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Microsoft To Launch a Line of Lower-Cost Surface Tablets With 10-inch Displays By Second Half of 2018, Report Says (bloomberg.com)
Microsoft plans to launch a line of lower-cost Surface tablets as soon as the second half of 2018, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. These devices should help Microsoft improve its market share in the iPad-led hybrid machines market, the outlet noted. From the report: Microsoft has tried this before. The software giant kicked off its consumer-oriented hardware push in 2012 with the launch of the original Surface RT. At the time, it was priced starting at $499. After the tablets didn't resonate with consumers and product reviewers, Microsoft pivoted to the more-expensive Surface Pro, a line which has gained steam and likely contributed to demand for a pro-oriented iPad, which Apple launched in 2015.
The new tablets will feature 10-inch screens -- around the same size as a standard iPad, but smaller than the 12-inch screens used on the Surface Pro laptop line. The new Surfaces, priced about $400, will have rounded edges like an iPad, differing from the squared off corners of current models. They'll also include USB-C connectivity, a first for Surface tablets, a new charging and syncing standard being used by some of the latest smartphones. The tablets are expected to be about 20 percent lighter than the high-end models, but will have around four hours fewer of battery life. (The current Surface Pro can last 13.5 hours on a single charge.)
The new tablets will feature 10-inch screens -- around the same size as a standard iPad, but smaller than the 12-inch screens used on the Surface Pro laptop line. The new Surfaces, priced about $400, will have rounded edges like an iPad, differing from the squared off corners of current models. They'll also include USB-C connectivity, a first for Surface tablets, a new charging and syncing standard being used by some of the latest smartphones. The tablets are expected to be about 20 percent lighter than the high-end models, but will have around four hours fewer of battery life. (The current Surface Pro can last 13.5 hours on a single charge.)
I am pretty sure this will run Win 10, and nothing else without degraded performance on the system.
The millennial that doesn't like most of the stuff designed for millennials.
I would have expected Microsoft to pack it in by now. They've been at this mobile Windows thing since the 1990s (in a box somewhere I have a clamshell WinCE HPC running one of the earliest versions of WinCE - nice system actually, but...) and virtually everyone has made a success of it who's tried, except them. Apple (twice!) Google. Palm. Even Atari! (No, seriously, they came up with a pocket PC that was a runaway success, you may remember it from Terminator 2, John Connor uses it briefly to hack an ATM...) ATARI! You know, the company that made one of the first games consoles and then pretty much failed at everything since, but for a brief six month window in the early 1990s they had a hit on their hands which... uh, they fucked up like everything else.
And now they're at it again.
Maybe if they can get Windows 10 to run Android apps, like ChromeOS, they might stand a chance.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Why is the singleness of the charge always noted?
The current Surface Pro can last 40.5 hours on a triple charge.
I suspect that this will be yet another half-arsed compromise â" neither a good tablet nor a good laptop PC.
While much of Windows supports touch, even five years since Windows 8, many tasks in the operating system still require a precise pointing device such as a mouse, touch-pad or stylus. For instance, try selecting and copying more than one file at once! Sorry, can't do. Your fingers are too fat!
I also suspect that the mentioned USB-C port is going to be the only port on the device, like on most 8-inch and 10-inch Windows tablets today ... so you can't connect that mouse without an adaptor.
And as usual with Windows, you won't be able to use that port for file transfer to/from a real PC either as you would with a real tablet running Android or iOS.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
While the article points out the Surface RT and its failure it neglects to mention the Surface 3. It was a smaller and cheaper Surface Pro with an Intel Core m chip and a max 4GB of RAM. The digitizer wasn't as good as the Pro but wasn't bad.
They were decent Windows laptops (with the keyboard cover) but shitty tablets. Far too heavy to use comfortably in a tablet form factor for long periods. The battery life under Windows 8 was good but under 10 really sucked.
Unless this new tablet is literally the size and weight of an iPad Pro there's no way for them to really compete as a Tablet. They'll make ok Windows laptops that can occasionally be used without a keyboard. Windows 10 also needs to suck way less on low powered machines, maybe even changing it back to an operating system from an ad delivery platform.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
"Microsoft to try to convince people that their half-assed piece of shit Windows tablets are somehow better than an iPad"
..and I don't even own any Apple products nor do I care to.
Newton kickstarted the entire thing. The product was selling well and considered a player until Steve Jobs unexpectedly cancelled it. Most contemporary reviews claim Jobs did it out of spite, because Newton was the baby of the man who fired him.
Palm and Blackberry succeeded. Period. Yes, they eventually stopped, but if that makes them failures you might as well claim that, say, CRT TVs or cassette tapes were failures too. The Commodore 64 is the biggest failure in computing history by that metric.
Portfolio vs Libretto... what? Why are you asking or even comparing them? One was a DOS based palm top from 1990ish, the other came out a little later, ran Windows, and was comparable to a netbook today. Either way, yes, the Portfolio was a runaway success. Atari's failure to produce a follow-up meant that success was shortlived.
The point is that almost every company that's had a serious go of it has succeeded. Indeed, there are numerous examples of companies that succeeded that I didn't even bother to mention. Did they last forever? No, but they got a return on investment. Yes, there have been one or two failures outside of Microsoft, but Microsoft is pretty much the only company that's tried this game for nearly 30 years, and failed every single time.
Why are they still trying?
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I too have a Surface 3, love the hardware but can't stand Windows. Every time I think "it won't be so bad" it ends up worse than I expected. The Surfaces are also a complete pain in the ass to get Linux on and running reliably. These unfeatures combined for me to just get an iPad Pro (10").
I want a tablet that wakes and sleeps instantly and works well primarily in tablet mode. The Surface 3 sort of sleeps and wakes reliably but far less so than the iPad. The on-screen keyboard is terrible which necessitates a hardware keyboard of some sort. The keyboard cover makes for a terrible hardware keyboard since it sits at an angle and isn't very sturdy.
So good luck Microsoft, maybe a fourth time is a charm. I'm not holding my breath.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.