love to buy an "android pc."

[melendezest]

I'm sorry but as far as the Surface goes, I see nothing I need nor want.

Such a device (tablet/laptop hybrid) may be useful for those that do not want to have separate devices, but for me the term compromised is as accurate as it gets. This seems to be targeted to the techie (such as a lot of us here), hardcore Microsoft fan, and the like. However, I assume most techies already have more powerful computing devices, negating the need for the compromise in the first place.

Android covers the tweakers as well as the low(er) end market. The rest of us want dead simple easy. The iPad covers this well: non-techie mom and pops, kids, & even tech-savvy folks who just want to start the car and go without ever popping the hood.

I just don't see this taking off...the alternatives are too strong. Very, very niche. But, as always, time will tell, and it's always good to have more choices out there for those who want them.

[darkplanets]

4h battery life. As I thought.

For being portable it sucks -- it's neither long lasting nor as powerful as regular laptops.

They should have just stacked ARM and had dynamic clocks.

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by 1Alec1

So you basically can't have a 32GB version of this at all.

If there was a 32gb version then there’d only be 2gb left for the user

[ThisIsNotMe]

Originally Posted by Sixtafoua

Tablets won't replace laptops until they're truly better than a laptop, and I think the surface pro hits the nail on the head in that regard. Wether you like it or not, the surface is the future.

Tablets have already replaced laptops for 99.9% of the general public.

[katewes]

I've been to the stores a handful of times to play with the Windows 8 tablets, particularly the Surface. Not bad. Not terrible. Not great either. Even after watching Windows 8 tutorials on youtube, and knowing the layout of the land, some functions I still got stuck on. But that's all do-able once I'd get the hang of it. The biggest deal breaker for me is the awful quality of keyboard of the Surface RT. You have to press down on the keys very deliberately to avoid mis-typing, unlike a keyboard where you can pick up speed and write without thinking of the keyboard. Not so with the Surface, at least from my experiments. If I'm going to cart around something of the weight of the Surface plus Keyboard, it does not tempt me away from my adorable MacBook Air 11".

[haruhiko]

The $99 Logitech Ultrathin Keyboard Cover gives you better keyboard experience on the iPad.

[1Alec1]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

If there was a 32gb version then there’d only be 2gb left for the user

Realistically, 0GB because 2GB would be used by disk overhead then the 30GB used by the system. And there's also VRAM. I've tried using a MacBook with 1MB of available space (booting from flash drives because my HDD died), and it didn't go well.

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Originally Posted by ThisIsNotMe

Tablets have already replaced laptops for 99.9% of the general public.

Do you have numbers? From personal experience, not many people I know have tablets, and only 2 of them really use them in place of a PC. I think if you look at market share, the 99.9% "statistic" can be disproven easily.

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Originally Posted by osaga

Google should re-brand "chrome os" to "android os" and let pc manufacturers proliferate it. Shoppers in Costco, Wallmart, and developing countries would love to buy an "android pc."

Meh, just get Windows using Chrome as the browser if you want that. Personally, I'd use Safari just because it doesn't get infested with Babylon and whatever since very few people use it. The PC market is saturated and slowly dying.

[Schtumple]

I got to play around with this a few weeks back on set, my only real complaint is the resolution is so high it always feels as though you're holding it to far away (when in regular Windows mode)

[justperry]

Originally Posted by mrsir2009

If there was a 32gb version then there’d only be 2gb left for the user

From MR:

Of the 64 GB of solid-state storage on the entry-level $899 model, only 30 GB of that is free for the user, according to Microsoft.

*So 34 GB is taken by the OS.

*
This is not completely true though, a 64 GB Flash chip has less space than they say, the same for the 32 GB Flash, usable space would be more like 28 GB so it won't even fit!

[Mackan]

Originally Posted by violaboy

Or just buy an 11" Macbook Air. I know it's not a tablet, but it would get the job done better and would be cheaper!

Yeah. I've always seen tablets, including the iPad, as a gimmick. I've never been able to justify to get one, since it can never replace a laptop.

I think this Surface Pro will get MS nowhere.

[mrsir2009]

Originally Posted by ThisIsNotMe

Tablets have already replaced laptops for 99.9% of the general public.

Not quite that many, but yeah, for the person who only uses a computer to visit the big three: Facebook, google, youtube... A 10” tab is where it’s at.

[kalsta]

Okay… now everyone who keeps insisting that Apple merge iOS and OS X and run it on some Mac/iPad hybrid—observe closely! Microsoft has gone to a lot of effort here just to show you all why Apple chose not to do it.

[i.mac]

Originally Posted by Mackan

Yeah. I've always seen tablets, including the iPad, as a gimmick. I've never been able to justify to get one, since it can never replace a laptop.

I think this Surface Pro will get MS nowhere.

iPad: the multibillion dollar gimmick.

[j4zb4]

64 gb - 899$ and 128 GB 999$... Hmmmmm... And there I thought only apple charges huge amounts for a mere 64 GB of extra memory...

/sarcasm

[tuamtuem]

I will wait for the next release of the Surface pro. I really like my iPad, but the problem is its limitation. I don't think that tablet will be a laptop replacement. For me, it is just the device for surfing the web or playing games.

Microsoft Surface completely beats the iPad in terms of word processing application. I tried to use the Page with on-screen keyboard, but it is awkward in anyway.

[rMBP13]

Waste of your dough

[Darrin Bell]

Originally Posted by shiseiryu1

In order for the pressure sensitive table to be any good for serious artists it would have to be bigger than 10". My wife does work on 1.2GB photoshop files and her 21" Cintiq doesn't even feel big enough.

Microsofts tablet is too expensive to be a toy and too diminutive to be a production machine. I can't think of anything serious that I'd want to do on a 10" M$ tablet. If it's something quick like browsing/email then an iPad would be better. If it something serious like graphic design or programming then I want a bigger screen.

My 21" Cintiq died years ago and I started using my 12" backup Cintiq while I waited for my new 21" to arrive. But after a week of using the 12" Cintiq I realized it was actually big enough. So I canceled the 21" order and I've been using the 12" Cintiq for years now.

I'm interested in the Surface Pro as a drawing tool (not as a replacement for my Macbook Pro), just to run Photoshop and Storyboard Pro. It costs about the same as a Cintiq 12 WX, but it's a hell of a lot more portable. And if I can slide the image around using multi-touch, then a 10" screen would probably be fine; it's not too big a step down from 12. Just going by the reviews, though, I'm not sure it's compelling enough to win over many non-artists.

[ConCat]

The day Microsoft gives up Windows and moves to some flavor of Unix or Linux they'll be MUCH better off. First of all, they wont have to take a massive 30GB slice out of the SSD... No normal OS takes up that much space. In general, Windows is ridiculously bloated.