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About LinkBacks£400 for microsoft tablets which freezes even on launch demonstration?
What do they think they are? Not even close to Apple
£400 for microsoft tablets which freezes even on launch demonstration?
What do they think they are? Not even close to Apple
What a ludicrously misguided assumption lol, if something in a non-launch demonstration freezes it's not worth it's price tag? Crazy.Originally Posted by lapyiwin
Pretty close to Apple but not as bad for sure if we go by your logic and this video.
That's for the proper keys version though, still expensive but I imagine the key covers will be a lot cheaper, or they really are silly.
Ouch..this is disappointingly expensive.
If I bought one of these, it would become my new blackberry playbook in a matter of weeks..why? Because it has exactly the same problem - a total lack of apps!
My playbook is perfect for watching movies, browsing the web, checking emails..but more than that? It's tough to find something else to do with it. Microsoft still seem to have this crazy idea that people are going to start typing essays and working with a tablet as a content creation device - but even though some die hards muddle through with this, it will always be faster and easier to do your typing on an ultra book. It's a big improvement on the transformer style of tablet for creating documents/spreadsheets, but I do really struggle to see the point.
This needed to be no more than £299 WITH the keyboard case in order to make a real impact - at £479 inc the touch cover it's way over the "impulse buy" territory to the point that for me personally. The only thing that does make me think twice a little is that my next phone has to be a Windows 8 phone (my current one is falling apart, and the blackberry london is too far away) so depending on how integration goes with that, there are possibly a few redeeming features here.
The only positive here is that we have not been screwed over on price Vs the US market - remember our prices include tax and theirs don't, so they have to pay these ridiculous prices too
Wait for the sales methinks..or even better, get a full fat one that will run real windows.
Last edited by Spud1; 17-10-2012 at 07:00 AM.
That's one of the big reasons I bought one - got a Samsung Series 9 and want a tablet with the same kind of quality. Shiny silver plastic has no place on something that gets carried and bashed around all the time.
I'll probably keep my Surface RT until the second gen pro comes along. Haswell will enable active standby and all the fancy stuff ARM manages but on a full-fat Intel CPU. I'm guessing the Surface pro in January will use the 10w Ivy Bridge and wil be great for many, but I can hang on for now.
All I need now is an RT version of Tunnelier for remote access into home and i'll be set - the other apps I'm not yet aware I need will come along anyway.
The other thing to remember is that RT apps will run on the 100s of millions of Windows 8 PCs that will be around by the end of the year, and also on the 100s ;-) of Windows 8 phones ...
I can understand people being intrigued by these, but I can't see any reason to take a gamble with the RT at all. At least, not before we've seen proper reviews and a bit of user experience water passing under the bridge. If I wanted a "locked in" system I'd go Apple for the same money. Love 'em or hate 'em, Apple have a huge head start in this market.
Still, god bless early adopters. You suffer so we don't have to. :-)
The Intel Surface is a different matter. How could any Windows user not want one if they're planning a tablet? However they're going to cost Ultrabook money, and my experience with both an iPad and a Nexus7 shows me that tablets are most definitely consumption devices. They are a pleasure to use on the sofa (or train in the case of the N7) but if I was spending that much I'd want two normal laptops or a kosher Ultrabook.
It'sa a fascinating period in hardware and software at the moment. I'm looking forward to sitting on the sidelines and seeing where the dust settles in the January sales.
The soft cover is still £80
Im blown away by the fact they thought this would be competitive.
Its Microsoft - so its not cool
Its expensive - so people wont impulse buy
It doesnt have full windows - so its not completely practical
Its a new OS - so there will be minimal app support
resolution is average - so it doesnt compete on the 'numbers' game with the ipad
There only chance was to sell it at such a competitive price that people bought into the eco system then make money back on app purchases. The vast numbers of people buying into the platform would mean the app support would quickly pick up then once people are tied in, they can charge more for the next one with mental resolutions or whatever.
I could have sworn they said at the initial launch a few moths ago that they would ship with a cover. I remember thinking at the time it was something they were doing above and beyond apple and that if the price was right it had a chance. Adding the cover as a cost option taking it above the price of an iPad is gadget suicide.
The cheapest 32GB, without touch cover model, has sold out in the US. It's now on back-order for 3 weeks. Still some left in the UK store though.
There's two markets, and Microsoft seem to have missed both price points:
Sub £200 for basic tablets and £400 for premium tablets
They'd have been better hitting £200 just to get the huge quantities of units out there....
Google released the Nexus 7 at cost to prop up Android's tablet market share. They did this because Android tablets were a flop. The move annoyed their OEM partners somewhat - thanks to Google and Amazon you can no longer flog a low-end Android tablet without selling at (or very close to) cost.
Microsoft are in a more difficult position. Surface is a very capable machine - good enough to be the only computer for many people. The Pro even more so. If they priced these tablets at cost, it wouldn't just shut OEMs out of the Windows tablet market - it would eat in to desktop and laptop sales. Sold at cost, Surface would be at risk of braking the PC market. If Surface RT is £250 with a touch cover, and Surface Pro is £500, why would the average user buy a £500 Dell laptop? I know I wouldn't - the laptop is many times heavier, many times larger and the battery lasts a fraction of the time.
They might sell Surface at cost yet, but W8/RT will need to be a massive failure before they'll even consider it. Once they've done it, there's no going back. Within 5 years, Microsoft would likely be the largest PC manufacturer.
Interesting, i wonder whether this is actually due to high demand or low stock.
£100 for a keyboard cover ruins the device really. Considering a bluetooth keyboard can be had for £20 (being generous) how wrapping it in cheap plastic warrants an extra £60 is beyond me. Unfortunately Microsoft have missed the boat completely with this and Windows 8. This is too expensive to compete with the iPad and Nexus tablet and Windows 8 is too a big of a change for your average user who has probably just figured out how to use windows 7 and completely unsuitable for enterprise (unless you're a sales rep relying on the shiny factor, in which case you'll use an iPad). Sorry Microsoft, Epic fail
For me the iPad is completely pointless. I say this owning one.
10" is too big for a 'content consumption device'. Google and Amazon have sown up the seven inch end, focusing on content to distribute.
A 10" tablet, is simply too big for comfortably lugging round, the iPad always has black borders when displaying any film/TV. Its just wrong for it.
However, even something like replying to an email makes me want a keyboard, and the idea of the keyboard cover is very good. Metro UI, like it or hate it, is very good for a touch driven interface, combined nicely with a keyboard and then Office toolset. That is damned good.
But £480 to get started?! Thats nuts, why not buy a laptop?
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Surface: Looks good. Priced a little high, and the keyboards are a rip off.
iPad: Looks good. Priced too high and the cover is a rip off.
It seems like the world is still in order.
I'll try and do a side by side on the 26th if I can.
Surface, Windows 8 Pro tablet, Ipad, Nexus.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
I've also got an iPad 3 - and i'm looking to move on.
So it's 399 to start with (not 480) and the keyboard looks expensive to some (solution: buy any number of el cheapo clones that appear no doubt). The on screen keyboard can't be anywhere as near as horrible as the iPad and the OS (being NT based) will be far more capable. Apps? With three platforms to target devs can hit a lot of potential customers so I can see this rapidly becoming a non issue (but you could just wait and see).
Having read up about it (including hands on stuff) this sounds like a seriously high quality product (which tbh does surprise me) and perhaps MS not targeting the bottom end of the market isn't so silly when Apple manage quite adequately to get you to part with big money for their toys (a 32GB iPad 3 is not cheap by any means and I still wince at how much I paid). It appears that the preorders are going very well so maybe they're on to something. Yes i'm more interested in the 'pro' version but then i'm not joe public i'm a dev and a ethusiast. I do think Office is a big plus too - it's ubiquitous and in the tablet world it has no serious competition.
I really want to get my hands on one of these to see for myself what the quality is like and whether (like some are saying) that resolution isn't as important as viewing angles, colour reproduction, battery life and performance in daylight (which MS are pushing as reasons for the lower-res-than-ipad decision). I've also been eyeing up this: http://www.kupaworld.com/ultranote.htm as well as many other 8 based tablets. Personally I think an x86 based tablet running 8 will beat the living crap out of my iPad 3 for what I want it for - more so than a nexus 7 (wife has one and yes it's bloody good) or nexus 10. Full OS or compromise OS?
That said, i'd be selling my laptop and my ipad 3 to get one (and atm I need both as neither do each other's jobs very well) - I really like the idea of a 'hybrid' device and i'm willing to pay for the right one.
Can't - the Pro isn't out this year
Last edited by dangel; 17-10-2012 at 02:03 PM.
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
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