Microsoft Surface Pro, global availability

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Of course you could go "old school" and use capacitive pens in OneNote.
A friend of mine is doing so and quite comfortable with the results.
Personally, I wouldn't do it. I'm nit-picky. I'm using a grid and want to be somewhat precise. Never could do so with those fat capacitive pens. But: At least it's working.

My friend is using one of these: http://www.amazon.de/Adonit-ADJPDG-P...5&keywords=jot
He states, precision is no problem at all.
I wanted to buy it about 18 months ago, but there had been some negative reports about scratching the screen. My friend didn't experience any such problems, though.

I also have one of those. And no, they are not nearly as precise as a Wacom digitizer. I have been spoilt by the Galaxy Note experience. It has to be at least on par with that. The Envy x2 has a digitizer by some new company (can't recall the name this minute) and that is, I believe, what is causing the delay.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

...The Envy x2 has a digitizer by some new company (can't recall the name this minute) and that is, I believe, what is causing the delay.

Without wanting to be too harsh: And then HP is wondering why their business is in decline.
I'm not an Apple fanboy. But their rollouts so far really have been benchmark:
a.) They roll-out more or less globally. Us Europeans don't have to look envious to the US for months, we gout our gadgets more or less in parallel.
b.) Important: The accessories are available as well. I had bought the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1V 2 years ago. I specifically wanted to have the 10.1V, I liked the design better than the 10.1. But after 3 months, there still wasn't a cover available from Samsung outside of the US. And I hate, ordering $ 30 items from the US and pay more for shipment and taxes than the product itself.

Those companies simply don't understand about customer experience.
And they really shouldn't be surprised, when the "new breed" such as Google takes their lunch...

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

I also have one of those. And no, they are not nearly as precise as a Wacom digitizer. I have been spoilt by the Galaxy Note experience. It has to be at least on par with that. The Envy x2 has a digitizer by some new company (can't recall the name this minute) and that is, I believe, what is causing the delay.

When googling for the stylus, I just stumbled over your post: http://forum.tabletpcreview.com/hewl...p-envy-x2.html
Loved the comment about the rubbery mini d..do... in line 3
I hate those things, have sold mine 2 years ago.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Without wanting to be too harsh: And then HP is wondering why their business is in decline.
I'm not an Apple fanboy. But their rollouts so far really have been benchmark:
a.) They roll-out more or less globally. Us Europeans don't have to look envious to the US for months, we gout our gadgets more or less in parallel.
b.) Important: The accessories are available as well. I had bought the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1V 2 years ago. I specifically wanted to have the 10.1V, I liked the design better than the 10.1. But after 3 months, there still wasn't a cover available from Samsung outside of the US. And I hate, ordering $ 30 items from the US and pay more for shipment and taxes than the product itself.

Those companies simply don't understand about customer experience.
And they really shouldn't be surprised, when the "new breed" such as Google takes their lunch...

They don't realize that the US domestic market is no longer big enough to sustain a company in a global marketplace. That shines through i Apple's and Google's hiring practices as well. I believe immigration is a hot topic in Silicon Valley.

[Kumabjorn]

Has anyone tried running BlueStacks on a Surface Pro?

I've been looking at the Samsung Ativ Q, with its dual Win8/Android setup. But it comes only in a 4 GB RAM constellation. If memory serves the Surface Pro has an 8 GB option, no? The Ativ Q will cost around $1,400, that is a lot more than a high grade Surface Pro, and if you can run Android in BlueStacks, the only advantage is the Ativ Q screen, which may or may not in reality be overkill.

[HansTWN]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Has anyone tried running BlueStacks on a Surface Pro?

I've been looking at the Samsung Ativ Q, with its dual Win8/Android setup. But it comes only in a 4 GB RAM constellation. If memory serves the Surface Pro has an 8 GB option, no? The Ativ Q will cost around $1,400, that is a lot more than a high grade Surface Pro, and if you can run Android in BlueStacks, the only advantage is the Ativ Q screen, which may or may not in reality be overkill.

You can check out the following website for user info on the Surface models: http://www.surfaceforums.net/forum/forum.php.

Bluestacks does run on the Pro, but why would you want to do that? Yes, you can push a Ferrari by hand, but it makes no sense unless something is wrong.

[Kumabjorn]

I have some Android apps that aren't available on Windows yet.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by HansTWN

...Bluestacks does run on the Pro...

Not anymore.
At least not "out of the box".
Since the video driver update about 8 weeks ago, Bluestacks doesn't work anymore. Dozens of threads https://getsatisfaction.com/bstk/sea...0&style=topics, but no update.
You see it on their website: No dedicated Surface Pro version anymore.

There's a solution: You can roll back the update.
But who would want to do that for a single app?

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Has anyone tried running BlueStacks on a Surface Pro?

I did.
It was working fine.
I've tried on Dell Latitude 10 as well, but with no success.
Since a video update driver about 8 weeks ago, it stopped working on Surface Pro as well. You can roll back the video driver, but I didn't want to do that.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

...If memory serves the Surface Pro has an 8 GB option, no?...

Not that I'm aware of.
As far as I know, the only configuration is 64GB or 128GB SSD.
Everything else, to my knowledge, is identical, i. e. 4GB RAM.

[Kumabjorn]

Hmmm, so very dependent on video drivers. Anytime they are updated it stops working.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Hmmm, so very dependent on video drivers. Anytime they are updated it stops working.

It should have been easy for Bluestacks, to deliver an update in the meantime.
But quite frankly, I don't understand the business model of Bluestacks anyway.
What's their source of income?
Maybe it's more of "hobby" than a business? And maybe it simply wasn't worth the effort to keep on par with the updates?!

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Not that I'm aware of.
As far as I know, the only configuration is 64GB or 128GB SSD.
Everything else, to my knowledge, is identical, i. e. 4GB RAM.

Ahh, so if you'd be running Android under BlueStacks you'd have 3GB or less available for Windows and other applications.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Ahh, so if you'd be running Android under BlueStacks you'd have 3GB or less available for Windows and other applications.

I'm not sure, whether I understand you correctly.
Would you want to run Bluestacks in parallel to some Windows apps?
Just to make sure: Bluestacks is a normal app, not a bootable OS.

On Chromebook Pixel, for example I could run Linux in parallel.
Not boot separately, but run parallel to Chrome.
So, of course both OSs would impact each other.

With Bluestacks on the other hand, Windows wouldn't suffer. It's like opening any other (memory intensive) app. Or shutting down Bluestacks after having used the specific Android app.

[Kumabjorn]

My point was that with only 4 GB of RAM available on board there will be very little left to other apps when BlueStacks is running.