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

[samcraig]

At the end of the day - the whole issue of free space isn't much of an issue. Most people will be able to install whatever they want. And with the cloud and/or a USB drive - people can expand both devices to whatever they want.

My point in posting what I have about the subject was that the criticism seems of little importance.

It goes back to another scenario we have often on this board. When marketshare is in Apple's favor, it's important. When it's not - it's profits. Both matter in actuality. Just like when specs are in Apple's favor they matter but when they aren't, it's about performance. Both are important.

The MBA has 10 GB extra over the Surface Pro, which I would consider a bit large (though not gigantically so). The whole discussion has been based off the old numbers that Microsoft originally gave (83 GB and 23 GB) rather than the correct updated numbers.


I'm not sure I understand where the spinning is. Apple chose, in 2009, to report disk space in the same manner that hard drive manufacturers do. I think it's a valid way as it makes little sense to use two different standards when talking about the same thing. However, the best way would have been for disk hard drive manufacturers to switch, but that'd never happen.


Here's an updated chart showing the difference between the Surface Pro and the MBA, both with 128 GB disks:

Image


EDIT: I also don't think 10 GB is a crazy huge deal and is just a sacrifice you have to make at this point if you want to get the Surface Pro. All new technology products have some minor drawback and I'd say this one is pretty minor, in my opinion.

 

[StoneJack]

So the question is, did they fail because people didn't want them, or because they were a little too expensive niche item barely anyone had heard of? I mean I never personally saw one at a Best Buy or Circuit City back in the early 2000's. Rarely even saw mention of them on tech sites.

Personally, I don't think they were advertised enough, and even when they were, they were too expensive for the average customer to just go out and grab one.

----------



...which isn't actually Windows on a tablet as you're defining it. RT doesn't run any legacy applications, and uses an entirely different interface from the old standard desktop.

RT bombed in market with or without Windows name.
Actual Windows 8 on a tablet would be much more worse. Because it includes all legacy code, bloated, heavy and eats CPU and battery. Only thing it can do well is run Office.
Which any 300 dollar netbook can do as well, with keyboard included.

 

[Renzatic]

RT bombed in market with or without Windows name.

We weren't talking about sales numbers. We were talking about Windows itself being a poor fit for a tablet, and the reason for RT's alleged failure. Which didn't make any sense, since RT isn't Windows per the usual definition.

Actual Windows 8 on a tablet would be much more worse. Because it includes all legacy code, bloated, heavy and eats CPU and battery. Only thing it can do well is run Office.

Which any 300 dollar netbook can do as well, with keyboard included.

Yeah, about the same as OSX actually. It's not the best tablet OS as per the iPad/iOS definition, but as far as an ultrabook in a tablet form factor, it's just fine.

Could it be better? Yeah. No matter if you consider it more an ultrabook or tablet, the form factor is one designed to be held in your hand more often than not. Unlike an ultrabook, you can't tether it to the AC and use it just as comfortably. Unless you gotta have that onscreen digitizer (which is pretty nice, I'll admit), with just 3-4 hours of battery life, you might as well get an actual laptop since that's what you're gonna be using it as more often than not.

But that's not to say the whole idea of a powerful tablet is a flawed one. Haswell by itself will make the Surface a much more viable product. It'll be lighter, thinner, and sport much more battery life. How much, I have no idea. But from the looks of things it'll add at least an extra 2 hours to the baseline. 5-6 hours out of an x86 machine is impressive. Not iPad impressive, but getting there.

Secondly, it needs a more touchcentric UI. Right now, Windows 8 doesn't cut it. If you want to use the powerful apps, you have to be on the desktop, which isn't at all a good fit for a tiny multitouch screen. You can get away with it using a stylus, but that's not the best way to go about doing things. The better way would be to give you the power of the desktop, with a more iOS style UI. Hopefully, this is what Windows 9 will provide us.

So no, the Surface Pro isn't anywhere near a perfect tablet. But it's an interesting first step towards what's likely to be the future of the form factor. I wouldn't get one yet, but I'm not gonna dismiss it out of hand, either.

 

[StoneJack]

We weren't talking about sales numbers. We were talking about Windows itself being a poor fit for a tablet, and the reason for RT's alleged failure. Which didn't make any sense, since RT isn't Windows per the usual definition.



Yeah, about the same as OSX actually. It's not the best tablet OS as per the iPad/iOS definition, but as far as an ultrabook in a tablet form factor, it's just fine.

Could it be better? Yeah. No matter if you consider it more an ultrabook or tablet, the form factor is one designed to be held in your hand more often than not. Unlike an ultrabook, you can't tether it to the AC and use it just as comfortably. Unless you gotta have that onscreen digitizer (which is pretty nice, I'll admit), with just 3-4 hours of battery life, you might as well get an actual laptop since that's what you're gonna be using it as more often than not.

But that's not to say the whole idea of a powerful tablet is a flawed one. Haswell by itself will make the Surface a much more viable product. It'll be lighter, thinner, and sport much more battery life. How much, I have no idea. But from the looks of things it'll add at least an extra 2 hours to the baseline. 5-6 hours out of an x86 machine is impressive. Not iPad impressive, but getting there.

Secondly, it needs a more touchcentric UI. Right now, Windows 8 doesn't cut it. If you want to use the powerful apps, you have to be on the desktop, which isn't at all a good fit for a tiny multitouch screen. You can get away with it using a stylus, but that's not the best way to go about doing things. The better way would be to give you the power of the desktop, with a more iOS style UI. Hopefully, this is what Windows 9 will provide us.

So no, the Surface Pro isn't anywhere near a perfect tablet. But it's an interesting first step towards what's likely to be the future of the form factor. I wouldn't get one yet, but I'm not gonna dismiss it out of hand, either.

I am not dismissing it from outset either. If I hadn't a Vaio X ultrabook with SSD drive, which has exactly 4 hours of battery life and pathetic Intel Atom CPU running Windows 7, which I use in pair with iPad3, I would be tempted to try the Surface. I might even buy one from office expenses. However, judging from Vaio experience, Surface is just another Wintel ultrabook, with touch screen but thats it. Faster Intel CPU and touch screen actually worsen battery life.

I am sceptical that Intel ultrabooks can deliver true mobile experience, even more so with Windows, at least not now. When Haswell comes, we'll see. With Vaio I am constantly worried if the battery is charged and whether it will be enough for next session or presentation. So I have to take its charger with me as well. With iPad, never have such worries. Moreover, 3G and Dropbox on iPad guarantee that I don't have to carry my files around on USB flash, which itself is prone to losing. All my files are there, on cloud, always available, and I can even pre-download them to keep on iPad if a place where I am going doesn't have 3G or wifi. With Keynote installed, I can edit any Powerpoint on go, and with Notability and other iPad apps, I can actually edit PDFs as well. iPad is also projector ready with a dongle. If I have to share files, one touch of Mail app and files are shared. All instantaneously. I can input large chunks of text using my Bluetooth keyboard for iPad (using Pages, Mail, whatever).

Not so with Windows and Intel. Slow to boot, slow to wake from sleep, mediocre battery life, viruses..Recently I stopped carrying Wintel notebook. ipad just works.

 

[bocomo]

Try sending your professor a document written in Apple Pages. Get back to me.

PDFs!

(i'm a professor, FWIW)

 

[uknowimright]

well now people can't say no one bought it, the 128gb version is sold out at MS online store

 

[Renzatic]

snip

There are advantages to the iPad. It's light, and lasts about forever on a charge. Throw in a bluetooth keyboard, and you can do document work on the go til the cows come home mooing.

But it's still not the perfect device. It's too limited in a lot of ways. It's great when you're doing one specific task, but when you have to start mixing and matching, or pulling files from other sources on the go, you start seeing it's limitations. If I'm out taking pictures, I can't just slap the card out of my camera and into my iPad while I'm sitting in my card. It doesn't have a USB port or SD Card reader. I have to use an intermediate device. Then, when I want to fire up Photoshop to edit these pictures, I can't just open them up and start doing my thing. PS on the iPad only allows for certain sized pictures. I have to use an intermediate device again to tweak them before moving them over. iPhoto? Man, it takes forever to edit large pictures on that thing. You make a tweak...wait 10 seconds for it to take.

The iPad excels at doing some things, but falls short on quite a few fronts. It currently sacrifices too much to get that light weight and 10 hour battery life. It's the complete polar opposite of the Surface Pro, which can do just about everything, but sacrifices battery life to achieve it.

Tablets won't truly be perfect for everyone until we get the best from both those worlds in one single device. Capabilities, battery life, size, and interface. We're not there yet, but both platforms show where we're headed in their own ways.

Not so with Windows and Intel. Slow to boot, slow to wake from sleep, mediocre battery life, viruses..Recently I stopped carrying Wintel notebook. ipad just works.

Man. Viruses? Who gets viruses these days besides grandmas?

Booting up? If you're talking about the actual boot up process, both OSX and Windows 8 on an SSD cold boot up in half the time iOS can. I've seen Win8 fire up from pressing the power button to the desktop in about 8-10 seconds before on an EFI equipped machine.

Waking from sleep? It takes roughly a second to wake an Intel machine up. Even my old computer I built nearly 6 years ago only takes 2 with Win8. This isn't a problem.

The only issue is mediocre battery life, but we're likely gonna be seeing improvements here coming in heavy in the near future. It's the one big thing the entire computer industry is working towards at the moment. It's not great now, but it'll improve by leaps and bounds over the next couple of years.

The iPad does a few things beautifully, but it's a pretty limited device overall. The Pro can do all the things the iPad can't, but it doesn't offer nearly as smooth an experience. So which one's better? Well, I guess it all comes down to what you need. Right now, I prefer the iPad for my mobile kicks. But I'm waiting for the day for something like the Surface Pro to mature to the point I get the best of all worlds, rather than a compromised either/or experience.

 

[samcraig]

I've seen numerous reports that iPad vs Surface Pro COLD booting - the Surface wins hands down. So boot time isn't an argument.

There are advantages to the iPad. It's light, and lasts about forever on a charge. Throw in a bluetooth keyboard, and you can do document work on the go til the cows come home mooing.

But it's still not the perfect device. It's too limited in a lot of ways. It's great when you're doing one specific task, but when you have to start mixing and matching, or pulling files from other sources on the go, you start seeing it's limitations. If I'm out taking pictures, I can't just slap the card out of my camera and into my iPad while I'm sitting in my card. It doesn't have a USB port or SD Card reader. I have to use an intermediate device. Then, when I want to fire up Photoshop to edit these pictures, I can't just open them up and start doing my thing. PS on the iPad only allows for certain sized pictures. I have to use an intermediate device again to tweak them before moving them over. iPhoto? Man, it takes forever to edit large pictures on that thing. You make a tweak...wait 10 seconds for it to take.

The iPad excels at doing some things, but falls short on quite a few fronts. It currently sacrifices too much to get that light weight and 10 hour battery life. It's the complete polar opposite of the Surface Pro, which can do just about everything, but sacrifices battery life to achieve it.

Tablets won't truly be perfect for everyone until we get the best from both those worlds in one single device. Capabilities, battery life, size, and interface. We're not there yet, but both platforms show where we're headed in their own ways.



Man. Viruses? Who gets viruses these days besides grandmas?

Booting up? If you're talking about the actual boot up process, both OSX and Windows 8 on an SSD cold boot up in half the time iOS can. I've seen Win8 fire up from pressing the power button to the desktop in about 8-10 seconds before on an EFI equipped machine.

Waking from sleep? It takes roughly a second to wake an Intel machine up. Even my old computer I built nearly 6 years ago only takes 2 with Win8. This isn't a problem.

The only issue is mediocre battery life, but we're likely gonna be seeing improvements here coming in heavy in the near future. It's the one big thing the entire computer industry is working towards at the moment. It's not great now, but it'll improve by leaps and bounds over the next couple of years.

The iPad does a few things beautifully, but it's a pretty limited device overall. The Pro can do all the things the iPad can't, but it doesn't offer nearly as smooth an experience. So which one's better? Well, I guess it all comes down to what you need. Right now, I prefer the iPad for my mobile kicks. But I'm waiting for the day for something like the Surface Pro to mature to the point I get the best of all worlds, rather than a compromised either/or experience.

 

[cgc]

I think it's fine the 128GB Surface Pro has only 640KB available to the user 'cuz "640kb ought to be enough for anybody."

</sarcasm>

I really want to like the Surface Pro but until it weighs less than 1lb and has a battery life of at least 6hrs I'm not interested.

 

[Xiroteus]

Man. Viruses? Who gets viruses these days besides grandmas?

For the most part only people that have no idea what they are doing get viruses or still using Windows Xp with no updates and no viruses or malware scanners. For everyone else this is NOT an issue.

 

[Night Spring]

I've seen numerous reports that iPad vs Surface Pro COLD booting - the Surface wins hands down. So boot time isn't an argument.

Yes, but when is the last time you had to cold boot an iPad? I think I've actually managed to go almost a year without having to cold boot. Whether or not Surface is as stable, I guess time would tell.

 

[Abazigal]

Yes, but when is the last time you had to cold boot an iPad? I think I've actually managed to go almost a year without having to cold boot. Whether or not Surface is as stable, I guess time would tell.

In the same vein, I don't shut down my macbook either, just close the lid when I need to move away.

 

[Xiroteus]

In the same vein, I don't shut down my macbook either, just close the lid when I need to move away.

I was thinking that with my computer, rarely do I need to shut anything down all the way when sleep mode is fine.

 

[StoneJack]

There are advantages to the iPad.
But it's still not the perfect device.
If I'm out taking pictures, I can't just slap the card out of my camera and into my iPad while I'm sitting in my card. It doesn't have a USB port or SD Card reader. I have to use an intermediate device.
Then, when I want to fire up Photoshop to edit these pictures, I can't just open them up and start doing my thing. PS on the iPad only allows for certain sized pictures. I have to use an intermediate device again to tweak them before moving them over. iPhoto? Man, it takes forever to edit large pictures on that thing. You make a tweak...wait 10 seconds for it to take.

The iPad excels at doing some things, but falls short on quite a few fronts. It currently sacrifices too much to get that light weight and 10 hour battery life. It's the complete polar opposite of the Surface Pro, which can do just about everything, but sacrifices battery life to achieve it.

Tablets won't truly be perfect for everyone until we get the best from both those worlds in one single device. Capabilities, battery life, size, and interface. We're not there yet, but both platforms show where we're headed in their own ways.


The iPad does a few things beautifully, but it's a pretty limited device overall. The Pro can do all the things the iPad can't, but it doesn't offer nearly as smooth an experience. So which one's better? Well, I guess it all comes down to what you need. Right now, I prefer the iPad for my mobile kicks. But I'm waiting for the day for something like the Surface Pro to mature to the point I get the best of all worlds, rather than a compromised either/or experience.

I think its well said. For me, I don't do Photoshop on iPad, iPad's own camera is good for a snapshot, email and Dropbox, iCloud are my solutions for file transfer. Granted, quite limited all in all, but then my presentations are maximum 10 mb files. I am a bit puzzled why RT did so bad, even having Office. Microsoft is trying to improve an old paradigm, ultrabooks and Windows tablets, by making its own hardware and making its OS more touch-friendly. It is still more of ultrabook than a tablet (witness lack of 3G or LTE, keyboard as an accessory). So in my view, RT is probably a real MS tablet rather than Pro.

 

[Liquorpuki]

I am a bit puzzled why RT did so bad, even having Office. Microsoft is trying to improve an old paradigm, ultrabooks and Windows tablets, by making its own hardware and making its OS more touch-friendly. It is still more of ultrabook than a tablet (witness lack of 3G or LTE, keyboard as an accessory). So in my view, RT is probably a real MS tablet rather than Pro.

RT failed for the same reason the Touchpad and the Playbook failed, which is you can't beat Apple its own game. Apple owns the $500 ARM based tablet space. If MS put an Atom in there maybe things would be different

 

[cheesyappleuser]

Sorry but I don't get how this thing can work.
It's proven that full PC + touchscreen doesn't really work (if Apple does one of these things I'll just kill myself, really). And, for this price, you can buy a MBA or, come on, one of the dozens (if hundreds) of different laptops on the market which are better in pretty much everything.

I don't really see how can one buy one of these. It is expensive, there are many better options (whether you want Apple or MS) and, frankly, it doesn't work. Give them a bit over one year for they to shut the business (or to keep doing it and totally ruin themselves).

 

[cgc]

RT failed for the same reason the Touchpad and the Playbook failed, which is you can't beat Apple its own game. Apple owns the $500 ARM based tablet space. If MS put an Atom in there maybe things would be different

That is horrible logic and if Apple believed it they would never have tried "beating Nokia/Blackberry/etc. at their own game". Thank God they did because it fundamentally changed cell phones. MS may be onto something with the Surface and keyboard as the cover, but it is far too expensive, way too heavy, and with too short of battery life.

 

[samcraig]

Yes, but when is the last time you had to cold boot an iPad? I think I've actually managed to go almost a year without having to cold boot. Whether or not Surface is as stable, I guess time would tell.

In the same vein, I don't shut down my macbook either, just close the lid when I need to move away.

I've actually had to reboot my iPad often enough with lockups/etc. And I have to reboot my MacBook Pro often enough because I do a lot of video editing and find that the computer becomes more and more sluggish/unresponsive if I don't reboot at least every week.

But my use case and yours isn't really the point I was making - which was that someone was talking about how slow Windows on the surface is to boot up vs the iPad. Moot point since that time is less than the iPad. And most people don't reboot often anyway.

 

[Xiroteus]

RT failed for the same reason the Touchpad and the Playbook failed, which is you can't beat Apple its own game. Apple owns the $500 ARM based tablet space. If MS put an Atom in there maybe things would be different

When it comes to a Windows based tablet RT feels borderline pointless, if I cannot install and use any Windows like program I wish I saw no point, I might as well buy an iPad, however with the Surface Pro I can do anything and that changes a lot.

 

[gnasher729]

well now people can't say no one bought it, the 128gb version is sold out at MS online store

Yes, someone bought it alright.

I bet Google wanted one and Apple wanted one, to compare with their own tablets. One of them bought it, then it was sold out. The other has to make a grovelling phone call "please can we borrow the Surface when you're done with it... "

 

[samcraig]

Yes, someone bought it alright.

I bet Google wanted one and Apple wanted one, to compare with their own tablets. One of them bought it, then it was sold out. The other has to make a grovelling phone call "please can we borrow the Surface when you're done with it... "

Maybe they are doing the same with the 128gig iPad.

Somehow. And someway. Some members of this forum will have to get over the fact that there's a market for the Surface Pro. I know it will be harder for some than others. I trust all will survive.

 

[cirus]

Seriously, I think that some people are losing track of the issue here. Compare the surface pro to a tablet, and its sadly lacking in some areas.

Compare it to a macbook air 11 inch though.

About the same battery life (4-6 hours)
About the same performance
About the same amount of free space (seriously why is everyone complaining about the space, you get pretty much the exact same amount of space on a macbook air 128 gb or any other 128 gb notebook out there).

Lets not forget that the lion represents 1 GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes (base 10) and windows uses base 2 (1,073,ish,000 bytes) so the surface pro in macbook air terms has about 96 GB free space, about the same (I think surface includes office but correct me if im wrong). You can remove the recovery partition to a usb stick if you want more space. Microsoft isnt doing any misleading advertising here.

The surface pro offers pretty much all the power of the macbook air in a little lighter package at the same price but that can also be used in tablet form as well. Looks like a win to me.

 

[Xiroteus]

The ultimate tablet - the size of the new iPad 5 - can run ISO Osx And Windows 8, and can do what the surface, ipad and a ultrabook can do. I would buy it!

Looks like a win to me.

It really does, and future generations will just get better.

 

[Night Spring]

I've actually had to reboot my iPad often enough with lockups/etc.

Really? I've had lockups on my iPad at most two or three times a year. Like I said, with my latest iPad (the 3rd gen), I can't remember it ever locking up on me yet. Of course, jailbroken devices are another story, but with a stock iPad, I've rarely had lockups. Is there any patterns to when your iPad locks up? Or are you still using the first gen, perhaps?

 

[DeathChill]

Image

Lets not forget that the lion represents 1 GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes (base 10) and windows uses base 2 (1,073,ish,000 bytes) so the surface pro in macbook air terms has about 96 GB free space, about the same (I think surface includes office but correct me if im wrong). You can remove the recovery partition to a usb stick if you want more space. Microsoft isnt doing any misleading advertising here.

The image there has used the same method to determine space, so the Surface Pro has 10 GB less than the MBA.

Really? I've had lockups on my iPad at most two or three times a year. Like I said, with my latest iPad (the 3rd gen), I can't remember it ever locking up on me yet. Of course, jailbroken devices are another story, but with a stock iPad, I've rarely had lockups. Is there any patterns to when your iPad locks up? Or are you still using the first gen, perhaps?

I don't think I can recall my iPad locking up on me, ever. Look at his post history and see how surprising it is that his locks up.