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Microsoft Surface Pro to Be Released February 9 with $899 Price Tag

Eidorian said:
Well, I would probably buy a convertible/tablet notebook if I did not already have my Nexus 7 or want to play Mechwarrior Online on the road.
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Personally I think there is a lot of potential with this type of device. They will become more powerful over time, think Haswell, the OS will be refined as will apps etc. If it stands well alone as a tablet and has a decent keyboard option, why not? This is the first generation. Think of where it may go in the next two years as other companies get on board.
 
AppleScruff1 said:
Personally I think there is a lot of potential with this type of device. They will become more powerful over time, think Haswell, the OS will be refined as will apps etc. If it stands well alone as a tablet and has a decent keyboard option, why not? This is the first generation. Think of where it may go in the next two years as other companies get on board.
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I forgot to add that my x86 hardware upgrade expenditures this year ride on Haswell. Anything coming out before June 2 retail is getting brushed aside just for that reason. Computex is going to be fun. At least I have MWC to look forward to in the next few weeks. You have to stay entertained and in the game somehow.
 
Yawn.

This is the same Operating System that is on Fire Sale right now for $40, right? When do the Windows RT Surface tablets get dropped to 75% clearance level? I may consider buying one then.
 
Eidorian said:
I forgot to add that my x86 hardware upgrade expenditures this year ride on Haswell. Anything coming out before June 2 retail is getting brushed aside just for that reason. Computex is going to be fun. At least I have MWC to look forward to in the next few weeks. You have to stay entertained and in the game somehow.
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I just finished a build for a friend with an i7 3770K. I couldn't talk him into waiting for Haswell. :D
 
larrybeo said:
This is the same Operating System that is on Fire Sale right now for $40, right? When do the Windows RT Surface tablets get dropped to 75% clearance level? I may consider buying one then.
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Fire sale? That is over and the prices after February are outrageous. Get your copy now.
 
larrybeo said:
This is the same Operating System that is on Fire Sale right now for $40, right? When do the Windows RT Surface tablets get dropped to 75% clearance level? I may consider buying one then.
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It was an upgrade deal, not a fire sale.

>_>;
 
We've already heard from some PC users that like the thought of a laptop that sort of works like a tablet that can "run any windows programs" and "connect to any of the 400 million USB devices on the market", but I still shake my head wondering what MS was thinking.

So they've made a product that can be (sort of) a micro laptop and tablet at the same time. Do they not have anyone working there with common sense or with any real world history making products? They're trying to make the Surface be two distinctly different things and what they're really giving us is a product that doesn't do either thing (laptop and tablet) exceptionally well.

Sign me up for one. This thing will sell great - cause who doesn't like settling for average to below average...
 
Here we go, back to the same old same old

Before you know it this will be the line up

Surface Starter Edition
Surface Basic
Surface Regular
Surface Every Day Joe edition
Surface Semi Pro
Surface Pro
Surface Semi Ultimate
Surface Ultimate
Surface All the Bells' and Whistles edition



:apple:
 
Renzatic said:
It could use some spit shine and fine tuning, but it's hardly unusable. Once you learn where all the new stuff is, it's not vastly different than what came before.
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While I agree many of it's critics have not given the OS fair time to learn the new layout, I still believe it is not an improvement. I upgraded my windows PC from 7 to 8 and stuck with it for over a month. In that time I learned where everything was and could anything I could in 7. However I found that with a Mouse and Keyboard it was just slower to achieve the same things and it was in 7.

In contrast when I moved from Windows 7 to OSX 10.6, 2 years ago, It took me about two weeks to learn the whole much more greatly different OS and most things are just way faster than Windows 7 for a Mouse and Keyboard interface. Finder and Spotlight for example work very fast and are super simple for Mouse and Keyboard after spending maybe a day or two with it. The windows equivalents Explorer and Search, are slower so I stayed with OSX and get work done faster.

Therefore I downgraded after a while back to Windows 7 on my PC as my windows specific stuff like a few programs and games just took longer to use and therefore I did not apply the current version, something I very rarely do.

----------
Amazing Iceman said:
Steam gaming with crappy Intel Video card? I'm not sure if you'll be happy once you try it.
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TF2 works great on a 13" Macbook Pro with an Intel HD3000! (Albeit at 1280x800) It's really surprising and I'm someone who plays Battlefield 3 at 2560x1400 and needs to have that at at least 45 FPS with High Graphics.
 
Bantz said:
Windows 8 is nothing short of brilliant. I have never used an OS which performs so well. So smooth and fast puts OS X to shame.
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I'm currently running it on two i7 PCs (3770k & 2600k). While performance is very satisfying, it seems as though Windows will always be far less thought out than OS X.

Exhibit A:
Compare "Control Panel" and "System Preferences"
- Control Panel is a cluster****. Windows continues to be the ONLY desktop OS that refuses to clean up rather then continue to clutter system controls. I've run 3 different Linux flavors, who all rival OS X for system cleanliness. And now with Windows 8 its even worse with "modern UI settings" thrown into the mix.

Exhibit B:
Lack of integrated Software/Utilities in Windows compared to OS X.
We can say that due to Mac OS's past as the underdog, they have had to support a vast array of file extensions out of the box (pdf, doc, iso, etc..). However, Microsoft is embarrassingly behind in support and ability compared to what is included with 10.8 out of the box. Microsoft has a history of forcing users to seek outside software for everything from burning discs, viewing and editing popular document formats, compressing/uncompressing files, supporting various mainstream codecs, etc... It has not improved enough from XP to Win8. It's disturbing that I can't even view a .doc file in Windows 8 without having it display as jibberish (in wordpad). As of now I still have a list of software (mostly opensource) that I install on every new Windows machine just to accommodate all the necessary circumstances which OS X covers straight out of the box.

Windows in my opinion will never be a superior OS (which it could) until they take interface design seriously. I'm not talking about customization; I'm talking about solving problems of clutter.
 
Who cares

Does anyone here really care about news from windows or micro **** at all?

Why is here then? Everyone is here about MAC rumours. No one gives two farts

about windows.

Bull (cough) ****
 
Last edited by a moderator:
ZZ Bottom said:
Exhibit B:
Lack of integrated Software/Utilities in Windows compared to OS X.
We can say that due to Mac OS's past as the underdog, they have had to support a vast array of file extensions out of the box (pdf, doc, iso, etc..). However, Microsoft is embarrassingly behind in support and ability compared to what is included with 10.8 out of the box. Microsoft has a history of forcing users to seek outside software for everything from burning discs, viewing and editing popular document formats, compressing/uncompressing files, supporting various mainstream codecs, etc... It has not improved enough from XP to Win8. It's disturbing that I can't even view a .doc file in Windows 8 without having it display as jibberish (in wordpad). As of now I still have a list of software (mostly opensource) that I install on every new Windows machine just to accommodate all the necessary circumstances which OS X covers straight out of the box.
Click to expand...
It works both ways. It makes a clean install convenient but then you get those third-party developers crying that no one installs their software anymore.

Windows 8 does come with h.264 and PDF support out of the box along with the ability to mount disk images. I will have to try .docx but I believe WordPad recognizes them. The icon for those documents shows a thumbnail with .docx over it.

Compressed files? Burning discs? That has been around since Windows XP.
 
ZZ Bottom said:
I'm currently running it on two i7 PCs (3770k & 2600k). While performance is very satisfying, it seems as though Windows will always be far less thought out than OS X.

Exhibit A:
Compare "Control Panel" and "System Preferences"
- Control Panel is a cluster****. Windows continues to be the ONLY desktop OS that refuses to clean up rather then continue to clutter system controls. I've run 3 different Linux flavors, who all rival OS X for system cleanliness. And now with Windows 8 its even worse with "modern UI settings" thrown into the mix.

Exhibit B:
Lack of integrated Software/Utilities in Windows compared to OS X.
We can say that due to Mac OS's past as the underdog, they have had to support a vast array of file extensions out of the box (pdf, doc, iso, etc..). However, Microsoft is embarrassingly behind in support and ability compared to what is included with 10.8 out of the box. Microsoft has a history of forcing users to seek outside software for everything from burning discs, viewing and editing popular document formats, compressing/uncompressing files, supporting various mainstream codecs, etc... It has not improved enough from XP to Win8. It's disturbing that I can't even view a .doc file in Windows 8 without having it display as jibberish (in wordpad). As of now I still have a list of software (mostly opensource) that I install on every new Windows machine just to accommodate all the necessary circumstances which OS X covers straight out of the box.

Windows in my opinion will never be a superior OS (which it could) until they take interface design seriously. I'm not talking about customization; I'm talking about solving problems of clutter.
Click to expand...


I second that
 
ZZ Bottom said:
Exhibit B:
Lack of integrated Software/Utilities in Windows compared to OS X.
We can say that due to Mac OS's past as the underdog, they have had to support a vast array of file extensions out of the box (pdf, doc, iso, etc..). However, Microsoft is embarrassingly behind in support and ability compared to what is included with 10.8 out of the box. Microsoft has a history of forcing users to seek outside software for everything from burning discs, viewing and editing popular document formats, compressing/uncompressing files, supporting various mainstream codecs, etc... It has not improved enough from XP to Win8. It's disturbing that I can't even view a .doc file in Windows 8 without having it display as jibberish (in wordpad). As of now I still have a list of software (mostly opensource) that I install on every new Windows machine just to accommodate all the necessary circumstances which OS X covers straight out of the box.
Click to expand...

Exhibit A is somewhat true. I've always thought OSX had a more (to risk sounding corny) holistic, cleaner feel to it in comparison to Windows.

But Exhibit B isn't true at all anymore. .doc and .pdf files I'll give you, but ISOs can be mounted and burned without relying on 3rd party software in Win8, zip folders and compression tools have been built into Explorer since XP, codec support has been full and robust since 7 (I haven't had to download a codec pack since upgrading to it), and it can view all the standard image files natively.

Some things could be better, but MS has done a pretty good job of covering the bases fairly well in regards to what you can do with the OS right out of the box.
 
BC2009 said:
The more appropriate price comparison here is to the MacBook Air (and Touch Cover or Type Cover keyboard needs to be included in that price comparison). From the early reviews I have read, Surface continues to be a compromised tablet and a compromised "ultrabook".
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Well by your statement, the more appropriate price comparison wouldn't be versus a MacBook Air, which is a full OSX computer, but to a Wintel Netbook or even the Chrome netbook.

Otherwise, comparing the RT Pro to an Ipad 4 is likely a good comparison.
 
Eidorian said:
It works both ways. It makes a clean install convenient but then you get those third-party developers crying that no one installs their software anymore.

Windows 8 does come with h.264 and PDF support out of the box along with the ability to mount disk images. I will have to try .docx but I believe WordPad recognizes them. The icon for those documents shows a thumbnail with .docx over it.

Compressed files? Burning discs? That has been around since Windows XP.
Click to expand...

1. I do appreciate the progress they've made with system restores. The options in Windows 8 will help out MANY average computer users looking to clean their system. Huge leap for ease of use there.

2. PDF support is limited to "Reader", a Metro app that sorely lacks abilities. I could not fill out an editable PDF the other day. Forget about editing, combining, and such... On the other hand, Mac OS includes PREVIEW which does annotating, editing, combining, conversions, scanning, and much more. Windows lacks an equivalent that even comes close... instead they say to go buy Adobe Acrobat Pro for those features.

3. OEM XP had an atrocious procedure for burning data discs. Uncompressing files always required downloading 7zip or some equivalent. They've improved in these regards, but it's an embarrassment how behind the MS team is compared to Mac OS team.

For the record I want more for MS. I want them to compete. I prefer to build computers rather then buy assembled, so clearly I have learned to fend in a Windows world. I've just experience too much Mac OS to sit back and use Windows without complaining. Really wish I could have a meeting with design execs for Windows 9.
 
ReallyBigFeet said:
Otherwise, comparing the RT Pro to an Ipad 4 is likely a good comparison.
Click to expand...

RT Pro? Think you've got something mixed up here.

The RT is a fair comparison to the iPad 4, since they're roughly in the same usage bracket, and sport similar hardware.

The Pro is a full on x86 tablet running a complete, uncompromised version of Windows 8 (all opinions aside). Despite it's form factor, it more directly compares to the MBA and other ultrabook class laptops.
 
Because it's not a fail enough at a lower price....MS should stay out of the hardware business...
 
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