4 ms·

No one buys tablets for office productivity. The only audience where that is an issue is salespeople, but that's a sliver of the tablet buying market.

CrazedGeek 13y ago
One exception to that rule would be students. It's not exactly "office productivity", but OneNote with a stylus is heavenly for taking notes in-class. It's a shame the RT didn't have stylus support, or I'd be all over it.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  Strictly speaking, does the ipad have stylus support either? I'm under the impression all styluses there are 3rd party ones designed to work on capacitive screens in general.
  - olegbl 13y ago
    I think he meant compared to Surface PRO / Samsung Series 7 / etc, which have Wacom screens with remote-sensitivity, precise styluses and 32 pressure levels.
    - CrazedGeek 13y ago
      Yeah, that. The support on the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro was fantastic. (Shame I had to return it because of Wi-Fi problems.)
- 27182818284 13y ago
  But nobody does this. Classrooms are still full of MacBooks and iPads. It is an assumption that sounds good on paper, but never materialized. If I had to guess why it is because generally your computer you're taking notes on is also a personal machine at college in the sense that you want to have fun with it. So when it comes down to fun with a little awkward notes or good note taking with awkward everything else the Mac products still win out.
  - CrazedGeek 13y ago
    Classrooms are still full of MacBooks and iPads because the first modern tablets with active stylus support came out after the fall semester of last year started (meaning the yearly push for students to buy new computers hasn't happened yet) and Microsoft has done a completely terrible job of marketing them. Also, at least at my college, effectively no one takes notes with their laptops or iPads anyway. If they're out in class, it's for Facebook or something else totally unrelated to the class itself. Notes are still written down on good ol' paper.
gcb0 13y ago
two of my journalists friends came visit and the first thing they bought in the US was a RT. I tried to convince the to at least get the pro because i'm a sucker for what microsoft did with the wacom hardware price (i think wacom is the only company that profits more per device than apple)... but they all wanted 9h of office and the portability. nothing else. i personally rather write in vim and output to latex... but to each it's own. I would have got a modern netbook with an extended battery and have 12hours of battery for writting on a decent keyboard.
fumar 13y ago
Right now, tablets may be seen as toys. But, who says they can not be used for work. At first cell phones were just for calls and sms. Then some had browsers, they were seen as unnecessary, at the time... My Macbook died a few months back, I tried the Surface RT a few days as a replacement. At first, it was strange, and my work flow suffered. But, alas, after a week, I was back to normal productivity. It has been several months now, of treating the Surface RT as my main machine. I mostly work out of the desktop IE. Sometimes I will snap Netflix or Hulu on the side. I take the device to work, and not need to charge it (awesome). If I need to show the team something, I snap of the keyboard, and pass it around. Microsoft Office is great on the tablet. Since, it is my lady's, skydrive is not useful for me. But, it is for her. Her phone uploads everything to skydrive, and she can access the skydrive files, on the Surface. The Surface treats skydrive, like a normal drive. So, if she wants to upload a picture on Facebook (in the browser). She can select any file on the Surface or the skydrive. Most recently, I updated it to the 8.1 Preview. Now that I have outlook, its been even better! The Surface has had constant updates from Microsoft. The first month we had the tablet, it was sluggish and IE, was not ideal. But, it did act as a full fledge browser. This might sound like a glowing review, and it is, but the device is definitely first gen. Besides a few hiccups here and there I am still amazed at how much the RT can handle. At home, I hook it up to a monitor and work of both screens. The type keyboard is great. And, my lady and I will often watch a movie in bed or play some Wordament. Microsoft did a terrible job of communicating what the Surface tablets do. This is coming from a person who grew up using Mac OS. I only used PC's in my last few years of high school, then went back to Macs.

CrazedGeek 13y ago

One exception to that rule would be students. It's not exactly "office productivity", but OneNote with a stylus is heavenly for taking notes in-class. It's a shame the RT didn't have stylus support, or I'd be all over it.

jlgreco 13y ago
Strictly speaking, does the ipad have stylus support either? I'm under the impression all styluses there are 3rd party ones designed to work on capacitive screens in general.
- olegbl 13y ago
  I think he meant compared to Surface PRO / Samsung Series 7 / etc, which have Wacom screens with remote-sensitivity, precise styluses and 32 pressure levels.
  - CrazedGeek 13y ago
    Yeah, that. The support on the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro was fantastic. (Shame I had to return it because of Wi-Fi problems.)
27182818284 13y ago
But nobody does this. Classrooms are still full of MacBooks and iPads. It is an assumption that sounds good on paper, but never materialized. If I had to guess why it is because generally your computer you're taking notes on is also a personal machine at college in the sense that you want to have fun with it. So when it comes down to fun with a little awkward notes or good note taking with awkward everything else the Mac products still win out.
- CrazedGeek 13y ago
  Classrooms are still full of MacBooks and iPads because the first modern tablets with active stylus support came out after the fall semester of last year started (meaning the yearly push for students to buy new computers hasn't happened yet) and Microsoft has done a completely terrible job of marketing them. Also, at least at my college, effectively no one takes notes with their laptops or iPads anyway. If they're out in class, it's for Facebook or something else totally unrelated to the class itself. Notes are still written down on good ol' paper.

gcb0 13y ago

two of my journalists friends came visit and the first thing they bought in the US was a RT. I tried to convince the to at least get the pro because i'm a sucker for what microsoft did with the wacom hardware price (i think wacom is the only company that profits more per device than apple)... but they all wanted 9h of office and the portability. nothing else. i personally rather write in vim and output to latex... but to each it's own. I would have got a modern netbook with an extended battery and have 12hours of battery for writting on a decent keyboard.

fumar 13y ago

Right now, tablets may be seen as toys. But, who says they can not be used for work. At first cell phones were just for calls and sms. Then some had browsers, they were seen as unnecessary, at the time... My Macbook died a few months back, I tried the Surface RT a few days as a replacement. At first, it was strange, and my work flow suffered. But, alas, after a week, I was back to normal productivity. It has been several months now, of treating the Surface RT as my main machine. I mostly work out of the desktop IE. Sometimes I will snap Netflix or Hulu on the side. I take the device to work, and not need to charge it (awesome). If I need to show the team something, I snap of the keyboard, and pass it around. Microsoft Office is great on the tablet. Since, it is my lady's, skydrive is not useful for me. But, it is for her. Her phone uploads everything to skydrive, and she can access the skydrive files, on the Surface. The Surface treats skydrive, like a normal drive. So, if she wants to upload a picture on Facebook (in the browser). She can select any file on the Surface or the skydrive. Most recently, I updated it to the 8.1 Preview. Now that I have outlook, its been even better! The Surface has had constant updates from Microsoft. The first month we had the tablet, it was sluggish and IE, was not ideal. But, it did act as a full fledge browser. This might sound like a glowing review, and it is, but the device is definitely first gen. Besides a few hiccups here and there I am still amazed at how much the RT can handle. At home, I hook it up to a monitor and work of both screens. The type keyboard is great. And, my lady and I will often watch a movie in bed or play some Wordament. Microsoft did a terrible job of communicating what the Surface tablets do. This is coming from a person who grew up using Mac OS. I only used PC's in my last few years of high school, then went back to Macs.