Surface PRO pricing revealed !

[Blazkowicz]

these routers can be cute and small these days.
If you know some geeks (nerds are fine as well) you can donate some, they may be flashable (typically with OpenWRT) and thus be used as a general purpose if limited computer. Some have USB, so an unbearably tiny internal flash may be used to boot the kernel while the OS resides on a small USB drive.
You end up with a very low power, always-on internet connected server.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I'm waiting for a decent W8 Pro tablet that has a good keyboard dock with ethernet, I5 and under $1k. Only new tablets I've seen available so far is the Samsung ATIV and the W700, neither which are suitable.

There's a couple ones to keep an eye out for, although I have a feeling nothing that meets your requirements will sell for under 1K USD.

First is the one I'm currently keeping my eye on. The Kupa UltraNote X15 (http://kupaworld.com/Products.html ). I'd be surprised if it doesn't have an ethernet port as it's designed for business and industry use being modular and all. Plus a big bonus, it has 16:10 screen, yay. Unfortunately I have a feeling that due to the industrial nature it'll be heavier than the competition. Another plus is that the battery is also modular and is easily swapped out without having to take anything apart. Bonus!

The other one is the Asus Tansformer Book (http://www.asus.com/vivo/en/transformerBook.htm ). Which DOES have an ethernet port in the keyboard dock. It's a bit on the large side though with a 13.3" display, which unfortunately, is only 16:9 (1080p). And the biggest thing that is missing is no digitizing pen support. That one is the killer for me. Without pen support this is almost useless to me. Otherwise it would have been almost perfect. I also find it strange that the keyboard dock for this has a smaller (23 Whr) battery compared to the Asus Vivo Tab TF810C (30 Whr).

I may just hold off until Haswell is out, however. Unless one of the upcoming IVB tablets is using the 10W IVB.

[edit] Looks like the Core i7 version of the Transformer Book will be ~1400-1500 USD with the i5 version being less. I'd be willing to bet that the Kupa will be over 1500 USD. Possibly up near 1700-1800 USD. The Kupa is solidly targetted at business and industry, hence the high price tag. I don't think they have any plans to market it to consumers, which is unfortunate.

Regards,
SB

 

[orangpelupa]

strange list of requirements. Why an Ethernet port ? Is wireless n not good enough (soon one of the new standards ?

Well I need an Ethernet port for work, not just for getting onto the wireless/internet. Configuring routers, switches, copiers etc. It's not really critical as I could just get a USB-Ethernet adapter but there will definitely be times where I won't have wireless, only wired connectivity.

Ideally I'd love it just built-in to the tablet but given the thickness required, probably not going to happen.

lets wait and see. ASUS able to put ethernet port on their very thin laptop. The ethernet is only half height, and can "expand".

that should be able to be put on a tablet. But will they do it? i dont know.

 

[eastmen]

Why an i5, why not Android etc.
Ethernet has many useful charateristics (faster including establishing the connection, few congestion, goes through walls and floors without degrading etc.) but more important than that may be you can access more networks, or even wire it directly to a lone computer.
If you need to do some technical and IT work ethernet on a very portable device is precisely what you need (among other things you might be the one setting up that wireless n router )

Especially, in a corporate environment and even if you don't do IT jobs (but suffer the IT instead), the wired network might be the "real" one. With access to the NT domain, customer data etc.
Wireless can be used as a segregated, "internet-only" network open to everyone and any device but not able to reach the sensitive things.

I do IT myself and I just use a usb to Ethernet connector. I was asking why it needs to be built in. Andriod for myself would remove way to many programs that I use daily , one big set would be office. Then there are various other stuff like do net and ancient programs that require dos compatibility or windows 95 compat .

strange list of requirements. Why an Ethernet port ? Is wireless n not good enough (soon one of the new standards ?

Well I need an Ethernet port for work, not just for getting onto the wireless/internet. Configuring routers, switches, copiers etc. It's not really critical as I could just get a USB-Ethernet adapter but there will definitely be times where I won't have wireless, only wired connectivity.

Ideally I'd love it just built-in to the tablet but given the thickness required, probably not going to happen.

I can understand , like you said you can use usb to ether net adapters. I'm sure they wanted to keep the surface as thin as possible but perhaps larger tablets can get away with them ?

lets wait and see. ASUS able to put ethernet port on their very thin laptop. The ethernet is only half height, and can "expand".

that should be able to be put on a tablet. But will they do it? i dont know.

I'm sure larger models will have it. Not so sure about the surface with its vent deal

 

[Blazkowicz]

I once bought a PCMCIA network card in a store that buys & sells used stuff, a 3COM (it looked nice! and a friend had a busted laptop NIC)
It had a thin and slightly wide connector that holds out and a two inch long cable that gives you a real RJ45 connector.

Maybe I have irrational fear of USB flakyness and overhead. Though having a real ethernet hanging of the chipset of PCIe feels proper.

 

[Malo]

First is the one I'm currently keeping my eye on. The Kupa UltraNote X15 (http://kupaworld.com/Products.html ). I'd be surprised if it doesn't have an ethernet port as it's designed for business and industry use being modular and all. Plus a big bonus, it has 16:10 screen, yay.

Wow, that looks really nice, I'll keep an eye out for it. I'd like to keep it around $1k but $1100 for the X15 Elite + another $100(?) or so for dock is probably doable for something like that.

The other one is the Asus Tansformer Book (http://www.asus.com/vivo/en/transformerBook.htm ). Which DOES have an ethernet port in the keyboard dock. It's a bit on the large side though with a 13.3" display, which unfortunately, is only 16:9 (1080p). And the biggest thing that is missing is no digitizing pen support. That one is the killer for me. Without pen support this is almost useless to me. Otherwise it would have been almost perfect. I also find it strange that the keyboard dock for this has a smaller (23 Whr) battery compared to the Asus Vivo Tab TF810C (30 Whr).

Yeah that's probably a bit too big, I was hoping to stay around 10-11" and the pen support would also be quite nice.

Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[Xmas]

Anyone know what resolution the Surface Pro will be able to drive through its Mini Displayport, and what adapters can be used with it?

I wonder when x86 tablets will start supporting Thunderbolt, seems like the obvious choice for a docking connector.

 

[AlphaWolf]

2560 x1440

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Surface Pro supported 2560x1600 as well as 4k resolutions though the mini-DP port.

Regards,
SB

 

[Arwin]

Nexus 10 has that resolution in its own display - now THAT's interesting.

I'm sure we'll see Windows 8 products with that soon too though.

 

[Laurent06]

I wouldn't be surprised if the Surface Pro supported 2560x1600 as well as 4k resolutions though the mini-DP port.

It looks like 2560x1600 indeed is supported: http://blog.laptopmag.com/microsoft-surface-pro-with-more-power-comes-more-everything-else

 

[AlphaWolf]

That article actually confirms 2560x1440 albeit on a 2560 x1600 display.

The coolest part of the Sufrace Pro demo involved connecting the upcoming slate to a monitor with a max resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels. The device first mirrored its desktop to the LCD in the same 1080p resolution, then cloned the desktop to its maximum pixel output of 2660 x 1440.

 

[Laurent06]

That article actually confirms 2560x1440 albeit on a 2560 x1600 display.

You're right I misread it

 

[Malo]

So a date is finally available for Surface Pro. Released on Feb 9th.

Still not sure if I'll be getting a Surface or another brand, depending on features.

 

[BRiT]

The closer the Surface Pro gets to release the more I keep wishing for a competitor to release their version with at least 8-10 hour battery life. I really hope the Pro battery lasts longer than the wublet.

 

[rpg.314]

Haswell can't come here soon enough.

 

[eastmen]

Haswell can't come here soon enough.

haswell wont magicly double ivybridge's battery life. Still the same micron process.


I'm going ivybridge to broadwel as we will see a micron drop with that one and a brand new gpu architecture.

 

[Helmore]

haswell wont magicly double ivybridge's battery life. Still the same micron process.


I'm going ivybridge to broadwel as we will see a micron drop with that one and a brand new gpu architecture.

But Haswell should greatly increase idle and standby battery life IIRC.

BTW, the Surface Pro makes use of a 'normal' 17 Watts Ivy Bridge CPU right?

 

[Grall]

haswell wont magicly double ivybridge's battery life.

Chances are quite good it will, during normal useage (IE; not much load on the system.)

There's a lot of refinements going on in haswell that aren't just related to the silicon process.

 

[eastmen]

But Haswell should greatly increase idle and standby battery life IIRC.

BTW, the Surface Pro makes use of a 'normal' 17 Watts Ivy Bridge CPU right?

It could increase idle and standby by the simple fact that it will support some protocals that the x86 stuff doesn't support currently. I don't see battery life going up greatly. Mabye add an hour or so onto the life of it.

Chances are quite good it will, during normal useage (IE; not much load on the system.)

There's a lot of refinements going on in haswell that aren't just related to the silicon process.

Mabye , maybe not. What do you consider not much load ?

Haswell ulv wont appear until Q3 of this year and we most likely wouldn't see a surface refresh until Q4 using the cpus.

Broadwell will be around the same distance from haswell as the surface is to haswell. With broadwell not only do you get all the changes to haswell but you will get more tweaks and a brand new GPU architecture along with the micron drop

Haswell builds on the same fundamental GPU architecture we saw in Ivy Bridge. We won't see a dramatic redesign/re-plumbing of the graphics hardware until Broadwell in 2014 (that one is going to be a big one).

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6355/intels-haswell-architecture/12