Same as me and exactly what I've been experiencing. /Brofist. My Surface has been wowing my iPad loving relatives too. Yesterday we watched "We Bought a Zoo" on HBOGO in a browser on their 60" LED TV and it looked great. Just used a $6 miniHDMI to HDMI cable I bought from Amazon. As a matter of fact, they didn't even know it was streaming off my tablet until they looked down and saw the movie running on it as well.
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Surface |OT|
- Thread starter strata8
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Same as me and exactly what I've been experiencing. /Brofist. My Surface has been wowing my iPad loving relatives too. Yesterday we watched "We Bought a Zoo" on HBOGO in a browser on their 60" LED TV and it looked great. Just used a $6 miniHDMI to HDMI cable I bought from Amazon. As a matter of fact, they didn't even know it was streaming off my tablet until they looked down and saw the movie running on it as well.
Frustrated_me
Member
I have a Surface RT with the black touch cover, just received a cyan one as well... Decisions decisions... Which do I keep?
I feel like the cyan would get dirty real quick, leaning towards keeping the black + I like the back finishing of the black touch cover.
I feel like the cyan would get dirty real quick, leaning towards keeping the black + I like the back finishing of the black touch cover.
plagiarize
Banned
sounds like you should go with the black. I read you can wash the covers under a running tap easily enough though, so I'm not concerned about my blue one getting dirty.
as others have said, the surface RT really does make for a great little laptop. all this talk of apps but it absolutely does most everything I could want such a thing to do. I'm not going to be writing novels on ANY laptop. that's what my desk and my expensive mechanical keyboard are for, but I've been pretty amazed at my typing speeds on the touch cover, and on how kind it is on my fingers.
I find the key I want to press and then push down, rather than impacting on every letter as I imagined you'd need to. as soon as I hear the 'tock' from the speakers I move to the next letter. I guess it helps that I'm used to using a sound to know when a key has activated from my DAS Keyboard.
it really is a great little laptop, if you want to use it that way. the kickstand is perfectly comfortable on my legs, the touch cover is sturdy enough to rest on my lap, and when I don't need that, it's just folded away in a flash.
Xplatformer
Member
???
You can get/create 1366x768 .mp4 movies right? Why wouldn't those run on the Surface RT right now?
I'd rather not go and convert my existing videos just to play them on a tablet, too much messing about when I should just be able to play MKV files straight off. That was one of the major annoyances of the iPad before an app (I can't remember the name) was released which played MKV's perfectly for me.
That app was great, and there's enough apps on my Nexus 7 which play MKV's without any converting.
infinityBCRT
Member
If you plan on using your RT device at home you could just set up something on an x86 box which would convert and serve mkvs. Not the perfect solution though. But even without an RT device thats kinda how I watch videos-- I have a media server on my x86 box and I serve that up to my Xbox, Nexus 7 and iPhone.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/6194/asus-ux31a-putting-the-ultra-in-ultrabooks/6
this is a 17w i7 but it should be pretty similar and they are able to do 4x af at 1366x768 at medium settings around 30fps . That would look better than xbox 360.
Should be playable. Arkham city should also be playable.
Nicktendo86
Member
Looks like some people are experiencing their touch covers breaking and splitting, anyone else experienced this?
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op...cover-flaw&cat=technology#.UJzyTk1RP0Q.mailto
http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op...cover-flaw&cat=technology#.UJzyTk1RP0Q.mailto
Mine did the same thing on the first day. Will probably swap it at some point.
plagiarize
Banned
I'll keep an eye on mine. I don't believe it's having any problems as of yet. I was looking at it last night and wondering if something like this might happen though from the way it seems to be constructed. obviously bending the cover back is one of the intended uses of it, so hopefully this is just an isolated problem and anyone effected will receive swift and solid support.
It actually never occurred to me and I almost never remove the cover and use it in the fashion they mention a lot. So far so good for me, but I have to think they've been using it in every orientation imaginable for months. They know every way you can drop the thing. Maybe something went awry during mass production at the factory for some.
Hit the screen icon above the slider. It should change to a lock. You can go back and fort from there.
Edit: You can resize tiles with touch alone. Just kinda pull down on a tile and a menu will show up at the bottom. You can make the tile larger or smaller.
Screenshot (3) https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=F1E8413857C7F136!751&authkey=!ADKagudhkHIDOPo
?? There's nothing above the slider at all.
With Clovertrail there are such devices, just not from MS...
I don't have mine with me at the moment so I can't check it. Is there a screen above this before you hit the slider? If so just hit the screen icon and ignore the slider.
This is what's at the settings, I press brightness and the slider shows up. But no screen icon or anything.
Get Rt and try it for 30 days.... If it doesn't meet your expectations return it.
plagiarize
Banned
i'm loving our Surface way more than I thought I would. I'll be getting a Pro from work, but I can't see myself using it over the RT when I'm at home.
Xplatformer
Member
Just got my Surface
The magnesium construction is so much better than I imagined it to be. The closest thing that feels like it is the Zune HD but this is much more solid feeling. Can't stop touching it.
That surface splitting thing sounds bad though.
Bluetooth or bust baby. I didn't want a keyboard as a cover anyway.
Doesn't sound like the build quality of the touch cover is worth the $100 price tag.
I bend my cover back all the time. I assumed that if there was going to be an issue it would be there, although mine is fine for the time being. I know they've done a lot of physical testing of the device so I would assume (hope) that it's not endemic.
After registering there's apparently over two years of warranty so I'm not fazed.
After registering there's apparently over two years of warranty so I'm not fazed.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/09/toshiba-satellite-u925t-review/
from what we know of the surface pro it will be quiet similar in specs . This only gets 5:10 minutes using their standard battery test
The surface battery is a bit bigger , 42wh vs 38wh . MS could do some other things to get battery life up. intel has talked about their 10w ivybridge part. So perhaps we will get that in the surface .
from what we know of the surface pro it will be quiet similar in specs . This only gets 5:10 minutes using their standard battery test
The surface battery is a bit bigger , 42wh vs 38wh . MS could do some other things to get battery life up. intel has talked about their 10w ivybridge part. So perhaps we will get that in the surface .
Also, things like the screen affect battery life as well. Surface Pro will have a higher-res screen than the Toshiba, but it will be smaller. Should use less battery.
yup still over 5 hours is good for the type of set up. Mabye the surface can push that to 6 hours. Enough for 3 movies
A week with the Surface: I thought I would write a few of my thoughts now that I have had some extensive time using the surface in different situations.
- I had ordered a 64GB Surface on Monday morning. There was no indication as to when I would receive my purchase, when going through the system. I decided to give them a call, and they said it would probably only be a couple days but the official line is "within 3 weeks". Without any notice, it turned up the next day (Tuesday). Very impressive turnaround - I would not hesitate to order again from the online Microsoft store.
- I love the Vapour Mg casing - it is hard to describe the feeling when holding it. All I want to do is caress the bare back. It reminds me of the original iPhone in a way, which had an aluminium shell. When I first opened the box, the first thing I remarked was that it was smaller than I imagined, and thinner too (when I picked it up).
- Just like pinch to zoom is now a given gesture that seems obvious, so too will swiping in from an edge to access other functions/menus.
- Snapping apps side by side is a revolution. Having a twitter stream while watching a live sports stream is great on a tablet and no effort at all.
- The screen is very impressive. They are doing something with the text rendering in the OS to match this screen type, which makes all of the text and graphics in the Start screen very crisp. I have no qualms with the screen, but very much look forward to seeing the Full HD screen on the Surface Pro.
- The Xbox music service, is top notch, I have now matched all of my albums onto the online library and a folder on the system with the remaining unmatched songs. This combined with my long standing Xbox music pass (nee Zune Pass) has me very impressed with the service on a device like this.
- The Xbox music app on the other hand needs some serious work. The performance issues are the main thing. I will give it one thing though - on a tablet some of the UI decisions are easily more understandable compared to a laptop, or desktop.
- IE10 is very good, once some TPL's are added to block all the advertisements on sites. Editing the Flash whitelist is also a god send.
- The mail app is a good start but I look forward to the improvements. The calendar app needs a lot of work. I think it’s too simplistic atm.
- The touch cover really has no right to work. Its 3mm thin! But it does, and it does it supremely well. It does take a few days to get used to, but I think I can get up to 80-90% of my normal typing speed. I have typed this entire post in Word using the touch cover - my fingers are starting to hurt though from hitting a hard surface with no give for an extended period of time. Also my left little finger (my weakest finger) sometimes fails to fire a key.
- Yes, my touch cover has the split seam issue. Manifested on the first day.
- The battery life so-far is impressive. iPad impressive. Lack of a standard charging support sucks though.
- Office is a fucking god send. Now I work as a strategy consultant - so a lot of my job is in Excel and PowerPoint. But building front end models in Excel and then being able to touch all the different variable in a portable way is just impressive. Being able to jut carry this tiny device and still be able to open the latest analysis and play around with the figures blows my mind. I haven’t even talked about being able to open all the PowerPoint reports I produce, but I will say this I reckon I have been more productive in the office in 3 days with my Surface, than some of my colleagues have in 1 year with an iPad.
- Performance in general is acceptable. IE, Office, Desktop all work very well, which is where I spend most of my time anyway. Scrolling is buttery smooth and makes scrolling on the iPad feel like hard work. Would love to see what a quad-core Snapdragon S4 would do. 3rd party apps just need time to optimise.
- App selection in OK for my needs. Just need an MKV player to make it perfect.
What I would love to see in Surface RT vNext and Windows RT vNext:
- Quad-core Snapdragon S5/Tegra 4 processor
- 4GB RAM
- Wacom stylus support
- 1080p screen
- 2 or more micro SD card slots and Storage Spaces to merge them into one drive
- Slightly more cushioned touch cover
- Better audio chip (too much static on headphones currently)
- 3G/4G options and NFC, GPS
- I had ordered a 64GB Surface on Monday morning. There was no indication as to when I would receive my purchase, when going through the system. I decided to give them a call, and they said it would probably only be a couple days but the official line is "within 3 weeks". Without any notice, it turned up the next day (Tuesday). Very impressive turnaround - I would not hesitate to order again from the online Microsoft store.
- I love the Vapour Mg casing - it is hard to describe the feeling when holding it. All I want to do is caress the bare back. It reminds me of the original iPhone in a way, which had an aluminium shell. When I first opened the box, the first thing I remarked was that it was smaller than I imagined, and thinner too (when I picked it up).
- Just like pinch to zoom is now a given gesture that seems obvious, so too will swiping in from an edge to access other functions/menus.
- Snapping apps side by side is a revolution. Having a twitter stream while watching a live sports stream is great on a tablet and no effort at all.
- The screen is very impressive. They are doing something with the text rendering in the OS to match this screen type, which makes all of the text and graphics in the Start screen very crisp. I have no qualms with the screen, but very much look forward to seeing the Full HD screen on the Surface Pro.
- The Xbox music service, is top notch, I have now matched all of my albums onto the online library and a folder on the system with the remaining unmatched songs. This combined with my long standing Xbox music pass (nee Zune Pass) has me very impressed with the service on a device like this.
- The Xbox music app on the other hand needs some serious work. The performance issues are the main thing. I will give it one thing though - on a tablet some of the UI decisions are easily more understandable compared to a laptop, or desktop.
- IE10 is very good, once some TPL's are added to block all the advertisements on sites. Editing the Flash whitelist is also a god send.
- The mail app is a good start but I look forward to the improvements. The calendar app needs a lot of work. I think it’s too simplistic atm.
- The touch cover really has no right to work. Its 3mm thin! But it does, and it does it supremely well. It does take a few days to get used to, but I think I can get up to 80-90% of my normal typing speed. I have typed this entire post in Word using the touch cover - my fingers are starting to hurt though from hitting a hard surface with no give for an extended period of time. Also my left little finger (my weakest finger) sometimes fails to fire a key.
- Yes, my touch cover has the split seam issue. Manifested on the first day.
- The battery life so-far is impressive. iPad impressive. Lack of a standard charging support sucks though.
- Office is a fucking god send. Now I work as a strategy consultant - so a lot of my job is in Excel and PowerPoint. But building front end models in Excel and then being able to touch all the different variable in a portable way is just impressive. Being able to jut carry this tiny device and still be able to open the latest analysis and play around with the figures blows my mind. I haven’t even talked about being able to open all the PowerPoint reports I produce, but I will say this I reckon I have been more productive in the office in 3 days with my Surface, than some of my colleagues have in 1 year with an iPad.
- Performance in general is acceptable. IE, Office, Desktop all work very well, which is where I spend most of my time anyway. Scrolling is buttery smooth and makes scrolling on the iPad feel like hard work. Would love to see what a quad-core Snapdragon S4 would do. 3rd party apps just need time to optimise.
- App selection in OK for my needs. Just need an MKV player to make it perfect.
What I would love to see in Surface RT vNext and Windows RT vNext:
- Quad-core Snapdragon S5/Tegra 4 processor
- 4GB RAM
- Wacom stylus support
- 1080p screen
- 2 or more micro SD card slots and Storage Spaces to merge them into one drive
- Slightly more cushioned touch cover
- Better audio chip (too much static on headphones currently)
- 3G/4G options and NFC, GPS
I sold my ipad 3 and got a Surface. No regrets whatsoever. Love it.
Yea expect to see wayne (t4) in the next surface. MS used tegra 1 in the zune and tegra 3 in the surface . I bet they will stay the course
I don't think you will see more than 1 micro sd slot . But over 2013 we should see 128 gig micro sd cards
NFC / GPS and the like are said not to be offered due to the casing. Its a shame cause I'd have liked to see nfc.
So I brought my Surface outside for an afternoon trip today. Boy, the shitty public WiFi really gimps the Surface experience. Because it's so much better and easier at multitasking and loading multiple stuff at the same time, it really sucks when your connection doesn't let you do any of that stuff.
I really need to find a working 3g dongle or find how to enable tethering on my phone.
I really need to find a working 3g dongle or find how to enable tethering on my phone.
3 seconds to open, then after that everything is loaded and there's pretty much no waiting even if you scroll down.
Loved your write-up.
MS REALLY need to advertise this right and they're not.
My wife was getting me one for Christmas but when she went on-line to look at it she had gone ape-shit when she read about office and skydrive.
She now says that I need to pick something else because we are now buying one for the both of us to use.
She is struggling to believe that there is now a tablet on the market that will run office and have the ability to run skydrive. She doesn't regret me selling my ipad3 one iota now.
As much as I want one now I am still looking forward to seeing what they do with the next RT.
If MS play this right I can see her getting a windows phone 8 in August when she is due her upgrade.
The biggest thing that worries us is this review:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1Bg3SMBJ4o
It really paints the surface RT in a different light and I actually believe that something has gone seriously wrong with the release. Maybe I should wait it out.
I find the 2 SD card slot idea pretty silly.
I went back and test the audio from the headphone jack. Yes, there's static when you plug in your earphones but it goes away when you play something.
I usually don't plug in my customs into tablets nor laptops because often they just sound bad. Surface's audio is okay, the main weakness is the overly harsh highs. Dynamics in general is just average or below average depending who you ask.
I went back and test the audio from the headphone jack. Yes, there's static when you plug in your earphones but it goes away when you play something.
I usually don't plug in my customs into tablets nor laptops because often they just sound bad. Surface's audio is okay, the main weakness is the overly harsh highs. Dynamics in general is just average or below average depending who you ask.
Really im just thinking what is the best way to increase the storage on this thing.
Storage Spaces is a massive feature in Windows 8 (this is coming from a Windows Home Server v1 user). The ability to merge a random bunch of drives into one pool is an extremely handy way to simplify disk management for an end user. Storage spaces also includes handy features such as redundancy.
Lots of people have micro SD cards lying around, so the ability to pop in an existing 32 GB one along with a new 128GB one and then merge into one 160GB drive seems like a useful feature - at least to me.
It is just more so than an iPad or my Lumia 800. I just think they can use a better DAC.
Yeah, the issue is the lack of default storage space. They shouldn't compensate for that by introducing more components that take up more hardware space and is probably a niche. They probably wouldn't anyway based on their design decisions so far.
Yup, the static sound when nothing is playing usually indicates a DAC that's poor. Phones usually have better DAC, tablet and laptops not so much. No clue about iPad's though.
I have been looking at this video and it seems to contradict most reviews that complain about surface RT performance:
http://microsoft-news.com/1080p-video-playback-and-hydrothunder-game-play-demoed-on-the-microsoft-surface/
Can anyone who owns surface confirm this?
Thanks.
http://microsoft-news.com/1080p-video-playback-and-hydrothunder-game-play-demoed-on-the-microsoft-surface/
Can anyone who owns surface confirm this?
Thanks.
No problems for me so far. I even stream 1080p movies from my server and they play as good as on my desktop computer. I'm guessing the problems they're experiencing are from the browser when it first loads the video, using an app doesn't have that problem
No issue. Just played a 1080p Skyfall trailer from the youtube site in the flash player. was flawless.
And a 1080p hi bitrate mp4 file from my home server. Again flawless.
Just need that mkv player now...
Xplatformer
Member
Notice how the iPad mini, which has a comparable cpu to the one in the Surface RT runs that fish program at close to the Surface RT speed even though the mini display resolution is lower and the screen being smaller.
So yes, the AX6 is better than the CPU in the Surface RT. Yup, the Retina display looks better than the 720p display of the RT.
For most people, the Surface RT with expandable storage, Office and a built in USB port is worth the occasional performance hiccups with a 1.0 hardware release.
Glad he's returning his RT. I'm sure there will be someone else that loves it.
The Windows platform always has screen redraw issues compared to the iOS/Macintosh platform. It is what it is.
Guess he probably thought that people that purchased a brand new Macintosh running MacOS 10.1 were pretty stupid too.
Souless_PJ
Banned
It does make it look pretty janky though. Is that type of performance using the device not typical then?
Xplatformer
Member
Oh, it probably is.
His argument is though, that spending $499 for the Surface RT doesn't make sense because the performance is half what you get with the iPad 4 for the same price.
If ALL you care about is application performance and image quality...I agree 100% that the smart money would be spent on an iPad 4. No argument whatsoever.
But that's probably not who the Surface is targeted to.
Metro interface
Full Office Suite
IE 10
USB 2.0 slot
Expandable storage
Secure platform (Surface RT...advantage of only being able to install apps from the Microsoft store)
Multitasking (even if the performance isn't that great)
720p screen resolution in 16x9 aspect ratio
So... are those things worth $499?
They are to me. Moreso than a retina display and application performance.
OR.....
Surface RT > iPad 2 (which is $399 with worse specs than the RT)