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Microsoft Surface Drowning?
hcs_$reboot (1536101) writes Again, not much good news for the MS Surface. Computerworld reports a Microsoft's losses on the tablet device at $US1.7 billion so far. But, still, Microsoft is serene: "It's been exciting to see the response to the Surface Pro 3 from individuals and businesses alike. In fact, Surface Pro 3 sales are already outpacing prior versions of Surface Pro. The Surface business generated more than $2B in revenue for the fiscal year 2014 and $409 million in revenue during Q4 FY14 alone, the latter of which included just ten days of Intel Core i5 Surface Pro 3 sales in Canada and the US." Should Microsoft pull the plug on the tablet? Or maybe it's just a matter of users getting used to the Surface? Even if they're losing money on the Pro 3, Microsoft has seemingly little to be ashamed of when it comes to reviews of the hardware.
As long as you understand that it doesn't run Windows programs, just like Windows Phone doesn't run Windows Apps, then personally I think it isn't that bad of a device.
I got a Surface 2 (RT) and I think that it has some great advantages over the other 10 inch tablet offerings. It has expandable storage using Micro SD (or USB3) which the iPad lacks.
It has native access to network drives which means that any program that accesses files can also read files off network drives (SMB and OneDrive) without requiring special programming, which is something that isn't available on iPad or Android.
It has a full size USB3 port which allows you to plug in all sorts of devices like proper mice and keyboards, as well as an XBox controller, which is great for gaming. A hub can be used to plug in multiple devices.
It has HDMI out using standard Micro USB which doesn't exist on the iPad, and which seems to be missing from a lot of Android offerings. This is great if you just want to hook up the device to a TV or a secondary monitor. You can either duplicate or extend your display.
There are very few restrictions as to what kind of apps they will allow you to publish. There are many emulators which work great with the XBox controller. There are also bittorrent clients. Those are 2 things you can't do with an iPad. You can also program your own apps using the free version of Visual Studio if you have a desktop/laptop.
My wife has an iPad and personally I find that it's a real pain to do things that should be easily do-able. I've gone through 4 or 5 apps (some paid and some free) to try to find an app that will just play videos of various formats off a network drive and haven't found a single one that will play all my videos. With my Surface 2, the built in video player will play just about anything, and I had to get another app to play MKV and MPEG2. The iPad only has 12 GB free out of the box, and the upgrade to the 32 GB version costs an extra $100. The 32 GB Surface RT (which is $50 cheaper than the 16 GB iPad) comes with 18 GB usable storage out of the box, and allows you to easily get more storage using the MicroSD slot. You can get the 64 GB Surface 2 for $50 cheaper than the 32 GB version of the iPad.
The only thing that I don't like about my Surface 2 is the small selection of apps. But despite that, I can't think of anything I can't do that I'd want to do with a 10 inch tablet. The only real disadvantage is that there are fewer games to choose from. I don't see that as a huge disadvantage.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.