Microsoft Surface tablets

[wco81]

Software is a factor. One of the things people are noticing is that they're running Android phone apps. on the Nexus 7 or apps. where the UI is compressed.

Maybe it will sell well enough to spur development of more tablet apps. for Android.

7-inch screen form factor is already successful with the eReaders. I can see getting a dedicated eReader or a 7-inch tablet to supplement my iPad at some point. Would make reading in bed more viable and could use it for GPS on a car more easily.

 

[zed]

I don't personally understand 7 inch tablets at all. I have a 5.3 inch phone with a 1280x800 screen. It's always online (3G/HDSPA), pocketable and brings by email and web browser (and the rest of the googe ecosystem) where-ever I go. 7 inch tablets weight over twice as much as a 5.3 inch phone, are are not that well space optimized (huge bezels, thicker, etc), require a bag to carry around (just like bigger 9/10 inch tablets), do not offer any better screen resolution than phones (same 1280x800), require wlan to be online, are not able to receive phone calls and text messages. All this for just 1.7 inches of extra screen space (and no extra pixels)?

Retina iPad on the other hand...

Im prolly gonna get a ipad3 this weekend but personally I would prefer a 7" version. sure big is better when youre actually using it, but WRT portability 7" fits in my jacketpocket (I just tried, quite easily) perhaps not in my pants pocket but with 10" no way its going in there, I'ld have to stick it in a bag or something

 

[AlphaWolf]

I don't personally understand 7 inch tablets at all. I have a 5.3 inch phone with a 1280x800 screen. It's always online (3G/HDSPA), pocketable and brings by email and web browser (and the rest of the googe ecosystem) where-ever I go. 7 inch tablets weight over twice as much as a 5.3 inch phone, are are not that well space optimized (huge bezels, thicker, etc), require a bag to carry around (just like bigger 9/10 inch tablets), do not offer any better screen resolution than phones (same 1280x800), require wlan to be online, are not able to receive phone calls and text messages. All this for just 1.7 inches of extra screen space (and no extra pixels)?

Retina iPad on the other hand...

7" tablet fits in a large pocket (ie. jacket or cargo pants), it's small enough to use one handed and is about the same size as a paperback novel. And nice try on the screen space, but it's a massive difference. It's like comparing that 5.3 inch (galaxy note?) to a 4 inch display, why bother it's only 1.3 inches?

 

[zed]

yes 10" is slightly bigger than twice the size of 7"
5.3 -> 7 may only be 1.7" more but thats 74.5% larger
(assuming all the ratio's remain the same and not going from fullscreen to squashed screen)

 

[eastmen]

We will have to wait and see, but I anticipate very strong sales for the Nexus 7 between now and year end. The Nexus 7 tablet is great for anyone who prefers to use gmail and the rest of the google ecosystem.

its a pretty poor ecosystem. Amazon's is much better and I believe the fire 2 will be the better tablet hardware wise.

And i'm a nook guy who owns no amazon products

 

[Squilliam]

Im prolly gonna get a ipad3 this weekend but personally I would prefer a 7" version. sure big is better when youre actually using it, but WRT portability 7" fits in my jacketpocket (I just tried, quite easily) perhaps not in my pants pocket but with 10" no way its going in there, I'ld have to stick it in a bag or something

But aren't you a nudist?

 

[Mintmaster]

I agree & thats their undoing, their we're still the MS of 10-15 years ago. Hubris
look at zune
look at bing (& the 30+ billion crazy offer fo yahoo) ballmer vs google
look at the new nokia phones

How are any of those examples of MS positioning themselves at the higher end of the market? Zune had no particularly useful benefits over iPod (the sharing thing could have been nice, but it had a massive chicken and egg problem along with the RIAA to battle), and hence couldn't be positioned higher up. Bing has marginal benefits to Google. The Nokia windows phones were never premium products, and it took ages for Nokia to put any serious effort into one (and still only one).

Instead of following & being conservative, MS should lead from the front with innovation, take chances, like google

MS is never going to be as research focused as Google on the whole, but how can you complain about innovation in a Surface thread? Look at what they've been planning for years and culminating into an enormous cohesive ecosystem between WP8, Win8, and XBox, along with leading the directionless OEMs with Surface.

Live tiles is the most significant UI innovation since icons were first invented. For 30+ years, they've just been prettied up with higher bit depth and a nicer wallpaper, and you can bet that Google and Apple are pissed that they didn't think of this first. I would have payed a $50+ premium for a Win8 version of my phone (Galaxy Note) if it existed.

I don't think MS has ever been as innovative as they are now.

 

[Mintmaster]

7" tablet fits in a large pocket (ie. jacket or cargo pants), it's small enough to use one handed and is about the same size as a paperback novel. And nice try on the screen space, but it's a massive difference. It's like comparing that 5.3 inch (galaxy note?) to a 4 inch display, why bother it's only 1.3 inches?

Is there a new sweeping fashion trend that I'm unaware of?

I suppose if you have enormous pockets it'll work, but the Note already got heavily derided at launch for it's size and difficulty to pocket. There's definitely a big sacrifice in portability between a 7" tablet and a smartphone, but not so much going from an ultralight notebook or Surface-like device to a regular tablet.

 

[eastmen]

Is there a new sweeping fashion trend that I'm unaware of?

I suppose if you have enormous pockets it'll work, but the Note already got heavily derided at launch for it's size and difficulty to pocket. There's definitely a big sacrifice in portability between a 7" tablet and a smartphone, but not so much going from an ultralight notebook or Surface-like device to a regular tablet.

At the point of having to fit a 7inch tablet into a pocket I might as well get a scotts vest or carry a bag with me and have a bigger screen.

But its personal prefrence. My gf could fit a note in her clutch or a kindle in most of her purses. She'd have to take a bag along with a purse to carry an ipad or a surface.

I can most likely fit a 5 inch or smaller screen in my pockets , then again I'm 6'4 and wear loose fit pants.

 

[AlphaWolf]

Is there a new sweeping fashion trend that I'm unaware of?

Wearing a jacket or coat? Apparently. Some places have seasons where they are sort of required.

 

[bkilian]

Wearing a jacket or coat? Apparently. Some places have seasons where they are sort of required.

What is this "seasons" of which you speak? Summer is the only week of the year I don't wear my jacket...

 

[3dcgi]

What is this "seasons" of which you speak? Summer is the only week of the year I don't wear my jacket...

Where I live winter is the only week of the year I wear a jacket. :smile:

 

[zed]

But aren't you a nudist?

you may not of noticed it being up north, but down here due to the winter we have this white stuff on the grass most mornings now

Live tiles is the most significant UI innovation since icons were first invented.

this is sig worthy

 

[Squilliam]

you may not of noticed it being up north, but down here due to the winter we have this white stuff on the grass most mornings now.

Do you have a lot of sex workers working on your street?

 

[itsmydamnation]

Do you have a lot of sex workers working on your street?

nar they just like to make blow angles

 

[zed]

nar they just like to make blow angles

sorry, please explain, that went above my head. (square?)
@Squillian I live in a retirement village so I assume not, but one never knows what the codgers are up to

 

[eastmen]

Does anyone remember if they stated this would use a laptop like charger or a microusb charger ?

 

[bkilian]

Does anyone remember if they stated this would use a laptop like charger or a microusb charger ?

I am guessing a magsafe-like connector using that weird oval thing. We saw a patent for it go past recently.

 

[Sxotty]

Real Work = applications that require a powerful computer with a comfortable sized screen...CAD/CAM, video editing etc.

Word, Excel and PowerPoint is not real work...because they do not need powerful computers to run eg they could run on Atom based Netbooks with TINY 10" 16:9 screens. Nobody in their right mind would buy a powerful $1000 computer so they could run spreadsheets on the go unless they have lots of money to burn or are part of the niche high priced electronic gadget geeks club....lol.

I think you are a bit crazy. I know I have done plenty of real work in excel using VBA and I certainly was happy to have multiple cores and a fast computer. Running it on my laptop instead of desktop was a painful experience.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

It seems that until January 2013, very few companies will be able to make Windows RT tablets.
Apparently each of the licensed chipset maker was able to chose two tablet manufacturers.

That article says it'll be like this:

- nVidia for Lenovo and Asus
- Texas Instruments for Toshiba
- Qualcomm for Samsung and HP


It's really weird that Acer isn't in that list, as they have experience in both Google and Windows tablets. Lenovo and HP, on the other hand, don't seem to have been very successful in the tablet market. Toshiba is also a bit questionable, they've put out some despicably bad tablets in 2010/2011.

Moreover, there won't be a single Rogue GPU in the first batch of Windows RT tablets.