Surface PRO pricing revealed !
- Thread starter eastmen
- Start date
Right , I used to travel with my laptop (dual core neo 1.6ghz with a radeon hd 4330) and my hp touch pad (or my ipad 2) and my nook classic.
Now I travel with my surface and my nook simple touch. Its a lot less to carry around. The surface pro is only half a pound more than my touchpad or the ipad 2 and when you add in an ultra portable laptop your looking at another 3 lbs or so of weight on top of the tablet.
The space savings are also huge.
My surface does everything I want it to. Yes the battery life could be better and yes it does get warmer than is ideal when i'm playing pc games. But I have it and enjoy it , at the end of the year I will see what haswell brings and then next year I will see what broadwell brings. But there is no longer a need for a arm tablet in my life.
youre missing my point
sure you can uses it as a tablet or as a laptop
but it does both these jobs baddly
the surface pro is NOT a good laptop
at the moment Im travelling with a lot of places where Ive gotta put it on my lap or awkward places (not table/desk) the surface pro you cant do this well
ATM I have a proper laptop (not a good one mind)
and a smartphone (ok its a bad tablet, but I can still read books on it)
I'll leave it up to arstechnica to explain why the surface pro fails
laptop = FAIL
yes you can replace a laptop & tablet with the surface but like I said you then get a device that does neither well.
like I said I think MS will be better served doing a traditional (but high quality) laptop & tablet
sure you can uses it as a tablet or as a laptop
but it does both these jobs baddly
the surface pro is NOT a good laptop
at the moment Im travelling with a lot of places where Ive gotta put it on my lap or awkward places (not table/desk) the surface pro you cant do this well
ATM I have a proper laptop (not a good one mind)
and a smartphone (ok its a bad tablet, but I can still read books on it)
I'll leave it up to arstechnica to explain why the surface pro fails
Tablet = FAIL
laptop = FAIL
yes you can replace a laptop & tablet with the surface but like I said you then get a device that does neither well.
like I said I think MS will be better served doing a traditional (but high quality) laptop & tablet
I own the product and surfing the web doesn't make the device to hot to hold unless even an ipad is to hot to use.
I'm also able to use the surface in my lap with the keyboard just fine. I dunno , perhaps i'm not an idiot and can adapt to something else ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peIa1PEOLi4
this guy can even use it in his lap while sitting on a ball. So I dunno. Doesn't seem like a fail to me.
I'm also able to use the surface in my lap with the keyboard just fine. I dunno , perhaps i'm not an idiot and can adapt to something else ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peIa1PEOLi4
this guy can even use it in his lap while sitting on a ball. So I dunno. Doesn't seem like a fail to me.
The one I looked at at Best Buy was warm just sitting at the start screen. No ARM or Atom devices are like that. And it is undeniably heavy. I noticed these things immediately. Of course I can see that maybe it doesn't matter to some people. It's stupid fast and runs a real OS, some clear advantages. Its performance is so vastly ahead of ARM, AMD and Atom that it should get some big leeway on that alone if it's of use to the user.
Blazkowicz
Legend
So.. the guy is using a black tablet, on top of black clothes, in a dark room. He's only missing the sunglasses and black car in a moonless night
.THe new ipad 4 is allways hot in stores. I will admit that the surface pro gets hotter than other tablets but then again its a real pc and not a giant cell phone. Its still not to hot to use when surfing the web.
Also i'm not sure how its undeniably heavy. Its half a pound more than an ipad. To me that isn't heavy at all. I can hold it as long as I can hold an ipad and in the same postions . Whats great is that in bed I just put the kick stand up and lay on my side and watch it or surf the web.
So.. the guy is using a black tablet, on top of black clothes, in a dark room. He's only missing the sunglasses and black car in a moonless night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2LTL8KgKv8
can't forget that song !
Well so far, Surface Pro sales apparently aren't setting the world on fire.
I think the price is much higher than the average price of the laptops most people get.
So the benchmark should really be to similarly-priced Ultrabooks (those that actually have SSDs).
It's kind of like the SUVs that are driven by one people most of the time, on paved streets. It's nice to have that capability but it's more car than many of the owners need at least 80% of the time. So for everyday commuting, you're paying more for fuel and other operating costs (insurance) than you need to.
The main reason one would get a Surface Pro or any of the hybrids is because they expect to use them a lot in tablet mode. But as noted, heavier, bigger and hotter (as well as having fans) than ARM tablets.
Surface as tablets might have been okay a year ago but the tablet market may be skewing towards 7-inch form factors. The full-sized iPad may already be too heavy for a lot of people. I use mine in bed but I lay it down and have to twist to use it or hold it up.
I think the price is much higher than the average price of the laptops most people get.
So the benchmark should really be to similarly-priced Ultrabooks (those that actually have SSDs).
It's kind of like the SUVs that are driven by one people most of the time, on paved streets. It's nice to have that capability but it's more car than many of the owners need at least 80% of the time. So for everyday commuting, you're paying more for fuel and other operating costs (insurance) than you need to.
The main reason one would get a Surface Pro or any of the hybrids is because they expect to use them a lot in tablet mode. But as noted, heavier, bigger and hotter (as well as having fans) than ARM tablets.
Surface as tablets might have been okay a year ago but the tablet market may be skewing towards 7-inch form factors. The full-sized iPad may already be too heavy for a lot of people. I use mine in bed but I lay it down and have to twist to use it or hold it up.
There's a huge choice of laptops, I don't think it makes sense for MS to go there. A keyboard dock with a hinge may be a good idea, though.
The issues that plague Surface Pro as a tablet are almost exclusively trade-offs for high performance. And for a certain group of users these choices make perfect sense. Maybe there should have been a non-Pro Atom-based Surface.
It's not at all what I'd call hot. Decidedly warm however would be a fairer description.
I dunno , the one at my local sprint gets very hot.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
I actually agree with this and hence why I think Microsoft made a big mistake by not offering a Keyboard dock w/battery in addition to the type covers.
Rumor is that Microsoft may be introducing such a thing in the future however. At which point the Surface Pro would act just like an ultrabook when docked, except with up to 8 hours of battery life instead of 4-5.
Yup. Considering how good performance and battery life is for Clovertrail compared to Tegra 3, it would have made for a more compelling device than the Surface RT. Unfortunately Covertrail appears to be a fair bit more expensive than Tegra 3, although not by much. The Acer W510 (10.1" clovertrail tablet) without dock retails for 599 which is only 100 USD more than the Surface RT.
As well, I'm sure WinRT was Microsoft making sure it had an out in case Intel ever got complacent. And hence, Microsoft had no choice but to make Surface RT.
Regards,
SB
I have both the Asus Vivo Tab RT (Windows RT, Tegra) tablet and the Dell Latitude 10 (Windows 8, Clover Trail) tablet. The Vivo Tab has a nicer form factor, as it's thinner and lighter. But still, I find myself using the Dell much more. For example the performance is better, making the OS feel more snappy (I can run some Javascript benchmarks on both of the devices if there's interest). Also, I haven't seen a big difference in the battery life. Even though the battery life tests provide great results for the Windows RT devices, there seems to be some problems when the devices are in idle. My Vivo Tab is usually out of battery when I leave it alone for few days.
Unfortunately, with both of these devices, the IE10 is only suitable browser. On the Vivo Tab, IE10 is the only option as there's no ARM version of the Chrome. With the Dell I can use any browser, but for example Chrome works really bad. Navigating to a new page usually hangs the tab for 3-7 seconds, as do scrolling. IE10 works fast and smooth, unfortunately the UI is bad (IMHO).
After using both of these devices, I have to question the future of the Windows RT devices. If I can have it all (Intel + Windows 8 + tablet form), why should I or anyone else settle for Windows RT and its much more limited usability?
Unfortunately, with both of these devices, the IE10 is only suitable browser. On the Vivo Tab, IE10 is the only option as there's no ARM version of the Chrome. With the Dell I can use any browser, but for example Chrome works really bad. Navigating to a new page usually hangs the tab for 3-7 seconds, as do scrolling. IE10 works fast and smooth, unfortunately the UI is bad (IMHO).
After using both of these devices, I have to question the future of the Windows RT devices. If I can have it all (Intel + Windows 8 + tablet form), why should I or anyone else settle for Windows RT and its much more limited usability?
That's just the Acer. Asus The VivoTab Smart based on Clover Trail costs $499. There's no real price difference between the two platforms.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Oh, good catch. I'd completely forgotten about the VivoTab Smart, likely because it doesn't have a keyboard dock with battery.
But yes, it definitely shows that MS would have been better served by a Clovertrail based tablet on the low end. Although they would have had to delay the launch by a few months due to early problems with the Clovertrail platform for tablets which delays all manufacturer's tablets.
Regards,
SB
The problem with Surface RT's to me is that they are too slow, too low res and overpriced. I tried using one for quite a while and simply hated it.
The problem with Surface Pro's is that they aren't different enough yet to warrant an upgrade. I'm still using Windows 8 on a 1.5 year old Mac Air. I'd love to get a touch screen, but the current Surface Pro's just aren't enough of an upgrade for me to bother switching. I'll get a Surface Pro at some point, maybe when there's an AMD version with a more compelling gpu in there or when they have better battery life but for right now I'm just going to wait.
Blazkowicz
Legend
The thing is you already have an Ultrabook, it's simply a case of ultrabooks and x86 tablets greatly overlapping each other
Windows RT is limited in many ways the same as an iPad, you can't run any app you want to. But in a world where there are lots of Metro apps, that can easily be seen as a good thing (no malware and the system is always in a known state). It also basically exists as a hedge to keep Intel's pricing in check so it has to compete against $20 ARM chips, and not sell them for $60 (which would really be $80 or so real world dollar differences in pricing).
