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Microsoft Surface Pro Arrives Feb. 9
adeelarshad82 writes "According to Microsoft, the Surface Windows 8 Pro will be available for purchase on Feb. 9 in the U.S. and Canada. As anticipated, the Surface Pro will be slightly thicker than the Surface with Windows RT, and will weigh about two pounds. The tablet is powered with an Intel Core i5 processor and 4GB of memory. It also includes an 802.11 a/b/g/n dual band Wi-Fi, a stylus for pressure-sensitive input, dual 720p HD webcams, a full-sized USB 3.0 port, microSDXC slot, and mini DisplayPort. Since the Surface Pro runs Windows 8 Pro, it will work with your corporate infrastructure, as well as any older apps that you used on Windows XP to 7. In terms of pricing, the 64GB version will cost $899 while the 128GB will set you back by $999."
Because your bank isn't using it, that means no corp will. Is that your point?
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
Yeah, but this has a kickstand. A kickstand! Aren't those all the rage with the kids these days?
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Why would any professor worth his salt "Recommend" his students be locked into a device for consumption rather than one that more freely enables co-operation and creativity? Because that's not education is for, that's why.
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Why would any professor worth his salt "Recommend" his students be locked into a device for consumption
in other words, an iPad.
rather than one that more freely enables co-operation and creativity?
Or, in other words, a Surface Pro.
An iPad at $400 cheaper and a MacBook Air for only $100 more. I'm not sure, at this price point, what MS are trying to accomplish. It just reeks of a hurried "oh hell, we must release something to counter Apple' Well, here's your something.
"The Surface Pro isn't good at anything."
Or so you've read and like to repeat on the internet.
Oh, you think I'm just spewing what everyone else is saying? That's true but only because it is true. Here's why...
It's design sucks. A device can only be really good at one thing. This is not a new principle to design but pretty much the fucking foundation of industrial design.
Want more?
It's too heavy, expensive and crappy on battery power to be a good tablet, and it doesn't have a real keyboard or adequate screen size to make it a good laptop. Basically, they've built a "laplet" (or "tabtop", if you prefer). Unfortunately for Microsoft, nobody has ever asked for a laplet. This thing will fail even bigger than the Surface RT.
Like I said, it sucks. Even Microsoft is starting to realize it so they've already decided to drop the price by $100.
Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
It might be a third less because it uses a shitty ARM CPU, has half the RAM, one eighth the amount of storage space, no touchscreen, no pen input, no memory card slot, lower resolution and weighs more than the Surface Pro.
No its a third...as in you can but three of them for the same price as Surface. Pro. It comes with 100GB of cloud storage...and has a memory card slot. runs a lightweight OS [and can run Ubuntu too :). Other than touch-screen something I want...if I can get android compatibility, but that has been announced on the next chrome book there is embarrassingly little in it.
No, it's not expensive. It's just plain useless.
Windows RT was a dismal failure, and Windows 8 will be equally disastrous. It fails on the touch front and on the mouse and keyboard front. Having tried it extensively, allow me to name the ways:
Touch:
1) The Metro home screen is the only touch-friendly aspect of it. However, it is filled with useless Microsoft apps that can't function without an internet connection and are tied to largely inferior Microsoft internet services.
2) It has the usual miserable Windows software keyboard and handwriting recognition, with fairly limited support.
3) Outside of Metro, the remainder is the usual touch-unfriendly Windows interface meant for a mouse and keyboard, where fat fingers will simply fail. This is what gets me the most. If the thing is a touchscreen, then it should be configured out of the box to be touch-friendly. Instead, it is configured as un-touch-friendly as possible. And worse, while you can say switch Explorer to use large icons on a grid instead of the list or details view, many screens simply don't have a touch-friendly interface.
4) The edge swiping is annoying and easy to do accidentally, The left edge "screen list" is useful, but only to bring up Metro apps.
5) Having to go to Metro just to access the swipe that will bring up a button to get to the list of programs is painfully clunky. The bottom swipe should be active on the desktop screen, and it should be the list of applications, not an extra button.
6) The right swipe should have been able to access the entire control panel, but instead, it's largely useless.
On the mouse and keyboard front:
1) The Metro UI and swiping is as horrible as expected. Some things have Metro and old Windows equivalents, but most do not. It's incredibly annoying to switch between mouse and keyboard, and touch, and that's pretty much what's necessary to use Metro.
2) And I don't think I need to mention that you can't even get to your software list without going through Metro, which is already a three step affair even by touch.
3) It doesn't come with the cover, which is another $150.
Oh, and did I mention that you have to "activate" Windows before you can use some of its functionality? It's hardware made by Microsoft but there's somehow still a chance copy of Windows on it can be a bootleg. Activation is automatic with an internet connection, fortunately, but it's ridiculous that it's even necessary.
I expect Windows 8 to be slightly better than RT, in that it can run traditional apps. And there are third-party programs to minimize the damage Metro causes for those who want to do useful work with it. But that's about as good as it'll get. It's still a touch disaster, and a fairly useless "entertainment" device (RT comes with Office, but no games preinstalled).
Microsoft needs to shape up if they want to even have a shot at the tablet market. They possess a split personality disorder both on the UI front and on the developer front that they very much need to ditch. If they can't seem to figure out what kind of machine it is (or develop a separate "personality" for each purpose), nobody else will be able to. And people will avoid it.
For starters, they're going to have to revamp the entire look-and-feel of their tablet Windows to be touch-centric. It'll be easy to go from touch back to mouse and keyboard, because the mouse is just a very, very fine finger. But they need to commit to it, instead of leaving half of the screens in the old Windows UI and the other (useless) half touch-friendly.
And they'll have to include the keyboard out of the box. The software keyboard is a stinking manure pile. Nobody's going to buy a Surface/Pro without an external keyboard. Nobody's going to touch Windows RT/8 without a real keyboard.
Portable work devices are rarely perpetually-connected, while entertainment devices are usually connected. Including Office with RT to make it a useful work device was genius, but not including any games was equally boneheaded stupid.
Only if they can fix the split personality disorder in the rumored Windows 8.1, could it be a useable OS. Otherwise, it'll just be another disaster.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
The thing you are overlooking is your needs aren't a significant part of the market. A stylus and all that other stuff? If those were major selling points then Microsoft would have been successful with tablets say... 15 years ago.
Your repetitious "90% of today's tablets don't" blah blah. Sounds like a prediction that Surface will battle and claw it's way to... 10% market share?
Surface Pro is the best tablet that can run x86 applications. Show me another machine that is as thin, light, and powerful with a stylus. You can't.
Sure I can. Thinner, lighter, Core i5, and it has a stylus.
A device can only be really good at one thing. This is not a new principle to design but pretty much the fucking foundation of industrial design.
You seem so sure of yourself, evident by the unnecessary profanity. And yet many highly successful products both past and present betray your assertion.
MP3 + Video player => iPod Touch and its ilk
MP3 + Video player + Browser + Apps + Phone => smartphones
Passenger car + SUV => Crossover SUV cars
Game Console + Media Center => PS3, Xbox 360, soon PS4 and Xbox 4
PC + LCD monitor hybrids => All in one PC's, iMac
Compact Camera + Interchangeable lens => Micro 4/3 (e.g. Sony NEX)
Printer + Scanner + Fax => Printer / Scanner / Fax (duh)
Radio + CD Player => Boombox, FM Walkman
Power Screwdriver + Power Drill => Combo Power Screwdriver / Drill
Hammer + Crowbar => Pretty much any hammer you find today
and the list goes on and on and on. Pretty much every one of these carries with it compromises that can be lambasted by anyone inclined to do so. In all successful cases, the benefits match or exceed the compromise. Some of these examples are more enduring than others, but the bottom line is that compromised hybrid designs are a fine way to go about product design.