Microsoft Surface

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Various third party Windows RT tablets are coming in with starting prices of $499 and $599 as well. The price isn't out of whack but pricing yourselves in the same range as the iPad when you have an unproven OS with only a fraction of the application base...I dunno. I think that's going to be a tell sell to the mainstream.

Yeah, I've been very intrigued by the Surface, but I'm pretty shocked that it's not at least $100 less across the board in order to really make it stand out. You have zero user base with this thing, and you're fighting against an extremely established and saturated market. Sure, this thing is designed to highlight Windows 8, but how many people are exactly rushing forward to get rid of the incredibly-stable Windows 7 anyways? I mean, it's not like the current OS is problematical at this point.

I'm really curious about the x86 version; wondering how that's going to be priced.

I think $50 less would have made a big difference. I think MS was at a tough spot. They didn't want to make the other OEMs even madder by killing them with a really low price, so they went less aggressive.

What they're going to push is the true convertible nature of this thing, but that won't really come until the Win 8 version, which will be even more expensive. They've said in line with other Ultrabooks, which makes me think probably in the $700-$900 range.

Not a horrible price, but not as aggressive as they should have been in a competitive market where they're behind.

To be fair, they've put their 32GB at the iPad's 16GB price, whereas the 32GB iPad costs $100 more.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:
Parallax Abstraction wrote:

Various third party Windows RT tablets are coming in with starting prices of $499 and $599 as well. The price isn't out of whack but pricing yourselves in the same range as the iPad when you have an unproven OS with only a fraction of the application base...I dunno. I think that's going to be a tell sell to the mainstream.

Yeah, I've been very intrigued by the Surface, but I'm pretty shocked that it's not at least $100 less across the board in order to really make it stand out. You have zero user base with this thing, and you're fighting against an extremely established and saturated market. Sure, this thing is designed to highlight Windows 8, but how many people are exactly rushing forward to get rid of the incredibly-stable Windows 7 anyways? I mean, it's not like the current OS is problematical at this point.

I'm really curious about the x86 version; wondering how that's going to be priced.

That's kind of why I was asking about the review performance tests. One thing android and IOS have been repeatedly pushing is performance, responsiveness, etc, and I was wondering how the new MS equivalent stacked up.

It's something I think about on the desktop too (not specifically W8), and I guess you could include consoles in there too, as John Carmack lamented during the quakecon keynote the amount of crap you have to put up with on the various platforms and dealing with the component hardware bits that make up the responsiveness, which was a concern to him for his HMD work. I'd say the RT variant gives MS new opportunities to cut right down on this, potentially even to bring across to the desktop.

In my mind W8 RT and Pro/x86 tablets can't ignore this as it's not an empty playing field, and expecially the RT as it can't fall back on 'you can use desktop apps on a tablet'.

I have zero interest in a Windows 8 RT tablet... I will have a Windows 8 Phone for my Metro apps which feel far more "mobile" oriented to me. I much more intrigued by a Windows 8 Pro Tablet that I can dock and use as a proper desktop replacement. To me that is where the real value seems to lie.

TheGameguru wrote:

I have zero interest in a Windows 8 RT tablet... I will have a Windows 8 Phone for my Metro apps which feel far more "mobile" oriented to me. I much more intrigued by a Windows 8 Pro Tablet that I can dock and use as a proper desktop replacement. To me that is where the real value seems to lie.

Nor do I.

I think with the RT pricing more or less equivalent to the iPad, the Pro tablets are probably going to be priced much much higher. This is a bad strategy. Microsoft should have directly competed with Apple with the Pro version to drive home their "no compromises" promise.

Looks like I'm gonna stay with Win7 on a laptop and an iPad for the foreseeable future and sit back and wait for Win8 and WinPhone8 to bake a while longer.

Bummer.

PaladinTom wrote:

I think with the RT pricing more or less equivalent to the iPad, the Pro tablets are probably going to be priced much much higher. This is a bad strategy. Microsoft should have directly competed with Apple with the Pro version to drive home their "no compromises" promise.

The hardware specs of the Surface Pro cannot and should not be compared the iPad. The RT is comparable to the iPad and the Pro is much more akin to the MacBook Air in terms of its hardware. I suspect it will compete directly against it in terms of price.

Symbiotic wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

I think with the RT pricing more or less equivalent to the iPad, the Pro tablets are probably going to be priced much much higher. This is a bad strategy. Microsoft should have directly competed with Apple with the Pro version to drive home their "no compromises" promise.

The hardware specs of the Surface Pro cannot and should not be compared the iPad. The RT is comparable to the iPad and the Pro is much more akin to the MacBook Air in terms of its hardware. I suspect it will compete directly against it in terms of price.

I disagree. From the way it was presented, this is a tablet and not an ultrabook. They should go slightly lower than iPad with RT and slightly higher with their no comprises Pro.

Microsoft is going to price themselves right out of the market if the Pro tablets retail for over $1,000.

Scratched, who are the two established competitors? There's Apple, then Google and Amazon, who are still after all this time trying figure things out.

I argue that tablets are still much more open to find out who is a strong number two, compare to mobile. In mobile the top two are pretty entrenched now.

Yeah, apple with iOS and google with android.

PaladinTom wrote:

They should go slightly lower than iPad with RT and slightly higher with their no comprises Pro.

Microsoft is going to price themselves right out of the market if the Pro tablets retail for over $1,000.

I'd be interested to see what deals they do and how many deals there are to 'seed' an initial userbase of RT tablets. Coming into an market with 2 established competitors, and a fresh platform (well, windows with only metro) is going to be tough.

The Pro is going to be odd to call. I think initially the RT is going to be the 'star' they promote heaviest, with the Pro v1 being a "we also do this" second place that they might be willing to accept a bit of negative press on. I'd anticipate a bit of unfavourable comparisons to laptops. Haswell (or similar) based Pro v2 could be more interesting to watch, although a lot would still depend on the manufacture/licensing costs.

PaladinTom wrote:
Symbiotic wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

I think with the RT pricing more or less equivalent to the iPad, the Pro tablets are probably going to be priced much much higher. This is a bad strategy. Microsoft should have directly competed with Apple with the Pro version to drive home their "no compromises" promise.

The hardware specs of the Surface Pro cannot and should not be compared the iPad. The RT is comparable to the iPad and the Pro is much more akin to the MacBook Air in terms of its hardware. I suspect it will compete directly against it in terms of price.

I disagree. From the way it was presented, this is a tablet and not an ultrabook. They should go slightly lower than iPad with RT and slightly higher with their no comprises Pro.

Microsoft is going to price themselves right out of the market if the Pro tablets retail for over $1,000.

I dont think Microsoft can or should price Pro hardware lower than equivalent hardware that their partners will offer. Its not fair to suddenly undercut all those Ultrabooks that their partners are trying to sell.

Edit.. to be clear..marketing I've seen from Microsoft positions Surface Pro laptops as running ultrabook level hardware with 256GB+ SSD's running with Windows 8

TheGameguru wrote:

Edit.. to be clear..marketing I've seen from Microsoft positions Surface Pro laptops as running ultrabook level hardware with 256GB+ SSD's running with Windows 8

Hadn't seen that myself but if so, then I agree with you that they should be priced accordingly.

Personally, I'd rather have a "real" keyboard and 13" screen for the same price as what Surface Pro may offer.

PaladinTom wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Edit.. to be clear..marketing I've seen from Microsoft positions Surface Pro laptops as running ultrabook level hardware with 256GB+ SSD's running with Windows 8

Hadn't seen that myself but if so, then I agree with you that they should be priced accordingly.

Personally, I'd rather have a "real" keyboard and 13" screen for the same price as what Surface Pro may offer.

Partners might have all sorts of options there.. touch screen enabled laptops etc.. the concept that entices me is laptop/ultrabook power in a touch screen tablet form factor that I can have an optional keyboard for working at a hotel or at another company.. then a dock to connect to at home to drive an external(s) Monitors and Keyboard/mouse.

you can see pricing of some Win8Pro tabs now.
http://www.bestbuy.ca/en-CA/category...

These are all 32 or 64 with the exception of the Samsung at the bottom.
That Acer Iconia W700 looks interesting and is not in the OMG range.

Not sure about the dock/separate keyboard configuration but it would allow me to place the tab anywhere, even attached to a monitor, and still make use of the keyboard wherever I want it.

Has a full sized USB 3 port and when docked it gets 3. And 1920 native resolution on an 11 inch screen! Available in i3 or i5.

the W510 is slightly smaller and has a detachable keyboard. Lower resolution but still decent at 1366. uses the Intel Atom Z2760 instead of the Intel chips.

The Verge wrote:

The first shipment of the $499 Surface is sold out at the US Microsoft Store — with shipping times now at 3 weeks. http://t.co/tKmAUu63

trueheart78 wrote:
The Verge wrote:

The first shipment of the $499 Surface is sold out at the US Microsoft Store — with shipping times now at 3 weeks. http://t.co/tKmAUu63

Wow, how many could that have been?
I would be ordering with the keyboard anyways. Anyone here jump?

groan wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:
The Verge wrote:

The first shipment of the $499 Surface is sold out at the US Microsoft Store — with shipping times now at 3 weeks. http://t.co/tKmAUu63

Wow, how many could that have been?
I would be ordering with the keyboard anyways. Anyone here jump?

According to the WSJ, they're producing 5 million units for fall.

But who knows. Maybe they've learned the scarcity thing from Apple and Nintendo helps buzz, too.

Well I've just pre-ordered one with the type cover here in Australia and the delivery date is supposed to be Nov 6 which isn't too bad - I wasn't expecting it to be available here at all. I already have an iPad 3 (plus a Logitech keyboard cover) and I see the Surface as an upgrade to be honest so the similarity in price really doesn't bother me, even though I'm currently a cash strapped postgrad student (business but my background is IT).

I chose a tablet instead of a laptop back when I started studying again a few months ago because I thought the tablet's convenience would outweigh the versatility and power of the laptop and for the most part I'm pretty happy with that choice - in fact the iPad has almost become my main computing device. I love the hardware but the software, in particular a lack of MS Office and a gimped by design file management system, is a constant frustration. I've been using Office 365 as a stop gap and while it is fairly good for what it is, having an actual working version of Office on the Surface should be much more convenient. For what I want it to do the iPad is almost good enough but the Surface, hopefully, will be better.

groan wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:
The Verge wrote:

The first shipment of the $499 Surface is sold out at the US Microsoft Store — with shipping times now at 3 weeks. http://t.co/tKmAUu63

Wow, how many could that have been?
I would be ordering with the keyboard anyways. Anyone here jump?

I got the $699 version (64gb with the touchpad keyboard) to eval... was kinda surprised to find out these were 720P devices.. how on earth at $699 these dont come with a 1080P screen is a mystery.

TheGameguru wrote:
groan wrote:
trueheart78 wrote:
The Verge wrote:

The first shipment of the $499 Surface is sold out at the US Microsoft Store — with shipping times now at 3 weeks. http://t.co/tKmAUu63

Wow, how many could that have been?
I would be ordering with the keyboard anyways. Anyone here jump?

I got the $699 version (64gb with the touchpad keyboard) to eval... was kinda surprised to find out these were 720P devices.. how on earth at $699 these dont come with a 1080P screen is a mystery.

Eagerly awaiting the GameGuru sale of said tablet.

Actually I'm goign to wait till the reviews are out and the Pro tab launches so I can make some comparisons with other brands. I expect Microsoft has designed thier hardware aroudn the software, much like Apple does with the iPad (guessing) so perhaps the MS one would be a bit of an advantage?

TheGameguru wrote:

I got the $699 version (64gb with the touchpad keyboard) to eval... was kinda surprised to find out these were 720P devices.. how on earth at $699 these dont come with a 1080P screen is a mystery.

Indeed, especially in a market where the Kindle Fire HD has a better than 1080p resolution screen starting at $299. The resolution the Surface RT comes with is the minimum for the new "Windows 8 Snap" feature--maybe it's literally just meeting the hardware minimums without any 3rd party crapware? The Surface Pro will sport a 1080p screen, however.

Typical MS mistake... when you are late to the party.. you need to really make a strong first impression.. /sigh

I'm very curious to read some reviews about using the tablet with the kickstand and keyboard cover.

Will it work on a lap or only on a flat surface? How useful/comfortable is a completely flat keyboard like that. How good is the touch pad for mousing. How sturdy is the kickstand? Does it flop around when not in use? Will it loosen over time?

While it seems like a good idea, I just can't see how this will work well in real world situations.

I had a kickstand cover for my iPhone.. hasnt broke through the iPhone 4 and 4S.

Does the touch cover have a track-pad? Some are saying yes, some no.

This article from PCWorld fills in a few blanks regarding the RT.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/20121...
Journos were treated to a QA on Monday.

Where he quotes "I also had trouble using the integrated trackpad for cursor insertion." so there's the answer to my Q.

When even one of Microsoft's strongest press evangelists says you're doing a crap job telling people what Windows RT is, you've got a real problem. As usual, Microsoft is completely bungling getting the message out in an elegant way. I still think calling the tablet version Windows RT was a stupid idea that does nothing to convey what it is or how it's different but based on the number of e-mails Thurrott is getting, Microsoft is not at all doing a good job telling people what it even is, much less why Surface is better than an iPad. They've got to get their act together fast.

Parallax Abstraction wrote:

When even one of Microsoft's strongest press evangelists says you're doing a crap job telling people what Windows RT is, you've got a real problem. As usual, Microsoft is completely bungling getting the message out in an elegant way. I still think calling the tablet version Windows RT was a stupid idea that does nothing to convey what it is or how it's different but based on the number of e-mails Thurrott is getting, Microsoft is not at all doing a good job telling people what it even is, much less why Surface is better than an iPad. They've got to get their act together fast.

MS has always had a branding/naming problem. From NT to XP to .NET to Live to Windows Phone Series. Who names things over there?!

They should have called it Surface and Surface Pro. Then there would be Windows 8, Windows 8 Pro, and Windows 8 Phone. Simple. Elegant.

I'd say the problem is the "windows" word. When I hear windows I (currently, might need to be adjusted in future) have a certain set of expectations, and this is something else, or rather that one of the set of products with the windows8 name doesn't meet those expectations. I know under the hood it's very similar, but from a UI and functionality perspective that one variant isn't.