News - Microsoft Surface pricing announced, starts at £399 in UK

[TheAnimus]

I've also got an iPad 3 - and i'm looking to move on.

So it's 399 to start with (not 480)

What I was meaning, is I think that 10" means I expect productivity, which means I expect a keyboard. I agree with the idea of clones nocking down price, but from what I've read people saying so far is its very high build quality device. You wouldn't want to put a naff keyboard with it.

Also as you where saying about quality

https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/258304210272133120

Steven having a quick ride on the skateboard made from a surface.

Can't - the Pro isn't out this year

Wasn't talking about the Surface, was more the ASUS thing I've got for dev. The main idea would be to show differences in OS, and speed, rather than hardware.

[dangel]

For those wondering about the screen stuff this is worth a look:

http://www.neowin.net/news/microsoft...the-surface-rt

...feel free to disagree with MS - I can't say as I haven't seen it.

[TheAnimus]

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment...face_amaa_ask/ the IAmA is worth linking too.

It's interesting because I find the iPad3 not very good for photographic use, because the colours and contrast are just poo.

I think Apple have used a marketing push of the resolution to cover up bad architectural limitations in what resolutions they were allowing.

[dangel]

Good that - just noticed:

"[–]SurfaceTeam[S] 60 points 18 hours ago

This is Ricardo. We used the 360 usb controllers to play with Surface all the time and they work great. We have not tried Kinect yet."

[TheAnimus]

haha, yes.

One of the reasons I'm looking forward to this is to use as a backup co-ordination device for my memory cards from my digital camera (see my post about loosing one!).

What's interesting to me, is how the BBC News Technology site has nothing about the fact they've started selling the Surface. They do have a piece of speculation about the new iPad Mini. It's going to be hard for them to gain traction against that.

[brasco]

I like the idea of having a full USB socket, it expands the peripheral possibilities.

What's interesting to me, is how the BBC News Technology site has nothing about the fact they've started selling the Surface. They do have a piece of speculation about the new iPad Mini. It's going to be hard for them to gain traction against that.

I'm starting to think there's a bias in the beeb tech team, it's starting to bug me. The excuse they gave for no iPlayer for WP was full of rubbish excuses. /rant

[dangel]

The BBC are massively pro-Apple IMHO - not a great source for unbiased opinion that's for sure.

[brasco]

The BBC are massively pro-Apple IMHO - not a great source for unbiased opinion that's for sure.

OK now I'm officially beyond my youth and in the sad bastard camp, I just wrote a complaint about it to them

[scaryjim]

If anyone has £280 spare this looks promising: http://www.ecrater.co.uk/p/15563776/...-touch-tablet# not sure many Win 7 metro apps will like the 1024x600 resolution though...

[kingpotnoodle]

The BBC are massively pro-Apple IMHO - not a great source for unbiased opinion that's for sure.

Most of the mainstream media is, because the skinny jeans and beard brigade all sit around in their media tart meetings posing with their iWhatever and only want to write reports on the easy stuff they know and love.

Most "technology correspondents" in mainstream got that job because they can reboot a PC and follow Steven Fry on Twitter. I seen so much inaccurate or just plain wrong tripe printed in newspapers...

[gagaga]

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.

Yup - and if you read the bumf on the MS website it's still written as if you get the black cover included. I'm guessing they decided to change the pricing very last minute.

[Spud1]

mmm well I have reconsidered slightly today - not enough to pre-order one of these (there is no rush!) but I do keep swinging back and forth.

I am comparing to my Mac Air - thinking what do I really use it for? It's for when I am on the sofa and browsing the web, but also need to input some data - so for example posting on a forum, or replying to an email (rather than just reading it). That's something that is *horrible* to do on a tablet (although due to its size, its not awful on my playbook). OK and there is the fact that it's BSD based and I have a helpful shell there when I want/need it, and I use it for my iPhone development at the moment, but put that to one side as my Air could easily be any high end ultrabook.

So then you think..mm larger screen tablet with office, a keyboard and mouse all built into the case..that could do the same job there, and I could buy two surfaces by just selling my mac air (say what you like about Apple - their hardware holds its value!)..

But then there is the rub - you want to use this on the sofa and type at the same time - and that won't work here unless you put it on a table. My laptop (being solid and hinged) can be held at any angle. Lying down, slouching, sitting upright..so flexible in terms of how to use it. Can't do that with the surface - the kick stand needs something to lean against.

I always struggle to find a genuine use for any tablet (or to work out why I want to buy so many of them lol ) and although I have swung more towards liking the RT today, I am still struggling with that point. So here is the question on my mind about this tablet:

When you still need a desk for effective content creation...is it really any better than an iPad running Office for iPad [or android with polaris] with a Bluetooth keyboard case?

[TheAnimus]

Well Spud, apparently it is easy to use on the sofa, but I doubt it is as easy as an ultrabook.

I've heard that the Office RT is really quite complete, despite lacking say VBA, its still miles ahead of any other tablet productivity suite.

[Animus404]

Can you use RDP on the Surface?

[shaithis]

Can you use RDP on the Surface?

Yes. It would be a bit embarrassing if you couldn't!

[Spud1]

And that RDP support built in is another massive advantage - infact this takes away much of the criticsim that I would level against the software itself - when you can RDP to your main PC or server and run your full-fat applications on there, it makes the surface RT a much more appealing thin client. OK so you can't play World of Wacraft on it (that would be a killer feature for me)..but maybe someone will sort out a streaming client for it so that one day, we can.

I get the feeling that I am losing my internal argument about whether to buy one or not lol I'll stop clogging the thread with my ramblings now though and do some work so I can afford to waste my money on one!