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Microsoft Wants You To Trade Your MacBook Air In For a Surface Pro 3

Posted by samzenpus on from the try-ours-instead dept.

mpicpp writes with news about a new Microsoft trade-in program to encourage sales of the new Surface Pro 3. Microsoft is offering a limited time Surface Pro 3 promotion via which users can get up to $650 in store credit for trading in certain Apple MacBook Air models. The new promotion, running June 20 to July 31, 2014 -- "or while supplies last" -- requires users to bring MacBook Airs into select Microsoft retail stores in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada. (The trade-in isn't valid online.)...To get the maximum ($650) value, users have to apply the store credit toward the purchase of a Surface Pro 3, the most recent model of the company's Intel-based Surface tablets.

10 of 365 comments (clear)

  1. Not likely. by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 5, Informative

    The MBA and MBP are both fine machines. My wife get's a computer that works most of the time. I get a computer with a bash shell on which I can do my thing. Neither have shown any tendency to falls apart, unlike every Asus, Lenovo, Toshiba and HP we've had.

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
    1. Re:Not likely. by wile_e_wonka · · Score: 5, Informative

      What he means, I think, is that most computer companies make "consumer grade" machines and "commercial grade" machines. I've not has an Asus or Lenovo, but I've had Toshiba, HP, and Dell. With respect to Dell, I've had both consumer and commercial grade machines, built to higher specifications. Most recently I purchased a Dell Latitude 5000 series laptop--in Dell's explanation of this computer in comparison to the 7000 series, it gave the 5000 series a build quality of 3 out of 4 stars, it gave the 3000 series 2 out of 4 stars (still Latitude--which implies the consumer grade stuff is 1 out of 4 stars for build quality). The consumer grade machines seem to be designed to last about 2 years or less. The commercial grade machines are designed to last more like 4 years.

      The problem is, you have to pay a premium for the commercial grade machines.

      With Apple, there is no "consumer grade" and "commercial grade"--they're all made to high specifications.

  2. "up to" $650 for a macbook air trade in? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In 'good' condition... they're worth more than that on Craigslist...

    1. Re:"up to" $650 for a macbook air trade in? by guruevi · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The funny thing is, MBA's even early models are still worth a pretty dime second hand (usually 50-80% of purchase price based on condition and age), Surface Pro's won't fetch more than 1/3 of their purchase price.

      --
      Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
  3. Slashdot editors owe me a new keyboard. by jd2112 · · Score: 5, Funny

    "While supplies last." That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.

    --
    Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
  4. Re:This is telling by NoNonAlphaCharsHere · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Microsoft's advertising for the Surface has shown that they don't get what tablets are FOR, from day one.

    "And you can get a keyboard for it, and OF COURSE, it runs Microsoft Office"

    'Cause THAT'S what people do with tablets...

  5. They Multiply... by imag0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Here recently I run by the store on the way home to pick up some milk. Was in a rush and left my Surface Pro on the front seat, in plain view.

    When I came out, I discovered someone had broken into my car and left three more Surface Pro's :(

  6. Re:See even Microsoft thinks MacBook Airs rule! by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm a programmer. I've written GUI code, I've written a device driver that shipped in a commercial UNIX kernel. I've used Windows since 3.1 days (WindowsForWorkgroupsForTheWin!). I've even debugged and configured Windows Vista in Chinese even though I can't read it - I was able to get someone to translate the occasional dialog box.

    I can not understand Win8. When my sister asks me to help configure something on her Win8 laptop, I struggle with the UI as if I'm some rookie coming from some stoneage tribe.

    I hate hate hate hate Windows 8.

  7. Re:See even Microsoft thinks MacBook Airs rule! by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh good. I am not alone. I've seen some of the most arcane interfaces on this planet, some of them not seen by more than a handful of people altogether, so arcane and mysterious that its name shall not be spoken. GUIs that made you beg for a CLI, for you knew that even if you had to memorize all the commands and had no -? to aid you, it could not possibly take more than a fraction of the time you'd need to get behind the twisted logic of the GUI in front of you. I cursed them, but I mastered them all, in little time.

    Metro is a mystery. It simply has no rhyme or reason to it. It fucking makes no sense AT ALL. No matter what you want to do, applying sense and logic is the wrong way to do something. Usually you find your way around by pondering "Now, what would be the LEAST intuitive way to do something?", and usually you shall be rewarded with a solution.

    If you offered me the choice "Metro or..." my answer, before you are done with the sentence, is "the other one". Even if you end in "or a stone tablet".

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  8. In other news... by Macman408 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...Ford is offering a rebate on a new Fiesta (with power locks and windows!) for anybody willing to trade in their Tesla Model S.