6 ms·

The Microsoft Surface Pro Proves That The PC Is Back

38 points by takenusernam 14y ago

schuke 14y ago
Put an Atom processor in the RT then I'm sold.
- bitwize 14y ago
  ASUS VivoTab?
funkiee 14y ago
I can't agree with the statement, "It's a laptop!". It's almost impossible to use in your lap comfortably the way you would a laptop.
- nwh 14y ago
  Everyone uses it like one though; I haven't seen one review even mention the on screen keyboard. Is there even one?
  - dhruvmittal 14y ago
    I've actually been incredibly curious about how well the on-screen keyboard works for these windows 8 machines on a long-term basis (or at least actual usage, not just fiddling around in the shop), but nobody talks about them. I can therefore only conclude that they're quite terrible?
    - cooldeal 14y ago
      On the contrary, if they were terrible, everybody would be talking about them. This is Microsoft after all. If no one says anything, I would assume it was good.
    - CodeCube 14y ago
      actually, the onscreen keyboard is quite good IMO. You can switch between the full sized mode (similar to any other tablet), and a layout designed for using your thumbs when holding the device.
  - omaranto 14y ago
    From what I've seen people don't use it as a "lap"top, but rather a "table"top or "desk"top, though. It does have an on screen keyboard.
- rayiner 14y ago
  From the Ars Review: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-with-windows-8-pro-hotter-thicker-faster-louder/4/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-wit... "From a laptop perspective, Surface Pro falls down too. The traditional laptop has a stiff hinge to hold the screen at an angle of your choosing. It is hard to understate the importance of this hinge. I use laptops not just because they're small and I want something that won't take lots of space in my home, but because I actually need portable computing. I go to conferences, I stay in hotels, I ride trains, and take planes. My laptop's hinge means I can comfortably use my laptop with coffee tables, dining tables, the little desks you get in hotel rooms, and wherever else I happen to be. The hinge also means I can comfortably use the laptop even without a desk at all, on my lap. As long as the laptop's center of gravity is over my knees, it will be solid and stable, which means I can keep it a comfortable distance away from me so my arms aren't all scrunched up just typing on the thing. In practice, this means I have the hinge hanging in free space. The Surface kickstand offers me none of that. It puts the screen at the right angle when my desk is a particular height, but at any other height it's the wrong angle. And worse, when using it on my lap, unless the kickstand is supported the screen flops uselessly. The result? In practice, the Surface RT and Surface Pro have a bigger footprint on my lap even than my old 15-inch MacBook Pro. And if I move a little, whomp, the screen drops off the back of my knees and folds out of sight. The Surface Pro is smaller and more svelte than my MacBook Pro, yet it's far more demanding of space."
schraeds 14y ago
3 hour battery life, and a couple pounds to lug around. Same old pc, "new" form factor! I'm guessing they sell thousands
bpatrianakos 14y ago
I'm sorry but I'm not buying it. Whenever I hear someone say "I'm not pro X" or "I'm not anti-Y" or "I'm not a Z apologist" it's always followed by a "but" that essentially amounts to "I've put my blinders on and trying my best to sound objective". Now, this could just be me but I really doubt it - the upgraded specs and compatibility don't mean anything to me even as a power user if I'm not able to comfortably work with the device. I really think the blending of tablets and laptops is a bad idea. Maybe one day someone will come up with a hybrid that changes my mind but so far from what I see all of them look like a hodgepodge of touch interfaces plus a keyboard that's supposed to make the guy who's not so sure about the whole "tablet" thing feel at ease and, wrongly, think that if the tablet-like functionality doesn't work for him he (or she of course) could just slap that keyboard on and they'll be in familiar territory. But not with Windows 8. I also question having a laptop with a touch interface to begin with. In order to do it right you've got to take into account the types of gestures people are naturally accustomed to plus the size of touch targets, etc. So if you do that then you basically end up with something like Metro which is really pretty but frustrating as hell if you want to use it as a regular PC. People want to use a tablet for "single purpose" apps (I'm kind of loosely using that term) and a PC is for more heavy duty operations where you may need multiple windows open at a time. I might need my Word processor out at the same time as my browser and my IM client and transfer text between all 3 as a very simple example. Try doing that with Windows 8. I have. It's horrible. I mean, I totally get why you'd want to incorporate tablet ideas into desktops and laptops but at the same time you can't just directly port the UI and interactions from a tablet to a PC. It's got to be more subtle. I hate to bring up Apple but I think OS X has done some good work in how their touchpad works. There are a lot of gestures that work very naturally on the touchpad that come from tablets but still make sense in the context of a laptop or a desktop with a trackpad. But again, that might just be me and this all might just be a lot of stuff I just don't understand. But I've got a feeling it really isn't.
- visualcsharp 14y ago
  Why do people insist on imagining a world where there is One Device to Rule Them All? In general, specialization is a good thing; it tends to lead to higher productivity in my opinion. If I'm writing code I want to be sitting at a desktop PC with a keyboard, mouse and separate monitors because it's the most productive way to work. When I take a break and go hang out on the couch, I'll take my iPad with me and browse Hacker News for awhile. In either case it feels completely natural. None of us should have to be defending that which is obvious: certain devices for certain purposes.
cooldeal 14y ago
Here's the Anandtech review featured on HN just a few hours ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5175190 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5175190 If that one got flagged off the front page then this one stands no chance. No point in wasting time writing up comments. Save your breath for the extremely negative posts, those will stay on the front page for days.
- nextparadigms 14y ago
  It did not get flagged off the front page. I watched it myself how it dropped to the bottom of the page. Getting flagged off the page would've meant disappearing from the top early on. Maybe it's too hard to admit people just don't care much about it.
  - cooldeal 14y ago
    Then why was it sitting below another article that was posted around the same time but had only nearly half the points? http://i.imgur.com/uFPTSqR.png http://i.imgur.com/uFPTSqR.png Edit: Even now, it ranks lower than another article with the exact same points posted a full four hours before it. http://i.imgur.com/Yg5kXJb.png http://i.imgur.com/Yg5kXJb.png
  - recoiledsnake 14y ago
    >Maybe it's too hard to admit people just don't care much about it. Or maybe people who might be interested have already left HN in disgust over a bunch of fanboys and zealots flagged stories that don't fit their worldview, just like it happened to this article too as predicted which is sitting on the 3rd page now although it should be on the front page.
jiggy2011 14y ago
Device convergence seems like something that sounds great in theory, but based on my observations people seem to enjoy filling their lives with more gadgets rather than less especially when you have devices that can fit one specific use case very well. Example would be games consoles and the amazon kindle, in fact plenty of people will have 2 games consoles to play different kinds of games (e.g wii and xbox). I think the main draw of hybrid devices is where buying individual devices is unaffordable to most people (e.g cars) whereas the price is computing devices seems to be coming down. Dedicated devices have other advantages too, for example if your kids are bored you can hand them your tablet or let them play xbox while leaving your laptop free to work on. it might also be nice to have a hybrid device if carrying two devices is cumbersome. However in the event that you will be carrying a laptop, you probably have it in a bag find that a small tablet will fit comfortably in there also.
- nextparadigms 14y ago
  I agree. Because of the "hybrid" theory, I also thought that's the future initially. But once I started using Windows 8, and thinking about the compromises you have to make with a "hybrid", I realized it's not the best of both worlds, but the worst of both worlds. With a Surface RT you get no legacy app support, and it's slow. You get support for Atom ones, but they are still too slow for most legacy apps. And they are not very cheap either. At a time that even an iPad, the market leader in tablets, costs $330, these things are going for $600+ with a keyboard. They stand no chance. As for Surface Pro, you get the speed of an ultrabook (more than a tablet, but less than a regular laptop, or a PC), but 4h of battery life, so not useful as a tablet, while only having a relatively tiny tablet screen, compared to a laptop, so I don't think you can be that productive on it. It's also too thick and heavy for a tablet. I now think the future really is having a good, no compromises tablet, that should be very affordable, especially in the future. And a good, no compromises laptop with a large screen, that you can use for work, and you don't have to change every year, or even every 2 years.
a2tech 14y ago
Arstechnica posted an article this morning about the Surface Pro, and needless to say it is not complimentary: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-with-windows-8-pro-hotter-thicker-faster-louder/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-wit...
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- mrgreenfur 14y ago
  The verge review wasn't very complimentary either, though I trust Ars more on this kind of thing: http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/5/3955130/microsoft-surface-pro-review http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/5/3955130/microsoft-surface-p... What are those TC guys smoking? Could it be delicious PR funded paid placement?
fierarul 14y ago
Tangential, but that “wedge” mouse looks quite RSI inducing.
- nwh 14y ago
  I got claw-hand just looking at it.
InclinedPlane 14y ago
I think the aspirations behind the Surface Pro are solid, but everything I've read about the execution leads me to believe that it is a huge failure. That happens. Sometimes you try to push something too early or it requires many iterations to actually get right. I suspect it will take a lot of evolution for some frankensteinian relative of both mobile and desktop operating systems to be good enough to actually serve as the root of the future of personal computing. I'm certain that Windows 8 and the Surface Pro won't be anything more than a footnote in that evolutionary tree. In many ways this was pretty close to the move that Microsoft needed to make now, but it's not right enough and not good enough and not executed well enough either. In the timespan between the announcement and release Apple will have gone through an entire ipad rev. cycle. You can't fight against an OODA loop that is multiples faster than yours with half-measures and mediocrity. The company is already on the betting table whether you like it or not, you need to play to win or go home.
- phren0logy 14y ago
  That's pretty much my reaction: Microsoft is being fairly radical, but not radical enough. What Android, iOS, and OS X have demonstrated is that a lot of people can meet their computing needs without Windows. Microsoft's approach seems doomed to hold on to a huge but ever-shrinking slice of that pie. Offering something dramatically different might (from my flawed understanding) demand removing some of the older elements of Windows that allow backward compatibility, but prevent deeper changes to how Windows works. I'd love to see them put out a new-from-the-ground-up OS as a free beta, and get enough things right to generate a lot of buzz around it. They could release it with some limited emulation for Windows, just to ease the transition, the way Apple did with OS X. Of course, they don't have to do this, and anyone considering their new OS would be just as free to consider any OS at that point, but that seems to be happening anyway with mobile devices. To sum up my rambling, they're an interesting company with a lot of smart people who seem to be shackled to old technology. If they don't move on, much of the world will move on without them, and that would be a shame.
  - bad_user 14y ago
    It takes a lot of time to build and release a new OS and then jump-start a community of developers around it. The power of the PC and the reason why we'll still be using PCs for a long time is also due to its legacy ... basically whatever tasks you need to do on a PC, there's already an app for it and most people probably know about it too. Getting rid of this legacy would be Microsoft's poison pill. Unfortunately for them Windows is being disrupted by OS X and Linux for power-users on one hand and Android / iOS for normal users on the other hand. They are in the classic innovators dilemma.
nextparadigms 14y ago
How exactly? It's just an ultrabook, which aren't much more than a tiny niche market in the PC market right now. And it has a touchscreen does that make it a tablet? A tablet with 4 hours of battery life, that is heavier even than an iPad, that people have already quit for the lighter iPad Mini and Nexus 7's, and that costs twice as much even than the $500 iPad? The PC is not back, and the falling PC sales during this year will prove it.
ed_blackburn 14y ago
For me the jury is still out for Surfaces in the home commerce market. A few refinements and I can see Surfaces being a success in Enterprises. Hybrid tablet / PC, ability to run a Citrix client onsite, LDAP integration, groups policy etc...
niels_olson 14y ago
> wacom input please, Apple, please
nextparadigms 14y ago
I don't usually read Gruber's post, but I see he put up a list of conclusions from several reviews for Surface Pro. They keyword in all of them seems to be "compromise", which is exactly what I said in my others comments: http://daringfireball.net/2013/02/the_c_word http://daringfireball.net/2013/02/the_c_word
mctx 14y ago
> the 64 GB has only 23 GB available and the 128 GB model has only 83 GB available. How does Windows 8 take up 41GB? Is it purely the OS? Bloatware?
- zalzane 14y ago
  This is a question I've been wanting an answer to myself. I have a 64gb SSD that has -only- a blank windows install on it; no programs or anything, and it takes up 54gb of space.
rayiner 14y ago
This is the paragraph that loses me: "At $1,000, you’re paying about as much as you’d pay for a MacBook Air or a more powerful Windows laptop. Is this premium worth the investment? I’d say that it ultimately depends on how you intend to use this system. If it’s a laptop replacement as in something you carry on trips or to meetings, then yes. This is a stable and solid machine and will turn heads when you open it up." If I wanted a laptop, I'd by an Air. If I wanted a tablet, I'd by a Nexus 10 or an iPad. Why would I want a laptop without a real keyboard/trackpad, and why would I want a tablet that's 2 pounds with 3-5 hours of battery life? You can say "best of both worlds" but I think it's more consolidation for the sake of consolidation resulting in a user experience that's compromised for every use-case. From the article: "The type cover and inputs are flawed. The touchpad on the type cover is woefully small and the connection between the keyboard and the device is often wonky, disconnecting at odd intervals." This, in my opinion, puts a nail in the whole "but, but, it's an ultrabook!" shtick some people have been trotting out.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dylangs1030 14y ago
But...how? Tablet is becoming a buzz word that makes consumers forget themselves so they buy a trendy thing. Here's why: Hackers won't want to buy the Surface. It's got a touch screen. What do they want with a touch screen? They want a full powered, no proprietary Linux installation; a Mac OS X Unix with a lot of freedoms and some great proprietary software; or, if they love ASP or Visual Basic, maybe Windows. But not Windows developed for a touch screen tablet. Actual Windows, on a computer screen. And users who think critically probably won't want the Surface because, after the glitzy touch screen and processor speed holds no more euphoria, they realize that they're not holding Windows Vista or Windows 7. They're holding Windows 8, which is not really a full operating system on a tablet. Microsoft advertises it this way, but in fact, Windows 8 looks better on a tablet than it does on a laptop. So really, Microsoft just switched the discrepancy such that it could claim the tablet had a "full operating system" - a full operating system would be a hackable Windows 7 implementation, and all the processing demands that would carry with it. Windows 8 doesn't seem to be progress to me. It seems to be part of the trend to slowly fuse tablets and laptops into this strange combination that will universalize every computing need. And that's crap. That's something like saying an iPad can replace your laptop (it just can't, most of the time). People are confusing trending with progress. It's not progress to try to universalize your devices. You can't forget that hardware still has software needs. What's the point of calling it a tablet if you're just going to make it a less powerful laptop? Microsoft gets away with this because of terminology. Let's change tablet with "less powerful laptop": If I have the choice of a less powerful laptop with a touch screen, and a laptop with a superior processor, more hard drive space, more RAM and a larger screen, I'm going to buy the second, especially if it's proportionately priced to its advantaged. This is a dumb trend, don't buy into it. EDIT: I venture a theory that Microsoft is trying to defeat Apple's iPad with the Surface by redefining tablet (no, literally, not in a marketing campaign kind of way). A tablet is useful under certain circumstances, the same way a computer is. It's SUPPOSED to be streamlined. So if you completely un-streamline a tablet, what do you have? A computer that is bloated and less powerful. It manages to be less able to satisfy the demands of either. A tablet is specialization. So when the specialization is removed, it's no longer worth it.

38 points by takenusernam 14y ago

schuke 14y ago

Put an Atom processor in the RT then I'm sold.

bitwize 14y ago
ASUS VivoTab?

funkiee 14y ago

I can't agree with the statement, "It's a laptop!". It's almost impossible to use in your lap comfortably the way you would a laptop.

nwh 14y ago
Everyone uses it like one though; I haven't seen one review even mention the on screen keyboard. Is there even one?
- dhruvmittal 14y ago
  I've actually been incredibly curious about how well the on-screen keyboard works for these windows 8 machines on a long-term basis (or at least actual usage, not just fiddling around in the shop), but nobody talks about them. I can therefore only conclude that they're quite terrible?
  - cooldeal 14y ago
    On the contrary, if they were terrible, everybody would be talking about them. This is Microsoft after all. If no one says anything, I would assume it was good.
  - CodeCube 14y ago
    actually, the onscreen keyboard is quite good IMO. You can switch between the full sized mode (similar to any other tablet), and a layout designed for using your thumbs when holding the device.
- omaranto 14y ago
  From what I've seen people don't use it as a "lap"top, but rather a "table"top or "desk"top, though. It does have an on screen keyboard.
rayiner 14y ago
From the Ars Review: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-with-windows-8-pro-hotter-thicker-faster-louder/4/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-wit... "From a laptop perspective, Surface Pro falls down too. The traditional laptop has a stiff hinge to hold the screen at an angle of your choosing. It is hard to understate the importance of this hinge. I use laptops not just because they're small and I want something that won't take lots of space in my home, but because I actually need portable computing. I go to conferences, I stay in hotels, I ride trains, and take planes. My laptop's hinge means I can comfortably use my laptop with coffee tables, dining tables, the little desks you get in hotel rooms, and wherever else I happen to be. The hinge also means I can comfortably use the laptop even without a desk at all, on my lap. As long as the laptop's center of gravity is over my knees, it will be solid and stable, which means I can keep it a comfortable distance away from me so my arms aren't all scrunched up just typing on the thing. In practice, this means I have the hinge hanging in free space. The Surface kickstand offers me none of that. It puts the screen at the right angle when my desk is a particular height, but at any other height it's the wrong angle. And worse, when using it on my lap, unless the kickstand is supported the screen flops uselessly. The result? In practice, the Surface RT and Surface Pro have a bigger footprint on my lap even than my old 15-inch MacBook Pro. And if I move a little, whomp, the screen drops off the back of my knees and folds out of sight. The Surface Pro is smaller and more svelte than my MacBook Pro, yet it's far more demanding of space."

schraeds 14y ago

3 hour battery life, and a couple pounds to lug around. Same old pc, "new" form factor! I'm guessing they sell thousands

bpatrianakos 14y ago

I'm sorry but I'm not buying it. Whenever I hear someone say "I'm not pro X" or "I'm not anti-Y" or "I'm not a Z apologist" it's always followed by a "but" that essentially amounts to "I've put my blinders on and trying my best to sound objective". Now, this could just be me but I really doubt it - the upgraded specs and compatibility don't mean anything to me even as a power user if I'm not able to comfortably work with the device. I really think the blending of tablets and laptops is a bad idea. Maybe one day someone will come up with a hybrid that changes my mind but so far from what I see all of them look like a hodgepodge of touch interfaces plus a keyboard that's supposed to make the guy who's not so sure about the whole "tablet" thing feel at ease and, wrongly, think that if the tablet-like functionality doesn't work for him he (or she of course) could just slap that keyboard on and they'll be in familiar territory. But not with Windows 8. I also question having a laptop with a touch interface to begin with. In order to do it right you've got to take into account the types of gestures people are naturally accustomed to plus the size of touch targets, etc. So if you do that then you basically end up with something like Metro which is really pretty but frustrating as hell if you want to use it as a regular PC. People want to use a tablet for "single purpose" apps (I'm kind of loosely using that term) and a PC is for more heavy duty operations where you may need multiple windows open at a time. I might need my Word processor out at the same time as my browser and my IM client and transfer text between all 3 as a very simple example. Try doing that with Windows 8. I have. It's horrible. I mean, I totally get why you'd want to incorporate tablet ideas into desktops and laptops but at the same time you can't just directly port the UI and interactions from a tablet to a PC. It's got to be more subtle. I hate to bring up Apple but I think OS X has done some good work in how their touchpad works. There are a lot of gestures that work very naturally on the touchpad that come from tablets but still make sense in the context of a laptop or a desktop with a trackpad. But again, that might just be me and this all might just be a lot of stuff I just don't understand. But I've got a feeling it really isn't.

visualcsharp 14y ago
Why do people insist on imagining a world where there is One Device to Rule Them All? In general, specialization is a good thing; it tends to lead to higher productivity in my opinion. If I'm writing code I want to be sitting at a desktop PC with a keyboard, mouse and separate monitors because it's the most productive way to work. When I take a break and go hang out on the couch, I'll take my iPad with me and browse Hacker News for awhile. In either case it feels completely natural. None of us should have to be defending that which is obvious: certain devices for certain purposes.

cooldeal 14y ago

Here's the Anandtech review featured on HN just a few hours ago. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5175190 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5175190 If that one got flagged off the front page then this one stands no chance. No point in wasting time writing up comments. Save your breath for the extremely negative posts, those will stay on the front page for days.

nextparadigms 14y ago
It did not get flagged off the front page. I watched it myself how it dropped to the bottom of the page. Getting flagged off the page would've meant disappearing from the top early on. Maybe it's too hard to admit people just don't care much about it.
- cooldeal 14y ago
  Then why was it sitting below another article that was posted around the same time but had only nearly half the points? http://i.imgur.com/uFPTSqR.png http://i.imgur.com/uFPTSqR.png Edit: Even now, it ranks lower than another article with the exact same points posted a full four hours before it. http://i.imgur.com/Yg5kXJb.png http://i.imgur.com/Yg5kXJb.png
- recoiledsnake 14y ago
  >Maybe it's too hard to admit people just don't care much about it. Or maybe people who might be interested have already left HN in disgust over a bunch of fanboys and zealots flagged stories that don't fit their worldview, just like it happened to this article too as predicted which is sitting on the 3rd page now although it should be on the front page.

jiggy2011 14y ago

Device convergence seems like something that sounds great in theory, but based on my observations people seem to enjoy filling their lives with more gadgets rather than less especially when you have devices that can fit one specific use case very well. Example would be games consoles and the amazon kindle, in fact plenty of people will have 2 games consoles to play different kinds of games (e.g wii and xbox). I think the main draw of hybrid devices is where buying individual devices is unaffordable to most people (e.g cars) whereas the price is computing devices seems to be coming down. Dedicated devices have other advantages too, for example if your kids are bored you can hand them your tablet or let them play xbox while leaving your laptop free to work on. it might also be nice to have a hybrid device if carrying two devices is cumbersome. However in the event that you will be carrying a laptop, you probably have it in a bag find that a small tablet will fit comfortably in there also.

nextparadigms 14y ago
I agree. Because of the "hybrid" theory, I also thought that's the future initially. But once I started using Windows 8, and thinking about the compromises you have to make with a "hybrid", I realized it's not the best of both worlds, but the worst of both worlds. With a Surface RT you get no legacy app support, and it's slow. You get support for Atom ones, but they are still too slow for most legacy apps. And they are not very cheap either. At a time that even an iPad, the market leader in tablets, costs $330, these things are going for $600+ with a keyboard. They stand no chance. As for Surface Pro, you get the speed of an ultrabook (more than a tablet, but less than a regular laptop, or a PC), but 4h of battery life, so not useful as a tablet, while only having a relatively tiny tablet screen, compared to a laptop, so I don't think you can be that productive on it. It's also too thick and heavy for a tablet. I now think the future really is having a good, no compromises tablet, that should be very affordable, especially in the future. And a good, no compromises laptop with a large screen, that you can use for work, and you don't have to change every year, or even every 2 years.

a2tech 14y ago

Arstechnica posted an article this morning about the Surface Pro, and needless to say it is not complimentary: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-with-windows-8-pro-hotter-thicker-faster-louder/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/02/microsoft-surface-wit...

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
mrgreenfur 14y ago
The verge review wasn't very complimentary either, though I trust Ars more on this kind of thing: http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/5/3955130/microsoft-surface-pro-review http://www.theverge.com/2013/2/5/3955130/microsoft-surface-p... What are those TC guys smoking? Could it be delicious PR funded paid placement?

fierarul 14y ago

Tangential, but that “wedge” mouse looks quite RSI inducing.

nwh 14y ago
I got claw-hand just looking at it.

InclinedPlane 14y ago

I think the aspirations behind the Surface Pro are solid, but everything I've read about the execution leads me to believe that it is a huge failure. That happens. Sometimes you try to push something too early or it requires many iterations to actually get right. I suspect it will take a lot of evolution for some frankensteinian relative of both mobile and desktop operating systems to be good enough to actually serve as the root of the future of personal computing. I'm certain that Windows 8 and the Surface Pro won't be anything more than a footnote in that evolutionary tree. In many ways this was pretty close to the move that Microsoft needed to make now, but it's not right enough and not good enough and not executed well enough either. In the timespan between the announcement and release Apple will have gone through an entire ipad rev. cycle. You can't fight against an OODA loop that is multiples faster than yours with half-measures and mediocrity. The company is already on the betting table whether you like it or not, you need to play to win or go home.

phren0logy 14y ago
That's pretty much my reaction: Microsoft is being fairly radical, but not radical enough. What Android, iOS, and OS X have demonstrated is that a lot of people can meet their computing needs without Windows. Microsoft's approach seems doomed to hold on to a huge but ever-shrinking slice of that pie. Offering something dramatically different might (from my flawed understanding) demand removing some of the older elements of Windows that allow backward compatibility, but prevent deeper changes to how Windows works. I'd love to see them put out a new-from-the-ground-up OS as a free beta, and get enough things right to generate a lot of buzz around it. They could release it with some limited emulation for Windows, just to ease the transition, the way Apple did with OS X. Of course, they don't have to do this, and anyone considering their new OS would be just as free to consider any OS at that point, but that seems to be happening anyway with mobile devices. To sum up my rambling, they're an interesting company with a lot of smart people who seem to be shackled to old technology. If they don't move on, much of the world will move on without them, and that would be a shame.
- bad_user 14y ago
  It takes a lot of time to build and release a new OS and then jump-start a community of developers around it. The power of the PC and the reason why we'll still be using PCs for a long time is also due to its legacy ... basically whatever tasks you need to do on a PC, there's already an app for it and most people probably know about it too. Getting rid of this legacy would be Microsoft's poison pill. Unfortunately for them Windows is being disrupted by OS X and Linux for power-users on one hand and Android / iOS for normal users on the other hand. They are in the classic innovators dilemma.

nextparadigms 14y ago

How exactly? It's just an ultrabook, which aren't much more than a tiny niche market in the PC market right now. And it has a touchscreen does that make it a tablet? A tablet with 4 hours of battery life, that is heavier even than an iPad, that people have already quit for the lighter iPad Mini and Nexus 7's, and that costs twice as much even than the $500 iPad? The PC is not back, and the falling PC sales during this year will prove it.

ed_blackburn 14y ago

For me the jury is still out for Surfaces in the home commerce market. A few refinements and I can see Surfaces being a success in Enterprises. Hybrid tablet / PC, ability to run a Citrix client onsite, LDAP integration, groups policy etc...

niels_olson 14y ago

> wacom input please, Apple, please

nextparadigms 14y ago

I don't usually read Gruber's post, but I see he put up a list of conclusions from several reviews for Surface Pro. They keyword in all of them seems to be "compromise", which is exactly what I said in my others comments: http://daringfireball.net/2013/02/the_c_word http://daringfireball.net/2013/02/the_c_word

mctx 14y ago

> the 64 GB has only 23 GB available and the 128 GB model has only 83 GB available. How does Windows 8 take up 41GB? Is it purely the OS? Bloatware?

zalzane 14y ago
This is a question I've been wanting an answer to myself. I have a 64gb SSD that has -only- a blank windows install on it; no programs or anything, and it takes up 54gb of space.

rayiner 14y ago

This is the paragraph that loses me: "At $1,000, you’re paying about as much as you’d pay for a MacBook Air or a more powerful Windows laptop. Is this premium worth the investment? I’d say that it ultimately depends on how you intend to use this system. If it’s a laptop replacement as in something you carry on trips or to meetings, then yes. This is a stable and solid machine and will turn heads when you open it up." If I wanted a laptop, I'd by an Air. If I wanted a tablet, I'd by a Nexus 10 or an iPad. Why would I want a laptop without a real keyboard/trackpad, and why would I want a tablet that's 2 pounds with 3-5 hours of battery life? You can say "best of both worlds" but I think it's more consolidation for the sake of consolidation resulting in a user experience that's compromised for every use-case. From the article: "The type cover and inputs are flawed. The touchpad on the type cover is woefully small and the connection between the keyboard and the device is often wonky, disconnecting at odd intervals." This, in my opinion, puts a nail in the whole "but, but, it's an ultrabook!" shtick some people have been trotting out.

deleted 14y ago

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dylangs1030 14y ago

But...how? Tablet is becoming a buzz word that makes consumers forget themselves so they buy a trendy thing. Here's why: Hackers won't want to buy the Surface. It's got a touch screen. What do they want with a touch screen? They want a full powered, no proprietary Linux installation; a Mac OS X Unix with a lot of freedoms and some great proprietary software; or, if they love ASP or Visual Basic, maybe Windows. But not Windows developed for a touch screen tablet. Actual Windows, on a computer screen. And users who think critically probably won't want the Surface because, after the glitzy touch screen and processor speed holds no more euphoria, they realize that they're not holding Windows Vista or Windows 7. They're holding Windows 8, which is not really a full operating system on a tablet. Microsoft advertises it this way, but in fact, Windows 8 looks better on a tablet than it does on a laptop. So really, Microsoft just switched the discrepancy such that it could claim the tablet had a "full operating system" - a full operating system would be a hackable Windows 7 implementation, and all the processing demands that would carry with it. Windows 8 doesn't seem to be progress to me. It seems to be part of the trend to slowly fuse tablets and laptops into this strange combination that will universalize every computing need. And that's crap. That's something like saying an iPad can replace your laptop (it just can't, most of the time). People are confusing trending with progress. It's not progress to try to universalize your devices. You can't forget that hardware still has software needs. What's the point of calling it a tablet if you're just going to make it a less powerful laptop? Microsoft gets away with this because of terminology. Let's change tablet with "less powerful laptop": If I have the choice of a less powerful laptop with a touch screen, and a laptop with a superior processor, more hard drive space, more RAM and a larger screen, I'm going to buy the second, especially if it's proportionately priced to its advantaged. This is a dumb trend, don't buy into it. EDIT: I venture a theory that Microsoft is trying to defeat Apple's iPad with the Surface by redefining tablet (no, literally, not in a marketing campaign kind of way). A tablet is useful under certain circumstances, the same way a computer is. It's SUPPOSED to be streamlined. So if you completely un-streamline a tablet, what do you have? A computer that is bloated and less powerful. It manages to be less able to satisfy the demands of either. A tablet is specialization. So when the specialization is removed, it's no longer worth it.