4 ms·

I have a Surface Pro and a Surface RT - can run SC2 and VS2012 on the Surface Pro, but despite that I still use my Surface RT far more frequently. It's an exce

I have a Surface Pro and a Surface RT - can run SC2 and VS2012 on the Surface Pro, but despite that I still use my Surface RT far more frequently. It's an excellent tablet, I love having the keyboard when I need to compose emails or edit spec documents for work when I'm on the go, it has great battery life, the Kindle and Netflix applications are better experiences than their iOS counterparts (on the iPad), and the app selection is actually pretty decent for my use cases.

girvo 13y ago
SC2 runs on the 4000? What settings? That's really good to know!
shin_lao 13y ago
I have a Surface RT as well and I'm super happy with it. I can do serious Office work with it, work on any file, browser, mail, etc. I bring it with me all the time when I go to my customers to take notes. Last time I was in a conference, I talked with a Microsoft guy who was happy to see I had a Surface RT. He told me I was the first person he saw at a conference with that device (or a Pro). I was pretty surprised. So where did Microsoft screw up? Marketing? Maybe they shouldn't say it's a tablet.
- kvb 13y ago
  One problem is distribution. They don't have the network of stores that Apple does, and they didn't make Surfaces available in other retailers until quite a while after release. This made it impossible for most people to try before buying. Another problem is messaging - it's very hard to concisely describe Windows RT's role in a way that people can grasp. It doesn't run legacy software, but it does run Office. Is it a laptop, or a tablet, or what?
- girvo 13y ago
  Not teaching the sales people how to sell it properly. Their online training is shit.
- asveikau 13y ago
  They should have allowed people to port old-style Win32 apps to ARM. They were IMO betting too much on the shiny new Windows Runtime which is not mature. If it won't run ported Win32 code there is no compelling reason to get it over an iPad or Android tablet. It's effectively a Windows tablet that doesn't run Windows apps. iPad and Android don't run Windows apps either, but they both have more and better software than the Windows Store and will probably continue to do so for some years to come. OTOH imagine if you could actually use that "Desktop" app to run useful software ported from x86. It might have some of the appeal of the Surface Pro. (Full disclosure: I worked in the Windows division during Win8 development. I left the company in 2011.)
  - shin_lao 13y ago
    To be honest, there is no application I currently miss on my Windows RT. Except foobar2000 maybe. But where you are spot-on is for old games: the ARM has got enough punch to run them and it would turn the RT into an old game portable console. The other thing that isn't very great is Windows Media Player. It's painful to browse files from a NAS for example. So a couple of rough edges, but overall, really great.
  - Aldo_MX 13y ago
    I'm still baffled at Microsoft's decision to not support desktop apps... They shot themselves in both feet...
underwater 13y ago
I have an RT. And buyer's remorse. A few apps are beautiful and smooth, but most frequently pause and stutter (for example switching between inboxes in the mail app locks up the UI for seconds) and few third-party apps use the modern UI design language well. The actual app selection is abysmal. I really want to like the tablet and held out hope that Windows 8.1 would fix some of the underlying problems but it turned out to be minor update in functionality. My wife's iPad was cheaper, is always smooth and has a great selection of apps.
jbigelow76 13y ago
I;m very happy with my Surface RT purchase. I didn't want the weight of the Surface Pro and am fine with knowing that if I have to do any dev work I'll switch to my full size laptop. As a media consumption device it's great, especially if you have an existing library of purchased Xbox movies.

girvo 13y ago

SC2 runs on the 4000? What settings? That's really good to know!

shin_lao 13y ago

I have a Surface RT as well and I'm super happy with it. I can do serious Office work with it, work on any file, browser, mail, etc. I bring it with me all the time when I go to my customers to take notes. Last time I was in a conference, I talked with a Microsoft guy who was happy to see I had a Surface RT. He told me I was the first person he saw at a conference with that device (or a Pro). I was pretty surprised. So where did Microsoft screw up? Marketing? Maybe they shouldn't say it's a tablet.

kvb 13y ago
One problem is distribution. They don't have the network of stores that Apple does, and they didn't make Surfaces available in other retailers until quite a while after release. This made it impossible for most people to try before buying. Another problem is messaging - it's very hard to concisely describe Windows RT's role in a way that people can grasp. It doesn't run legacy software, but it does run Office. Is it a laptop, or a tablet, or what?
girvo 13y ago
Not teaching the sales people how to sell it properly. Their online training is shit.
asveikau 13y ago
They should have allowed people to port old-style Win32 apps to ARM. They were IMO betting too much on the shiny new Windows Runtime which is not mature. If it won't run ported Win32 code there is no compelling reason to get it over an iPad or Android tablet. It's effectively a Windows tablet that doesn't run Windows apps. iPad and Android don't run Windows apps either, but they both have more and better software than the Windows Store and will probably continue to do so for some years to come. OTOH imagine if you could actually use that "Desktop" app to run useful software ported from x86. It might have some of the appeal of the Surface Pro. (Full disclosure: I worked in the Windows division during Win8 development. I left the company in 2011.)
- shin_lao 13y ago
  To be honest, there is no application I currently miss on my Windows RT. Except foobar2000 maybe. But where you are spot-on is for old games: the ARM has got enough punch to run them and it would turn the RT into an old game portable console. The other thing that isn't very great is Windows Media Player. It's painful to browse files from a NAS for example. So a couple of rough edges, but overall, really great.
- Aldo_MX 13y ago
  I'm still baffled at Microsoft's decision to not support desktop apps... They shot themselves in both feet...

underwater 13y ago

I have an RT. And buyer's remorse. A few apps are beautiful and smooth, but most frequently pause and stutter (for example switching between inboxes in the mail app locks up the UI for seconds) and few third-party apps use the modern UI design language well. The actual app selection is abysmal. I really want to like the tablet and held out hope that Windows 8.1 would fix some of the underlying problems but it turned out to be minor update in functionality. My wife's iPad was cheaper, is always smooth and has a great selection of apps.

jbigelow76 13y ago

I;m very happy with my Surface RT purchase. I didn't want the weight of the Surface Pro and am fine with knowing that if I have to do any dev work I'll switch to my full size laptop. As a media consumption device it's great, especially if you have an existing library of purchased Xbox movies.