Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Microsoft Launches Three New Surface Pro 3 Ads Targeting the MacBook Air

Macbook Air 11 or Surface 3 is the question I'm trying to answer for myself for quite a while.

I think the Surface 3 is spec wise a very appealing machine, plus I've always wanted and game-able steam-able device this portable.

The Macbook air 11 is also very portable, I use macs for everything else (have iphone, imac, ipad, airport and all these machines communicate very well with each other). Basically it does everything it needs for my purposes but when I tried it out I didn't like the screen - I'm somewhat myopic and after using the ipad retina the Macbook air screen seemed to pixellated.
 
I'm not a huge fan of these commercials but I think they do a better job than some of the others I've seen. Admittedly, in most cases I don't like comparisons between things. I detest arguments that result in someone comparing something to something else to prove a point. It's weak. But I have to say that zinger at the end of Microsoft's first ad really did make me chuckle, turning Apple's new slogan on its head. It's not particularly clever humor but once in a while a simple joke like that is just what one needs to hear.
 
Hmmm! Read somewhere a while back, Microsoft lost 1.7Billion on the surface pro3 thus far. Maybe they getting desperate?? :cool:
 
In my opinion, Surface Pro 3 is like a in-between product. Too big, heavy and lack mobile applications to be a good tablet and does not have the processing power and battery life of a laptop.
Good for people who wants everything together in a mess.
 
locust76 said:
That's been part of the Windows repertoire since Vista. Look up UAC.
Click to expand...

not the same as a standard non-privilaged user I'm afraid as users can still just click ok without knowing what they are doing, or reading the popup and just want to get rid of it to get back to farmville/facepuke/porn.
 
The down side is that nobody cares about the Surface. So, this is just more wasted money.

----------
rctlr said:
They didnt mention the "free botnet" you join within minutes of firing the surface up without any antivirus.
All that power at someone else's fingertips.
Click to expand...

Windows is like osx. Anti virus is built in.
 
Jayomat said:
while, to be frank, most people don't use their laptop on their lap at all.
Click to expand...

Source?

All my friends with laptops use them in front of the TV/in bed. Sure, not 100% of the time but they do use them largely as the name implies they would.
 
Personally, it seems odd to me that they are comparing surface pro 3 with macbook air. Why don't they compare it to an Ipad which is a tablet. To me, they are comparing apples to oranges.

Also, why don't they just highlight what the product can do? Like in the case of the Ipad, they show what an Ipad or idevice can do - like creating music, used as a medical device and as such. This is more important and I'm sure this will really resonate well to people.
 
After 20 years experience, I would NEVER buy a Microsoft product again that wasn't a keyboard, joystick, gamepad or steering wheel. Those are the only products they can do well, everything else is a nightmare in one way or another.
 
iJayden said:
What's with the recent Apple bashing in ads?

Highlight what your product has, not what your competitor doesn't.
Click to expand...

Isn't highlighting what the competitor doesn't have exactly the same as highlighting what your product has? I mean, they're not exactly going to mention that the MBA doesn't have a disc drive because neither does the Surface.
 
A Macbook Air can have 8gb of ram and 256gb of storage so it is far superior and it won't lag like windows. Simple choice to make really.
 
iJayden said:
What's with the recent Apple bashing in ads?

Highlight what your product has, not what your competitor doesn't.
Click to expand...

the world isnt a vacuum

you highlight what you have and what differentiates you from your competitors. and you what that to be done with no mention of anything or anyone else?

but i think these ads are getting a little tiring. cant decide if its the material or the delivery
 
numlock said:
the world isnt a vacuum

you highlight what you have and what differentiates you from your competitors. and you what that to be done with no mention of anything or anyone else?
Click to expand...

That's what 99.99% of adverts manage to do, so yeah.
 
sure

I just sold my 2000$ wacom cintiq companion 256 gb tablet and went back to my 2008 unibody macbook.

The cintiq companion is a professional digital sketching and painting solution. Except of being more expensive, having a better pressure sensivity and offering a litte more drawing space, there is almost no difference to the surface.

Following a list of random issues:

1. Multitouch started to work in photoshop cc 2014 three weeks ago. ...But only as an experimental feature. It is buggy as hell under windows 8.1. Usually if you touch the screen the canvas just vanishes into the lower left corner.

2. Windows 8 has no metro file manager built in.

3. When using multiple apps the side bar window manager offers application window previews that are small enough to reduce all text based apps to white rectangles.

4. The surface on screen keyboard offers no typing assistance whatsoever. Even answering mails and browsing is faster on my phone because of swype.

5. There is also no system wide multitouch framework. In some apps you scroll with one finger, sometimes with two, sometimes you have to use the tiny scrollbar.

6. Using the windows photo app there is no way to create direct album shortcuts form the springboard, so professional photos, inspirational images, private photos, very private photos, my paintings, my design projects and all my scribbles are visible in one place, before i then open on of those folders.

7. Lightroom is not usable at all without mouse and keyboard.

8. The windows metro surface is somewhat glued onto windows 7 so inevitably after ten minutes of work you end up on the desktop and have to activate too small hitboxes.

9. Usually further during the day you end up in some strange windows control panel where you fumble for hours with tiny checkboxes until you figure the right battery setting thats stops photoshop lagging like hell when you are on the go.
That is because microsoft didn t replace the control panel with some touch friendly preferences interface, but added a few more control panel like instances where you can randomly access some more unrelated system preferences which are of course corrupting each other.

10. Of course lots of viruses bypass the built in antivirus and keep on chrashing the the background.

Honestly windows 8 has the worst touch support and drivers i ve seen for years. Usability and implementation depend completely on the application and so far only photoshop cc2014 slowly starts to support multitoch on windows 8.

And that is because the 3000$ 24hd multitouch Cintiqs, which are standard in design industry, so far only work attached to a mac as there was no multitouch driver from microsoft.

Once you own a surface you have to decide wether you use desktop class software on a big external screen or if you want to use metro and touch optimized software wich lags years behind their ipad counterparts.


Oh, finally. Back on my mac i realized that due to the huge leap Photoshop made from CC to CC2014 it runs as smooth on my Macbook as it did on the i7 cintiq. Up to canvas sizes of 5000 x 7000 pixels with about 50 layers. My Macbook has 8gb ram and a 256gb ssd.
 
Last edited:
I.. Don't mind these ads. Surface looks cute.

People saying arm strain would be a problem - Not really? I use a Clamcase on my iPad that pretty much makes it into a laptop with a touchscreen and no touchpad and I've never had a problem. (though i do occasionally press the space where a touchpad would have been through habit!)
 
ChazUK said:
Windows 8.1 has Microsoft Security Essentials pre-installed out of the box.

No fears there.
Click to expand...

The good thing about MSE is that it's really lightweight. The bad thing is that it's so lightweight because it doesn't really stop malware from doing stuff.
 
It's too bad that Microsoft is now also joining Samsung in nonsense comparison commercials. None of these commercials show how the surface is better but only shows off additional features that the surface has. No matter how useless or useful they may be.

How does a detachable keyboard or touchscreen increase functionality? Show me some worthwhile use-cases and I will consider it, but these don't do anything to convince me that the surface is a viable or more capable substitute for a Macbook Air.

I have used the surface and frankly it sucked when I did. Both the hardware AND the software:

-Dreadful software (switching between surface UI and desktop UI)
-Dreadful keyboard
-Too heavy to hold comfortably (heavier than my iPad 3)

All three gigantic dealbrakers for me.
 
gjvon said:
too bad it runs Windows.
Click to expand...

That's basically the problem. Maybe it'll be hackintoshed someday. I'd consider it then if it was a 100% perfect hackintosh setup with guaranteed OS X upgrade ability. God windows always made me a little queasy with Win8 being the queasiest ever. I've had windows running on something somewhere around the house wince Win 3.0 and the closest I've ever come to thinking it might be OK someday was Win7. Then they blew it again.
 
EightBitJoe said:
I welcome Apple bashing in ads. It means they're perceived as a threat. And consumers see right through it. (Well, except the Samsung people. But I never harangue the mentally challenged.)
Click to expand...

It doesn't mean Apple is seen as a threat. It means Apple is seen as the market leader. A "threat" is someone who is behind you and might catch up. You don't use attack adverts against "threats" because it turns people's attention towards them; you want threats to be ignored. You use attack adverts against market leaders; they have people's attention anyway (like the iPad), so it doesn't hurt that much if you send attention to them.

In the end, an attack advert is a clear admission who's the leader and who is behind. The attacked product is the leader, and the attacker is behind.

And when I read the headline, I had to think of a new movie: Surface Pro 3 = "The Expendables 3".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back