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funny how the Surface guy has a deep manly voice. I wonder what they're trying to imply...

EDIT: Just noticed the hairless thin arms. Now I'm just confused.
 
Says the one who has never used a computer with a touchscreen for an extended period of time

... and he hasn't used a Wacom / N-Trig pen for precise graphics / drawing input either, I presume...

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To bad that for many people it's a huge advantage that it runs windows - stop dreaming your Matrix dream

Exactly. In some cases, it's better NOT to have to rely on Apple's half-@ssed, bad Bootcamp Windows drivers but have something real. For example, it's still impossible to disable display hardware acceleration in models with a discrete drivers, resulting in major overheating / battery consumption compared with the non-accelerated version.

Talk about non-Apple notebooks having far inferior battery life - lol...
 
So a 12" iPad with optional detachable keyboard that could run iOS and OSX would be an utter fail and no one would buy it?
Well, yes. And I strongly believe that's the reason why Apple doesn't do it. Just because they could and something might happen in your fantasy doesn't justify the Surface in any way. Seriously those "If Apple did..."-arguments are stupid and lead nowhere.
 
that touch-screens are useless for the apps i use.
Again: you don't need to use touch screens. It's for the N-Trig support that a lot of us power users love the SP3.

Along other goodies like the 3:2 screen - which is far better than even 16:10 ones (better MBP's), let alone the uselessly short 16:9 ones (smaller MBP's).
 
Where is the Value Add?

The one thing that these commercials don't address is, "What is the value of these things?"...meaning, poor keyboard, smaller screen, Pen that you will use and touchscreen. What is the benefit of the touchscreen? Unless you detach the keyboard, then what you really want is a tablet, which it is clearly not, by MS's own ad...

All they show is the differences, not why that is better for MS. Also, in the end, it is running 'Windows', not OSX. So, not really a direct comparison.

I'm all for competition and the Surface Pro 3 is 'finally' a competitive product. It's just too bad that their marketing is so horrible. They need to take some queues from the guys that presented it, when they first showed them at their event.
 
Truck vs Car in RL is totally valid.

A car is a small device for you or your family
A truck is a much larger device.

That argument crumbles into nothing when you have trucks and cars that are the same shape/size/weight.

You hit it perfectly there. Different sized devices for different tasks. If both were the same size then neither could do the tasks as well. Truck sized cars are just too large for town driving and car sized trucks are too small to haul tons of product from one place to another.

Say you can get a truck (cab and whole large trailer part all included) and an average car at the same shape/size/weight. Could this all in one device haul a ton of product interstate as well as it could drive you around town each day? You could not even fit a ton of product into the all in one vehicle.

I understand what you are getting at though. People do want to carry less devices around with them. And that is happening with everyone using their iPads/iPhones and notebooks as music and movie players these days. Very few people these days cart an iPod and and iPad/iPhone around with them. Combining two products into one like this is a great idea. But where possible only. The iPad/iPhone is also an iPod so no need for an iPod anymore. But an iPad is not an MBP. Not even close. I guess one day there might be a way to combine both. But as it stands, on a hardware and software level both the iPad and MBP have their place as separate products and both still sell well.

Thank you. I didn't have the time to type all that - but it needed saying.

You explain it all nicely and respectfully.
You are welcome.
 
The one thing that these commercials don't address is, "What is the value of these things?"...meaning, poor keyboard, smaller screen, Pen that you will use and touchscreen.

Just ask a Wacom or N-Trig user whether their pen support is useless and/or superfluous... yes, a lot of us are ready to pay a LOT extra for notebooks / tablets with decent (not the capacitive ones manufactured for the iPad) pen support. They're a godsend in a lot of cases (gfx work etc).
 
The denial here is so amazing, right up there with the denial than an iPad could be any size other than 9.7"

And we all know how opinion turned on that one.
 
Again: you don't need to use touch screens. It's for the N-Trig support that a lot of us power users love the SP3.

Along other goodies like the 3:2 screen - which is far better than even 16:10 ones (better MBP's), let alone the uselessly short 16:9 ones (smaller MBP's).

No MBP has a 16:9 screen ratio.
 
Basically the surface is more expensive, have a smaller screen, no real hinge, small trackpad, slower, less battery life, and runs Windows. What's not to love?

Pretty much.


It's always funny when clearly biased comparisons focus on similarities rather than differences. For example:

The Galaxy S5 has an 16 megapixel camera, the Canon 1DX has an 18 megapixel camera! Look at how amazing the S5 is!

Canon 1DX Low Light, original resolution: 5479x3652

canon-24-70-test-shot-low-light.jpg


Galaxy S5 Low Light, original resolution: 5312x2988

Samsung-Galaxy-S5-LowLight-Ohne-Blitz.jpg


Wow! Look at how similar the resolution on these two products are! 5300 vs 5400 pixels. They're basically the same, and the S5 can make phone calls! Throw away your DSLRs now!

The thing is, it's not the similarities that differentiate products. It's the differences. And showing the similarities and a bunch of one sided differences is a textbook attempt to be misleading.

And if you buy in to these ads you're going to get about the same results as you would between these two photos.
 
I've been around this site for a while—and lurked for many years before I joined. For me, it's quite hilarious that Microsoft even finds the need to address the Mac in advertisements, much less have a whole series of ads based around comparing their product to the Mac. Oh how the tables have turned. Ballmer used to say that Mac sales were a "rounding error," when in reality Ballmer was the round error. Luckily he is no longer running that company into the ground. Competition is good. I'm interested to see what Apple's rumored redesign of the MacBook Air can do.

The problem with Surface is that people either want a tablet, or they want a laptop. Or sometimes both. One is often for work, the other for play. Just shoving the two together doesn't make it a better solution. Reviews and sales have shown that it's actually a worse solution. The design of Windows 8 is interesting and certainly different, but it's just not very functional. Think different doesn't mean "Think different even if the thought turns out to be a terrible usability disaster."

The world is moving away from Windows. If I were Microsoft, I would scrap the brand altogether. It has so much baggage. Build something new from the ground up for modern devices, processors, and SSDs. Make it secure. Make it optimized. Make everyone NEED to have it. And DON'T call it Windows. That tired metaphor just doesn't work any more.
 
It's nice, but to counter it Apple would only have to show an ad depicting the setup that I normally use my MacBook Air in: lounging on my bed with it resting on me, being able to easily lift it off to reach for my coffee or whatever. That crazy top-heavy design with the floppy keyboard would be completely useless in that scenario and I'd have to use it in tablet mode - losing the keyboard benefit and getting an aching arm from holding it in the air all the time.

While it's an "either or" between putting it on a desk or using it as a tablet, it's of no use to me.
 
The issue with all of this is, they always say what the product has over the 'enemy' yet forget to mention the critical flaws that the product itself has. Reviewers on YouTube pick up on what I would regard as significant issues with the Surface that really ruin the experience of using the tablet device as a full on replacement to a laptop or a desktop (if you really feel that way inclined).

It's like with the Samsung adverts, I would never ever buy a Samsung phone because to me, just about every other phone manufacturer seems to make hardware that is better than it, as their devices feel like cheapy plasticy pieces of crap. As well as them releasing what seems to be a new phone every week, and I can't stand Android keyboards, but what hey.

Whilst iPhone and Mac definitely have their issues, I am not denying that, I haven't seen an iPhone or Mac advert in a long time which is petty like a lot of these other company's targeting the Apple products and saying why they are inferior to our own devices. Note that I am only referring to the advertisement part of the companies, not these silly lawsuits which are going on left, right and centre.
 
I've been around this site for a while—and lurked for many years before I joined. For me, it's quite hilarious that Microsoft even finds the need to address the Mac in advertisements, much less have a whole series of ads based around comparing their product to the Mac. Oh how the tables have turned. Ballmer used to say that Mac sales were a "rounding error," when in reality Ballmer was the round error. Luckily he is no longer running that company into the ground. Competition is good. I'm interested to see what Apple's rumored redesign of the MacBook Air can do.

The problem with Surface is that people either want a tablet, or they want a laptop. Or sometimes both. One is often for work, the other for play. Just shoving the two together doesn't make it a better solution. Reviews and sales have shown that it's actually a worse solution. The design of Windows 8 is interesting and certainly different, but it's just not very functional. Think different doesn't mean "Think different even if the thought turns out to be a terrible usability disaster."

The world is moving away from Windows. If I were Microsoft, I would scrap the brand altogether. It has so much baggage. Build something new from the ground up for modern devices, processors, and SSDs. Make it secure. Make it optimized. Make everyone NEED to have it. And DON'T call it Windows. That tired metaphor just doesn't work any more.

I agree with what you say mostly, though unfortunately I don't see it happening properly any time soon. I recall that Steve Ballmer used to piss off most every member of every news website and tech reporting site because of his innate ability to say how wonderful he was and the great ideas that have come out of Redmond (or lack of...). It's a shame, I can never remember what the term for loving the sound of your own voice is, but I remember reading somewhere that it seemed as though Balmer had a pretty bad case of it with his annoying voice.

Additionally, I know things are done differently in the States to what we get here in the UK, but laying of 12,000 people at once is just rediculous, especially as it was seemingly done algorithmically as opposed to how well the employee worked and what they had, could and currently contribute to the company. A friend of mine who is a business analyst said that you don't lay off that many people at once unless you have a *serious* issue with money to productivity ratios.
 
Apple should make a pocketable Mac (300 to 400 g). Not for heavy work but the best Keynote and PowerPoint presentation tool fully compatible with Mac. No, the iOS (iPad) is not compatible with the Mac.
 
Pretty much.


It's always funny when clearly biased comparisons focus on similarities rather than differences. For example:

The Galaxy S5 has an 16 megapixel camera, the Canon 1DX has an 18 megapixel camera! Look at how amazing the S5 is!

Canon 1DX Low Light, original resolution: 5479x3652

Image

Galaxy S5 Low Light, original resolution: 5312x2988

Image

Wow! Look at how similar the resolution on these two products are! 5300 vs 5400 pixels. They're basically the same, and the S5 can make phone calls! Throw away your DSLRs now!

The thing is, it's not the similarities that differentiate products. It's the differences. And showing the similarities and a bunch of one sided differences is a textbook attempt to be misleading.

And if you buy in to these ads you're going to get about the same results as you would between these two photos.

You have made a comparison that I have been trying to make to my friends since that advent of high resolution phone cameras.

"Hurr durr, my Sony has a 24mp camera! MOAR MP IS BETTA" closely followed by the innevitable, "MOAR CORES IS BETTA! My Samsung has a quad core, your iPhone has a dual core, therefore it must be FASTAH!"

I just wish that more people were as enlightened as some of the people on the forums, and as you say 'Look at the differences, not the similarities.'
 
But an awful lot of people still consider "runs Windows" as a needed feature of whatever they're going to buy.

I support both Mac and Windows machines daily for my job, as well as getting a lot of calls asking for advice from people who know I work in the industry. Truth is, I've already recommended a Surface Pro to a couple people, based on their list of requirements. Personally, I prefer the Mac and OS X for plenty of reasons -- but my preferences aren't everyone else's.

I think one of Microsoft's central arguments for ditching Mac products and going to a Surface is the concept that it can do the job of BOTH an iPad and a Macbook. That's where I take issue with things because I'd *rather* have both devices than trying to put all of those eggs in one proverbial basket.

I take my iPad Air around with me every day for my commute on the train and subway. Typically, I use it as an e-reader to read my digital version of the morning newspaper, check some email, and maybe even play a quick game of Words with Friends or whatever. If it got stolen or damaged, it would be annoying -- but I wouldn't sweat the loss of my important data, because most of the "serious" stuff is going to be back on my computer.

I switch to carrying the notebook computer instead of the iPad when I'm going on a business trip or even a family vacation .... some sort of destination where I want the capabilities of a full computer.

That's the problem. It can't do what an iPad can because a Surface has no tablet apps. It is a laptop with a touch screen.
 
....oh if it only didn't need a cheesy kickstand to stay up. It's like an old man needing viagra and wearing Abercrombie and Fitch trying to be young and hip.

Microsoft, make it without a kickstand and include the keyboard/trackpad and i might buy it. But then it would be a macbook air with touch-screen and that touch-screens are useless for the apps i use. Guess I'll stick with my MBPR 13".

A+F is hip? Seems douchbaggy to me. That's all I see wearing it. But I digress. The kickstand is a direct hit to the original Apple kickstand case. MS was playing on the fact you didn't have to buy a separate case to get a kickstand. I don't see what's cheesy about it. Plenty of people have bought iPad cases from Apple and 3rd party makers w/ kickstands, because IT IS needed to do actual work.

Now, of course, with or without the kickstand I'm not interested in a Surface or anything that runs any type of Windows, but your point doesn't seem valid given the array of kickstands for the iPad. If Apple built in a kickstand I'm sure people would be raving about it.
 
The denial here is so amazing, right up there with the denial than an iPad could be any size other than 9.7"

And we all know how opinion turned on that one.

It already is. There's a 7.9" one.

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So a 12" iPad with optional detachable keyboard that could run iOS and OSX would be an utter fail and no one would buy it?

Apple wouldn't build that product. The 12" iPad is a myth. It will be a new MacBook Air/Pro
 
Adds are not that bad. I hope they will sell a few Surfaces. At least just enough to make Apple upgrade MacBook Air display. And that is when I am getting my Air
 
But one thing has me wondering... They always bash the low market share of the Mac - is it of fear the don't attack the PC, but attack the MBA instead? if they sell a million Macs they sell 9 million PCs - why not attack them? Fear of pissing off partners?


Because there are touchscreen pc's available.
 
I've become quite disenchanted with post-Jobs Apple to the point of wondering if I should keep buying their products without considering the wider market.

But the Surface is a steaming pile of poo compared to a MacBook Air.
 
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