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

[torontowriter]

4 hour battery life vs 10 hour battery life.

This was a disappointment to read. Just when I was looking to try out the MS tablet and learn tutorials -- a store opened up in Toronto -- I read this.

Why would they want to reduce the battery life on a tablet? It's made for the user on the go.

4 Hours for a ms tablet or 10 hour battery life from an iPad?

Does anybody know any online software tutorials for iPad? Aside from this one? I'd love to compare.

 

[TheHateMachine]

What is confusing about it?

It's an Ultrabook/Tablet hybrid.
Cheaper than an 11" MacBook Air, but the same battery life and more capabilities.

Stop using your brain and join the rest of the herd on these forums.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I don't understand why many of you guys are comparing an iPad to the Surface pro?
The iPad uses a low power ARM chip and the Surface Pro is running a full blown Intel i5.
They are meant for two totally different markets.

A better comparison on performance and battery life would be comparing an 11" MacBook Air to the Surface pro.

The Air gets roughly 4 1/2 to 5 hours on a charge under normal use.
Similar to the estimates for the Surface Pro.

The equivalent MacBook Air costs more (even after adding a keyboard to the Surface Pro) and does less.
No touch option, no pen input.
And with Win 8 Pro, you can run older Windows programs along side the newer ones.
Best of both worlds I think.

Sometimes logic and facts don't go over well here.

 

[TheHateMachine]

This was a disappointment to read. Just when I was looking to try out the MS tablet and learn tutorials -- a store opened up in Toronto -- I read this.

Why would they want to reduce the battery life on a tablet? It's made for the user on the go.

4 Hours for a ms tablet or 10 hour battery life from an iPad?

Does anybody know any online software tutorials for iPad? Aside from this one? I'd love to compare.

The Surface RT has 10 hours of battery life. Go get that?

 

[AppleScruff1]

This was a disappointment to read. Just when I was looking to try out the MS tablet and learn tutorials -- a store opened up in Toronto -- I read this.

Why would they want to reduce the battery life on a tablet? It's made for the user on the go.

4 Hours for a ms tablet or 10 hour battery life from an iPad?

Does anybody know any online software tutorials for iPad? Aside from this one? I'd love to compare.

Except that the Surface Pro is a full blown computer and the iPad isn't.

 

[rjohnstone]

This was a disappointment to read. Just when I was looking to try out the MS tablet and learn tutorials -- a store opened up in Toronto -- I read this.

Why would they want to reduce the battery life on a tablet? It's made for the user on the go.

4 Hours for a ms tablet or 10 hour battery life from an iPad?

Does anybody know any online software tutorials for iPad? Aside from this one? I'd love to compare.

Your first error is comparing the iPad to what is essentially an Ultrabook with a touch screen.

4-5 hours battery life on an Ultrabook of similar screen size is pretty typical.

 

[Tech198]

Ok... But just because yu can dock the MS Surface, suddenly makes it an Ultabook?

Then you must say the same about the iPad, as you can get a do a keyboard dock for ths as well... But the ipad is not an ultabook then because it doesn't run a full blown OS, while the Surface does.

4.5 hours is not bad..... Considering you NEVER need to use your desktop again.

This is how Apple actually started with battery life back in the day too. Start small, then ramp up.. Its a 1st gen

Give it time.

 

[Kwill]

Which one?

What Microsoft hardware product has ever done well? They're a software company.

 

[robanga]

Your first error is comparing the iPad to what is essentially an Ultrabook with a touch screen.

4-5 hours battery life on an Ultrabook of similar screen size is pretty typical.

Yeah. Because this was never mean to be a tablet in the first place right? Just a MacBook air competitor

This was just Microsoft's sneaky way to start building super thin Ultabooks with detachable keyboards. ( oh the humanity ....)

What exactly is a full blown OS?

----------

What Microsoft hardware product has ever done well? They're a software company.

Xbox and Xbox 360 - if they had not had quality problems they would have made a lot of money there but alas....the rings of death.

Also i think Microsoft keyobards and mice do pretty well in that space, although i do not have a link to data on their marketshare. They certainly have a lot of shelf space in retail. Its pretty much Logitech and Microsoft there.

 

[leenak]

I guess I don't see the advantage of this versus a netbook especially at the pricing level.

 

[robanga]

I guess I don't see the advantage of this versus a netbook especially at the pricing level.

Well one argument is its a netbook with a reasonably powerful processor, up to date OS and touch screen.

...but of course that is not what it was originally conceived as.

 

[Renzatic]

I guess I don't see the advantage of this versus a netbook especially at the pricing level.

It's not a netbook. Once again, it's more like an MBA with a touchscreen and digitizer.

 

[Awakener]

The TV commercials does not make me wanna buy them, they do not show functionality, Apple commercials SHOW functionality.


I mean, in every Surface commercial you see people dancing or a keyboard attached to the tablet... ok... but you do not even see Microsoft Office running on them... NOTHING! So... "how does surfing the web looks like in a Surface?" who knows. That is why people are not buying it.

This. People keep asking "So how does it work?" but even the website isn't helpful.

 

[rjohnstone]

Yeah. Because this was never mean to be a tablet in the first place right? Just a MacBook air competitor

It was never meant to be either in a singular sense.
It's a hybrid format.

What exactly is a full blown OS?

I don't particularly care for that term myself.
Since the term "full blown OS" is relative the device it's running on.

It's running Windows 8 Pro, not the stripped down version like Windows RT is. RT has no legacy app support.

It's like comparing iOS to OS X.

I guess I don't see the advantage of this versus a netbook especially at the pricing level.

If you can't see the difference between a Netbook and an Ultrabook, you have issues.

 

[mjtomlin]

But guess what buddy, just like Windows 7 and 8 Phone, and Android, its still a limited crappy mobile OS, you can't even multi task on iOS.

This alone proves you have no idea what iOS actually is.

iOS is a pre-emptive multi-tasking operating system. There could be dozens of processes running in the background at any given time. Furthermore, I can switch between open apps and guess what? They're still processing and doing what I need them to do.

It seems your knowledge of multi-tasking is limited to "having multiple windows open at the same time" ?

 

[Renzatic]

iOS doesn't preemptively multitask, it state saves and freezes to ram. In other words, if its in the background, it isn't running, it's waiting.

 

[mjtomlin]

So, you are saying that iOS - castrated version of BSD - is better than BSD (a desktop OS). Something is perverted here.

Please, unless you're talking out of your ***, please explain to us your expert knowledge of how iOS is a castrated version of BSD?

I'm willing to bet you can't.

I'll even be a nice guy and name one thing; there's no virtual memory system. I can even tell you why... Flash storage has a much more finite lifetime than magnetic storage devices (hard drives). Hammering Flash with page dumps would kill storage much sooner.

Your turn?

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iOS doesn't preemptively multitask, it state saves and freezes to ram. In other words, if its in the background, it isn't running, it's waiting.

LOL

What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with pre-emptive multitasking. Do you not know anything about operating systems?

 

[leenak]

If you can't see the difference between a Netbook and an Ultrabook, you have issues.

This isn't an ultrabook though and the only difference is thinness. Both buzzwords for similar items.

My point was that if I had a choice of a Surface or of a 'thin, minimalistic laptop', then I'd get the laptop.

 

[Renzatic]

LOL

What are you talking about? That has nothing to do with pre-emptive multitasking. Do you not know anything about operating systems?

Exactly. Barring a couple of simple apps, it's the way iOS multitasks.

 

[Liquorpuki]

I've been goofing around with my iPad for awhile now, and I've found that it's a little bit alright at doing a lot of little things, but doesn't excel at any of them. Take Pages for instance. I use it quite a bit, think it's pretty alright to use when I'm out and about (despite it crashing all the time), but I sure as hell wouldn't use it as my default word processor. It's too limited, and touchscreen isn't the best input method for the type of work you're doing.

Yeah I spent hundreds of dollars on apps for my iPad 1, trying to find ways to stick it in my workflow. I tried Office replacements, CAD viewing software, vector drawing apps, mind mapping software, drum machines, etc. All of them were limited or a hassle to use. Now I don't use my iPad for anything except surfing the web or as an e-Reader.

And people like to say tablets are better for some things than others but the fact is developers haven't really tried to milk tablets for all their functionality, including Apple with their first party apps that look nice but barely do anything. They've created an ecosystem that encourages a million flashlight apps but has yet to produce a word processor with an equation editor. The reason is economic and goes back to low price points caused by commoditization.

The way I see it, the future of tablets lies somewhere between the overly simplistic nature of iOS, and the desktop with a touch layer approach MS is taking. When tablets finally meet in the middle of those two metrics, that's when they'll finally take off as do everything devices, and have the potential to truly replace laptops.

...right now, the one company in the best position to do that is Google. Even though Android hasn't exactly blown my mind as of yet, it is the happy medium between MS' overly complex and Apple's overly simplistic.

I think you're right but I can't picture Google caring enough to do something about it. They're like Apple - they have no interest in software beyond using it to leverage themselves in their primary markets (ads, hardware, etc). So they put out great OS's and great hardware but ignore the quality of software that gets installed on it. Microsoft is a software company so they have a different approach.

 

[AppleScruff1]

What exactly is a full blown OS?

Not iOS.

 

[mjtomlin]

Exactly. Barring a couple of simple apps, it's the way iOS multitasks.

No. You are mistaking app backgrounding and multi-tasking. 'Apps' are limited in what they can do in the background. But the operating system does in fact have pre-emptive multi-tasking. If it didn't, nothing could ever happen in the background. Multi-tasking is a low level function of the operating system; the kernel divides available CPU cycles between processes. iOS does in fact do this. So you're wrong.

What iOS restricts is what Apps can do in the background, but they can in fact still process in the background - ANY APP CAN REQUEST TO RUN A BACKGROUND PROCESS.

From Apple's developer page...

For iOS apps, it is crucial to know whether your app is running in the foreground or the background. Because system resources are more limited on iOS devices, an app must behave differently in the background than in the foreground. The operating system also limits what your app can do in the background in order to improve battery life and to improve the user’s experience with the foreground app. The operating system notifies your app whenever it moves between the foreground and background. These notifications are your chance to modify your app’s behavior.

That has nothing to do with the operating system's ability to multi-task. It is a control mechanism placed at the app level for the reasons stated.

It's obvious that most of you don't know what an operating system actually is and what it does. You seem to be mistaking the application run-time is the entire OS. And restrictions placed therein are limitations of the operating system. The fact is, that's not the case. Anyone who knows anything about Darwin can tell you that.

 

[Arran]

Not iOS.

I might be wrong, but I thought iOS was built on OS X which, itself, is built on top of UNIX? Admittedly iOS prevents the end user from running primitive OS commands (no console) - although Apple might prefer to say they're protecting the user from the underlying OS.

Whatever, UNIX is pretty "full-blown", IMHO

 

[AppleScruff1]

I might be wrong, but I thought iOS was built on OS X which, itself, is built on top of UNIX? Admittedly iOS prevents the end user from running primitive OS commands (no console) - although Apple might prefer to say they're protecting the user from the underlying OS.

Whatever, UNIX is pretty "full-blown", IMHO

OSX is a full feature OS. iOS is limited in what software it can run in comparison.

 

[Renzatic]

I think you're right but I can't picture Google caring enough to do something about it. They're like Apple - they have no interest in software beyond using it to leverage themselves in their primary markets (ads, hardware, etc). So they put out great OS's and great hardware but ignore the quality of software that gets installed on it. Microsoft is a software company so they have a different approach.

Actually, they don't need to do much more than they already have. Android is already much more touch friendly than WinRT/8, and not nearly as restricted and tightly controlled as iOS. Nothing's stopping some random developer from making a full featured word processor that can use a mouse and a keyboard, or giving us an image editor that taxes the hardware to its very extreme.

From that perspective, they're the best of both worlds. They can (arguably) match Apple on usability, and match MS on flexability. The only problem is developers aren't using it to its full advantage. Google's job isn't to make the programs or police them, but to convince people to take advantage of their platform for all its worth. Something they're not doing a very good job of right now.