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Blogs get hands on with the Microsoft Surface Pro at CES (Early Reviews)

mattopotamus said:
I feel like the timing of the pro is way off too. Maybe 6 months...or even 3 months ago it would have been perfect. With haswell right around the corner, you are talking about 3x the battery life of the pro and all laptops being this tablet combo
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Even the clovertrail CPU is quite hearty, although I see the reason MS went with ivy bridge in the pro (although I'm still baffled with the strategy of RT). Haswell won't be out until next holiday season actually in tablets ready for sale, maybe not even then.
 
spinedoc77 said:
Even the clovertrail CPU is quite hearty, although I see the reason MS went with ivy bridge in the pro (although I'm still baffled with the strategy of RT). Haswell won't be out until next holiday season actually in tablets ready for sale, maybe not even then.
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?? It will be out in June in these transformer laptops.
 
Surface Pro looks very compelling, RT is crap, but Pro can actually replace your laptop.

IMO, Microsoft shouldn't have bothered with the RT.

But it's still only a first generation product, in two years, Surface Pro 3, running on a Broadwell CPU with any fans will be worth buying.
 
MuffCabbage said:
Paul Thurrot says battery life will be a bit over 5hrs from his source.

Sent from my 8X using Board Express
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Now that sounds a bit better. 5 hours I can accept, especially considering the device's size and the fact that it runs any Windows program under the sun. Can't wait for it to be released.
 
The price I feel is a tremendous deal breaker for most people. Professionals, who admittedly are the target, will likely pass over this unless they absolutely need the form factor. The regular "tablet" user will look at it and think "why is it so fat? Why is the battery life so short? It's $1000?!?!?!" without understanding that it's a real full-fledged computer. Unfortunately, I don't think a large market exists for this device.
 
mattopotamus said:
?? It will be out in June in these transformer laptops.
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Oh good, I had read differently but I'm glad to be wrong. Haswell will be pretty awesome, but clovertrail is very impressive already IMO.

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ybz90 said:
The price I feel is a tremendous deal breaker for most people. Professionals, who admittedly are the target, will likely pass over this unless they absolutely need the form factor. The regular "tablet" user will look at it and think "why is it so fat? Why is the battery life so short? It's $1000?!?!?!" without understanding that it's a real full-fledged computer. Unfortunately, I don't think a large market exists for this device.
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Probably a bit smaller than the ultraportable laptop market IMO, although it remains to be seen who would trade off their 13" screen for a tablet form factor, I know I ditched my MacBook air the minute the clovertrail tablets came out and don't regret it one bit.
 
spinedoc77 said:
Probably a bit smaller than the ultraportable laptop market IMO, although it remains to be seen who would trade off their 13" screen for a tablet form factor, I know I ditched my MacBook air the minute the clovertrail tablets came out and don't regret it one bit.
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I know I would. I was actually in the market for a new laptop a couple months back and was thinking about the 13" Retina MBP, and then they announced the specs and price. It wasn't worth it to me. And I would've ended up bootcamping windows on it anyway just so I could use Windows exclusives.

I'm glad the hands-on reviews are looking good. David Pogue calling it a game changer means a lot.

I also think the Wacom digitizer + Stylus + One Note is understated but could end up being a killer feature. That was probably the coolest part of the Courier's potential - the ability to ink. I want to use it to draw schematics at work. It could also become a serious notetaking device for college students too. None of this draw with your finger stuff
 
Liquorpuki said:
I know I would. I was actually in the market for a new laptop a couple months back and was thinking about the 13" Retina MBP, and then they announced the specs and price. It wasn't worth it to me. And I would've ended up bootcamping windows on it anyway just so I could use Windows exclusives.

I'm glad the hands-on reviews are looking good. David Pogue calling it a game changer means a lot.

I also think the Wacom digitizer + Stylus + One Note is understated but could end up being a killer feature. That was probably the coolest part of the Courier's potential - the ability to ink. I want to use it to draw schematics at work. It could also become a serious notetaking device for college students too. None of this draw with your finger stuff
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Yes note taking is AMAZING, I just used it last weekend at a seminar I attended. Note taking and the stylus is one area Jobs was dead wrong in. Not only that but handwriting recognition is extremely good, I have a nice set of notes from my seminar nicely typed from handwriting recognition with audio blurbs, drawings and even embedded pictures of handouts. This is what tablets were meant for IMO.
 
spinedoc77 said:
Yes note taking is AMAZING, I just used it last weekend at a seminar I attended. Note taking and the stylus is one area Jobs was dead wrong in. Not only that but handwriting recognition is extremely good, I have a nice set of notes from my seminar nicely typed from handwriting recognition with audio blurbs, drawings and even embedded pictures of handouts. This is what tablets were meant for IMO.
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Being an artist and in a profession where note taking is highly beneficial the Digitizer and Pen alone on the surface is steering me towards it, however I want decent gaming potential in my machine too. I still cannot decide which one to get. This or the Edge If only they had an option to load the Surface with at least a 640M LE. Battery life would only be impacted during gaming (Chances are I would be charging at the same time anyways) because Optimus just switches to the integrated GPU when it doesn't need the power of the 640m.

Why does it seem Microsoft is the only one with a clue when it comes to the overall design and function of tablet devices. Out of the Win 8 tablet camp nothing is on par with the Surface's build quality, materials and the sheer awesomeness of the type/touch cover system.
 
TheHateMachine said:
Being an artist and in a profession where note taking is highly beneficial the Digitizer and Pen alone on the surface is steering me towards it, however I want decent gaming potential in my machine too. I still cannot decide which one to get. This or the Edge If only they had an option to load the Surface with at least a 640M LE. Battery life would only be impacted during gaming (Chances are I would be charging at the same time anyways) because Optimus just switches to the integrated GPU when it doesn't need the power of the 640m.

Why does it seem Microsoft is the only one with a clue when it comes to the overall design and function of tablet devices. Out of the Win 8 tablet camp nothing is on par with the Surface's build quality, materials and the sheer awesomeness of the type/touch cover system.
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The OEMs are doing a horrible job IMO. I have the Lenovo thinkpad tablet 2, and while it's a VERY nice device it doesn't come anywhere close to the surface Pro, and it's only a $200 difference between the 2. I will most probably return the Lenovo and pick up the surface pro though, I just can't resist.

As for gaming, I hope MS gets off its duff and starts optimizing some games for the tablet world. Is the ipad GPU really that much better than the HD4000 in the Pro, or is it just that games are optimized for the ipad? This is a really big deal and MS needs to not miss the boat on it.
 
spinedoc77 said:
The OEMs are doing a horrible job IMO. I have the Lenovo thinkpad tablet 2, and while it's a VERY nice device it doesn't come anywhere close to the surface Pro, and it's only a $200 difference between the 2. I will most probably return the Lenovo and pick up the surface pro though, I just can't resist.

As for gaming, I hope MS gets off its duff and starts optimizing some games for the tablet world. Is the ipad GPU really that much better than the HD4000 in the Pro, or is it just that games are optimized for the ipad? This is a really big deal and MS needs to not miss the boat on it.
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I think the games are more optimized. You have developers who pretty much code iOS games for a series of GPU and CPU all fairly similar to each other. That Said the HD 4000 is fairly solid. Can handle a good swathe of games at 720p with medium or low settings. I've run a few newer games on my existing laptop and its running a HD 3000. It pumps out a playable experience on most of them at 720p with low spartan settings. From what I understand via various reviews and benchmarkings out on the net the HD 4000 is about double the power of the HD 3000 and a little above half the power of a 640M LE which is what the Edge is sporting.
 
TheHateMachine said:
I think the games are more optimized. You have developers who pretty much code iOS games for a series of GPU and CPU all fairly similar to each other. That Said the HD 4000 is fairly solid. Can handle a good swathe of games at 720p with medium or low settings. I've run a few newer games on my existing laptop and its running a HD 3000. It pumps out a playable experience on most of them at 720p with low spartan settings. From what I understand via various reviews and benchmarkings out on the net the HD 4000 is about double the power of the HD 3000 and a little above half the power of a 640M LE which is what the Edge is sporting.
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Wow that's a lot nicer than I thought, yep my Lenovo is definitely going back for a surface pro.
 
spinedoc77 said:
Wow that's a lot nicer than I thought, yep my Lenovo is definitely going back for a surface pro.
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Here are some game benchmarks. Please note they are all done with an i7m instead of an i5m. Not sure how much of a difference that would make. There are some other benchmarks but with i3ms however most of them are terrible.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000-Benchmarked.73567.0.html

I think I will play the waiting game because the 640M LE might make me a lot happier.
 
I really wish i had the Surface Pro now. One of my classes wants us to do our HW and then scan it in and email it to her so she can read it on her iPad.

A digitizer would be BOSS for saving lots of time, paper, eraser and pulling out my scanner every week. Not to mention I could note take on it in class as she puts her powerpoints/PDF's online.
 
TheHateMachine said:
Here are some game benchmarks. Please note they are all done with an i7m instead of an i5m. Not sure how much of a difference that would make. There are some other benchmarks but with i3ms however most of them are terrible.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-HD-Graphics-4000-Benchmarked.73567.0.html

I think I will play the waiting game because the 640M LE might make me a lot happier.
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Honestly I think the real mobile gaming revolution will be cloud gaming. I've been playing some games from Onlive on my Atom tablet and they run really well. The HD4000 seems very nice, but it still seems woefully underpowered even with last years games. I hope Onlive gets bigger and gets more games though, it's pretty sparse right now.

Still, it's pretty amazing to play something like assasins creed 3 on my Atom based tablet, and it plays smoothly with high graphics, I never thought I'd be able to do that. Of course I also hope to see developers optimize games for the HD4000 just like they do for the ipads gpu.
 
spinedoc77 said:
As for gaming, I hope MS gets off its duff and starts optimizing some games for the tablet world. Is the ipad GPU really that much better than the HD4000 in the Pro, or is it just that games are optimized for the ipad? This is a really big deal and MS needs to not miss the boat on it.
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Games are just optimized for the iPad. You can't really compare the PowerVR in the iPad to HD 4000 because you're comparing mobile hw to laptop hw. Lower clock speed, lower power consumption, different architectures, more limited API's, etc. Microsoft's big magic trick will be to convince people they want Ultrabook grade architecture inside a tablet. Haswell will help a lot with both power consumption and graphics - Haswell's GT3 graphics are supposed to be on par with a GTX 650 graphics card.

They also have two different software ecosystems. Apple let iOS degrade into a budget sw market. In doing that, they juxtaposed one the best mobile GPU's in the world to a software ecosystem full of $1 Doodle games. It's a waste of technology. Microsoft's other magic trick will be to fix the software ecosystem on tablets and bring it out of budget pricing/quality.
 
TheHateMachine said:
Limited edition touch covers... too bad I will probably pick up one with a type cover. Type cover is alright but it ain't the greatest when I stream my desktop to my Surface for "dem vidya gamez".
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Yeah I've tried both. I don't like the Touch cover - feels like I'm typing on a placemat. The type cover feels like a laptop keyboard though.

They're also releasing a matching bluetooth wedge mouse
 
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