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

[Piggie]

It appears Surface Pro is having schizophrenia. On one hand they market it as a tablet, on the other they market it as a tablet that can be a notebook.

That being said, I still want a Surface Pro as a tablet... because the writing experience on iPad is definitely subpar.

It's natural that it should be one device.

It's the same shaped device in the same form factor, there is no reason, other than CPU power/Battery life type issues that there should be two products.

It would be like saying here is a car used for local trips to the store.
Here is another car, the same shape and size, but better engine used for long journeys.

They are the same shape and size, but the internals are different.

Move forward 10 years, 20 years.

Say the iPad had the power of a MacPro and could last a week on a battery charge. You still feel it should be crippled by a mobile phone operating system iOS, or hey, it's the same shape as my notebook/laptop, why not use it as one also as it has so much power.

It's obvious they will converge in time

The only reason they are separate is due to tech limitations.

 

[the8thark]

Indeed.

The iPhone is a poor Camera, it's a poor music player due to poor speakers, it's a poor web browser due to it's small screen, it's got a poor 1 day batter life.

No one would want to by an iPhone that's so compromised putting poor user experiences into one device, when separate devices can do these tasks so much better.

Oh hang on...........................

The iPhone is a great phone. Everything you said is true if you're comparing it to a SLR or CSC or a stereo system. The battery life is actually pretty good.

I see your sarcasm and you make a very valid point. But in my opinion it's as you say on it's 2ndary features. It's primary feature, a phone, the iPhone does very well as. (This includes easy to make a call/sms and storing/accessing contact details etc etc).

The Surface Pro does not do well on it's main feature. . . wait what is it's main feature. Pro Notebook or tablet content consumption device? Hard to tell actually.

 

[cmChimera]

Oh the hate. Many people want to have one device instead of lugging around multiple devices. It's as simple as that, they are catering to the people who want ONE device to do it all, not multiple.

and please don't give me the "an ipad is so light, I have no trouble putting it i my bag", because it's really not the point.

To be fair, the abysmal sales of the Surface seem to contradict your main point.

 

[Piggie]

I never mentioned separating out the components of a phone. This thread is about tablets and laptops. Focus please.

That said, I know people who carry two phones to keep their work and personal lives separate.

My point is, you are trying to have you cake and eat it.

In the past, people carried separate devices.

A mobile phone that lasted a week.
A camera that took amazing photo's with a real zoom lens.
A PDA that lasted a month on battery for keeping appointment and doing work on.
A portable music layer, nice speakers, fill the room with sound.

Now they have compromised, and put poorer versions of all these separate items into one small package, an iPhone, for convenience, they leave this one item on the train or the bus and they have lost it all.

I presume you may be someone like this.

You can't do this yourself, and accept this is fine, and THEN start an argument off saying how wrong it is to combine a tablet and a notebook as separate items are always better.

 

[kodos]

The marketshare issue is interesting, because it is the opposite battle cry that Mac users have made over the last couple of ... decades. When my Mac was only 3% of the market (and still, the Mac has a fairly low marketshare), and PC users would snigger at me - I used to always say, "well, BMW has a pretty low marketshare compared to Chevy, and I would rather have a BMW than a Chevy*".

I think we should investigate the merits of the device itself. Microsoft is pretty tenacious, and to be fair to them - they have the "if at first you do not succeed, try and try again" mantra. Don't know if they will continue the Surface "experiment" forever, but so far the trajectory of the machine has gotten more interesting. I think if they had compared the last two machines to a Macbook Air, they would have been laughed at. The fact that people are actually considering this argument to have merit with the Pro 3 is very interesting to me.

But I might be biased since I love both Apple and Microsoft and want to see them trounce Google


* Disclaimer: Corvette excepted

 

[mac-axeman]

As a creative professional, the one thing I have always wanted Mac to do was come out with a pressure sensitive pen/tablet that felt more like a wacom when illustrating or doing photoshop. I have a new cintiq companion hybrid, and I love it, but it still isn't an all in one unless I go for the Windows version. My life is Mac based, and just wished they were ahead when coming out with devices like the surface pro. I can only hope the Rumored iPad pro is just that, a touch screen interface that runs full OSX and comes with a pressure sensitive fine tipped pen that you can actually use that doesn't feel awkward. I know, it's like wishing for world peace.

 

[Jungo]

People DO want a tablet that can work list a laptop... most of my coworkers have added physical keyboards to their ipads... we WANT to touch the screens on our macbooks ... Get there apple - and NOT two years from now.

 

[Piggie]

The iPhone is a great phone. Everything you said is true if you're comparing it to a SLR or CSC or a stereo system. The battery life is actually pretty good.

I see your sarcasm and you make a very valid point. But in my opinion it's as you say on it's 2ndary features. It's primary feature, a phone, the iPhone does very well as. (This includes easy to make a call/sms and storing/accessing contact details etc etc).

The Surface Pro does not do well on it's main feature. . . wait what is it's main feature. Pro Notebook or tablet content consumption device? Hard to tell actually.

It's just silly people that annoy me.

They can't see what they are doing, and then they go and basically criticize something that does exactly what they do today.

It's not like we are saying a car should be a boat (as we know that's been tried and is never good)
Or a car should be a plane (as we know that's been tried and is never good)

We are saying a car with a small engine, should be a separate item you own from another car virtually exactly the same size, but with a larger engine.

Once the tech evolves so that the larger engine car can be as fuel efficient, and quiet as the smaller engine car, there is no reason to own two cars as the one car can do it all.

 

[nbnbxdnb]

Microsoft should really compare sf3 to iPad by saying sf3 can do serious jobs while iPad can't, because it can not run office...
I don't see much point in comparing a laptop and sf3. Although you can run most of windows programs on sf3 instantly, few are user unfriendly on a small touch screen because they were not optimized for it. Not even ET would enjoy using Project on sf3, I guess...
Simply put, sf3 doesn't get the best of 2 worlds.

 

[shanson27]

Noone forces you to use the touchscreen. You can even disable it entirely.

I, who frequently need pen support, would certainly put up with plain pen (read: no touch) support. After all, my venerable HP TC1100, purchased 11 years ago, had no touch - "only" Wacom. And it's also because the Wacom / N-Trig support that these tablets are far more versatile than traditional computers with touchpads / mice only. Good luck using the latter with your Mac when, say, drawing maps or hand drawing

Do you even know how the multi-touch trackpad works, it's far more occurred than any multitouch display out there !

it makes a multi touch display superfluous!

 

[Vegasman]

Really? Because I do, and I see a lot of people who still do.

Because they can't use them as a tablet?

 

[Vulkan]

It's an interesting turn of events when Microsoft promotes their new product, which is obviously geared to beat the iPad but takes on a different opponent, this time the Mac Book Air.

We have Surface Pro 3's where I work, and like many have pointed they do a half assed job. They hare mediocre laptops and mediocre Windows Tablet. They are not terrible and awful.

Objectively I like the concept, I thought the first time I saw the Surface's keyboard that it was a brilliant peripheral. But even with the iPad being the tablet it is, I rarely use mine with a keyboard. I go gung ho and use the soft-keyboard on mine...

Coming from an industry where we have a ton of artists on our company, (I work for a huge TV network), that not even the most expert of them would want to use Photoshop on a Tablet to do their work. You dont really use Photoshop on a Tablet not even to retouch, because the color palette doesnt translate that well on such screens. But then again, the MacBook Air runs Photoshop better than most machines do.

I think as usual, Microsoft is going for the dumb sucker customer who doesnt really know anything about the real benefits of having a certain type of computer or tablet for that matter.

The Surface Pro 3 is far from replacing my tablet in any case, even my unused Nexus 7 is more useful than the Surface Pro 3 as a tablet. I think the more we visualize the Surface Pro 3 as the evolution of the laptop we are all fine. Other laptop manufacturers (apple included) need to pay attention to it, because even if it does a half assed job as a laptop, its modularity is in the right direction...

Now if it only ran OSX.

 

[Chupa Chupa]

Microsoft should really compare sf3 to iPad by saying sf3 can do serious jobs while iPad can't, because it can not run office...

1) They already ran that ad.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blhvo3Idoew

2) Office IS now available on the iPad, so not really a truthful or effective ad in 2014.

 

[numlock]

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

so when apple says "worlds most advanced mobile os" or when it called maps "the most beautiful, powerful mapping service ever"

it isnt referring to its competitors?

 

[Vegasman]

Macbook air has a multitouch trackpad and is way better than a touchscreen on a display

Says the one who has never used a computer with a touchscreen for an extended period of time

 

[pubwvj]

Microsoft has one thing right: tablet and notebook computer should be integrated.

Apple needs to bring out a computer that has all the best of the MacBook and the iPad with a docking keyboard that has a slot that takes a iPhone/iPodTouch that slides in to make one unified computer. It should offer full legacy support for old software. Then the user can focus on doing their work using the hardware that fits their needs.

Apple also needs to back off the cloud. They're becoming too dependent on it. The internet is fine for communicating and syncing small amounts of data but the big data should be stored and transferred locally. This is both for economic reasons (data transmission costs), security, speed, reliability and availability. The internet is not reliable.

 

[J.acks]

For all fairness. Samsung and Microsoft will be great devices at its respective if Apple didn't exist.

Oh wait. Samsung probably won't come this far without Apple. Probably just MS.

 

[Arran]

In the past, people carried separate devices.

A mobile phone that lasted a week.
A camera that took amazing photo's with a real zoom lens.
A PDA that lasted a month on battery for keeping appointment and doing work on.
A portable music layer, nice speakers, fill the room with sound.

Correct - but not relevant. We're talking laptops and tablets.

Over-extrapolated?

 

[kerr]

Samsung and Microsoft really are pathetic.

Create your advertisement. Highlight the good points of your device, if you can.

Taking cheap potshots at Apple time after time after time is juvenile.

 

[macman66]

Nice idea

I like the idea behind the Surface. Having a detachable screen from a keyboard would be great. That said, it ain't a Mac.

After 20+ years of using Windows PCs I bought a Mac, more out of curiosity than anything else. Years later, there's no going back. The ease of use, little to no maintenance, few virus/malware threats, etc. have made me a fan. I've also helped my parents-in-law set up their Windows 8.1 machine and tried it myself. Windows 8.1 is pretty slick, but still doesn't stand up to the power and simplicity of a Mac.

My dad bashed Apple a lot and sticks by his PC. Every so often he needs my help to fix his computer, remove a virus, and more. So there you go, eh?

 

[Piggie]

Correct - but not relevant. We're talking laptops and tablets.

Over-extrapolated?

So..............

If it's ok to combine multiple excellent separate devices into one, compromised device, an iPhone.

Why is it wrong to combine two separate devices, laptop and tablet into one device.

You will have to agree, a laptop and a tablet are far far nearer to each other physically than the devices put together into a mobile phone.

 

[anubis72]

How does the Surface do running Logic and FCP at the same ti--oh...

How about games? This is a legitimate question.

 

[SuperMatt]

Do you even know how the multi-touch trackpad works, it's far more occurred than any multitouch display out there !

it makes a multi touch display superfluous!

I agree with this. It offers the benefits of a touchscreen without fingerprints all over the screen.

 

[H2SO4]

What's interesting is that they used the 13' instead of the similarly powered 11' Air. I assume they wanted the Air to look bigger then the Surface. Personally, I think the 11' Air with the i7 and 512GB flash is the ultimate portable computer..

You’re joking right?

Air 13 max res 1440x900. The 11 is a joke by comparison.
SP3 max res 2160x1440.

Two two systems are similarly priced when you try and make them similar spec. The M$ job is more highly specced tho, if I didn’t have an irrational penchant for Apple products I’d defo get the better Surface.

 

[panther quest]

My experience with the surface was similar. Software is the biggest problem.

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.