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Thread: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

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    Senior Member this_is_gav's Avatar
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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Having had to work (loose description) with the Apple eco-system for the past 6 weeks at work, I'll go for anyone that isn't them. Clearly they're in it for no-one but the consumer - at least Microsoft cater (somewhat reasonably) for those who actually have to work with these devices daily. Apple have finally extended their DEP programme to the EU this year, but the actual process of trying to work with the multiple iTunes accounts under a single IP address is a miserable and horribly frustrating experience.

    Like the consumer end of their business it promises much, but in our case, and I'm sure many others (ask anyone who's had to license apps to numerous devices) it's just stunted, an infuriatingly slow process and ultimately horrifyingly expensive in our case (a school).

    Personally I wouldn't be too fussed if it's Google with their Chromebooks or any Windows-based device, but I strongly suspect Microsoft still hold the cards from a productivity point of view. Personally I'm not in the market for either though - I get by perfectly fine with my Windows PCs and Android phone.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Surface all the way, so much that I actually brought one and with demoing it at work, meant that we ditched the ipads and purchased 120 surface pro 3's instead.

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    Token 'murican GuidoLS's Avatar
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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Neither - I don't have any real use for the Apple infrastructure nor their walled garden, and I'd rather have a proper MS capable laptop *IF* I were in the market for something new.

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    Senior Member Brewster0101's Avatar
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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Saw a video on pocketnow the other day comparing the new ios and Android M betas. Video was showing the new features and I could only think - windows 8.1 on my tablet does all of these already...

    Its a shame Microsoft tablets aren't as popular because on the whole they are so much better.

    Surface 3 any day over an android or ios product. - Although personally the surface 3 is £100 too much and needs to include the keyboard.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Owning an iPad Mini, LG G Pad and an Acer W4, the one i use most is the W4 followed by the G Pad with the iPad bring up the rear.
    I do find the W4 a tad to small and the touch interface is unresponsive at times but i still prefer Windows over IOS or Android so one hopes that Microsoft have got the Surface well sorted as it is likely to be my next tablet of choice, though i would prefer a 10" display ultrabook.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Quote Originally Posted by shaithis View Post
    Where's the slew of Android options that are better than both of them?
    There aren't any.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    From the choice presented i'd go with MS. However if android was included i'd go with them due to the sheer amount of customisability, don't like the way the android interface works ? - install one of the many different launchers.. and yes android can be made to look and feel like IOS or Win 8 if that's your thing.
    I don't trust any of the big 3 with personal data so its good to know I can stick a custom ROM on an android device, I know apple stuff can be jailbroken but i'm not sure what you can do afterwards to get out of the apple ecosystem and secure the device.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Quote Originally Posted by DemonHighwayman View Post
    From the choice presented i'd go with MS. However if android was included i'd go with them due to the sheer amount of customisability, don't like the way the android interface works ? - install one of the many different launchers.. and yes android can be made to look and feel like IOS or Win 8 if that's your thing.
    I don't trust any of the big 3 with personal data so its good to know I can stick a custom ROM on an android device, I know apple stuff can be jailbroken but i'm not sure what you can do afterwards to get out of the apple ecosystem and secure the device.
    You don't need to get out of the Apple ecosystem. The idea is to embrace it.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Just got a Surface 3 in, but it's the 4GB/128GB model to better cope with the applications we run. Expensive, but impressive.

    Plenty of iPad Air 2s here as well. They're both such different machines really - the iPad feels like much more of a toy. Great for browsing, the odd handy app etc, but the Surface is massively more versatile. As it well should be, considering the compromises with the OS, greater weight and cost.

    Being able to add the Surface to a domain, versus Workgroup/Profile Manager, it's a no-brainer in work.

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    Seething Cauldron of Hatred TheAnimus's Avatar
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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    Microsoft are late to the game, and are only apparantly offering the one GUI.
    I don't understand. The problem with pre-windows 10 windows is that you've got two GUIs, two whole ecosystems, as MUI apps can not run in the desktop environment. This is a big problem.
    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    Apple sell a product which works seamlessly with its other products, and is probably less untrustworthy than Google or MS.
    Compatability the S3 is far, far beyond the iPad. Want to sync your iPhone, you can do that on the S3, but not the iPad without cloud. So I don't know where trust comes from.

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    So if you can afford it, buy Apple. If you can't, go Android or surface.
    Surface costs more..... Not sure how you could buy it if you couldn't afford the iPad.

    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    If you aren't bothered about integration, then Google offers the best cross platform collaborative tools with Google docs.
    LOL. Google docs is terrible for small or large collaberation compared to OneNote, it's too buggy.
    Quote Originally Posted by peterb View Post
    If you need to interact with exchange, then it will be MS surface.
    Actually, Exchange integration and Sharepoint works very well on iPad/Android too. In fact it's better than integration outside of android is for google services.
    throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Quote Originally Posted by Brewster0101 View Post
    Saw a video on pocketnow the other day comparing the new ios and Android M betas. Video was showing the new features and I could only think - windows 8.1 on my tablet does all of these already...

    Its a shame Microsoft tablets aren't as popular because on the whole they are so much better.

    Surface 3 any day over an android or ios product. - Although personally the surface 3 is £100 too much and needs to include the keyboard.
    Realistically speaking, how many of those features on the Windows 8.1 platform are original features that have never before been seen on any other platform, be it phone, tablet, laptop or desktop computer?

    As for which of the two I'd pick, well neither really, I have a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 with i5, 256gb storage and 8gb RAM, the Surface 3 came out too late for me to consider it as an option, but I wouldn't want to go for the smaller screen or step down to a lower processor so if it were available at the time I still most likely would have gone with the Pro version. Why? Because I'm a specs maniac, and no other reason to be honest.

    As for the device itself, I think it is awesome, really like it and can't fault it in many aspects though I'd be lying if I said it had no faults at all, my main issue is that stupid tag that's designed to hold the stylus in place got pulled off and now I can't re-use it, it's left a mark on my case and it will cost £5 plus delivery to replace, which is shocking. I don't see why Microsoft couldn't have added a storage compartment for this to slide into, it makes the stylus seem like an after thought.

    I'm looking forward to Windows 10 with these as I can't wait for the facial recognition to log in, I think that would be out of this world when we get that, if it works properly that is. Also looking forward to finding out more about the Microsoft HoloLens, if that can do the things that I have imagined it would then it means I can work on multiple documents at once with them all showing in screens floating in virtual space around me instead of having to slide between documents on my Surface screen.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    I fail to see how a surface is even compared to an android tablet or ipad.

    android and ios are cut down media consumption OSes, surface runs the full windows OS.

    That said I'm not that impressed with what the surface offers over a conventional laptop
    - less power, less storage worse keyboard ?
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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    While neither are what I'd actually buy for myself, if I was forced to choose between the two, I'd choose the iPad, because it's a usable tablet. The Surface 3 is neither here nor there. It's too bulky for a tablet and has a crappy UI for a tablet (IMO; I own a Windows tablet and phone, hate the UI), and it's too weak for my tastes to be a really useful small laptop.

    Anyway, I'm thinking of moving to the Apple ecosystem. I'm mainly a mobile gamer and Android problems with games are getting to me. Windows just doesn't have what it takes when it comes to tablet gaming. So an iPad may be what I need.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Quote Originally Posted by shaithis View Post
    Where's the slew of Android options that are better than both of them?
    I'm genuinely curious about this.

    I have a Gnex and two years down the line it's pants, even with fresh cyanogen on it. I don't have much installed, but it's sluggish, things crash frequently and it's got to the point where I wouldn't trust it in an emergency. My initial idea was to then buy a high end Android tablet like a Galaxy Tab 8, but now I'm not so sure. All my experiences of Android on mobile have taught me that it's fantastic for the first year or two and then it's utter garbage. Is the tablet experience any better?

    I eventually bought a second hand iPad Mini 2 for a conference abroad, I paid £165 or so, and I fell in love with it. I wanted something that would replace my laptop which weighs almost three times as much. There are some things which annoy me greatly, like the inability to download files like you can on Android or the way you're locked into iTunes for syncing. Also why isn't there an iPad version of WhatsApp? No me gusta. What really shone for me was how bloody fast the thing is. I don't really need multitasking, as long as I can run Spotify or Soundcloud in the background it doesn't bother me too much. Things open quickly, the interface is silky smooth and it doesn't look like it's suffering from any slowdown at all. I was able to give a presentation using it too, although £40 for the VGA adaptor was very hard to swallow.

    At this stage I'm leaning towards the Surface 3 simply because it runs Windows, which means I can load up Python, IDEs, plug in instrumentation via USB and other things that tablets can't manage. My experience with the iPad also made me seriously consider getting an iPhone, much to my horror.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    My experience of running a £80 10" windows tablet has made me seriously consider a windows phone. I would definitely consider the surface 3 if I was in the market for a new device, but the £80 on the linx with a years office subscription is hard to beet. USB, HDMI, and expandable storage. The real winner for me is the ability to do something as simple as printing without having to arse about hosting printers on another PC, or buying a new printer. Will be interesting trying win10 on it. You can also sync stuff to multiple PCs (if you choose), just as well as you can with apple across their systems.

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    Re: QOTW: Apple iPad Air 2 or Microsoft Surface 3?

    Of course stream home streaming woks great on windows tablets too.

    For me android tablets where partly useful and windows tablets are great but I have a perfect capable netbook, but a dual boot tablet finally got me at £83.00, best of both worlds.

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