iPad iPad Owners: What're your thoughts on the Surface and Nexus 10?

[rowspaxe]

tablets v laplets

Will windows 8 revise the previously failed tablet hybrid paradigm? Or will apples vision of the "pure tablet" experience continue to dominate the market? Perhaps, niether. The real consequence of win 8 will be the popularity of ultra bookish "laplets" or touchscreen laptops. Gorilla arm horror stories aside, it seems reviewers are very comfortable swipe navigating in win 8. Laplets combine the immediacy of the touch experiece with the benefits of a reliable keyboard and proven work friendly form factor. I see the entire laptop market going touch in 3-5 years.

Will hybrid tablet detachable form factors ever take off? I like the surface approach here. The detachable plastic cover seems more hip than the tried and failed oem detachable clam shell approaches. The big gripe with the surface approach is that it is doesn't actually allow for true on the lap use, but i never use my computer this way, and I seldom see people working in lap mode outside of airports. I thnik a surface like tablet could work, but the tablet will have to be more attractive in tablet only mode. Here I see the 16:9 form factor giving way to apples 4:3 approach.

 

[Tsuchiya]

I think the Nexus tablet is OK, but if I were to pick an Android tablet, the Galaxy tab with a stylus would be my first choice.

The Surface is alright, but I just kind of see it as a warmup till the Surface Pro in 2013 (which I'd rather pick over another full sized iPad, Nexus or Surface w/Windows RT)

 

[darngooddesign]

As good as the Nexus is, the app selection is weak and the screen' aspect ratio is inferior for web browsing in landscape. Thise two things make it an inferior device IMO.

 

[RenoG]

Surface Pro is going to make a huge impact, give me the full functions of both a tablet & a notebook but in a much lighter package? Please, take my money

Go and read some non-bias reviews first. The surface is a awesome idea but fails in key areas IHO. Its basically a dumbed down ultrabook (not so powerful) yet not quite as convenient as a true tablet (works best with that touch key pad that require a flat surface).

 

[CapnJackGig]

Both of those devices are much more sophisticated when it comes to UI, but falls short in Apps. They both have all the apps you'd probably ever need, though.

 

[KenAFSPC]

Apps and the Apple ecosystem are impossible to beat by Android. Plain and simple.

There's not the dev support on Android, and there's not the universal compatibility on Android between devices.

+1

I left Android for Apple and don't see myself going back anytime soon. Their app ecosystem just doesn't measure up. On paper, Android has superior specs and most of the same apps. Yet the best new apps almost always come to iOS first. And once Android versions are released, they always seem to be a few versions behind their iOS counterparts; they are missing features and they don't perform as well; they are either less responsive or less stable, often times both, despite running on what is supposed to be superior hardware.

Microsoft's Surface looks like a very nice piece of hardware, but it has the same problem with its software ecosystem as Android; it remains to be seen if/when that will change. I just installed Windows 8 on my desktop last night and the amount and quality of the touch/tablet apps is atrocious.

 

[VFC]

...... The ipad still has a stranglehold on "dumb" tablets and will for the foreseeable future.....

Let it be noted that Spinedoc77 coined the term "Dumb Tablet" that defines a class of tablets with limited computing functionality; such as the iPad. Brilliant!

 

[Boob]

At first I was pretty impressed with the Nexus and now the Surface has overshadowed it for me.

 

[FlatlinerG]

Both of those devices are much more sophisticated when it comes to UI, but falls short in Apps. They both have all the apps you'd probably ever need, though.

This is just it, whichever one has the apps and features you need is the best choice for that person.

I'll definitely admit, the Surface is intriguing and I wouldn't mind sitting down and playing with one, but just how much the average person is going to want to do that is a different question entirely.

 

[wolfpackfan]

apps and the apple ecosystem are impossible to beat by android. Plain and simple.

There's not the dev support on android, and there's not the universal compatibility on android between devices.

+1

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The Surface Pro is going to be a bear to fight with.

The Surface Pro is the only tablet I've seen that might would cause me to switch from my iPad. Having the power of a full OS in a tablet form has been my dream and since I doubt Apple will ever come out with a iPad OSX, I guess the Surface Pro would have to do.

 

[darngooddesign]

Let it be noted that Spinedoc77 coined the term "Dumb Tablet" that defines a class of tablets with limited computing functionality; such as the iPad. Brilliant!

The difference being that Surface RT has a weaker app store than RIM.

Go and read some non-bias reviews first. The surface is a awesome idea but fails in key areas IHO. Its basically a dumbed down ultrabook (not so powerful) yet not quite as convenient as a true tablet (works best with that touch key pad that require a flat surface).

He said Surface Pro, not Surface RT.

 

[zhenya]

The Surface Pro is a full blown laptop in a tablet form factor. The iPad is not in the same league. Sorry boys and girls, but our beloved iPad is about to get spanked. A MacBook Air would be the closest competition.

I think the Surface looks great; competing products, I'm not so sure about. Poor design and implementation abound.

The problem with the Surface Pro is that it is pretty much a laptop in a tablet. That's great for productivity, but there are real drawbacks as well. It is heavier, unlikely to have the battery life and standby time of current tablets (my Win 7 laptop has less than 24 hours of standby for comparison), and a full operating system is in many ways a negative for a third device (ie. my iPad). A full OS is more complex so it requires more management and is more likely to lock up and crash; that was my experience within the first 3 minutes of use with my first Samsung Windows 8 (Atom) tablet - a complete freeze followed by 10 minutes of reboots and installing updates. Who wants to deal with that when you just wanted to look up a recipe?

The other problem is I'm not sure that I see Windows RT going anywhere. I guess they felt they needed a walled garden option to address the above issues, but why not integrate with the Mobile Phone OS? As it is it's ANOTHER platform to be developed for, when for the same money people can buy an Atom tablet running regular Windows 8 and have full backwards compatibility. It's going to confuse consumers and I'm just not sure I understand Microsoft's 'vision' for this platform.

So in conclusion, yes, there are a lot of things that you can't do or are difficult to do on an iPad. However I think that people are forgetting how powerful that simplicity and dead reliability are in what is essentially an appliance. Appliances are terrible when they have complex interfaces or unreliable underpinnings. That's what makes the iPad so popular. There is SOME room in the market for tablets that are closer to laptops, but I'm not convinced it's what the market as a whole wants. I'm perfectly happy with my work laptop and personal iPad, for example.

 

[Boob]

 

[VFC]

The difference being that Surface RT has a weaker app store than RIM.

The difference being:
- Touch screen
- Attached keyboard
- Touch pad/mouse
- Full O/S capability
- Full multitasking capability
- MS Office Suite
- Full & mature productivity, content creation, media player, game apps
- External high-speed memory interface for storage (apps and data)
- Large capacity internal memory
- High power CPU
- Standard front & rear cameras

Regarding the larger Apple app store; Google now has the same number of total apps as Apple (700,000). Granted most are not tablet optimized. However, once MS and Google have ~ 500 quality tablet apps, Apple's only advantage will be their closed eco system and high prices.

BTW - Link to Google Play reaching the 700,000 apps mark:

http://www.techradar.com/us/news/ph...matches-apples-as-it-hits-700000-apps-1108577

 

[Mr Rogers]

My thoughts on the Nexus 10 are this, whilst the spec's are impressive, Google has dropped the ball as far as storage is concerned - why not 128G in this day and age - I certainly will not be migrating my storage to the cloud, any cloud for that matter.

On the design front, it just looks so bland - I'd have preferred the rubberized textured look that the N7 has, or something akin to the spun aluminium on the Asus Transformer with a choice of colours like the iTouch/ TF300.

On the price front, well it seems additional storage of 64G can be added via the mini-USB port using a small micro card holder, so basically for US$560 you can have a 96G tablet - enough for games and movies.

Wonder how much the 3G model will cost given Googles aversion to 4LTE presently - still, much less of a drain on the battery, which for the size and display should have at least equalled that of the iPad retina.

On the whole though its a win for consumers and can only be good for Apple if they innovate aggressively and I'm not talking about the omnishambles of the iPad mini.

I think Google are on to a winner with both the N4 phone and N7 - Google/Android requires market share and millions running Jelly Bean if the App store is to resemble that of Apples - so again, as far as we the consumers are concerned its great news.

had the N10 resembled the N7 i'd have purchased one like a shot, that it does not, I'm now investing in two N7's at 32G and one with 3G - I'll also add the small mini USB storage holder, so should have 88G of mobile storage capacity if I root them and run latest ROMs for XDA - Developers.

 

[convergent]

Android is Android. Its the wild west... some people like it and some don't. I expect they will sell a lot of them, crappy apps and all.

Microsoft has the potential to be a credible threat to Apple, only because they hold the secret killer app... Microsoft Office. If they do a really great job of MS Office on their tablet, and don't make it available on iPad ever... that will alone get them a lot of business customers. The devil, however, is in the details. I have great confidence that Microsoft will mess this up. This is about their 5th or 6th attempt at a tablet... probably more attempts. They have failed miserably ever time prior because the user interface was always pointer oriented. Now they have merged Windows, Phone, and Tablet into one "touch based" interface... kind of. From what I've seen of the desktop/laptop variety, it appears to be a kludge. Its not all touch, and not all pointer... its landed somewhere in between... and the touch part is a bit odd and seems very non ergonomic. So the fact that they have a keyboard flopping on the Surface makes me think they may have the same weird interface there as well. Time will tell, but like I said... they have been known to mess this stuff up in the past.

If the interface is good on the Surface... truly and purely touch oriented, AND they do a credible job of MS Office (this is not much doubt), then they will be a formidable competitor for the enterprise space. And they can do equally well on the home space by leveraging their Xbox experience.

The apps will follow.

 

[darngooddesign]

YouTube

Something I noticed at the begining of the video was that when quickly swiping the screen left and right he moved one of those tiles. You have to press and hold down on an icon before you can do that on the iPad.

The difference being:
- Touch screen
- Attached keyboard
- Touch pad
- Full O/S capability
- Full multitasking capability
- MS Office Suite
- Full & mature productivity, content creation, game apps
- External high-speed memory interface for storage (apps and data)
- Large capacity internal memory
- High power CPU
- Standard front & rear cameras

Regarding the larger Apple app store; Google now has the same number of total apps as Apple (700,000). Granted most are not tablet optimized. However, once MS and Google have ~ 500 quality tablet apps, Apple's only advantage will be their closed eco system and high prices.

I said RIM not Apple.

Touch screen - both have that

Touch pad/Attached keyboard - It's not attached, it's a smart cover, and you can get a keyboard for the Playbook. the Playbook suported BlueTooth mice and keyboards.

Full O/S capability - The RT does not have a full OS, only the Pro does and those are slated to cost a grand.

Full multitasking capability - Playbook has as much as the RT.

MS Office Suite - You are correct

Full & mature productivity, content creation, game apps - Not for the RT.

External high-speed memory interface for storage (apps and data) - Not sure how much the Playbook had for this, but you can get WiFi Harddrives.

Large capacity internal memory - The Playbook had 64GB.

High power CPU - Well the Playbook is what two years old now.

Standard front & rear cameras - Playbook had them.

I know the Playbook is an older device, so its not a fair comparison. But there is a difference in dumb tablets which is due to the apps available and currently the Surface RT has fewer apps than even Blackberry Playbook has.

PS. In regards to the total number of Android apps. It doesn't matter how many total apps Google has when it is sorely lacking in tablet-optimized apps. The N10 is only $100 less than the ipad and it also charges $100 for the 32GB upgrade. Really not a case of Apple's "high" prices. Maybe it would be if Google could bring it in for $300, but the fact that they can't drop below $400 means that tablets of that caliber really do cost at least that much to produce. also, the iPad 4's screen is significantly better than the Surface RT's screen in both quality and resolution.

 

[Yr Blues]

There are some people who say that ZUNE was immensely better than iPod in terms of specs, OS, and performance

But they don't account for sophisticated design taste and simplicity

On paper, Zune was awesome

But it lacked luxurious taste

The same can be said for Nexus and Surface

 

[QCassidy352]

Isn't there a "competitors" forum for this stuff now, or is that just for iPhone competitors? If there isn't, there should be. This is an iPad forum, not a tablet computing forum. Yes yes, I know, "don't click on the thread." But it's hard when half the posts are about competitor products.

The iPhone forum has improved significantly since the new sub forum was created.

 

[spinedoc77]

The difference being that Surface RT has a weaker app store than RIM.

I wasn't talking about RT, for me Windows RT is also a "dumb" tablet. Now take the number of Windows programs out there and see how weak that looks next to Apple's app store and their 45,677 fart apps.

 

[MonkeySee....]

The Surface Pro is a full blown laptop in a tablet form factor. The iPad is not in the same league. Sorry boys and girls, but our beloved iPad is about to get spanked. A MacBook Air would be the closest competition.

The Surface Pro won't take off. I think people won't bother with it.

----------

I wasn't talking about RT, for me Windows RT is also a "dumb" tablet. Now take the number of Windows programs out there and see how weak that looks next to Apple's app store and their 45,677 fart apps.

Go into the App Store and actually count all the fart apps. Let us know how you get on.

 

[spinedoc77]

I think the Surface looks great; competing products, I'm not so sure about. Poor design and implementation abound.

The problem with the Surface Pro is that it is pretty much a laptop in a tablet. That's great for productivity, but there are real drawbacks as well. It is heavier, unlikely to have the battery life and standby time of current tablets (my Win 7 laptop has less than 24 hours of standby for comparison), and a full operating system is in many ways a negative for a third device (ie. my iPad). A full OS is more complex so it requires more management and is more likely to lock up and crash; that was my experience within the first 3 minutes of use with my first Samsung Windows 8 (Atom) tablet - a complete freeze followed by 10 minutes of reboots and installing updates. Who wants to deal with that when you just wanted to look up a recipe?

The other problem is I'm not sure that I see Windows RT going anywhere. I guess they felt they needed a walled garden option to address the above issues, but why not integrate with the Mobile Phone OS? As it is it's ANOTHER platform to be developed for, when for the same money people can buy an Atom tablet running regular Windows 8 and have full backwards compatibility. It's going to confuse consumers and I'm just not sure I understand Microsoft's 'vision' for this platform.

So in conclusion, yes, there are a lot of things that you can't do or are difficult to do on an iPad. However I think that people are forgetting how powerful that simplicity and dead reliability are in what is essentially an appliance. Appliances are terrible when they have complex interfaces or unreliable underpinnings. That's what makes the iPad so popular. There is SOME room in the market for tablets that are closer to laptops, but I'm not convinced it's what the market as a whole wants. I'm perfectly happy with my work laptop and personal iPad, for example.

All your fears are unfounded. The surface Pro has battery life as good as an ipad, I'm getting a solid 12+ hours of it, not continuously but using it just the same as my ipad which had similar battery life. The samsung Ativ I'm using weights 1.68 lbs., versus the ipad 3's 1.46 lbs., hardly a big difference.

I totally understand where you are coming from though. If all you really need is something to look up recipes or similar activities then the ipad is more than adequate, but is too expensive in my eyes because it's not a full OS.

Honestly in playing with my Windows 8 Pro tablet I don't feel as if there is much complexity at all, certainly no more than on my laptop which I rarely have to tinker with. Sure there is a trade off between a toaster like device like the ipad and something like a windows 8 tablet, but at least for me it's totally and completely worth it.

----------

The Surface Pro won't take off. I think people won't bother with it.

----------



Go into the App Store and actually count all the fart apps. Let us know how you get on.

1899 Lighter apps lol. 400,000 apps never downloaded. I tried to do a search for fart apps in iTunes, each search page is 120 apps, I got disgusted and lazy after about the 7th page of apps, thats nuts !! There definitely are a lot of indispensable apps on the app store, but it's definitely hyped up beyond a simple number of apps.

 

[zhenya]

I wasn't talking about RT, for me Windows RT is also a "dumb" tablet. Now take the number of Windows programs out there and see how weak that looks next to Apple's app store and their 45,677 fart apps.

It doesn't matter how many junk apps there are if there are also a adequate number of great ones. The fact that there are hundreds of thousands of garbage apps available for regular Windows doesn't invalidate it as an overall system, does it?

Further, many of the tablet apps are so streamlined that they are FAR better than the Windows/web equivalents. Just a couple of examples are the American Express app that was so good that they shortly thereafter re-designed their full website around that philosophy. Same with the AT&T app, which is still easier to use than their website.

All your fears are unfounded. The surface Pro has battery life as good as an ipad, I'm getting a solid 12+ hours of it, not continuously but using it just the same as my ipad which had similar battery life. The samsung Ativ I'm using weights 1.68 lbs., versus the ipad 3's 1.46 lbs., hardly a big difference.

I was referencing literally the "surface pro" with the core i5 processor, 2lb weight, and unknown battery life. I would however be interested in hearing what the standby life is on the Atom tablets.

 

[darngooddesign]

I wasn't talking about RT, for me Windows RT is also a "dumb" tablet. Now take the number of Windows programs out there and see how weak that looks next to Apple's app store and their 45,677 fart apps.

So let me get this straight. A Windows computer can run more apps than an ipad? Crazy.

To be fair there are a bunch of duplicate crappy apps on Windows as well.

 

[supervelous]

Serious = YouTube and Sony Movie Studio?

Wow you clearly have redefined the word serious j/k

haha by serious I didn't mean professional level, I just meant, I couldn't do it with an Ipad and IMovie or any current tablet. It requires a PC or Mac, an external piece of hardware hooked up via USB, and non-tablet software.

For those who would tell me I could edit videos on an iPad now.