Microsoft Surface tablets

[Mize]

IMHO a tablet around the home/office/gym needs ~10 hrs not to be annoying with recharging.

(side note - this thing is likely too thick (with KB) for the elliptical I use every morning at the gym - my iPad2 fits but not my TouchPad)

A laptop is fine in the 5-6 hour range as you can close it and sleep it when you're not actively working.

 

[wco81]

But how well will it run "professional" applications?

Some people have said they want to run things like Photoshop, CAD and IDE on it. Will it have the RAM to run these applications well?

I think you can get Sandy Bridge laptops with 8 GB of RAM for $700 now? No SSD and obviously very heavy but for "heavy" applications, more traditional laptops with the ability to expand RAM and storage may be better options.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

I was not comparing strictly battery benchmarks. But every review i have read from both consumers and techsites give the Slate 7 roughly 3 to 3,5 hours of battery life. And by that i dont mean running a 4 hour looping video or flash but simply using it normally

That's nonsense. I get 6 hours of browsing and light use easily. Not sure what's up with the "reviews" or what they're running, but 3.5 isn't even in the right ballpark.

And btw Photoshop runs beautifully on it - wacom digitizer w/ pressure sensitivity is amazing.

 

[Mize]

Engadget got 3:33 on the Slate 7 in both laptop and tablet battery tests.

 

[sebbbi]

But how well will it run "professional" applications?
Some people have said they want to run things like Photoshop, CAD and IDE on it. Will it have the RAM to run these applications well?

It has a fast Sandy Bridge CPU (four threads, turbo clock up to 2.3 GHz), fast 128 GB SSD, four gigabytes of DDR3-1333 and because it's running on Windows, it has full support for virtual memory as well (fast on SSD). I have 64 bit Windows 7 installed on mine (it's actually a work device, not my own). It's perfect for Photoshop. It has a 1024 level pressure sensitive Wacom digitizer after all. You can't get a better portable device for painting and image editing.

It beats my quad core desktop PC in CPU benchmarks. I have a Core 2 Quad Q6600, Intel SSD and fastest memory chips you could buy at that time. I agree that my home computer getting pretty old, but it's nice to see a tablet beating it in benchmarks

That's nonsense. I get 6 hours of browsing and light use easily. Not sure what's up with the "reviews" or what they're running, but 3.5 isn't even in the right ballpark.

And btw Photoshop runs beautifully on it - wacom digitizer w/ pressure sensitivity is amazing.

Yeah, 6 hours sounds pretty much right. It seems that we are the only ones here with actual experience of the device.

Engadget got 3:33 on the Slate 7 in both laptop and tablet battery tests.

That's actually what I was referring to in my last post. It was ran using Internet Explorer (the default browser). Install a decent browser to it, and you should see better battery life. And battery stress tests are not real life usage scenarios. Macbook Air and Ultrabooks also fare pretty badly in battery stress testing because Intel's chips are able to produce very good peak performance. In real life scenarios however a faster CPU finishes the job quicker, and gets to idle much faster than a slower one. This saves a lot of power, and makes the device feel really responsive. Battery stress test result scores should always be multiplied by the amount of work done (for example pages opened). That gives you a much more realistic figure.

Do you still consider that 3:33 result bad if the Intel based device (be it Slate, Macbook Air or an Ultrabook) opened 10 times more web pages during that period that iPad did?

 

[Jubei]

That's nonsense. I get 6 hours of browsing and light use easily. Not sure what's up with the "reviews" or what they're running, but 3.5 isn't even in the right ballpark.

And btw Photoshop runs beautifully on it - wacom digitizer w/ pressure sensitivity is amazing.

Obiously what defines usage will vary depending on the person. But you can check out amazon and peoples reviews and you will find plenty of people mentioning getting 3-4 hours of usage

In comparison here is an iPad playing 3D games for 12 hours straight

http://youtu.be/SH3RP2gdtTY

Obviously X86 tablets do have a market but its a very small one that caters to professionals that need a portable touchscreen with high performance. The average consumer however does not need this. Thats why tablets did not go mainstream until the iPad. Its popularity is not just because it had a touch centric OS but also because its truly portable because of its insane battery life.

So again.. in terms of battery life.. Surface RT and iPad is not even in the same league. But they also cater to two different markets

 

[Mize]

Found a PCMag or someother review that gave it 5:37...not too shabby. They hated the on-screen keyboard though and the lack of stylus storage.

 

[sebbbi]

Found a PCMag or someother review that gave it 5:37...not too shabby. They hated the on-screen keyboard though and the lack of stylus storage.

I agree, the on-screen keyboard on Windows 7 sucks. On screen keyboard and the overall touch screen usage is much better in Windows 8 Release Preview. You can install it just like you install any OS to a PC computer (it's a full PC computer after all). Of course you can alternatively install Linux or even turn it to a hackintosh if you feel experimental

Slot in pen (like in Galaxy Note ja Nintendo DS) would also be high in my wish list for the Ivy Bridge version. That's true... pens are always missing, no matter what type of pen or how many, somehow our office always devours them

I am interested to see how MS Surface handles the pen problem. A simple magnet on side isn't going to be enough for transportation. It's going to fall off easily.

 

[elroy]

So again.. in terms of battery life.. Surface RT and iPad is not even in the same league. But they also cater to two different markets

Wouldn't Surface RT and iPad be in the same league? I assume it's the higher end Surface running Win 8 Pro that will have a shorter battery life.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

I agree, the on-screen keyboard on Windows 7 sucks. On screen keyboard and the overall touch screen usage is much better in Windows 8 Release Preview. You can install it just like you install any OS to a PC computer (it's a full PC computer after all). Of course you can alternatively install Linux or even turn it to a hackintosh if you feel experimental

Yup as of the Win8 RC and a few driver updates from Samsung, I'm happily using Win8 exclusively on it now. And yes, the Win7 on-screen keyboard sucks almost to the level where it's more productive to just use handwriting Win8 is similar to android/IOS.

But hey, all onscreen-keyboards suck IMHO

Slot in pen (like in Galaxy Note ja Nintendo DS) would also be high in my wish list for the Ivy Bridge version. That's true... pens are always missing, no matter what type of pen or how many, somehow our office always devours them

Totally agreed. Sounds like experience with this product has put us pretty much on the same page

 

[liolio]

I've watched the presentation, i'm sold.
I can see the device.delivers.to.the.professional.especially what ipads did not.

 

[Davros]

Should'nt the thread title be "Microsoft Tablets Surface"

 

[DavidC]

Samsung Slate 7 also has a bigger battery (41 Wh) compared to 11 inch Macbook Air but still doesnt come close to it in battery life.

They are pretty close if you normalize it in terms of battery capacity. Of course the #1 rule in benchmarking is to make it close as possible so.

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/tablets/samsung-series-7-slate-pc.aspx
http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/apple-macbook-air-11-inch-2011.aspx

Slate 7: 5:49(349 minutes)
Macbook Air 2011 11-inch: 4:46(286 minutes)

That's 22% difference in battery life, and it corresponds exactly to the battery capacity.

 

[ltcommander.data]

http://www.winsupersite.com/article...et-microsoft-takes-apple-mimics-google-143481

But what many on-site reports from the day of the launch didn’t care to mention is perhaps the most bizarre bit of all: The Surface tablet doesn’t even exist. It’s vaporware.

The devices that Microsoft showed off earlier this week weren’t real; they were simply prototypes. And anyone claiming to have gotten “hands-on” time with a Surface tablet was exaggerating, at best: No one was allowed to touch a working prototype, so those typing videos occurred on dead pieces of hardware without a working screen.

I just noticed this from Paul Thurrott. It's been previously reported that no one was allowed hands-on time with a working, connected smart cover keyboard so there's no way to objectively tell how good it is. But Thurrott reports that no one was even able to touch a working Surface tablet at all. Looking back at the supposed "Hand-on" previews from various sites it does appear that the working Surface tablets are either on a table and viewed from afar or in the hands of Microsoft demo staff and the ones reporters got to touch were non-functional. Thurrott calls it vaporware, and while I don't doubt Surface will be released, if they are still at the prototype stage and don't have production samples for reporters to try, I wonder how much of what they presented will turn out to be more vision than achievable in the actual shipping product? What sunk the Touchpad, Xoom, and Playbook were rushed releases with incomplete features and buggy software. Hopefully, Microsoft takes its time to have a polished release so their first tablet leaves a good first impression otherwise that may leave consumers wary not only of future Microsoft tablets, but the Windows 8 tablet ecosystem in general.

 

[eastmen]

Well A) He wasn't at the event and B) The RT has what 4-5 months till release and the PRO 8 months to release. No one has actualy used final wii u consoles and all hands on were done with prototypes but i'm sure it will launch just fine in the fall .

 

[Mintmaster]

And btw Photoshop runs beautifully on it - wacom digitizer w/ pressure sensitivity is amazing.

Slot in pen (like in Galaxy Note ja Nintendo DS) would also be high in my wish list for the Ivy Bridge version.

I think Apple really missed the mark in shunning the stylus. Sure, touch-only is better than stylus-only, but touch+stylus is freaking awesome.

I suspect that they wanted to create a new app ecosystem that they could dominate, and touch-only forced old apps to become obsolete. A stylus is the best mobile substitute for a mouse, and it allows smartphones/tablets to interact with any legacy application.

With increasing mobile display and computing abilities, however, lack of a stylus is really going to start becoming a bottleneck. There are some solid biological reasons that we've used styli for thousands of years, and on top of that they don't block the vision of what you're touching/selecting like fingers do.

IMO, the Galaxy Note is the most revolutionary smartphone since the original iPhone. It's not only more portable than a tablet, but is more useful thanks to the well integrated stylus. I'm just waiting for the T-Mobile version to come out so that I don't get raped for $500 extra per year from AT&T or Verizon. Between a device like that and a Win8 tablet that can truly replace a notebook (via keyboard cover and stylus), I think ARM tablets are completely obsolete. They have 1-2 years left where they'll have a meaningful price and battery-life advantage, and after that they're pretty much done.

 

[RudeCurve]

https://www.wacom.com/en/Store/Bamboo-for-iPad.aspx

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

https://www.wacom.com/en/Store/Bamboo-for-iPad.aspx

Looks like crappy rubber tip stuff. Proper stylus needs pressure sensitivity and RF interference, not just use the capacitive touch screen.

 

[Mintmaster]

https://www.wacom.com/en/Store/Bamboo-for-iPad.aspx

"Who wants a stylus? You have to get ‘em, put ‘em away, you lose ‘em. Yech! Nobody wants a stylus. So let’s not use a stylus."
"If you see a stylus, they blew it."

Apple didn't want anyone to use a stylus. The input with an aftermarket stylus is imprecise, lacks usable pressure sensitivity, and doesn't have a button on it.

 

[dlm]

I suspect that they wanted to create a new app ecosystem that they could dominate, and touch-only forced old apps to become obsolete. A stylus is the best mobile substitute for a mouse, and it allows smartphones/tablets to interact with any legacy application.

I assume this is the case as well. If the phone doesn't come with a stylus, it strongly disincents app authors from writing apps that don't work well with touch.

I think for a phone, that's fairly sound reasoning. The more your phone does, the more confusing it starts to get and the worse it becomes at its core job. I've always found this to be my biggest frustration with Android. I don't want to spend hours researching what tools make the phone do what I want, I want it to work. I don't consider my phone to be a tiny PC, and I don't want it to be one. The simple, "optimized for touch" approach is great for my particular needs.

But with a tablet... I'll just say that as an avoid OneNote user, a tablet that doesn't work well with a stylus is basically dead to me. And that's of course not even touching the potential of tablets as a replacement for standalone WACOM devices. The fact that a tablet potentially gives you a simple form factor that you can just hook up some HID's to and have all of these different possibilities (touch+keyboard, touch+stylus, keyboard+stylus, mouse+keyboard, etc) is exciting, and it's unfortunate to throw away stylus input when it's basically tailor made for the form factor.