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Forums - Microsoft - Microsoft screwed up with the Surface tablet...

michael_stutzer on 29 October 2012
disolitude said:
michael_stutzer said:

But it is seriously underpowered, which is evident by the performance of the applications. Yes the UI is fast, but it is not a big achievement really at this point. The screen isn't all that great (resolutionwise), it is underpowered, the app selection is definitely not one of the strengths. The problem is definitely not the OS though, with better hardware pretty much all problems will be gone. Everyone should wait Surface 2 or other tablets in my opinion.


Perhaps...I haven't noticed any slowdown from the 15 minutes I spent with it, but there have been some complaints so it may be justified.

I think that we are underestimating the value of proper MS office on a tablet form factor. It's te only tablet offering this right now and I think this is it's main appeal. It's certanly selling well if we are to believe Microsoft being sold out so the lack of specs isn't something it appears to be hurting it...

Even assuming performance is good now, it isn't future proof. I generally use my electronic devices at least three years so I want them well specced for the future.

In my opinion, people are overestimating it if anything. I never understand the appeal of Office on a touch screen, though I have to try it before saying the final word. It may change my mind. I never felt the lack of Office though, and it will come to other OS's as well. I think that its main selling point is the nice and different UI (at least compared to Ipad). 

The people that care about the specs are probably not a big percentage of the customers, so of course the lack of specs is not going to hurt it at the beginning. It may be a problem down the road when people find out that the competing tablets are better performers though. Do the other available RT tablets have the same internals? 



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michael_stutzer on 29 October 2012

The Nexus 10 was just announced at $399, seriously. Surface started to seem like a $200 device really.



greenmedic88 on 29 October 2012
michael_stutzer said:
disolitude said:
michael_stutzer said:

But it is seriously underpowered, which is evident by the performance of the applications. Yes the UI is fast, but it is not a big achievement really at this point. The screen isn't all that great (resolutionwise), it is underpowered, the app selection is definitely not one of the strengths. The problem is definitely not the OS though, with better hardware pretty much all problems will be gone. Everyone should wait Surface 2 or other tablets in my opinion.


Perhaps...I haven't noticed any slowdown from the 15 minutes I spent with it, but there have been some complaints so it may be justified.

I think that we are underestimating the value of proper MS office on a tablet form factor. It's te only tablet offering this right now and I think this is it's main appeal. It's certanly selling well if we are to believe Microsoft being sold out so the lack of specs isn't something it appears to be hurting it...

Even assuming performance is good now, it isn't future proof. I generally use my electronic devices at least three years so I want them well specced for the future.

In my opinion, people are overestimating it if anything. I never understand the appeal of Office on a touch screen, though I have to try it before saying the final word. It may change my mind. I never felt the lack of Office though, and it will come to other OS's as well. I think that its main selling point is the nice and different UI (at least compared to Ipad). 

The people that care about the specs are probably not a big percentage of the customers, so of course the lack of specs is not going to hurt it at the beginning. It may be a problem down the road when people find out that the competing tablets are better performers though. Do the other available RT tablets have the same internals? 

I think you do have a point in that next year's Surface 2 RT is going to really date the current version's hardware when developer's start optimizing their apps for Surface 2 specs.

Everyone will see: the Surface will be just like the iPad in that respect. Expect to see a high res version next year as well.



Squilliam on 29 October 2012
disolitude said:
Squilliam said:
Yeah it flies on my quad core phenom 2 htpc. I enjoyed it so much on my desktop I went straight to my htpc and installed it there az well. Overall the desktop experience is great and metro is pretty slick as well. I don't see why all the tech sites are moaning about it its almost like hubris because their main problems are that it's new and puts them on a level playing field with regular people.


I think they've stopped bitching for the most part. While the betas and previews were out, there was a lot of bitching though, especially from the power users.

One thing I discovered yesterday which probably contributed to power users calming down... If you mouse in to the bottom left corner so that the metro/desktop pops up and right click, you get most of the power user options which were scattered all over the place in Windows 7. At this point Windows 8 is faster to navigate than Win 7 in pretty much every way.

All I can say is that it makes VGChartz load fast. If anything can make this site load quickly it must be a quick OS. I noticed the power user stuff too, they seem to have made the right click a far more important button becuase in Win 8 you use it all the time.



Tease.

yo_john117 on 29 October 2012
Squilliam said:
I just installed Windows 8 on this PC and it feels like the whole thing is turbocharged. Everything I do is slick and it feels like one click in Windows 8 is worth two in Windows 7. On the desktop the difference between this and the release candidate is staggering! It feels like they've released a service pack because 70% of my previous complaints with the UI and feel of the system as well as the app support have been sorted out.

So the final product of Windows 8 is much better than the beta of it? What did they fix?



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Squilliam on 29 October 2012
yo_john117 said:
Squilliam said:
I just installed Windows 8 on this PC and it feels like the whole thing is turbocharged. Everything I do is slick and it feels like one click in Windows 8 is worth two in Windows 7. On the desktop the difference between this and the release candidate is staggering! It feels like they've released a service pack because 70% of my previous complaints with the UI and feel of the system as well as the app support have been sorted out.

So the final product of Windows 8 is much better than the beta of it? What did they fix?

They tweaked the interface so the 'hot corners' worked a lot better with a mouse. They made the whole system faster and they finally started to have a huge number of apps added to the Windows store. They just did a couple of basic tweaks which made the new features feel a lot more intuitive and easier to use with a mouse and keyboard. They also released a bunch of quite impressive updates to all the inbuilt apps like music, movies etc so they work a hell of a lot better.



Tease.

Alby_da_Wolf on 30 October 2012
Farsala said:
Why people buy this or ipads for 600$ is beyond me. Buy a foreign tablet that is usually just as good for 150$. I still would not buy that because I would rather spend extra money on games :P.

$150 for a tablet is even a little too high for my tastes...   



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yo_john117 on 30 October 2012
Squilliam said:
yo_john117 said:
Squilliam said:
I just installed Windows 8 on this PC and it feels like the whole thing is turbocharged. Everything I do is slick and it feels like one click in Windows 8 is worth two in Windows 7. On the desktop the difference between this and the release candidate is staggering! It feels like they've released a service pack because 70% of my previous complaints with the UI and feel of the system as well as the app support have been sorted out.

So the final product of Windows 8 is much better than the beta of it? What did they fix?

They tweaked the interface so the 'hot corners' worked a lot better with a mouse. They made the whole system faster and they finally started to have a huge number of apps added to the Windows store. They just did a couple of basic tweaks which made the new features feel a lot more intuitive and easier to use with a mouse and keyboard. They also released a bunch of quite impressive updates to all the inbuilt apps like music, movies etc so they work a hell of a lot better.

Did they make the desktop app/part better? Like putting a start button in it?



Squilliam on 30 October 2012
yo_john117 said:
Squilliam said:
yo_john117 said:
Squilliam said:
I just installed Windows 8 on this PC and it feels like the whole thing is turbocharged. Everything I do is slick and it feels like one click in Windows 8 is worth two in Windows 7. On the desktop the difference between this and the release candidate is staggering! It feels like they've released a service pack because 70% of my previous complaints with the UI and feel of the system as well as the app support have been sorted out.

So the final product of Windows 8 is much better than the beta of it? What did they fix?

They tweaked the interface so the 'hot corners' worked a lot better with a mouse. They made the whole system faster and they finally started to have a huge number of apps added to the Windows store. They just did a couple of basic tweaks which made the new features feel a lot more intuitive and easier to use with a mouse and keyboard. They also released a bunch of quite impressive updates to all the inbuilt apps like music, movies etc so they work a hell of a lot better.

Did they make the desktop app/part better? Like putting a start button in it?

Nope. But it doesn't take long to get used to it and it metro isn't as bad as people say.



Tease.

yo_john117 on 30 October 2012
Squilliam said:
yo_john117 said:
Squilliam said:
yo_john117 said:
Squilliam said:
I just installed Windows 8 on this PC and it feels like the whole thing is turbocharged. Everything I do is slick and it feels like one click in Windows 8 is worth two in Windows 7. On the desktop the difference between this and the release candidate is staggering! It feels like they've released a service pack because 70% of my previous complaints with the UI and feel of the system as well as the app support have been sorted out.

So the final product of Windows 8 is much better than the beta of it? What did they fix?

They tweaked the interface so the 'hot corners' worked a lot better with a mouse. They made the whole system faster and they finally started to have a huge number of apps added to the Windows store. They just did a couple of basic tweaks which made the new features feel a lot more intuitive and easier to use with a mouse and keyboard. They also released a bunch of quite impressive updates to all the inbuilt apps like music, movies etc so they work a hell of a lot better.

Did they make the desktop app/part better? Like putting a start button in it?

Nope. But it doesn't take long to get used to it and it metro isn't as bad as people say.

I actually agree. Everyone else I know disagrees but that's because they can't stand change lol and learn a new way of doing something (for instance the easy to get to search button makes the whole start button rather irrelevant but for some reason they just can't accept that).