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Is Microsoft's Price Model For the Surface Justifiable?
colinneagle writes "A blog post contending that Microsoft's decision to match Apple's iPad pricing on its Surface tablet will hurt its chances in the market has brought out some negative comments from readers who seem to like the Surface tablet. I was kind of surprised by this, as I and other bloggers seem to agree that making the fully keyboard-equipped Surface tablet roughly $120 more expensive than the iPad kind of negates the purpose — to build steam by appealing to those in the market for a cheaper tablet. Also, I've yet to see an argument that justifies pricing the Surface competitively with the iPad, so I figured I would bring the question to Slashdot: Is Microsoft's pricing for the Surface tablet justified?"
I find the device lacking in the screen department. It is a low res 720P screen with 16:9 AR. It's not a good device to use as a reader or to create any content due to this. If the device clearly outclassed the iPad then it might be worth it to me at 500 with the keyboard. Now it looks like a me too device only with a lower quality overall.
Everyone keeps talking about the iPad price as if that's the holiday price. Apple have a special event on the 23rd (i.e. in six days) where they're releasing 24 new variants on the iPad. At *this* point we'll be able to see how the iPad and Surface offerings stack up against each other
I understood this to be the ARM device that _cannot_ run Windows applications (only Metro apps).
No, Surface runs WinRT, the ARM version of Windows 8 which will only Metro apps which don't take advantage of native x86 code.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You're comparing oranges to orangutans. Since 2001, there have been three major consumer releases of Windows (XP, Vista, 7) and nine major consumer releases of OS X (10.0 through 10.8). I'm not trying to say one is better than the other because of this, only that you're doing a direct price comparison between two very different release strategies. Microsoft releases big updates (new version of Windows) for a big cost and small updates for free (service pack), while Apple releases medium updates for a medium cost..
If you want to try to do a more direct comparison, the Win 7 -> Win 8 period for that $70 upgrade encompasses OS X 10.6 ->10.8 for a combined price of $79.
I HAVE used it. first comment after getting it was "hey this thing is pretty fast" then as i began to develop for it i notices things. 20gig of the 64 gigs are used for the OS. umm why? the device(s) i have all lose touches, hold on to touches, or at times are generally not responsive to touches. there are 4 buttons on the top or side that seem to do things randomly. i honestly have been using it for a month still dont know what they do. every corner being a non-disable hot corner gets really annoying fast, especially for games, where do you put the buttons? in the middle of the screen where the action is? also there dev panel needs a lot of work, seriously a LOT of work. everytime i need to sign to upload to the store i have to call my manager over since i cant sign directly. he cant give me privledges for signing. wtf. also there are just some things you can NOT do without using the old windows xp/vista/7 interface which on the touch screens is really really freaking annoying, since you dont have the accuracy of a mouse and no right click.
You're asking Slashdot for a Apple vs Microsoft comparison on a product none of us have used? Well that's surely going to be reasonable and fact based discussion.
Ahh. Ad hominem. Well actually.. a) We have lots of Microsoft shills on Slashdot; this has the benefit that all the Microsoft positive "talking points" and news will be posted and everyone posting here makes really sure that anti-Microsoft points are clearly justified. b) This is one of the few places where the people writing aren't soon expecting to be making half of their income from Microsoft adverts. c) there are lots of people who can read specifications and work things out.
For example; there has lots of breathless talk about Microsoft's keyboard covers all over the media. On Slashdot it's been clearly pointed out that the keyboard being pushed has almost no travel and you will have to buy an alternative more expensive one if you want to be able to type reasonably.
Within five minutes of this article going up, someone had posted the Microsoft story that this will be able to run "Windows" apps. This is the kind of thing which is reported without question elsewhere. Here on Slashdot you will see that actually the apps for this new tablet are a completely new ("Metro"/"Modern interface") type.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
That's strange, because it works fine on my 3-year old dual core MacBook Pro (13" mid 2009 model). I have Xcode 4.5.1 running as I type this, and that's the latest version.
Considering that the pre-installed software on the Surface uses 12GB of space, Advantage : iPad,
http://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-surface-storage-size-2012-10
I've been a .NET developer for 16 years
You sure? The initial release was on Feburary 13, 2002 - 10 years ago. Windows 95 was release 17 years ago and it could never even run .NET. The first version of Windows that could run .NET was Windows 98 - released 14 years ago. And I doubt that they had .NET ready for that initial version - doubt they even had an internal alpha version.