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Microsoft Takes Another Stab At Tablets, Unveils Surface 2, Surface 2 Pro

Posted by samzenpus on from the let's-try-this-again dept.

Dputiger writes "Microsoft has unveiled both the Surface 2 and Surface 2 Pro, updating the former with a Tegra 4 processor and the latter with a new Haswell chip. Among the additional improvements are a more comfortable kickstand with two height settings, 1080p displays for both devices, USB 3.0 support, better battery life, and a higher resolution camera. Pricing for the 32GB Surface without a Touch or Type Cover is set at $449."

10 of 381 comments (clear)

  1. Why aim for shrinking Market share. by tuppe666 · · Score: 4, Informative

    "This isn't an iPad 2" and "This isn't an iPad 2 pro".

    The iPad Market share of tablets is shrinking (down to 30%), they actual sell less than last year. Android are now dominant in tablets.

    Current share from IDC http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS24253413

    1. Re: Why aim for shrinking Market share. by the+computer+guy+nex · · Score: 4, Informative

      IDC counts shipments, not sales. The original galaxy tab was estimated by the IDC at over 2 million shipments, but later we learned it sold more like 50k. Web browsing numbers show the ipad at around 88% of marketshare, which counts actual purchased devices.

    2. Re: Why aim for shrinking Market share. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      I set my android tablet to report that it was desktop chrome because I got tired of getting shitty webpages designed to be unusable on a cellphone that were completely unusable on a tablet.

    3. Re: Why aim for shrinking Market share. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah but it could also be that iPads are used more for web browsing, or the users pull up more web pages in the same amount of time on the web.

    4. Re: Why aim for shrinking Market share. by organgtool · · Score: 3, Informative

      That is not the point. The parent was right to smack down the number of units shipped since the number of tablets rotting on shelves is useless. However, that poster was wrong to quote a number without citing the source as well as believe that the number has any meaning since we do not know the method in which that data was collected. That number could have come from a careful analysis that only counted users once via their login credentials or it could have been from some asshole who had a blog that had eight pageviews, seven of which were from an iPad. The point is that we don't know, so his figures are just as useless as the ones in the post in which he was replying.

    5. Re: Why aim for shrinking Market share. by AlphaWolf_HK · · Score: 4, Informative

      I think what he's getting at is that particular website may just be more popular among ipad users.

      Looking at user agent statistics really is a bad way of measuring device market share in general as it can't possibly tabulate a reliable sample of users. I guarantee you for example that bing.com would report far more windows phone users than android users, whereas google.com would probably report the opposite, and I don't think it really necessitates explaining why that is.

      --
      Careful with names containing L slashdot.org/~AiphaWolf_HK slashdot.org/~AlphaWoif_HK slashdot.org/~AiphaWoif_HK
    6. Re: Why aim for shrinking Market share. by Gavagai80 · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not the user, it's the device manufacturer doing the spoofing. The user agent of my [very cheap mass market walmart] android tablet's default browser is "Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; U; CPU OS 3_2 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/531.21.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.4 Mobile/7B367 Safari/531.21.10". I guess they do that to get tablet versions of pages served by websites designed for ipads.

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      This space intentionally left blank
  2. Re:Microsoft seems not to understand. by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 4, Informative

    People don't want Microsoft on their tablet.

    ...anyone who works in an office environment does.

    I have a Surface Pro (NOT RT. Repeat after me NOT RT) tablet at work - and it works like a charm. It's a Core i5 running Metro + Win 8 pro. Runs full MS Office and has access to all network resources. At my desk it has its desktop extended to another monitor (try doing that with an iPad) with attached keyboard & mouse. Away from my desk it's got a detachable proper clicky keyboard and a nifty stylus.

    If I'm "tableting" with it and I just want to check something or watch something on the train I tap a metro tile's app and pull it up

    If I need to do 'real' work I go to the Windows desktop.

    All my colleagues carry two devices (iPad + Note/ultrabook PC) - I carry one. Every time I pull it out at a meeting or at the airport people say "oooh... what's *that*?" The RT noise is distracting people from what is otherwise a very cool machine.

    You couldn't pay me to lug a laptop around anymore.

  3. Re:MS Tablet Strategy by Zero__Kelvin · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's like if Ford tried to increase Pinto sales by putting a bigger gas tank in it and selling it for more money.

    --
    Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
  4. Re:Or alternatively by DaHat · · Score: 4, Informative

    ..what the fuck can you do in surface rt command line?

    A good chunk of what you can do otherwise, ditto with Powershell... though there are a few interop things which are locked out IIRC (such as P/Invoking from PS).

    what the fuck is the usb port good for when you have no drivers for anything?

    I dunno... transferring files via sneaker-net between an external thumb drive, HD or memory card?

    I'd respond to more of what you've said, but it would appear you are so hate filled that there is no point in trying much more to reason with you.

    --
    Help Brendan pay off his student loans