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I agree with you, if you already have a laptop, then another device can be a luxury. I purchased a Surface Pro about three weeks ago, my 2005 Macbook died. I ha

by fumar 13y ago

I agree with you, if you already have a laptop, then another device can be a luxury. I purchased a Surface Pro about three weeks ago, my 2005 Macbook died. I had been using my girlfriend's Surface RT for work, and that sufficed for three months. But, I missed running Adobe CS, and it wasn't my machine. After ten years of using OSX I turned to Windows. The Pro has tackled all the tasks, I've thrown at it so far. For example, I recently worked on a case study for a startup I work with. That meant writing, doing interviews, researching, and some graphic design. A good amount of work was done in Google Docs. But, the rest of my work flow lived in OneNote, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. At one point I had Illustrator, Photoshop, Chrome, Metro IE, and Xbox Music running, without any hiccups. This was all while sitting at 1871, a collaborative workspace in Chicago. A laptop can handle this right? Yeah. But, the Surface is a tablet, that costs 799-899 dollars. Before, I purchased the Pro, I was looking at getting a Macbook Air or a Macbook Pro. The Macbook Pro was out of my price range, and the Air was a close competitor. I mention cost to make a point on the price to value ratio for this machine. The Surface is the sum of its parts. It has a high DPI screen, headphone jack, a digitizer, a kickstand, a USB port, MircoSD card slot, and a mini DVI port. At home it sits alongside a monitor, acting like a desktop. The Surface Pro, has quickly become one of my favorite pieces of technology, in a long time. The battery life could be better, and not every piece of software is optimized to work well on the screen. But, overall, its a dream to use on a daily basis. In my head this is what a tablet should be. Maybe, it was the idea of the iPad, I wished existed, before it was officially announced. Before, Steve Jobs, unveiled a 10 inch tablet that ran iOS not OSX. PS. After using both Surfaces for a while now, I came to realization that there should be more than one type of input for devices. We have an iMac at home, I have to make an effort to not touch the screen!

hga 13y ago
I think what you're attesting to is that the Surface Pro is not a bad or uncompetitive device, as I've heard elsewhere, and e.g. Wikipedia reports that Bloomberg reports that as of March 2013, total Surface sales were 1.5 million, with the Pro accounting for 1.1 million of them. Which echoes what you say about what was in competition for your dollars, not iPads but real, not locked down with lots of software available laptops. E.g. the Pro is a niche product like Apple's OS X ones are now. The real trouble for Microsoft is how badly they executed on the Surface RT, and how many 10s billions of dollars they're letting their competitors snap up.
- fumar 13y ago
  Yes, Microsoft did a terrible job communicating what the Surface RT is, what it does, and why it mattered. I have used it extensively. Even then, I would not compare the Surface RT to an iPad. It is closer to a Chrome Laptop. Sure the RT runs apps, and is a tablet. But, in reality, it runs a full fledge browser and Microsoft Office 2013. When I was using the RT, I spent all of my time in the browser; Google Apps, Basecamp & Campfire, and soundcloud, and Office. Sometimes, I would treat it like a tablet, and watch a movie side-loaded. (My lady uses Netflix and Hulu on it almost everyday at home) I remember the day, my girlfriend purchased the RT. We were walking in the mall, she walked into the Apple store, picked up an iPad. Then she walked over to the Macbooks and couldn't make a decision. She wanted a tablet, but really needed some laptop functionality. We left the Apple store thinking, an iPad would probably be the best choice. This mall happened to have a Microsoft store, and there it was, the Surface. We were both taken in by the colorful keyboards, and the sleek metallic feel of it. But, we knew after a few minutes of playing around, it lacked an App eco-system! Neither of us, knew that it had full Office, and that it had a desktop mode(app). Or why those would even mattered on a tablet! None of the store's employees were of much help. While I was playing with the kickstand, she came over and showed me the type keyboard. I hadn't cared much for it, it didn't look as cool. The keyboard made a huge difference in the usability of the device. It all made sense to me then. The Surface RT isn't a consumption tablet, its a modern day netbook that doubles as a tablet. It could hold its own in the real world. That day she left with Surface RT. This was back in October, almost a year ago. Since, then the Surface RT has proven to be a failure in the market. But, I don't blame the device. The RT was the wrong device to take on the directly iPad. The RT is in its own category, as is the Pro. I see both tablets as a potential future for computing devices. Unfortunately, Microsoft did not communicate that, they barely communicated anything.
  - hga 13y ago
    "The Surface RT isn't a consumption tablet, its a modern day netbook that doubles as a tablet." Oh my, if they'd just pointed out that critical distinction with the iOS ecosystem.... Which e.g. absolutely forbids running programming languages, e.g. Gambit-C, a Scheme that's very suitable for devices, got kicked off the store, and despite being a former Apple Fellow hired by Steve Jobs, Alan Kay couldn't get the latest version of Smalltalk or the version for kids in the store. A quick check of the Windows Store found e.g. an "InstantRuby" that runs it on the system. There's even very appropriately a free BASIC ^_^. "Buy your children iPads and they'll be consumers. Buy them RTs and they'll be producers."

by fumar 13y ago

hga 13y ago

I think what you're attesting to is that the Surface Pro is not a bad or uncompetitive device, as I've heard elsewhere, and e.g. Wikipedia reports that Bloomberg reports that as of March 2013, total Surface sales were 1.5 million, with the Pro accounting for 1.1 million of them. Which echoes what you say about what was in competition for your dollars, not iPads but real, not locked down with lots of software available laptops. E.g. the Pro is a niche product like Apple's OS X ones are now. The real trouble for Microsoft is how badly they executed on the Surface RT, and how many 10s billions of dollars they're letting their competitors snap up.

fumar 13y ago
Yes, Microsoft did a terrible job communicating what the Surface RT is, what it does, and why it mattered. I have used it extensively. Even then, I would not compare the Surface RT to an iPad. It is closer to a Chrome Laptop. Sure the RT runs apps, and is a tablet. But, in reality, it runs a full fledge browser and Microsoft Office 2013. When I was using the RT, I spent all of my time in the browser; Google Apps, Basecamp & Campfire, and soundcloud, and Office. Sometimes, I would treat it like a tablet, and watch a movie side-loaded. (My lady uses Netflix and Hulu on it almost everyday at home) I remember the day, my girlfriend purchased the RT. We were walking in the mall, she walked into the Apple store, picked up an iPad. Then she walked over to the Macbooks and couldn't make a decision. She wanted a tablet, but really needed some laptop functionality. We left the Apple store thinking, an iPad would probably be the best choice. This mall happened to have a Microsoft store, and there it was, the Surface. We were both taken in by the colorful keyboards, and the sleek metallic feel of it. But, we knew after a few minutes of playing around, it lacked an App eco-system! Neither of us, knew that it had full Office, and that it had a desktop mode(app). Or why those would even mattered on a tablet! None of the store's employees were of much help. While I was playing with the kickstand, she came over and showed me the type keyboard. I hadn't cared much for it, it didn't look as cool. The keyboard made a huge difference in the usability of the device. It all made sense to me then. The Surface RT isn't a consumption tablet, its a modern day netbook that doubles as a tablet. It could hold its own in the real world. That day she left with Surface RT. This was back in October, almost a year ago. Since, then the Surface RT has proven to be a failure in the market. But, I don't blame the device. The RT was the wrong device to take on the directly iPad. The RT is in its own category, as is the Pro. I see both tablets as a potential future for computing devices. Unfortunately, Microsoft did not communicate that, they barely communicated anything.
- hga 13y ago
  "The Surface RT isn't a consumption tablet, its a modern day netbook that doubles as a tablet." Oh my, if they'd just pointed out that critical distinction with the iOS ecosystem.... Which e.g. absolutely forbids running programming languages, e.g. Gambit-C, a Scheme that's very suitable for devices, got kicked off the store, and despite being a former Apple Fellow hired by Steve Jobs, Alan Kay couldn't get the latest version of Smalltalk or the version for kids in the store. A quick check of the Windows Store found e.g. an "InstantRuby" that runs it on the system. There's even very appropriately a free BASIC ^_^. "Buy your children iPads and they'll be consumers. Buy them RTs and they'll be producers."