[fjtorres]

I wasn't trying to dismiss or deprecate anybody: my point was abd remains that companies can put effort and resources into features that while impressive on paper, don't actually buy them enough added sales to justify the features.
Which is what the Zune example was about: most of the reviews I saw at the time compared the audio output of the Zune favorably to the iPod shipping at the time but when it came time to generste sales, it did them no good.

Microsoft is a big believer in usability labs, no secret there (right?) but usability testing (and product design) depend on identifying usage scenarios that reflect user needs and values. When the users don't appreciate the added value of a feature or trait, the product might as well have it. And some times the inevitable tradeoffs work to the product's detriment, which is why I cited the displaymate reports to highlight how Google (not Apple) had focused on achieving the highest pixel density of the day and ended up with a problematic display.

Now, the surface 3 has plenty of tradeoffs hidden in the design: Microsoft thinks the balance of resolution, image quality, weight, thin-ness, form-factor, etc will outweight the features they chose not to implement, like 8GB RAM on the cheaper models (to support virtualization) Or higher pixel density. I will say I've seen a lot more disappointment over memory configurations than over screen resolution. (Sorry!) The ZDnet and Cnet crowds skew corporate IT, of course.

We can speculate all we like, but in the end it will be the folks voting their wallets that determine whether they appreciate the features and tradeoffs or not and how far the Surfaces go.

Me, I like a lot of things about the line (especially the pen) but it doesn't particularly matter because my purchase cycle is out of phase for the Surface 3 today. Next year, maybe. Especially if the i5 and i7 refurbs put one of the bigger models within justification range.