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xD
 
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I actually had/have a Surface (don't worry it was a corporate xmas gift,didnt actually spend money on it.)
Why the need to disassociate yourself from the decision of getting one with that last comment? Afraid of a little fanboy attack on the innerwebs from people you don't know? :) Nobody here of any importance to you cares.

I've used the Surface Pro and I wouldn't scrap it based on the availability of apps when you used it eons ago. That will, and has changed.

For me, the Surface Pro is a heavy and cumbersome tablet and as a laptop replacement, it just falls short for me unless you start investing in larger keyboards and monitors. The new accessories for the Surface Pro 2 are nice but the cost will make you scratch your head.

What I question is why more people just don't consider the 11" MBA.




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I truly, honestly, can't possibly see a reason why anyone would want a surface Pro over a MBA...even if one were to exclusively use Windows 8...as a wild saturday night activity, I installed windows 8 on my MBA and it ran extremely well with a reasonably high nova bench score at 550. The trackpad scrolling allows navigation via gestures, much like a touch screen would, without turning the screen into a layer of smudgy prints. Ironic that Microsoft's best product to run their OS is a Mac rather than Microsoft's own computer.

There's no good reason unless you want a portable Cintiq (Wacom's draw-on-screen line of pen input devices). People in that market think it's great (ask Mike Krahulik from Penny Arcade), but obviously that can't be a large enough market to support such a device. So while I think it's cool I also agree that it's likely to be a failure for MS in terms of sales.
 
Bunch of people at my school all bought a new Surface , pwnd

So are they all going to share it? How does that work?

"Frank gets it Monday, Joe on Tuesday, and Bill on Wednesday, unless it's a holiday..." ???
 
Nobody wants a sort-of laptop that has no keyboard hinge. It's difficult to use on your lap. And the fact that the keyboard is sold separately (at a high price no less) makes it a no go for most customers. I'm not sure why Microsoft hasn't understood this yet.

Make a laptop with a Surface-inspired design, and I'm sure it would do much better. Microsoft's hardware quality is good, and their designs are attractive, but this form factor is bad.

And drop the RT. It is not going to sell, period.

Do people really use laptops on their lap that much? Surely most people put them on a surface of some kind, even if it's a plane tray-table or in a coffeeshop.
 
If you don't want one - no one is forcing you to get one.
If you like it - enjoy it.

That should pretty much sum it up.
 
Maybe they will sell more than 50,000 devices this time... before they cut 50% off the price and sell 50,000 more.
 
I could see myself trying out the Surface Pro if they increased the screen size to 13" and kept the prices the same. The tablet was meant to be a mobile desktop and I think that is the sweet spot for most users IMHO.
 
Look, I just posted about how I think the Surface Pro is actually a good device, but now you're going to make me regret it. It's a really good device for portable pen-related work especially, but you can't compare tablets with that much price variance. If you want to compare an iPad you have to compare against the Surface RT. A base iPad is $500. A base Surface Pro is $900.

I can buy a Surface Pro for $899 or a iPad 4 128 GB for $799. I'd rather spend the $100 more for what I get.:p
 
Microsoft really thinks by doing those iPad commercials that highlight the weaknesses of the iPad that folks are going to buy a Surface? LOL Right the first batch didn't sale and now they want to go for round two. I guess they need a write off for next year.

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I can buy a Surface Pro for $899 or a iPad 4 128 GB for $799. I'd rather spend the $100 more for what I get.:p

Yeah and one day it will be a collectors item! LOL
 
In no way will this kill the iPad but it's not DOA. I think that if Microsoft pushes hard toward college students like they have been they can grab a market share and absorb from there. All I see on campus are iPads (which I have) and surfaces albeit in far far smaller numbers
 
For anyone interested in an honest appraisal of the Surface tablets, the original line ranged from good (Surface RT) to excellent (Surface Pro). Today's announcements fix pretty much everything that was lacking.

I have both a Surface Pro and an iPad 3. As much as I've loved the iPad over the years, the Surface Pro is my go-to tablet. It's excellent for reading, and superb for video. XBox Music seems more usable at this point than iOS 7 music app. Overall I feel that Windows 8.1 is a better tablet OS than iOS 7, even before adding on a full Windows desktop. And it's all 64-bit, and build quality is equal to Apple.

Innovation? This is a refinement year for Surface, just as it has been for Apple, but anyone who says there's no innovation in Surface is just not looking. And, by the way, the music mix app and keyboard introduced today? Haven't seen anything like that on any platform. That was innovation, and completely unexpected.

The app store is sufficient at this point. A few big names are missing, but it meets all of my needs at this point. It passed 100,000 apps months ago, so dismissing Surface for "no apps" is just ridiculous.

As I develop an iPad app over the next few months, I'll almost certainly do some of my server-side work on my Surface Pro, because it can be a service platform (web and database) as well as a tablet.
 
People here have been fairly brutal on poor old MS. I have to say I could not get much of what I want done in the lab or the office without MS. Nonetheless, I do seem to recall a tasteless, smug MS video awhile back about Apple, so I guess MS is fair game.
 
The problem with MS is their marketting.

The Surface are actually better than the iPad but when MS came up with their campaign they didn't show functionality, instead they had bunch of people dancing like monkeys... probably because Steve Ballmer like to dance like an ape himself.

So... they didn't sell, they never shows MS Office running on their tablet.

As a consequence people didn't trust the product because they were sold "people dancing like apes". Now, people feel the product is not adequate because is the image the product got after low sales.
 
The surface pro (2) is actually a great device
For students - specially for those who need to draw (design engineering etc).

I don't think it's that bad of a device

when you say "draw" do you mean using a stylus? Would it be very accurate to create engineering drawings using a stylus on a screen? (I'm actually asking, I don't know). From my limited XP, I feel that using a stylus is OK for marking up comments on a document, but it's hard to make a sharp and accurate drawing.
 
For anyone interested in an honest appraisal of the Surface tablets, the original line ranged from good (Surface RT) to excellent (Surface Pro). Today's announcements fix pretty much everything that was lacking.

I have both a Surface Pro and an iPad 3. As much as I've loved the iPad over the years, the Surface Pro is my go-to tablet. It's excellent for reading, and superb for video. XBox Music seems more usable at this point than iOS 7 music app. Overall I feel that Windows 8.1 is a better tablet OS than iOS 7, even before adding on a full Windows desktop. And it's all 64-bit, and build quality is equal to Apple.

Innovation? This is a refinement year for Surface, just as it has been for Apple, but anyone who says there's no innovation in Surface is just not looking. And, by the way, the music mix app and keyboard introduced today? Haven't seen anything like that on any platform. That was innovation, and completely unexpected.

The app store is sufficient at this point. A few big names are missing, but it meets all of my needs at this point. It passed 100,000 apps months ago, so dismissing Surface for "no apps" is just ridiculous.

As I develop an iPad app over the next few months, I'll almost certainly do some of my server-side work on my Surface Pro, because it can be a service platform (web and database) as well as a tablet.

Whatever dude.
 
I actually think that the arm model is good to keep. It allows Microsoft to change directions quickly if Apple decides to do OSX as an arm product in the future, or it allows them the ability to destroy Apple by making consumer windows arm only and have ridiculous battery life on a tiny device and have the same OS running on everything from PCs to phones to smart watches which is Apples ultimate desire. Really all it needs is an x86 emulator and for ARM cpus to be faster to power said emulator at reasonable speed (which will only take time and in fact they may already be powerful enough to do it now) and it could be fully functional to replace current windows for consumers similar to how Apple had to make a powerpc emulator to switch to intel in the past. If anything keeping Windows RT around could easily be what saves Microsoft and returns it to the market leader in the future. RISC just makes sense for consumer products, and Microsoft could keep standard x64 windows for enterprise


Should apple sleep on microsoft? No. But I think you are leaning a little too hard here to help Microsoft out. Microsoft should not split their entire customer base and developer community for what Apple may or may not do in a few years.

Microsoft should focus. Look how meticulous apple is. They bought Authentic two years ago and patiently developed all of the technology into their plans. Nothing happens overnight with them.

RISC is just a buzz word. Caches, pipelines, load-store architecture, etc. are all technologies that were subsumed by CISC chips decades ago.
 
I'm buying the Surface Pro 2 when it comes out

RT I can't get behind but I have no regrets buying the Surface Pro back in Feb, it's become my go-to device.
 
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