6 ms·

Don’t Call The New Microsoft Surface RT A Tablet, This Is A PC

48 points by vyrotek 14y ago

dendory 14y ago
A PC that can't run any PC app? You can like Surface RT if you want but let's not be ridiculous, it's not a PC.
- steverb 14y ago
  The author is obviously pointing out the he (or she, I didn't look) sees the surface as being more than a content consumption device and possible contender as a desktop/laptop replacement. No need to be overly (and wrongly) pedantic.
  - smegel 14y ago
    > more than a content consumption device and possible contender as a desktop/laptop replacement. Yeah I'd love a desktop replacement that cannot and will never run any legacy Win32 apps. Sounds awesome.
    - freehunter 14y ago
      Many people have them as their primary or only computer. They call them iPads.
    - RegEx 14y ago
      Needless snark like this completely lowers the quality of discussion. Just make your (agreeable!) point and move on.
    - esrauch 14y ago
      Is it not true that Linux and Mac OSX are viable for new desktops even though they cannot and will never run any legacy Win32 apps? Out of curiosity, what legacy Win32 apps are you actually looking to use? I'm generally a Windows user, but not really for the legacy apps.
      - tomflack 14y ago
        Why don't we start with Photoshop? Perhaps Lightroom? Every single App you currently use on Windows is a "legacy app" for Windows RT. They'll all have to be written from scratch.
        esrauch 14y ago
        Photoshop and Lightroom aren't available on Linux; Linux is generally still considered a viable option as a Desktop replacement by a lot of people. Anything that used to be Win32 only and is now on OSX or Linux was also "written from scratch", and any product that has had the demand has been able to do it. I'm not going to get a Surface, but to be clear every singe app that I currently use on Windows is definitely going to be available at launch on Windows RT, assuming you count Chrome and IE10 as interchangeable (which non-experts do) or if a version of Chrome launches (like the version on iOS). It's going to launch with a browser, a chat client, a media player, and a random set of games. There is nothing else that I run on Win7. Anything intended to be used on a touchscreen device needs to be written from scratch. Any application intended to be used by a mouse used on a touchscreen is an absolutely awful experience (I used a WinXP laptop with a touchscreen display about 6 years ago, totally fine laptop but the touch screen is useless because the usability in apps is not there). You can't expect to just run Lightroom on a touchscreen and expect it to work well. I had never heard of Lightroom before, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like it is targeted at professional photographers or hobbyist photographers who have $1000+ camera equipment. I dual boot Ubuntu for development, and I recognize that is esoteric hobbyist usage, and I don't expect Windows to start supporting all the tools I want for development out of the box. I can't imagine who really thinks that level of usage should be supported by a low end consumer device.
        tomflack 14y ago
        > Photoshop and Lightroom aren't available on Linux; Linux is generally still considered a viable option as a Desktop replacement by a lot of people. Anything that used to be Win32 only and is now on OSX or Linux was also "written from scratch", and any product that has had the demand has been able to do it. Don't move the goalposts: you "what legacy Win32 apps are you actually looking to use?" I responded with some common ones. Let's go simpler then: dropbox is a "legacy" app that you cannot install. The conversation was in the context of desktop operating systems, you yourself said it: "Is it not true that Linux and Mac OSX are viable for new desktops" You can debate for hours if linux is "viable" for desktops (Year of the desktop! 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002...) but that just confuses the conversation further. It's impossible to argue that WinRT is.
    - tesseractive 14y ago
      Well, there seems to be a market for Chromebooks. I can't imagine they're intended as tablets since they don't have touchscreens or anything, so I guess they'd have to be laptop substitutes. Of course, Chromebooks start at half the price of the base Surface RT.
      - smegel 14y ago
        > Well, there seems to be a market for Chromebooks. And just like Surface RT, they wont be seen as a desktop replacement any time soon.
        deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        smegel 14y ago
        I don't recall using the term "PC", the discussion was about desktops.
      - throwaway64 14y ago
        not certain how much of a market for chrome books there really is I had previously heard rumours of sales of only 50000 units worldwide (Cannot source atm) http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/few-buy-chromebooks-but-google-keeps-pushing/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/few-buy-chromebooks...
  - stoolpigeon 14y ago
    I didn't read it that way. I took the primary point of calling a PC to be that it is too large to be called a tablet. The article goes to great length to point out that the keyboard is pretty much necessary, the full size usb port is necessary and that the whole package is as big as a laptop.
- freehunter 14y ago
  I hear people arguing that Mac and Linux are PCs, yet they don't run Windows programs. Picking the most obscure example I know of, MenuetOS runs on x86 (PC hardware) but runs next to no programs, especially not Windows, Linux, or Mac programs. A PC is either defined by the OS on it or by the processor it runs. Or we could accept that the word PC is basically meaningless marketing speak. I'm leaning towards the last option. How would you define PC and PC app?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
  - runako 14y ago
    I thought Rosetta was released with the initial Intel Macs. Was it not? How long after the Intel Macs shipped did it take for Rosetta to ship?
jvehent 14y ago
a PT maybe ? Personal Tablet. :)
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  Its a Chromebook competitor not an iPad competitor :-) Reading all the reviews this evening it looks like they are going for 'your corporate road warrior' type. Clearly the iPad is making inroads there, and office on the road? Check. Powerpoint to HDMI output? Check. Exchange email? Check. Given their market share in that space it seems like the right place to start.
Mythbusters 14y ago
I don't know how it can be called a PC. Maybe the Surface Pro version that runs a full Windows 8 OS is the one they should be referring to. That is a true tablet with full support for legacy apps not this one.
- sixothree 14y ago
  I believe this classification was made because RT gives developers a familiar and powerful platform.
  - flomo 14y ago
    Thanks, that reinforces my supposition that "It's a PC" is just a line of bull Microsoft is feeding to conservative IT managers who are scared of iOS/Android. Maybe I'm oldschool, but IMO a Personal Computer is end-user programmable on the device itself. RT comes with no devtools and doesn't cut it.
    - sixothree 14y ago
      On second read I think he might mean that because of the carppy form factor it's not correct to call this a tablet; that it only really works with the keyboard installed while resting on a desk - eg in pc mode.
DigitalSea 14y ago
Just because it has a full sized USB port does not make it a PC, it can't even run PC applications. Overall a good review, a lot better than expected. Seems like TechCrunch are upping their writing standards to compete with TheVerge which have really shown just how bad other sites like TC are when it comes to reviews and reporting. I want one of these Surface tablets, they look nice and I really do like the appearance of Windows 8. Give it time, the surface will be cracked and you'll see people running variants of Linux on these things before you know it and then I'll be more inclined to buy.
- tesseractive 14y ago
  Does Linux run well on touchscreen type devices these days? I haven't really kept up with developments there lately.
  - ok_craig 14y ago
    Android is Linux-based, so... yeah. It runs pretty well on touchscreen type devices.
    - tesseractive 14y ago
      Well yes, if I loaded up Android on there, I'd be running Linux from a OS design standpoint, but there are some pretty important practical differences in what apps run on Android and what apps run on Ubuntu or Debian for ARM. People have ported useful Linux tools to Android, but so far, it's not nearly as comprehensive as having a full-on Linux package management system. So I gues my question is whether there more Linuxy versions of Linux -- distros that run XWindows apps, and where you can pull full-blown versions of things like Octave, Emacs, gcc, and so on out of a package library -- with touchscreen support in the same class as Android?
      - lloeki 14y ago
        > People have ported useful Linux tools to Android I was genuinely surprised how the jailbroken iOS userland gives you a really good debian-like experience, whereas with Android you often get just busybox and the rest is more up to you like LFS.
fschwehn 14y ago
In the review video the author says 'Because the screen is so wide, typing on the surface is actually rather painful.' Is there really no keyboard split feature like on Android or iPad? Did anyone have his / her hands on it already?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- kevingadd 14y ago
  Windows 8 has a split keyboard like the one introduced on the iPad. I think they may have introduced it in developer preview builds before Apple did, in fact.
Nursie 14y ago
Heh. Oh look it's a fully capable PC. Sure, it doesn't run win32 stuff, but that doesn't matter! Isn't this the exact same line MS used to use against linux? It can't run win32 apps and is therefore useless? How things change...
rheide 14y ago
tl;dr of this review: IE sux, keyboard sux, Windows sux, don't buy it. Read Anandtech's review instead, which is much more nuanced. You can really see how techcrunch rushed this one out the door as quickly as possible without doing much error checking. None of the images work when you click on them, there's spelling mistakes/typos everywhere and some weird expressions that don't seem to make sense at all.
netcan 14y ago
When Apple's designs have been good (or any company's really), others are usually quick to copy. Philosophy is surprisingly hard to emulate though. One of the things that has made Apple successful has been its tendency to make a decision about the "right way" to do X, especially when X is new. The size of an ipad, no stylus or keyboard on the iphone. 15" laptops are exclusively high end… A lot of the time this is infuriatingly eliminates options for the consumer. It does result in an excellent option, pre-picked & perfected. It's what has given Apple their "radical" feel. MS has a lot of money. Good margins compared to PC manufacturers. They can afford to be a little bold. Here instead of offering two different keyboards (or no keyboard) and letting consumers choose, figure out which one works better. Make the perfect keyboard for a touch device. Most consumers have never had one of these devices before. Their guess at whether or not Apple told us the best option was no keyboard. Android me-tooed. If Microsoft have a better answer, I'd like to see them champion it with confidence. Commit to the design. Letting the market decide is great and given a choice between intelligent design only and evolution only, I'd go with evolution. But, I'd rather have both. Since MS is leaving its world of software to create a machine that demonstrates its new OS parading, I'd like to see them treading confidently. just do it Microsoft.

48 points by vyrotek 14y ago

dendory 14y ago

A PC that can't run any PC app? You can like Surface RT if you want but let's not be ridiculous, it's not a PC.

steverb 14y ago
The author is obviously pointing out the he (or she, I didn't look) sees the surface as being more than a content consumption device and possible contender as a desktop/laptop replacement. No need to be overly (and wrongly) pedantic.
- smegel 14y ago
  > more than a content consumption device and possible contender as a desktop/laptop replacement. Yeah I'd love a desktop replacement that cannot and will never run any legacy Win32 apps. Sounds awesome.
  - freehunter 14y ago
    Many people have them as their primary or only computer. They call them iPads.
  - RegEx 14y ago
    Needless snark like this completely lowers the quality of discussion. Just make your (agreeable!) point and move on.
  - esrauch 14y ago
    Is it not true that Linux and Mac OSX are viable for new desktops even though they cannot and will never run any legacy Win32 apps? Out of curiosity, what legacy Win32 apps are you actually looking to use? I'm generally a Windows user, but not really for the legacy apps.
    - tomflack 14y ago
      Why don't we start with Photoshop? Perhaps Lightroom? Every single App you currently use on Windows is a "legacy app" for Windows RT. They'll all have to be written from scratch.
      - esrauch 14y ago
        Photoshop and Lightroom aren't available on Linux; Linux is generally still considered a viable option as a Desktop replacement by a lot of people. Anything that used to be Win32 only and is now on OSX or Linux was also "written from scratch", and any product that has had the demand has been able to do it. I'm not going to get a Surface, but to be clear every singe app that I currently use on Windows is definitely going to be available at launch on Windows RT, assuming you count Chrome and IE10 as interchangeable (which non-experts do) or if a version of Chrome launches (like the version on iOS). It's going to launch with a browser, a chat client, a media player, and a random set of games. There is nothing else that I run on Win7. Anything intended to be used on a touchscreen device needs to be written from scratch. Any application intended to be used by a mouse used on a touchscreen is an absolutely awful experience (I used a WinXP laptop with a touchscreen display about 6 years ago, totally fine laptop but the touch screen is useless because the usability in apps is not there). You can't expect to just run Lightroom on a touchscreen and expect it to work well. I had never heard of Lightroom before, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like it is targeted at professional photographers or hobbyist photographers who have $1000+ camera equipment. I dual boot Ubuntu for development, and I recognize that is esoteric hobbyist usage, and I don't expect Windows to start supporting all the tools I want for development out of the box. I can't imagine who really thinks that level of usage should be supported by a low end consumer device.
        tomflack 14y ago
        > Photoshop and Lightroom aren't available on Linux; Linux is generally still considered a viable option as a Desktop replacement by a lot of people. Anything that used to be Win32 only and is now on OSX or Linux was also "written from scratch", and any product that has had the demand has been able to do it. Don't move the goalposts: you "what legacy Win32 apps are you actually looking to use?" I responded with some common ones. Let's go simpler then: dropbox is a "legacy" app that you cannot install. The conversation was in the context of desktop operating systems, you yourself said it: "Is it not true that Linux and Mac OSX are viable for new desktops" You can debate for hours if linux is "viable" for desktops (Year of the desktop! 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002...) but that just confuses the conversation further. It's impossible to argue that WinRT is.
  - tesseractive 14y ago
    Well, there seems to be a market for Chromebooks. I can't imagine they're intended as tablets since they don't have touchscreens or anything, so I guess they'd have to be laptop substitutes. Of course, Chromebooks start at half the price of the base Surface RT.
    - smegel 14y ago
      > Well, there seems to be a market for Chromebooks. And just like Surface RT, they wont be seen as a desktop replacement any time soon.
      - deleted 14y ago
        [deleted]
        smegel 14y ago
        I don't recall using the term "PC", the discussion was about desktops.
    - throwaway64 14y ago
      not certain how much of a market for chrome books there really is I had previously heard rumours of sales of only 50000 units worldwide (Cannot source atm) http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/few-buy-chromebooks-but-google-keeps-pushing/ http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/few-buy-chromebooks...
- stoolpigeon 14y ago
  I didn't read it that way. I took the primary point of calling a PC to be that it is too large to be called a tablet. The article goes to great length to point out that the keyboard is pretty much necessary, the full size usb port is necessary and that the whole package is as big as a laptop.
freehunter 14y ago
I hear people arguing that Mac and Linux are PCs, yet they don't run Windows programs. Picking the most obscure example I know of, MenuetOS runs on x86 (PC hardware) but runs next to no programs, especially not Windows, Linux, or Mac programs. A PC is either defined by the OS on it or by the processor it runs. Or we could accept that the word PC is basically meaningless marketing speak. I'm leaning towards the last option. How would you define PC and PC app?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- runako 14y ago
  I thought Rosetta was released with the initial Intel Macs. Was it not? How long after the Intel Macs shipped did it take for Rosetta to ship?

jvehent 14y ago

a PT maybe ? Personal Tablet. :)

ChuckMcM 14y ago
Its a Chromebook competitor not an iPad competitor :-) Reading all the reviews this evening it looks like they are going for 'your corporate road warrior' type. Clearly the iPad is making inroads there, and office on the road? Check. Powerpoint to HDMI output? Check. Exchange email? Check. Given their market share in that space it seems like the right place to start.

Mythbusters 14y ago

I don't know how it can be called a PC. Maybe the Surface Pro version that runs a full Windows 8 OS is the one they should be referring to. That is a true tablet with full support for legacy apps not this one.

sixothree 14y ago
I believe this classification was made because RT gives developers a familiar and powerful platform.
- flomo 14y ago
  Thanks, that reinforces my supposition that "It's a PC" is just a line of bull Microsoft is feeding to conservative IT managers who are scared of iOS/Android. Maybe I'm oldschool, but IMO a Personal Computer is end-user programmable on the device itself. RT comes with no devtools and doesn't cut it.
  - sixothree 14y ago
    On second read I think he might mean that because of the carppy form factor it's not correct to call this a tablet; that it only really works with the keyboard installed while resting on a desk - eg in pc mode.

DigitalSea 14y ago

Just because it has a full sized USB port does not make it a PC, it can't even run PC applications. Overall a good review, a lot better than expected. Seems like TechCrunch are upping their writing standards to compete with TheVerge which have really shown just how bad other sites like TC are when it comes to reviews and reporting. I want one of these Surface tablets, they look nice and I really do like the appearance of Windows 8. Give it time, the surface will be cracked and you'll see people running variants of Linux on these things before you know it and then I'll be more inclined to buy.

tesseractive 14y ago
Does Linux run well on touchscreen type devices these days? I haven't really kept up with developments there lately.
- ok_craig 14y ago
  Android is Linux-based, so... yeah. It runs pretty well on touchscreen type devices.
  - tesseractive 14y ago
    Well yes, if I loaded up Android on there, I'd be running Linux from a OS design standpoint, but there are some pretty important practical differences in what apps run on Android and what apps run on Ubuntu or Debian for ARM. People have ported useful Linux tools to Android, but so far, it's not nearly as comprehensive as having a full-on Linux package management system. So I gues my question is whether there more Linuxy versions of Linux -- distros that run XWindows apps, and where you can pull full-blown versions of things like Octave, Emacs, gcc, and so on out of a package library -- with touchscreen support in the same class as Android?
    - lloeki 14y ago
      > People have ported useful Linux tools to Android I was genuinely surprised how the jailbroken iOS userland gives you a really good debian-like experience, whereas with Android you often get just busybox and the rest is more up to you like LFS.

fschwehn 14y ago

In the review video the author says 'Because the screen is so wide, typing on the surface is actually rather painful.' Is there really no keyboard split feature like on Android or iPad? Did anyone have his / her hands on it already?

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
kevingadd 14y ago
Windows 8 has a split keyboard like the one introduced on the iPad. I think they may have introduced it in developer preview builds before Apple did, in fact.

Nursie 14y ago

Heh. Oh look it's a fully capable PC. Sure, it doesn't run win32 stuff, but that doesn't matter! Isn't this the exact same line MS used to use against linux? It can't run win32 apps and is therefore useless? How things change...

rheide 14y ago

tl;dr of this review: IE sux, keyboard sux, Windows sux, don't buy it. Read Anandtech's review instead, which is much more nuanced. You can really see how techcrunch rushed this one out the door as quickly as possible without doing much error checking. None of the images work when you click on them, there's spelling mistakes/typos everywhere and some weird expressions that don't seem to make sense at all.

netcan 14y ago

When Apple's designs have been good (or any company's really), others are usually quick to copy. Philosophy is surprisingly hard to emulate though. One of the things that has made Apple successful has been its tendency to make a decision about the "right way" to do X, especially when X is new. The size of an ipad, no stylus or keyboard on the iphone. 15" laptops are exclusively high end… A lot of the time this is infuriatingly eliminates options for the consumer. It does result in an excellent option, pre-picked & perfected. It's what has given Apple their "radical" feel. MS has a lot of money. Good margins compared to PC manufacturers. They can afford to be a little bold. Here instead of offering two different keyboards (or no keyboard) and letting consumers choose, figure out which one works better. Make the perfect keyboard for a touch device. Most consumers have never had one of these devices before. Their guess at whether or not Apple told us the best option was no keyboard. Android me-tooed. If Microsoft have a better answer, I'd like to see them champion it with confidence. Commit to the design. Letting the market decide is great and given a choice between intelligent design only and evolution only, I'd go with evolution. But, I'd rather have both. Since MS is leaving its world of software to create a machine that demonstrates its new OS parading, I'd like to see them treading confidently. just do it Microsoft.