Microsoft airs its first Surface tablet ad

[xendula]

Does anyone know if the RT will come with Win Explorer and allow you to freely move content onto and off of the device? That's one limitation of today's portble devices that is driving me nuts.

[xendula]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Speaking of RT making sense for somebody, ZDnet has an interesting take:
http://www.zdnet.com/buying-tablets-...73/?s_cid=e539






And note: these are the *conservative* guys who aren't comfortable with RT or Win8 to start with.

Just by releasing Surface RT, MS has already achieved its primary mission: blunting, maybe stalling, corporate iPad adoption. It has also greased the way for its OEM partners: businesses may not feel comfortable buying tabletss from MS but they'll have no problem buying HP, Dell, or Lenovo. Still a win for MS.
There's many ways to win when the game is this complex.

I can already see my company planning on ditching the iPads on favor of the RT's which they can lock down draconically. Sigh. The only reason why the iPad was so successful in the business world, was the vacuum - there wasn't anything else for a while. However, without 3/4G connectivity, it may be a challenge. iPads in my company all have cellular - that's the whole point of them, since most computers neither have USB access nor admin rights.

[Kolenka]

Originally Posted by scrapking

I read this: http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-f...ng-reddit-iama

<snip for brevity>

And now I don't know what to think about the screen resolution. It sounds like resolution isn't the be-all, end-all of tablet displays. Very interesting.

The thing is, ClearType is what is used on Windows to make type more readable on lower resolution displays. Apple uses straight anti-aliasing on iOS and OS X. ClearType does a bit better than simple anti-aliasing, but has the disadvantage that your typeface isn't as accurately portrayed as it is "gaming" the anti-aliasing to avoid fuzzy text.

In reality, the Surface is no better than what you can get from your desktop PC today. But perhaps that's good enough for a lot of folks? Personally, I like the push towards high DPI displays just because it means you can get sharp text *and* accurate text at the same time. I find it a bit easier to focus on and read, personally.

Originally Posted by John F

Could you define what an app is? I thought that they were different: a native x86 app/exe would not be able to execute on RT?

x86 can't run on an ARM chip, that's a non-starter. And you are right, a Win32 x86/x64 app meant to run in the desktop environment can't run on Windows RT. But a big chunk of that is CPU architecture issues.

However, anything designed for the new UI is built on a variation of .NET, which is compiled down to whatever ARM or x86 needs when it is time to run. With a keyboard and trackpad so easily available, I suspect content creation apps written for the new UI will be a lot easier to come by. Those apps will also run on Windows RT and Windows Pro without any changes.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Their alternative to iOS and Android, WindowsCE also ran on pretty much every CPU architecture and still runs on a broad range of different architectures in industrial computing and embedded mission-critical systems. In fact, WindowsCE has seen use in actual PCs for sale in China and other developing markets.

Windows CE was never a good alternative to iOS and Android. Windows Phone 8 uses NT for a good reason. You say yourself that CE is used in embedded system and industrial computing. These have a lot more strict requirements than anything like Windows Phone, iOS or Android have. They also have no need for a lot of things that those other 3 do have need for.

Originally Posted by xendula

Does anyone know if the RT will come with Win Explorer and allow you to freely move content onto and off of the device? That's one limitation of today's portble devices that is driving me nuts.

Windows RT has the Windows desktop available. However, you can only use the built-in apps, and the desktop is really only there to support Office 2013. Win Explorer is available, but I'm left wondering what will happen to the desktop in Windows RT when Office is fully updated into the new UI.

[John F]

Originally Posted by scrapking

...

It helps that Microsoft (if Xbox and Windows Phone is any indication) does their app stores best: for example, with Xbox you have been able to unlock the full version of an app from within its free trial. I can't believe that when I had an iPhone a few years ago I had to download the free trial, and if I liked it I had to *delete it* and then purchase and download the full version. What a pain, and so behind the times when Microsoft's been doing this right since 2005 on the Xbox. Maybe Apple's subsequently corrected this but, at any rate, Microsoft has a strong history of doing app stores right IMO.

...

That sounds like a nitpick. My experience is the opposite... My 360 died (guess how). It took MULTIPLE support contacts to get some of my downloaded stuff on the new XBox, and I still only got about half of it. With Apple, whenever someone in my family purchases a new iDevice, all the previous downloaded stuff "just appears" on the new device.

YMMV

[Andy_T]

I'm totally impressed by the variety of upcoming Windows 8 devices. Guess this is the beginning of major shifts in the tablet market.

Best regards,
Andy

[CWatkinsNash]

I liked the ad. It was cheerful, colorful, and well choreographed. But then, I judge advertising purely on entertainment value and/or emotional impact. The thing I'm most likely to purchase after seeing a commercial is the song featured in it. How well a product is demonstrated is meaningless to me because I get that sort of info elsewhere.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by xendula

Does anyone know if the RT will come with Win Explorer and allow you to freely move content onto and off of the device? That's one limitation of today's portble devices that is driving me nuts.

Windows Explorer is no more.
It has been renamed File Explorer. And both versions of Windows will have it.
http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/29/31...ndows-explorer

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by scrapking

I read this: http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-f...ng-reddit-iama

And now I don't know what to think about the screen resolution. It sounds like resolution isn't the be-all, end-all of tablet displays. Very interesting.

As a rule, screen resolution is simply what a display panel *can* do. Think of it as a resource, like RAM.
Beyond that, there is the matter of what the rest of the system *does* do with that available resource. The quality of the graphics chip, the drivers, the OS graphics sub-system, and the application you are running.

What MS is saying is that they can get more quality out of WXGA with RT than Apple does out of QXGA with iOS. Which may very well be literally true but doesn't address the basic fact that Windows RT could get even better quality out of a FullHD panel.
There is a difference between getting the most out of a lower resolution panel and offering up a higher resolution display.
One area where native higher resolution pays off is in HD video playback where displaying a full HD stream at native resolution will stress the CPU/GPU less than scaling it down for display on a lower resolution display.

Obviously, a corporate PC will care less about resolution than a media pad since HD video playback isn't mission critical at most corporations.

But for some consumers...

[QuantumIguana]

I expect this won't be the last tablet produced with a removable keyboard/cover.

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

What MS is saying is that they can get more quality out of WXGA with RT than Apple does out of QXGA with iOS.

From what I've read, they don't actually say that, they just try to give the impression that it is true.
For example they say that MTF is made up of more than just resolution, but don't actually say that the Surface's MTF is better than the iPad's.
They are stuck with a low res screen in a high res screen market, and are trying to talk a good game to make the most of it.

One area where native higher resolution pays off is in HD video playback where displaying a full HD stream at native resolution will stress the CPU/GPU less than scaling it down for display on a lower resolution display.

Obviously, a corporate PC will care less about resolution than a media pad since HD video playback isn't mission critical at most corporations.

Frankly when I upgraded to the iPad 3 to get the better screen, video playback was the least important reason. Video can look good even on a lower res screen, because in most cases when filming real-life screens you have soft edges and colour boundaries that blend together.
High res is much more important for text, where there are exact edges and harsh blank and white contrast, and in turn text would be far more important for a corporate tool than a consumer one.

[hrosvit]

Originally Posted by xendula

I feel the exact same frustration with my iPad and would ditch it if something came along with the same sexy body, connectivity, battery life, screen resolution, zero freezes, affordable price AND a more open system.

Exactly. I have a Windows tablet that came with Windows 7 installed. It failed, utterly, in two categories: operating system and battery life. Windows 7 is an utter failure on a touch device with limited resources; bulky, laggy, terrible. But I replaced it with the consumer preview of Windows 8 when it was released, and was absolutely stunned by how much better it functioned. And with the 64GB hard drive, and endless storage in the form of SD cards, I would be happy...if it weren't for the battery life. Four hours is totally unacceptable.

So, I bought an iPad 3. And I love it. But I am also fully aware of its (self imposed) limitations. But a full Windows tablet with a battery life comparable to an iPad would be spectacular.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by murraypaul

Frankly when I upgraded to the iPad 3 to get the better screen, video playback was the least important reason. Video can look good even on a lower res screen, because in most cases when filming real-life screens you have soft edges and colour boundaries that blend together.
High res is much more important for text, where there are exact edges and harsh blank and white contrast, and in turn text would be far more important for a corporate tool than a consumer one.

Well, text is the area where Microsoft's "trickery" shines the most.
As pointed out above, Apple does simple antialiasing, whereas MS does sub-pixel addressing and font hinting, among other techniques.

Also, the benefit from using FullHD screen for HD video is on CPU/GPU loading; you can get smooth playback even with lesser processor power if you just map the stream to the display and don't have to scale it after decoding it.
With the New iPad most of the extra power (from the iPad2) in the GPU goes to just getting the screen working smoothly. So MS may have gone with the lower-res screen not necessarily to save money but to spare the processors and make the system snappier and more responsive.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by hrosvit

But a full Windows tablet with a battery life comparable to an iPad would be spectacular.

Lots of us dream of such a beast.
Easily worth Ultrabook pricing.
(I have an older HP Tablet PC I intend to upgrade to Win8 somebody delivers the DreamPad. Good to hear Win8 will improve performance, what I have under Vista is fine but improvement never hurt.)

[hrosvit]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

(I have an older HP Tablet PC I intend to upgrade to Win8 somebody delivers the DreamPad. Good to hear Win8 will improve performance, what I have under Vista is fine but improvement never hurt.)

What's the battery life like on the HP?

[murraypaul]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Also, the benefit from using FullHD screen for HD video is on CPU/GPU loading; you can get smooth playback even with lesser processor power if you just map the stream to the display and don't have to scale it after decoding it.

Is that really an issue for modern GPUs? The $35 Raspberry Pi can handle scaling 1080p video to display on smaller screens.