Microsoft Launches Site to Lure MacBook Switchers to Surface Pro 3

[Mystic386]

lololololol

I'm sorry. No. It wasn't too many years ago I had Microsoft. I remember the continual crashing, rebooting, calling the company and not being able to find someone to take responsibility for a problem let alone fix it. If I found someone they would say it was this companies drivers or that companies programme or or or or argghhh. MS = the ********* service and support. EVER.

Until MS understand building great products and great service they have a @#$% show in hell of getting me back as a customer.

 

[Faelan]

I bought a Surface Pro 3, figuring it would be the perfect machine for my needs. Returned it the next day. Half the screen was yellow. Horrible backlight bleed. Dead pixel. Serious text scaling issues. Trying to use touch in the desktop environment takes a lot of patience. Poor tablet experience. The pen is only good for taking notes. I tried drawing with it, only to discover that you can't draw straight diagonal lines. They end up being jittery. I hooked up my old wacom tablet and tried to trace on top of an image. I got a much better result with my wacom tablet.

Ended up getting a MacBook pro 13" retina. Wasn't sure if it would work out for me, but figured it was worth a shot since returning it would be no problem. Beautiful machine. Beautiful display. Great performance. Pretty good keyboard (certainly better than the type cover). Awesome trackpad (the multi-touch gestures make up for the lack of touch imho). Never used a Mac before. Now I'm wondering why it took me so long. OS X is a joy to use and I can still run Windows when needed.

 

[SHirsch999]

Walked by the Microsoft Store. 3 Customers, HOLIDAY SHOPPING SEASON...that's it...LOL!

Sounds like the one near me. Every time I pass it there are 10 or so employees for 3-4 customers. I never go in there because it irritates me wherever I go that the salespeople come up to me and ask if I need help. If I need help I will ask for it. Until then, leave me alone!

 

[tdiaz]

The Surface 3 ...

The last two iterations have not done anything for them, whats going to change now? ;-)

 

[Avalontor]

Haha I love how it sound like Apple wrote the Mac side and the Windows side is always longer

The people this ad is aimed at already know the Mac side, they don't need more of an explanation. the windows way of doing things might be new to them so requires more info.

 

[TheJae]

Microsoft, stop trying to make "fetch" happen, it's not gonna happen!

You mean "Jaden Smith"

 

[handsome pete]

The Surface 3 ...

The last two iterations have not done anything for them, whats going to change now? ;-)

Well if you've been paying attention, then a lot actually. Consensus from the tech community is that it's a solid device and MS is headed in the right direction with it.

If you want to use applications such as Adobe Photoshop you need to buy the $1800 core i7 model. I find this to be very misleading, and I think will blow up in Microsoft's face.

No, you don't.

Besides, the i7 models start at $1500.

I love the SP3, but the keyboard is horrible. Even so, a keyboard should be included as standard as you rightly say.

I don't think the keyboard is bad, but the trackpad is too small. I would love it if Apple offered a full version of their Bluetooth keyboard so I could use that. The number pad is just too important for the apps I use so the existing one is a no go. That and the Apple trackpad would be nice to use with it.

 

[JackieInCo]

Given the huge disparity between the number of Mac users and PC users I don't think Microsoft's slight edge over Apple's YouTube ad views is anything to write home about.

The surface Pro 3 is an interesting device. I must admit that I find tempting. However, Microsoft skips over an important fact. If you want to use applications such as Adobe Photoshop you need to buy the $1800 core i7 model. I find this to be very misleading, and I think will blow up in Microsoft's face.

I've played with the base model at the Microsoft store and found it to be a bit sluggish. I think a more accurate comparison of the MacBook Air is between the the surface Pro3 core i5 and i7 of which are more expensive than hey comparable MacBook air.

All that being said, if Apple doesn't get in gear soon, Microsoft will close the price and performance gap and that could spell trouble for Apple's much beloved MacBook air.

I've been using PhotoShop on my SP3 since buying it three weeks ago with no problems. I have the i5 4GB model. Runs perfectly without running out of memory.

My 2012 Mac Mini with 4GB on the other hand now runs incredibly slow in comparison to my SP3 now.

 

[JamesMike]

Does anyone have expertise on the durability of SP 3? I travel overseas, and work in places that is not conducive to fragile machines.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

Mac guy with an SP3

I got an SP3 for Christmas and I think that the thing is awesome. It isn't replacing my Mac, but it certainly replaced my iPad (other than for playing Carcassonne). I hope that if the rumors of an iPad Pro are true that it is more like the Surface Pro 3 than like the iPad Air.

One Note plus the pen is a killer feature once you try it, and having a desktop class browser on a tablet is a revelation on how much less capable the ARM compiled mobile browsers are. The fact that I can dock my tablet and it is a full blown desktop PC from which I can code is also amazing to me.

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Does anyone have expertise on the durability of SP 3? I travel overseas, and work in places that is not conducive to fragile machines.

I have only had mine for a little over a week, but the thing feels quite durable.

 

[henzpwnapple]

MS: We added good features to our OS and make it runs like a turtle.

Apple: We didn't add it so our OS can run smoothly and be usable.. while we are already screwing up the basics.

Used to like Apple, now hate both.

 

[jdawgnoonan]

MS: We added good features to our OS and make it runs like a turtle.

Apple: We didn't add it so our OS can run smoothly and be usable.. while we are already screwing up the basics.

Used to like Apple, now hate both.

OSX Yosemite is great on usability and I don't think that the performance is bad at all. I also don't think that OSX is any faster than Windows 8.

The travesty on Mac OS in my opinion is the terrible program that iTunes has turned into. Five years ago I loved iTunes. Today I think that Google's web app player is better and I can't stand iTunes.

 

[Diseal3]

It really is a sweet product they just need to lower the price a tad.

 

[Count Blah]

Every time I've been to Tyson's, the Microsoft store barely has anyone in it. They would get completely ignored, in fact, if they didn't put a big screen TV with an XBox out in the walk area in front of the store, to attract gamers to play on it a little bit.

Yeah, it's nice to duck into the Microsoft store to get out of the rest of the hustle and bustle of Tyson's. Lots of elbow room - unlike the rest of the mall.

 

[kalex]

LOL what a joke.

I have a friend that works at a very large electronic store, umm lets just say they fry things, anyway the most returned item is the Surface Pro 3! LOL

Why are they returned?

Most of the Surface Pros are broken out of the box and the rest are returned, because they suck. Literally, customers do not like the product. Regardless of wether the customers are Win or Mac people, most of the Surface Pros are returned.

Also, employees would rather sell a different product.

This story reminds me of "this one time at bandcamp ......."

 

[paulsdenton]

lololololol

I'm sorry. No. It wasn't too many years ago I had Microsoft. I remember the continual crashing, rebooting, calling the company and not being able to find someone to take responsibility for a problem let alone fix it. If I found someone they would say it was this companies drivers or that companies programme or or or or argghhh. MS = the ********* service and support. EVER.

Until MS understand building great products and great service they have a @#$% show in hell of getting me back as a customer.

I agree completely. I was so burned by MS from when I started using it in 1985 until I finally had had it right up to my ears with instability and impenetrable service that I went Apple in 2009 and have been completely satisfied since then. Why would I or anyone go back to that? MS made its bed and now is sleeping in it. I predict that some day it will be a small enthusiast community the way Apple was in the 1970s and 1980s.

 

[cr2]

LOL what a joke.

I have a friend that works at a very large electronic store, umm lets just say they fry things, anyway the most returned item is the Surface Pro 3! LOL

Why are they returned?

Most of the Surface Pros are broken out of the box and the rest are returned, because they suck. Literally, customers do not like the product. Regardless of wether the customers are Win or Mac people, most of the Surface Pros are returned.

Also, employees would rather sell a different product.

Do you mind asking him why are they really returned (other than broken out of box)? Some very specific details will be really nice, (e.g. speed, did not like OS, touch screen not as good, blue screen of death).

 

[peterdevries]

Sounds like you weren't keeping your computer up to date if you were prompted for things like .NET updates. User error.

Sure, but it's 2014. OSes should be able to do this automatically like OS X does.

For the record, every location/office I have been to in the world that has a projector/screen is one that requires a VGA cable. I daresay this mirrors at least 99% of other people's experiences, too.

Indeed, but also here it is 2014. Isn't it time MS uses it's market power in the industry to push for a wireless standard?

 

[Vegasman]

I have been fighting a virus on my son's PC for the last four hours. No thanks on this piece of junk. I'll stay with my Mac.

Your son installs a virus on his computer and somehow... wait... why isn't he using a mac?

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I agree completely. I was so burned by MS from when I started using it in 1985 until I finally had had it right up to my ears with instability and impenetrable service that I went Apple in 2009 and have been completely satisfied since then. Why would I or anyone go back to that? MS made its bed and now is sleeping in it. I predict that some day it will be a small enthusiast community the way Apple was in the 1970s and 1980s.

Exactly. I mean now that it is larger than Exxon and the second largest company, second only to Apple. I really think you are on to something!

 

[Fzang]

I'm a student and my experience is that the vast majority of MacBook Air owners are switchers from Windows, or having upgraded from a clunkier plastic MacBook from highschool. I can't see why they'd switch back right after.

 

[itguy06]

When you grow up and enter the real world you will see that Microsoft has a strong technical following like no other company. Namely I.T professionals that use their products and services to do business, to make things work, to run their entire organisations.

There are many thousands of Microsoft-centric websites/forums/online communities that vastly outnumber anything Apple related. These people are not just 'fans', they are I.T professionals helping others to get stuff done.

Silly Amateur IT Droid....

Replace Microsoft with Linux and you'll see that when the REAL work needs to get done it's on Linux. Replace Microsoft with Linux and the rest of your post also works.

In fact, the majority of the Web runs on.... You guessed it - Linux. The majority of the mail servers run on.... You guessed it - Linux. When the business absolutely has to get done they run Linux. Not that silly little Microsoft. You think Comcast, AOL, Time Warner, Verizon run their ISP e-mail on Windows? Think again.

The London and New York (NYSE) stock exchanges dabbled with Windows to run the exchanges. Epic failure and was replaced ASAP with Linux. Why? Unreliable and slower than the Linux solution.

The #1 tech company and most valuable company in the world (Apple) doesn't run Windows and if you read the industry rags, Mac use in business is increasing at a large pace. I expect that possibly, if Apple works well with IBM you could see this take off much more as there are huge advantages to not run Windows anywhere in your organization. Apple supposedly runs the big daddy of ERP software, SAP so you bet your sweet butt it runs on OS X.

Heck, the Target credit card breach can be 99% attributed to Windows, which was running on the POS terminals as well as the card readers. Real simple to code malware for as well as get it past most security. I'd also bet dollars to donuts that Sony's woes were because of Windows!

 

[JackieInCo]

I'm a student and my experience is that the vast majority of MacBook Air owners are switchers from Windows, or having upgraded from a clunkier plastic MacBook from highschool. I can't see why they'd switch back right after.

I got my first Mac in 2007 strictly because of the iPhone. Back in September I then bought a 2012 i7 Mac Mini but also planned on buying a MacBook Air but the more I looked at them, the mores undecided I got. I then saw the Surface Pro 3 and knew that was the computer that I've been hoping for.

Guess I'm one who came from Windows-based computers to Macs and then back again.

I'm also one who owns a few Android devices so its good to be diverse.

 

[AlecZ]

Not only are they asking us to switch to a tablet from a PC, not only are they asking us to spend more money on said tablet than on the PC, but they're asking us to switch to a tablet running Windows (not even Android) from a Mac. Haha, no thanks, MS.

P.S. They also copied Apple's design for the ad. Exact fonts, colors, layout, etc.

 

[mofunk]

IMO It looks like Microsoft is pushing another product by making false claims and by comparing it to the low end of the Apple MacBooks. They don't mention its cost $900 and that the keyboard ($130), the mouse ($50) and stylus ($50) is extra. On the Mac you can add a Stylus to write on your MBA with the use of Ink software which has been in OSX back when gas prices were $1.00 gal. lol The MS Surface Pro would set you back $1200

Really an iPad Air would work just as good and for a lot less. $700 + $30 keyboard case, Office Suite ($0), Drawing apps ($0).

I wonder why MS didn't do that because that's really what the Surface Pro 3 is? Ah yes to steer you away from the iPad. lol Oh and some of the stuff they show in the commercial requires you to have installed Photoshop. lol

 

[ideal.dreams]

If it weren't for MacRumors, I'd never hear any Microsoft news.