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Microsoft Offers $650 To MacBook Users Who Switch To A Surface Tablet (techcrunch.com)
After Wednesday's announcement of their new Surface Studio tablet, Microsoft launched a campaign to entice MacBook users to try Surface tablets. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes TechCrunch:
Essentially, the company is offering MacBook owners $650 toward a Surface Pro or Surface Book, if they trade in their Apple laptop. Sure, it's all promotion, but it's the sort of gag that affords the company opportunity to showcase its perceived advantages over Cupertino as the company looks to appeal more and more toward creatives -- a category long dominated by Apple.
The offer is only valid through November 7th, according to Microsoft's official rules, and the deal does not extend to iPads.
The offer is only valid through November 7th, according to Microsoft's official rules, and the deal does not extend to iPads.
Seems like I can trade in old mbp's I no longer use, resell the surface pro on ebay and get the cash for a new mbp.
Only problem: I don't think I could move the surface pro's profitably (or perhaps at all).
See what NFL coaches n players think of the new surface. Many many videos of them cursing the piece of junk n tossing it across the field.
Reeks of desperation.
Microsoft is desperate both to get their hands on some decent PCs, and also to get rid of Surfaces...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Compared to the new MacBook Pro the Surface tablet is probably faster too :-D
Sadly they both have the same dual core cpu but the MS one is 1/3 the price. FYI I own a surface pro 3 and Ubuntu runs great on it! No you did not misread that if anyone wants to run it on a thin and light form factor I recommend it. I still have Windows 10 as well for my Netfix apps which are are handy on a plane.
http://saveie6.com/
Er, so MS managed to show off probably the best tool for creatives/artists at a fairly good price - totally bespoke design.
Apple? Another laptop, almost identical in performance and features to the one from 3 years ago, but more expensive, with a retina touchpad instead of a touch screen. Plus they kind of overlooked the fact a lot of people like to plug their phone into their laptops to leech power for charging. So there's a dongle for that.
Yeah, that "happened" I guess...
Code, Hardware, stuff like that.
They're offering up to $650. My not-very-old Retina Macbook Pro is only worth $475, and I do not a $899 Surface Pro to be trading "up".
You know it's bad when you have to try and coax people into using your product.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I might do this if I could install Linux on it.
Since my MacBook became old and sluggish, I've been using a Chromebook and love the touch screen. Now that Apple has revealed it's long overdue (and underwhelming) MacBook updates, I'm looking for an alternative but I just won't ever use Windows... ever.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Is what is Microsoft going to give me for switching from a MacBook Pro to A Dell Latitude E7470 running Windows?
Used MacBooks sell for $350 to $1300, i.e. some MacBooks are worth a lot more than the $650 they are offering. I wonder if they'll take my ex-wife's broken Mac Book...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Microsoft has done something very bizarre to WiFi in Windows 10. I have network dropouts on Wifi routers that have worked consistently with Androids, iOS devices and earlier versions of Windows. It actually has been extremely frustrating, as we're using some Lenovo Windows 10 mini-PCs plugged into TVs for advertising services and playing videos at some locations. Windows 10 is constantly "semi-forgetting" networks, so it shows the network as visible, but won't autoconnect. Sometimes a reboot fixes it, but the usual solution is to forget the network and then rejoin, sometimes with a reboot. We've experienced the same thing with several laptops that were upgraded to Windows 10, and we chalked it up to old drivers, but these Lenovo devices come with Windows 10 preinstalled, and a pretty new devices so I don't buy the notion that it's a driver issue. In fact, I got a Windows 10 7" tablet when I bought my new notebook from the Microsoft Store, and it suffers the same issue on occasion, losing the network, and I have to tell the OS to forget it and then usually I can bring it back, but it's a pain.
I'm positive that the rewritten WiFi modules in Windows 10 are just plain buggy. In fact, everything about Windows 10, even the new start menu, seem very fragile, and it takes little more than an update or some setting change to lead to the UI getting fucked up. My latest favorite is my Start menu suddenly becoming transparent. Go on the net, and lo and behold, it's an issue, with a fix which worked for me, but according to reports, may not last long. I've had other issues with Edge and start menus where the solution literally came down to "Cook profile, start from scratch".
Windows 10 has some technical advantages, but since they adopted the sort of "perpetual beta" release model, the quality assurance has gone right down the shits. It feels like they're releasing updates that haven't been fully tested, and then relying upon the telemetry to phone home and tell the mother ship that some UI update has broken some installs.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
> it's the sort of gag that affords the company opportunity to showcase its perceived advantages over Cupertino
To me it's the exact opposite of being perceived as better, it's "people who have tried Mac don't want to use our products, we have to PAY them to use ours." Part of Apple's marketing of iOS devices is that they are unapologeticly more expensive, they are positioned as "premium" products. Microsoft is going the exact opposite way.
Many years ago when I launched my first hosting company I didn't want to deal with "bad" customers, people who don't pay, send spam, attract DMCA notices, etc. I wanted to offer a professional service for professional webmasters, so I made it invitation-only. You could host with us only if we knew you or you had good references from people we know. As it turned out, NO potential customer EVER turned down an invitation to host their site with us; the exclusivity turned out to be a great marketing bit. It wasn't false exclusivity, BTW, since we weren't spending 80% of our time dealing with BS from a few PITA customers, we were able to provide excellent service. Anyway this thing from Microsoft is the opposite. "Nobody who has tried Mac wants our product, we have to pay people to take it" is what I see.
Somebody might get the impression that they can trade their very old and/or broken Mac and get $650 worth in MS bucks. They would be horribly mistaken. The old Macs fetch $75. And less if they are broken.
To get $650, you have to trade in a used Mac that is worth about $1,000 on the market.
What is not to like?
Windows 10 is constantly "semi-forgetting" networks, so it shows the network as visible, but won't autoconnect. Sometimes a reboot fixes it, but the usual solution is to forget the network and then rejoin, sometimes with a reboot.
I don't use Win 10 but I have several friends that report the same thing. It just drops the connection randomly. Some people step away for a moment and come back and the connection is visible but no longer connected.
Oftentimes reentering the password doesn't work (it always says it's "wrong", even when we know damn well it's been entered correctly). As you mention, they usually have to to forget the network and then rediscover/rejoin it. This happens with both laptops and desktops.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Perhaps you could tell the Redmond shill who modded me a Troll.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Perhaps you could tell the Redmond shill who modded me a Troll.
Oh, he/she already knows, that's why they're doing it.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
"first they ignore you. then they laugh at you. then they fight you. then you win."
So it looks like MS has finally made it to stage 3.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Can I turn in my Powerbook 165C? I think it has System 7 on it.
It's a conspiracy. Microsoft not only wants to sabotage your wifi, they want to keep it a secret while doing so.
What a scam. Convince your customers to pay more so they won't appear to be one of the unwashed masses out in public. Then claim they will have a superior experience. While slowly removing features from subsequent generations of the product, and increasing the price.
"You are fortunate that we are willing to take your money." Suckers.
I suggest we have a friendly competition to show who can show the most eloquent disrespect of Microsoft's idea. I like your "... its perceived advantages over Co-operation..." However, here is my entry in the competition: Quote from the story linked by Slashdot: "...it's the sort of gag..." (2016-10-29, 13:14 PDT)
Definition: gag: choke or retch. Synonyms: retch, heave, dry-heave.
So, the Microsoft Surface Tablet is a "gag" of a tablet? Was the writer of that article unconsciously showing his disrespect?
Microsoft Windows 10 is a "gag" of an operating system? From a Network World article: Windows 10 is possibly the worst spyware ever made. Quote: "Buried in the service agreement is permission to poke through everything on your PC." Windows 10 is now "Gag OS"?
Has it gone up that much? Last I checked a big mac was only $4.
You're forgetting that most people buy the fries/drink combo - so it's more like $6.50. What Microsoft doesn't realize, however, is that Excel screwed up again and shifted the decimal point two places.
#DeleteChrome
Excel was a program for the Macintosh years before it became available for Windows.
Microsoft made a LOT of money selling office software for Macintoshes before Windows even existed.
Did Excel screw up, or did your Mac just run out of memory?
Windows 10 is constantly "semi-forgetting" networks, so it shows the network as visible, but won't autoconnect. Sometimes a reboot fixes it, but the usual solution is to forget the network and then rejoin, sometimes with a reboot.
iOS seemingly has the exact opposite problem. I will tell it to forget certain networks (like the crappy wifi on our Sounder commuter trains), which will work... for a day or two. But then a few days later the phone will start auto-joining them again.
I do have "ask to join networks" disabled, although that's not quite the same thing anyway.
#DeleteChrome
I had been using an old Macbook as my primary system for my day job, however I was forced by my employer to upgrade. The newest version of MacOS X supported on it was still so old that the anti-virus software that my employer uses was no longer being updated for it. All of the upgrade choices ran our corporate-build of Windows 10, so I ended up with a shiny new Windows 10 laptop.
I figured that it wouldn't be a big deal. Most of my work involves VPN'ing into a corporate network and ssh'ing into Unix-y/Linux systems where my real work is done. But, after a couple of months of this, I am ready to buy a cheap, used (but new enough for anti-virus upgrades) MacBook to do my work on.
There are just too many stupid bugs in Windows (when switching between displays and display modes, the desktop manager resizes windows to the smallest width and height even after switching to a larger display until restarted) and really annoying inconsistencies between applications (is consistent cut-and-paste behavior really so hard to implement?). And, then there is the battery life. The laptop nominally has a 10-hour battery, but, using it the same way that I was using the 9-year-old MacBook with a 5-year-old battery, I am getting less time between needing to recharge than I did with the MacBook (2.5 hours max). There may be ways to get the new Windows laptop to work as well as the old Macbook did, but shouldn't it just work well out of the box?
Not a deal. All the laptops listed are worth more than $680.00 I was checking to see if my old 2008 macbook pro with the intermittent nvidia issue was accepted. Nope. Most of the laptops listed are still worth over $1200.00 If you really want to "switch teams" then you are better off selling your laptop on Amazon.
Maybe, the NFL is interested, especially New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick .
Let's trade a nice $2500 laptop for a $600 paperweight. Even 5 year old MBPs have higher resale value and have way better performance than their product and they're not even offering that much for it.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
These things are almost detail-for-detail copies of the MacBook, iMac, and iPad lines. Only, they look a bit clunkier.
And the best part of all is that they are manufactured by Lenovo. You know, IBM's former laptop brand, sold to a Chinese conglomerate. . . and Lenovo products are notorious for coming with spyware and malware pre-installed.
OK, here is the best part, actually. You must send in your charger along with the functioning Mac laptop. Those things cost $65 to $85 all by themselves! Add in that that $650 is only a discount coupon to the purchase of Microsoft's clone of the MacBook Pro you are ditching. And of course, you only get the full $650 discount on a really recent Mac laptop. An older one. . . Well, you would get more on ebay for it than this 'trade-in value' that Microsoft is offering.
Last, there are many restrictions. The display must have no dead pixels. None. No scratches. Must boot up. No property ID tags. The list of restrictions goes on and on.
This is just PR, and a bad deal for someone looking to sell/trade an extra laptop they have sitting around. (I have 6.) You will get more cash money by selling your old laptop on ebay than by taking up Microsoft on this "deal" – and all the back-doors you'd expect from Lenovo and Microsoft.
In sum, the offer is insulting. If I trade in my fully-loaded Mac to get a Microsoft (Lenovo) clone of that Mac that has the same specs of what I am trading in (1 TB, 16 GB RAM, etc.), then the price is at least $3300! That is more than I paid for my Mac with similar specs. . . a couple of years ago! Why does this myth of Macs being expensive persist? Sure, you can buy a cheap computer, or a cheap car. Neither is the same as a well-designed and reliably manufactured laptop or car. You can buy a Camry or a BMW. You can buy a Dell or a Mac. I digress. . .
In any case, a Mac can dual-boot to run OS X, Windows, or Linux. Just partition your drive and go. I run Windows, when required, from a sleek Micro-SD card that does not stick out. I use Fusion, enabling use of Windows and OS X simultaneously, thanks to my two dual cores. And it's sand-boxed, so no Windows sploits can breach my main system (OS X).
It works seamlessly. I switch between Windows and OS X in a programming class that I teach: I use the environment that a given student is using on their laptop. The API is running on both OS's, as well as Firefox on both, and some others on the OS X side. It is so dead-easy to switch between them on the fly, during lab-sessions of a class.
No one will take this "offer" from Microsoft. You would get less than you gave away. And be stuck in Windows-only. Ick.
Ever noticed that these "creatives" mostly seem to be copying apple?
I think what we need is for these people to stop doing that and try to be innovative and think new forms, shapes and concepts. Then maybe they wouldn't call the 7'th generation of slight improvements of a product for a breakthrough and a revolutionary design.
... I launched my first hosting company I didn't want to deal with "bad" customers, people who don't pay, send spam, attract DMCA notices, etc. I wanted to offer a professional service for professional webmasters, so I made it invitation-only. You could host with us only if we knew you or you had good references from people we know. As it turned out, NO potential customer EVER turned down an invitation to host their site with us; the exclusivity turned out to be a great marketing bit. It wasn't false exclusivity, BTW, since we weren't spending 80% of our time dealing with BS from a few PITA customers, we were able to provide excellent service.
Thank you for the advice!
I don't want my own web startup to turn into the 'next' Mega-Upload or whatever, but to be a service that caters to a specific market. This is the way to do it. I can cater to my specific 'type' of clientele, and not worry about leechers who would pay, but then inundate me with DMCA take-downs.
Great advice!
I've been running web-centric business since the mid-1990s, so I've have opportunities to make plenty of mistakes, and do a few things right. I'd be glad to share my lessons-learned if you want to chat some time, tell me about what you're doing.
Speed and features aren't really at the forefront, unless you consider the pen and touch input as new features. What is at the forefront is runtime. A few years ago, 4-5 hours was a great run time for a standard battery on a "powerful" machine. Now everybody pretty much complains if you don't get 8 hours of real-world use on the top (fastest) hardware model. Power has given way to battery life, like some kind of perverse MPG war, leaving those who want portable workstations wondering what happened to their market.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
We've experienced the problem on some pretty varied hardware so while I think driver issues may be part of the problem, I think Microsoft has some culpability here. After all, "test for Internet" usually means pinging some hardcoded addresses and seeing if they respond, so if you have an outage of any kind, that could produce a false flag. I've certainly see iOS, Windows and Android devices complain that a connection has no Internet, but I've never had any of them disconnect me, and sometimes I've been happily surfing the net even as the device alerts me that I don't have Internet access. If the cause of this is Microsoft flagging a connection because of what it sees as a lack of Internet, then that's just bad logic.
But I don't really think that it explains this. In this case, it isn't merely that Windows drops the connection, it's that you cannot re-establish the connection without instructing Windows to forget the network. I think those goes deeper, and to my mind it indicates some flakiness in the Windows 10 WiFi subsystem. The only time I ever experienced this sort of issue was very early on in the 802.11a/b days when the hardware and software were far less mature, and where reboots or driver unloads/reloads were needed at times. But we're talking fifteen years ago now.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I noticed Win10 does not like realtek hardware. Hell, neither does FreeBSD or Linux :-)
I am not giving MS a hail marry pass on this but rather Win 10 might seem to work the right way rather than code around hardware bugs or have hardware code around windows bugs which has plauged Unix on x86 since the freaking dawn of time.
On intel wifi Windows 10 works fine. Older hardware that is Win 7 certified has been problematic with updates and other things from what I observed. Especially bios based motherboards and older graphics as well. Anything UEFI based after 2013 seems to work ok
Anyone else notice this?
http://saveie6.com/
Incentives, hard sales, even Hawaii Five-O spots... still can't sell the POS.
Here's a thought, dump the really bad OS and make something real instead of trying to bolt onto a really bad foundation. Great stuff on top of crap is still crap.
Your really big chance was back in the late 1990s when you were being sued. Should have sold the OS to IBM for say a billion, then upgraded the OS to Linux. It's a win win win. You guys get a really good OS under it, Linux users get office, IBM gets screwed again. What more could we ask for?
Oh, and you should have dumped monkey-boy years ago. Just google microsoft and monkey boy. No, it's not racist. Then google balmer and 1980s. You can see one of the original M$ commercials.
If the submitter / editor thinks the Surface Studio is a tablet, I want to see their workout regimen.
$650 is only for recent high spec models.