Microsoft airs its first Surface tablet ad

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by xendula

Battery life is in the Technical Specs: 8 hours vs. 10 for the iPad. I hope the Pro can do better. I'm dreaming... I know....

I think we'll need to wait until tablets actually get into peoples' hands to see what the real battery life figures are. Apple have tended to be conservative and understate battery life for the iPad, while I've found that laptop battery life figures tend to be very optimistic. It will be interesting to see what reviewers find the Surface battery life to be.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

I think we'll need to wait until tablets actually get into peoples' hands to see what the real battery life figures are. Apple have tended to be conservative and understate battery life for the iPad, while I've found that laptop battery life figures tend to be very optimistic. It will be interesting to see what reviewers find the Surface battery life to be.

I tend to preorder new devices, because I am not the patient type, so I have to go by the technical specs for this one. It could be that battery life is worse or better, but the 2 hour discrepancy is pretty large, even if it is +- 40 minutes. Win Laptops I have gotten in the past all underperformed against their stated battery life, but I still hope that won't be the case with the Surface

[markbot]

Originally Posted by xendula

Battery life is in the Technical Specs: 8 hours vs. 10 for the iPad. I hope the Pro can do better. I'm dreaming... I know....

Where did you find the 8 hrs?

The Surface Pro will be $1000 I think...pretty expensive. But it does have full windows...we'll see. I was going to buy the RT at $399 with the cover....at $600 I'm going to have to see the reviews first.

[Graham]

The main thing I took away from watching this advert was that the Surface is going to be 'clicky'.

Which probably isn't true.

Graham

[pj123]

To me, the price for Surface is almost suicidal. Before you place an order for Surface, ask yourself: Is there anything that you desperately need and only Surface has and Android tablet or ipad can't have? If the answer is "no", then be patient, just wait and see until real reviews come out (from actual users instead of columnists). Of course if you are rich and want to find an excuse to spend money, then go ahead and order one.

[kfarmer]

Originally Posted by markbot

Where did you find the 8 hrs?

http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-...-rt/windows-rt

"and with up to 8 hours of battery life"

I'm still wanting passive charging to be commonplace. It's slowly working its way into consumer electronics, but I'm somewhat offended by power connectors as a rule. E-ink displays get something of a pass by making it rare that I have to plug them in, but they aren't general-purpose devices.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by pj123

To me, the price for Surface is almost suicidal. Before you place an order for Surface, ask yourself: Is there anything that you desperately need and only Surface has and Android tablet or ipad can't have? If the answer is "no", then be patient, just wait and see until real reviews come out (from actual users instead of columnists). Of course if you are rich and want to find an excuse to spend money, then go ahead and order one.

I agree. The earlier rumors had it around the 299 price mark, if I remember correctly, which would have been a sure way for MS to get a chunk of the market. And they should let you chose your color at the same exact price, since they want these things to stand out on campus or the coffee shop. Imagine you would have to pay $100 extra for a colored iPod touch. I imagine their target audience is into colors and perceived individuality.

[ebusinesstutor]

Originally Posted by afv011

I think the ad should have less jumping around and more highlighting of the features. All you take away from it is that you have a choice of colors and an attachable keyboard.

Excellent point. Another example of bad advertising. What does all the dancing have to do with the features. The focus in on the hype, not how you will be able to use it.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Excellent point. Another example of bad advertising. What does all the dancing have to do with the features. The focus in on the hype, not how you will be able to use it.

Oh, I do all my dancing while throwing tablets around in the air. I'll even do it Gagnam Style.

[kfarmer]

Originally Posted by ebusinesstutor

Excellent point. Another example of bad advertising. What does all the dancing have to do with the features. The focus in on the hype, not how you will be able to use it.

Bad advertising? Look at Apple's marketing campaigns.

Consumers ("people") buy hype. Geeks buy whitepapers and keynotes. My opinion is that the commercial (more or less any commercial) is not going to target you or me.

[fjtorres]

Today's News:

1- Surface pre-orders have pushed deliveries for new pre-orders back three weeks. (Maybe the song and dance stuff *does* sell tablets. Who knew?!)

2- The MS Office on RT tablets is the same code base as Office for x86, just recompiled. The only thing that makes it a "Home and Student edition" is the licensing which is for personal non-commercial use. Companies *can* use it for business purposes if they are already licenced for Office 365 or the other x86 versions. Or they can buy a specific commercial use license. (BTW, the only thing that is "preview" about Office RT is that it was sent to manufacturing before Office 2013 went Gold. The final version will be out within a month so anybody taking delivery afterwards will get the final version.)

3- The reason Surface RT ships with 32GB storage is because, like the x86 version of Windows 8, WinRT itself (and Office) reside in the SSD volume, not in a separate ROM. And they take up 10GB between them. So 32GB is more like 22GB user accessible storage.

With that in mind, yes, they do need to cut the price once the early adopter frenzy cools off. Say in January.

One more time: Surface RT is a *PC* not a mediaPad. It plays by PC rules and PC pricing. It goes where the existing products don't go. And in those places the price is probably acceptable.

But me, I don't like in those spaces anymore, so I'm even more sure that it is best for me to wait. I want to see the Nexus 10, the FireHD9, the NookHD+, and maybe even the baby unicorn. Plus the other Win8 tablets, both RT and Pro. I can wait till spring if I have to.

[SeaKing]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Today's News:

1- Surface pre-orders have pushed deliveries for new pre-orders back three weeks. (Maybe the song and dance stuff *does* sell tablets. Who knew?!)

2- The MS Office on RT tablets is the same code base as Office for x86, just recompiled. The only thing that makes it a "Home and Student edition" is the licensing which is for personal non-commercial use. Companies *can* use it for business purposes if they are already licenced for Office 365 or the other x86 versions. Or they can buy a specific commercial use license. (BTW, the only thing that is "preview" about Office RT is that it was sent to manufacturing before Office 2013 went Gold. The final version will be out within a month so anybody taking delivery afterwards will get the final version.)

3- The reason Surface RT ships with 32GB storage is because, like the x86 version of Windows 8, WinRT itself (and Office) reside in the SSD volume, not in a separate ROM. And they take up 10GB between them. So 32GB is more like 22GB user accessible storage.

With that in mind, yes, they do need to cut the price once the early adopter frenzy cools off. Say in January.

One more time: Surface RT is a *PC* not a mediaPad. It plays by PC rules and PC pricing. It goes where the existing products don't go. And in those places the price is probably acceptable.

But me, I don't like in those spaces anymore, so I'm even more sure that it is best for me to wait. I want to see the Nexus 10, the FireHD9, the NookHD+, and maybe even the baby unicorn. Plus the other Win8 tablets, both RT and Pro. I can wait till spring if I have to.

I too am interested in the pricing.

Still I don't know if it will replace my netbook.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by SeaKing

I too am interested in the pricing.

Still I don't know if it will replace my netbook.

I'm keeping this one in mind:
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/...udes-keyboard/

Once it shows up on Amazon (discounted) it might be worthy.
I expect cheaper models from other players.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by kfarmer

Bad advertising? Look at Apple's marketing campaigns.

Consumers ("people") buy hype. Geeks buy whitepapers and keynotes. My opinion is that the commercial (more or less any commercial) is not going to target you or me.

Did you just call us all GEEKS? How dare you!

[xendula]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Today's News:

1- Surface pre-orders have pushed deliveries for new pre-orders back three weeks. (Maybe the song and dance stuff *does* sell tablets. Who knew?!)

2- The MS Office on RT tablets is the same code base as Office for x86, just recompiled. The only thing that makes it a "Home and Student edition" is the licensing which is for personal non-commercial use. Companies *can* use it for business purposes if they are already licenced for Office 365 or the other x86 versions. Or they can buy a specific commercial use license. (BTW, the only thing that is "preview" about Office RT is that it was sent to manufacturing before Office 2013 went Gold. The final version will be out within a month so anybody taking delivery afterwards will get the final version.)

3- The reason Surface RT ships with 32GB storage is because, like the x86 version of Windows 8, WinRT itself (and Office) reside in the SSD volume, not in a separate ROM. And they take up 10GB between them. So 32GB is more like 22GB user accessible storage.

With that in mind, yes, they do need to cut the price once the early adopter frenzy cools off. Say in January.

One more time: Surface RT is a *PC* not a mediaPad. It plays by PC rules and PC pricing. It goes where the existing products don't go. And in those places the price is probably acceptable.

But me, I don't like in those spaces anymore, so I'm even more sure that it is best for me to wait. I want to see the Nexus 10, the FireHD9, the NookHD+, and maybe even the baby unicorn. Plus the other Win8 tablets, both RT and Pro. I can wait till spring if I have to.

I disagree: the Surface RT is a media tablet, the Surface Pro is a PC.
On the Pro, I can install regular windows software. On the RT, I can install tablet apps only from the MS app store. The RT is not the complete Windows 8 experience.