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

[neonplanet40]

I am with you Spud1 however I do not believe it is good value presently. For £399 with the cover I would have been sold. As it stands however it isn't good value.

There is also speculation that the OS is scrounging quite a lot of that 32GB up.

[tickedon]

I am with you Spud1 however I do not believe it is good value presently. For £399 with the cover I would have been sold. As it stands however it isn't good value.

There is also speculation that the OS is scrounging quite a lot of that 32GB up.

They've said that we should expect 'at least' 20GB free on the 32GB. So I'm guessing we'll get 21GB or something...

I tend to agree - 32GB including a cover would have sold me. It's just a bit too expensive, and so I'll wait and hold out for other RT tables and the Surface Pro in a few months, and decide then! Still no need to rush and replace my first-gen iPad, still does the job well!

[TheAnimus]

Well they've had either more pre-orders than expected, or supply chain / manafacturing issues. Mine is no longer going to be dispatched on the 26th of October, but now the 2nd of Nov.

[neonplanet40]

You will have to do a small review when you get it!

[Hicks12]

Dont worry TA, apparently those emails were sent by mistake http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/20/m...lay-canada-uk/

You should be fine, let us know how good it is... im very tempted to purchase one but it costs the same as my new laptop so will have to wait for Surface 2 when it gets EOL ha!.

[TheAnimus]

Yeah, I got an email this morning apparently it will be the 26th. I'm hoping the build quality will be good, my samsung 9 series has made me simply despise anything which is simply alluminium. In its short months, it travelled 18,000+ miles with me, completed tens of thousands of pounds worth of dev work, and doesn't even have a scratch..... except for where I dropped it, screen open, on to a table.... I've one dead pixel thanks to that.

For me I really value good robustness to build quality. Silly as it sounds the skateboard thing made me think "hmm, ok I'll take a punt". The fact I can use the Office 365 thing, have my laptop for dev work, an surface for paperwork really made it tick the can be productivity too box.

Hopefully it won't just be a disaster, like the iPad.

[Hicks12]

Sounds like it will fit in nicely , at the minute for me I can only see it being as a toy as i am always close to my laptop or desktop and so its more to just have something flashy, maybe next year if I grab a placement it could be useful so we shall see, couldnt afford by then .

[TheAnimus]

Well as I've said, I'll try and do a very quick comparison video.

[Spud1]

yet more reading and I see two more questions

1) No windows media player. Seems odd that MS themselves go out of their way to point this out on the pre-order pages - I presume we're stuck with Zune player then? Big question here will be if they finally allow you to jump to a point in a track or do you still have to just hold down FF for 5 min So long as it plays music/podcasts/videos though that'll be fine...
2) No outlook. Very curious to see how "Mail" performs with exchange - particularly with regards to syncing with a large mailbox..and of course how the UI works. It's something that Apple and Blackberry have both done very well (I particularly like the blackberry playbook Mail app from a UI point of view)..but Google have an awful mail app as standard - so I am curious how this one really differs from outlook, especially given how well outlook transitions to the new hotmail/outlook.com experience).

The poor show by apple only makes me more interested in this device Shame that they won't sell the 64gb model without the touch keyboard cover, and don't offer a £30 upgrade to the type cover (good thing for my credit card though!)

[TheAnimus]

1) Nuts to WMP, Zune desktop client was so much better.

Sadly there is no Zune. Its now XBox music. *sigh*. You can skip better than on WP thou.

2) this will be interesting, I don't know if we'll see a 360 or rather a 365 on this one, but I don't know why they left out outlook, and office communicator. (for peeps not working in big firms, logging of msgs is often a legal requirement). Hopefully they will acquiesce. I think businesses could lap up the cheaper RT. (Cheaper from a running POV if done well in a BYOCTW).

From what I've heard about the touch cover its very good and worth having. When you consider the price Apple charge for a plastic cover with magnets, an extra £30 for a keyboard and touchpad isn't bad.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This looks interesting:

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6387/a...otab-rt-review

[TheAnimus]

ASUS are making some interesting things, their dual screen ultrabook ('Monitor Side' is double sided!) for instance.

I think that microsoft by making a quality device have forced certain things for a certain price point in their ecosystem.

[TheAnimus]

Well the BBC have covered it.... Sort of:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20054674

They've done more of a roundup.