Microsoft Surface Tablet announced

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Any word on screen resolutions and RAM? I wouldn't mind switching to a Windows tablet at some point but the Retina display on the iPad is hard to give up.
 
Gary Whitta said:
That must be why tablets were so hugely popular before the iPad.
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It was marketed for business users, not general public. It had a EMR pen, not touchscreen. That's for note taking, annotation for work, not playing games with fingers. So you are using the wrong metric.

Now the new model you are so excited about, the Pro, is an evolution the very Tablet PCs that you probably never used, but have no problem poking fun at. Plenty of people in business and art world live and die by their Tablet PCs since 2004.
 
Gary Whitta said:
That must be why tablets were so hugely popular before the iPad.
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Seriously? Wow, go listen to Justin Bieber then, since he's so popular ;)

Since when popularity = quality?

THere were great PC tablets before iPad hit, they were just specialized devices aimed at niche and professional markets, but for that audience those were good. Heck..a 5 years old x86 tablet still absolutely slaughters new iPad for drawing.
 
Leona Lewis said:
The hardware is gorgeous, and I'm glad that Microsoft took its design cues from Zune HD rather than XBOX. But I'm curious about all the excitement about having a "fully featured computer" in tablet form.

The sacrifices you have to make in weight, thickness, battery life, heat, etc. (not to mention having to buy a separate keyboard/pen if you really want the full power user experience) for the "Pro" SKU don't seem worth it in the face of increasingly more attractive ultrabooks. I guess I don't see the point of the Intel model since programs like Photoshop and Steam would be gimped by the ULV processor and graphics chip - and at that point, why bother paying the premium?
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That pro tablet is greater than my 4 yr old laptop. Graphics and all. All I have is 300 gb hdd
 
I don't understand the excitement until we have pricing. There have been keyboard folios for iPad for years. If the ARM version comes in at $399 or under, that would be acceptable I guess.
 
AdrianWerner said:
Seriously? Wow, go listen to Justin Bieber then, since he's so popular ;)

Since when popularity = quality?

THere were great PC tablets before iPad hit, they were just specialized devices aimed at niche and professional markets, but for that audience those were good. Heck..a 5 years old x86 tablet still absolutely slaughters new iPad for drawing.
Click to expand...

If only the screens on most of those tablets weren't complete shit.

Indeed, I don't think any of the companies ever released a no-holds-bar tablet; aiming tablets at a mid-tier niche. Sure it made them affordable, but it also made them full of compromises.
 
The Abominable Snowman said:
The RT version of W8 will have the ability to play many, if not most, Windows Phone apps. Additionally, this is a TABLET we're talking about. Stylus and all, For some reason Apple is against touch screen laptops.

I bought a HP convertible Touchscreen laptop in 2008/09 and have been hooked since.

And youre comparing your iPad AND Macbook pro versus ONE tablet/laptop product.
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That's my point though. The Surface Pro would essentially be a replacement to my tablet and Air, but from what we know nothing I've seen seems compelling enough for me to get rid of those and go for this alternative.

The RT model just doesn't strike me as worth it when it doesn't even have the stylus option. That's only for the Pro if what I'm reading is correct.

Pro seems like a decent deal for people who've been holding off, but it's just not for me is all.
 
AdrianWerner said:
Those look nice, but I would rather go for x86 transformer or wait for similiar THinkpad hybrid.
For one, with the stand in back and very light dock, there's no way this thing can hold on lap in a notebook mode. And second, those keyboards looks absolutely horrifingly uncomfortable to type at.

Still, good to see MS pushing their platform in such way. I wonder if it would be possible for some third party to make a more solid Transformer like dock for it.
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Exactly. They need a Transformer-like keyboard/trackpad attachment.
 
Zaptruder said:
If only the screens on most of those tablets weren't complete shit.

Indeed, I don't think any of the companies ever released a no-holds-bar tablet; aiming tablets at a mid-tier niche. Sure it made them affordable, but it also made them full of compromises.
Click to expand...

Actually, the oldest ones like the Fujitsu T42XX had IPS. I just got a T4215 from eBay for $87, and spent another $80 to make it complete. It a rocking machine for art for less than $200, with IPS panel, Wacom EMR, and 2GHz Core 2 Duo with 3GB of RAM.
 
So, apparently the full names for these tablets are

Microsoft Surface for Windows RT, and
Microsoft Surface for Windows 8 Pro.

HEY MICROSOFT, Just call it the Surface and the Surface Pro.
 
Zaptruder said:
If only the screens on most of those tablets weren't complete shit.
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They aren't on Thinkpads. Great viewing angles, work well outdoors and if you look hard you can get high-res screens on old models too (standards were 1024x and later 1280x, but there were options for 1400x on some)
 
AdrianWerner said:
Seriously? Wow, go listen to Justin Bieber then, since he's so popular ;)

Since when popularity = quality?

THere were great PC tablets before iPad hit, they were just specialized devices aimed at niche and professional markets, but for that audience those were good. Heck..a 5 years old x86 tablet still absolutely slaughters new iPad for drawing.
Click to expand...

Yes, and there were MP3 players before the iPod. There were smartphones before the iPhone. There were GUIs before the Mac. Blah, blah, we can go on.

Anyway, I'm not arguing that the Surface tablet isn't a nice piece of hardware, but Microsoft's previous tablet efforts were not appealing to 99.9% of the population.
 
Phoenician_Viking said:
MS will market the shit out of this product.
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Marketing it a lot isn't the same as marketing smartly though. This a relatively new kind of product so they have a lot of educating the public to do, and MS history is rife with incidents of them mounting massively expensive and flashy marketing campaigns, only to have the product go down in flames.
 
Gary Whitta said:
Marketing it a lot isn't the same as marketing smartly though. This a relatively new kind of product so they have a lot of educating the public to do, and MS history is rife with incidents of them mounting massively expensive and flashy marketing campaigns, only to have the product go down in flames.
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This is my biggest concern. They have to make it VERY clear to potential buyers what exactly they're getting into with each model if they want to hit the sort of mainstream market Apple did.
 
Shogmaster said:
Actually, the oldest ones like the Fujitsu T42XX had IPS. I just got a T4215 from eBay for $87, and spent another $80 to make it complete. It a rocking machine for art for less than $200, with IPS panel, Wacom EMR, and 2GHz Core 2 Duo with 3GB of RAM.
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Sounds pretty good. But resolution is probably ass right?

AdrianWerner said:
They aren't on Thinkpads. Great viewing angles, work well outdoors and if you look hard you can get high-res screens on old models too (standards were 1024x and later 1280x, but there were options for 1400x on some)
Click to expand...

Yes... compromised... just less so if you knew where to look.


This tablet announcement sounds like the first Windows Tablet product that doesn't sound compromised - top end resolution & design.

Of course, we'll have to see the rest of the specs before we can make that call - but it sounds like it'll be designed to compete with the more expensive ultrabooks as well as been a premier tablet (it'll probably have a shittier GPU than the iPad though)
 
Gary Whitta said:
Marketing it a lot isn't the same as marketing smartly though. This a relatively new kind of product so they have a lot of educating the public to do, and MS history is rife with incidents of them mounting massively expensive and flashy marketing campaigns, only to have the product go down in flames.
Click to expand...

You keep saying it's a new type of product and it's annoying. There is a close cousin to this device that's been on sale for a year (Samsung S7 Slate), and other came before it in same form factor with same functionality for over 7 years. The only change is the OS embracing touch UI over Mouse driven UI. The hardware has existed for a long time.
 
saltywalrus said:
Wrong. Neither Windows RT nor Windows 8 can run Windows Phone Apps.

However, Windows Phone apps can be somewhat easily ported by developers to the WinRT API and then can be run by both Windows RT and Windows 8.
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you forget windows can emulate windows phone 7, so technically they can be used.
 
If MS markets this as they did with Xbox, it will be successful. But please, no "available only in America" bullshit..

This has all the bells and whistles to be a successful product.
 
Gary Whitta said:
That must be why tablets were so hugely popular before the iPad.
Click to expand...

The main problems pre iPad were:
-Form factor, bulky and heavy
-Battery life
-Interface, I know UI design is king nowadays but the tablet experience wasn't too bad but it was just tacked onto windows in early editions
-Lack of compelling uses for the masses, pre mobile data, easy ebook purchasing etc.
-Price

The of the reasons I think Apple beat Microsoft to the tablet mass market (besides good timing, sexy hardware, iTunes etc) is that they built up from a phone rather than down from a PC. Hence the expectations and uses appeared totally different from what was presented with the Windows tablet.
 
neowin hands on said:
A nice little touch is that if you attach a blue Touch Cover to the device, it will change the theme to match the cover.
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ha, that is a nice little touch
 
Gary Whitta said:
Marketing it a lot isn't the same as marketing smartly though. This a relatively new kind of product so they have a lot of educating the public to do, and MS history is rife with incidents of them mounting massively expensive and flashy marketing campaigns, only to have the product go down in flames.
Click to expand...

MS done an amazing job marketing Kinect. This, together with W7P will make MS´s portable strategy. So you bet that they will market the hell out of this tablet.
 
Shogmaster said:
You keep saying it's a new type of product and it's annoying.
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Because so far as the general public is concerned, it is. Even I've never heard of the Samsung S7 slate, how much do you think the general tech-ignorant public knows about it, and the other failed/niche tablets out there?
 
Shogmaster said:
There is a close cousin to this device that's been on sale for a year (Samsung S7 Slate), and other came before it in same form factor with same functionality for over 7 years.
Click to expand...

It's close cousin is a device that nobody knows about or paid any attention to.

It's not a new type of product, but for the mass market it's pretty much effectively a new type of product.
 
lunarworks said:
Yes, and there were MP3 players before the iPod. There were smartphones before the iPhone. There were GUIs before the Mac. Blah, blah, we can go on.
.
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Yes, as you so nicely shown Apple has never managed to innovate at anything. ;)

Seriously though, I don't think anybody would discount how much of a success those have been, but just because a product didn't reach mass popularity doesn't mean it's bad. Using popularity as a way to judge quality is just plain stupid. Look at any area of human creations, books, movies, music, games, cars, food...almost everywhere you will find that most of the high quality stuff is nowhere near being most popular.
 
Gary Whitta said:
Because so far as the general public is concerned, it is. Even I've never heard of the Samsung S7 slate, how much do you think the general tech-ignorant public knows about it, and the other failed/niche tablets out there?
Click to expand...

I agree that putting MS name behind this will make this unit more aware in public than others. But the Pro's target isn't the public. That's the RT.
 
Oxirane said:
The main problems pre iPad were:
-Form factor, bulky and heavy
-Battery life
-Interface, I know UI design is king nowadays but the tablet experience wasn't too bad but it was just tacked onto windows in early editions
-Lack of compelling uses for the masses, pre mobile data, easy ebook purchasing etc.

The of the reasons I think Apple beat Microsoft to the tablet mass market (besides good timing, sexy hardware, iTunes etc) is that they built up from a phone rather than down from a PC. Hence the expectations and uses appeared totally different from what was presented with the Windows tablet.
Click to expand...
Actually the history of the iPhone is that the iPad was developed first but Jobs continued to develop the tech into what was finally released as the iPhone, then it was parlayed back into the iPad.
 
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