Microsoft Reveals Its iPad Rival: Surface

i do like it. but for me it will be all about the price. i dont own a ipad or iphone. so was looking for a tab. this fits the bill for me.

@Phoenix87 said:

It will fail, just like the Zune.

The only one to blame for the failure of Zune is Microsoft themselves. It would sell just as well as the iPod here in Europe but they would have to bring it out here. There is/was no competitor to the iPod when it comes to 20gb+ players, the only thing you had was the iPod, there's where Microsoft failed.

If they open the next Xbox and the Surface up to be more easily accessible and open to developers of all sizes...they might compete with Apple.

If they can take SmartGlass to its full potential, and maybe come out with a Surface controller peripheral that turns the surface into a Razer Fiona type thing...they might easily outshine the ideas behind Wii-U, Vita, 3DS.

If Kinect 2 has fast precision tracking...well, they don't have any real competitors here, but it would be nice if the thing worked right.

I don't know that MS can be counted on to pull it all off, history says Microsoft is more inclined to locking doors than opening them, but the potential is pretty high with everything MS has cooking.

@Bartz said:

I expect the Microsoft tablet to launch at $2-300 less than the comparable iPad (overpriced vanities), which would be similar to the Laptop market. I might finally buy a tablet if they manage to make it functional (a given with Microsoft) and affordable (probable).

I will not be surprised if they the "pro" version will be upwards more like $1000.

As for Windows 8 Metro interface....

@pingz said:

There is nothing wrong with the Metro Start Screen. It is superior in every way...

I honestly do not know how you came to this conclusion

Weird that you wouldn't just release the windows 8 version.
Check out our amazing compatibility optio... oh sorry you spent several hundred £'s on the wrong one, sorry.
 
Microsoft does not comment on rumor or matters of common sense.

Lamb to the slaughter.

@Mumrik said:

Nothing complete about those specs. They don't even show resolution.

Anyway, I think this is a bad call from MS and it will cost them. Tablets are pretty stupid devices for the price and most people are buying "an iPad", not "a tablet". Android tablets have struggled big-time for the same reason and MS will only have it even worse. I don't think the tablet market is a natural extension of the smartphone market.

http://www.tested.com/news/44824-microsoft-announces-/ has specs

@Rolento said:

@xantar said:

Except that no IT department for any reputable and profitable organization wants that godawful Metro shit anywhere near their corporate environment. And since Microsoft has been eerily quiet about the ability to get rid of Metro Start and restore the standard Start button that users are used to, most of the other IT decision makers I have spoken with are also planning on giving Windows 8 a pass.

There is nothing wrong with the Metro Start Screen. It is superior in every way... think of it as a really big "Start menu" if that makes you less afraid of it.

If anything Metro apps are the thing that i'm still hesitant with. Unless its something I do full screen like games... Metro apps are not something I like as much as desktop apps. Still on a tablet with touch... Metro apps are superior to desktop apps.

Still this has nothing to do with IT upgrading. The actual reason IT people will pass is that IT is always behind the tech curve when it comes to OS upgrades. Just now are IT departments transitioning to Windows 7 from XP.... they are not going to do a move to Windows 8 anytime soon as it is unnecessary.

This isn't a surprise... this is how OS upgrades have been done in big corporate IT departments for decades.

Nothing complete about those specs. They don't even show resolution.

Anyway, I think this is a bad call from MS and it will cost them. Tablets are pretty stupid devices for the price and most people are buying "an iPad", not "a tablet". Android tablets have struggled big-time for the same reason and MS will only have it even worse. I don't think the tablet market is a natural extension of the smartphone market.

Patricks mixed sports metaphor is way more apt for this product that you guys have given him credit for.

I expect the Microsoft tablet to launch at $2-300 less than the comparable iPad (overpriced vanities), which would be similar to the Laptop market. I might finally buy a tablet if they manage to make it functional (a given with Microsoft) and affordable (probable).

@EXTomar said:

@tescovee said:

I don't understand why people would want this to do poorly? As a consumer wouldn't you want competition? so silly to want it to fail, I want to see droid,crapple,and M$ to succeed. It brings better prices and innovations.

I don't want to see it or anything else fail but if you are familiar with the way the tech has gone there is a lot of troubling signs like the Vita (and more distantly PS3). For decades vendors keep believing there is a market for the "desktop replacement" but these initiatives fail because of multiple reasons where the biggest is often price vs performance. So far Surface hasn't addressed that where they are banking that Office will be a big enough brand to entice new users to buy it instead of other hardware.

I don't think a lot of doubters want it to fail but the issue is that history has shown that leaning on brands in the face of high price tag sticker shock ends up with disaster. The only ones who appear can pull it off is Apple and for better or worse Microsoft is no Apple.

Im jazzed to check it out, fuck apples proprietary bull shit. If this is all go having a micro sd and usb is nice. I don't think this is targeted for a desktop replacement, but for a seamless part of what "they" want doze 8 to be. I use linux so I am in no way a fan boy of ms, but all this hoopla about apple is fucking sheep mentality. People act as if owning a crapple is subversive or some thing. When in reality they are just paying top dollar for a unix OS, hardware that looks perdy, under performs and uses arrogant dev/sales IE: adobe/upgrade-ability.

@avantegardener said:

I think splitting the market with 2 devices is an exceptionally dumb idea, but I don't own multi-billion dollar software company, YOUR move Microsoft.

You have no clue what you're saying. They are splitting nothing... one is just a "power user" version of the other.

The ARM version of Surface runs Metro apps... has less processing power and longer battery life... cheaper cost. It will be using an Nvidia Tegra processor... so you can expect a good GPU for games too. It might be all most people need if they want to play a few games, email, browse the web, word processing, etc.

The x86 version of Surface runs Metro apps and any Windows/DOS program made in the last 20 years... more processing power and screen resolution at the cost of less battery life... also more expensive. Want to run Steam games on it... no problem. Want to run 3dsMax or VisualStudio on it... should work great. This replaces your laptop.

Their approach to this is perfect. You just lack any knowledge about what the products actually are.

Pressure-sensitive stylus so I can draw on it, and I'm in.

Hmmm. Seems like you could plug an Xbox controller into the Ivy Bridge version and go to town!

It actually runs full Microsoft Office. That's actually pretty damn huge.

@tescovee said:

I don't understand why people would want this to do poorly? As a consumer wouldn't you want competition? so silly to want it to fail, I want to see droid,crapple,and M$ to succeed. It brings better prices and innovations.

I don't want to see it or anything else fail but if you are familiar with the way the tech has gone there is a lot of troubling signs like the Vita (and more distantly PS3). For decades vendors keep believing there is a market for the "desktop replacement" but these initiatives fail because of multiple reasons where the biggest is often price vs performance. So far Surface hasn't addressed that where they are banking that Office will be a big enough brand to entice new users to buy it instead of other hardware.

I don't think a lot of doubters want it to fail but the issue is that history has shown that leaning on brands in the face of high price tag sticker shock are highly risky and fail quite a bit. The only ones who appear can pull it off is Apple and for better or worse Microsoft is no Apple.

People still type "Micro$oft"? Is this 1997?

@SockemJetpack said:

Now when will they get around to making a holodeck? I've been waiting to get one for decades so I can have sex with holo- I mean so I could train and solve Sherlock Holmes mysteries! Also Dixon Hill.

Seconded. Although I'll prolly do Gwar concert simulations instead of Sherlock Holmes.

I don't understand why people would want this to do poorly? As a consumer wouldn't you want competition? so silly to want it to fail, I want to see droid,crapple,and M$ to succeed. It brings better prices and innovations.

if the keyboard doubles as a hardshell screencover and folds into a stand, then im in, otherwise... meh

@zombie2011 But the subtle issue is that like Sony, Microsoft doesn't want you to buy a table or a table but Surface. Surface's competition isn't going to be just the iPad but the Win7 Laptop and smart phones as well. Going into one market is going to be a hard sell let alone both.

As mentioned before, the issue with the whole netbook/sub-notebook/ultrabook market is that the price vs performance never worked out right. This was never a software problem but a hardware problem which I don't see addressed at all in what Microsoft presented yesterday. That doesn't mean that there isn't a market for this class of hardware but it much smaller than the general market.

"The company could have knocked it out of the park with details on pricing and availability, but instead chose to punt that information down the line."

MAN. A baseball reference and a football reference in one sentence. Yikes. The device seems kind of neat. I don't have an interest in a tablet but the actual keyboard might make it easier for my parents if they chose to get into the tablet market.

It's all about the price. If you're going to charge iPad money for it, then I may as well pick up then next iPad. This bad boy needs to be a much cheaper yet realistic alternative to the iPad.

It has a keyboard as it's smartcover?

Beats the iPad like a red-headed stepchild.

@EXTomar said:

I hate pointing this out because it is Yet Another Apple example but part of the marketing plan is that iPad and MacBook are two separate product lines and both exploded. They recognized that both systems have strengths that can't be duplicate in either platform so they strove to integrate their systems to play well together but aren't at all the same product.

So I ask again, how wise is Surface which tries to unite them? This really looks a lot like what Sony tried with Vita where they created a high quality "hybrid device" with a ton of features but ignored that the market was already flooded with a bunch of other devices that did all of the same things. Relying on their brand to entice people to abandon their other devices is going to be rough.

The thing is MS doesn't sell PC's or Laptops, so they won't be cannibalizing any sales. This is MS's only hardware product that has Windows 8. If someone decides to pick this up instead of a Dell laptop MS gets more money, if they decide to pick up a Dell laptop instead of this MS still has sold a copy of Windows 8.

@zombie2011 said:

@DelroyLindo said:

I dont get it, that looks like a laptop, not a tablet

The keyboard is a actually a cover for the screen, it's insanely thin and incredibly awesome.

I see, in that case it's pretty slick

@DelroyLindo said:

I dont get it, that looks like a laptop, not a tablet

The keyboard is a actually a cover for the screen, it's insanely thin and incredibly awesome.

I hate pointing this out because it is Yet Another Apple example but part of the marketing plan is that iPad and MacBook are two separate product lines and both exploded. They recognized that both systems have strengths that can't be duplicate in either platform so they strove to integrate their systems to play well together but aren't at all the same product.

So I ask again, how wise is Surface which tries to unite them? This really looks a lot like what Sony tried with Vita where they created a high quality "hybrid device" with a ton of features but ignored that the market was already flooded with a bunch of other devices that did all of the same things. Relying on their brand to entice people to abandon their other devices is going to be rough.

It will fail, just like the Zune.

I think splitting the market with 2 devices is an exceptionally dumb idea, but I don't own multi-billion dollar software company, YOUR move Microsoft.

I was hyped about the concept of finally typing again...

right up until i read the words "touch keyboard".

But life isn't over yet...

@Dizzmotron said:

I get the feeling that Windows 8 is going to make a great tablet OS, but a very poor desktop OS. I look forward to reviews of this and other tablets.

Reason why I'm not exited for Windows 8.

@xantar said:

The determining factors are:

• Price - being inline with iPad is ok, but REAL MS Office is a big sell. And Windows Pro is F'ing huge in enterprise, domain support and User & Group Policies are very important to corporate IT.
• Battery Life - We can hope for iPad equivalent in the RT but for the Pro please 7+ Hours.
• Ongoing support - Microsoft has a long history of making great products sidewinder and digital sound system that exist for one iteration get critical acclaim and then ... disappear

All signs point to The Pro being amazing, dependent on price. But it should be a Computer that happens to be a tablet. Not a tablet that hopes to be a computer.

Except that no IT department for any reputable and profitable organization wants that godawful Metro shit anywhere near their corporate environment. And since Microsoft has been eerily quiet about the ability to get rid of Metro Start and restore the standard Start button that users are used to, most of the other IT decision makers I have spoken with are also planning on giving Windows 8 a pass.

The pro variant with the i5 looks promising. If they have a touch sensitive sensor in there ala Wacom digitalizer, it's going to be a day one buy from me, if they ever come to Europe, and they don't pull a shit like with the Zune. Nothing better then to go into a park with your relatively small and compact tablet, and start designing or drawing some ideas. Had been doing that with my HP touch notebook while ago, but it was heavy, and too annoying.

I hope they don't mess this up, but if they are spot-on, as said day one buy and throwing my laptops into the trash.

Also there's 2 types of covers, one for the RT and one for the PRO, the pro one has actual key movement, whilst the RT is flat and no key press feedback. So again going with the PRO cover is the way to go.

The ARM tablet is a head-to-head competitor with the iPad, where the PRO is really a notebook, miles beyond iPad and the RT version. I guess the pricing for PRO will be accordingly close to $1000.

Really cool. After having an iPad 1 for a while, I found out I do not need a tablet to go with my gaming-PC, work-MacBook and smartphone. I will probably reevaluate should I ever switch from a MacBook (for working at the university) to an Mac-Desktop (for doing personal stuff at home, while my employer provides me with a computer).

@ValiantGrizzly said:

I am going to try and zigzag through all the trolls and fanboys in this comment section, and just try to get some honest advice:

If I'm looking to replace my (relatively low- to mid-end) laptop, say, next year, am I better off just getting a tablet? Regardless of it being a windows or apple product. I just use it to browse and write the occasional e-mail, I have 3 consoles to play video games on and no space to put a desktop computer.

Get another low-end laptop. I have never met someone that only uses a tablet (myself included). They're great when you need to be super portable but at the rate smartphones are advancing I would say use that for on the bus/waiting in line web browsing and your laptop for home use. Who knows, maybe a year from now this full fledged windows 8 tablet will catch on and some new iPad will be out. But I would be weary: they're all toys.

Still waiting on Google's Nexus 7 later this month, more likely to be in my price range given it's a 7'incher.

Wasn't surface the name they used for that coffee table thing?

Also, Windows 8 looks like a raging piece of shit for desktops, and will never touch a desktop I own. However, this looks like it could actually be a cool replacement for my ageing laptop. You have my ear Microsoft. But only one of them.

The only thing I'm interested in from this is the 128Gb storage.. Ipad is long overdo in improving that..

@DelroyLindo said:

I dont get it, that looks like a laptop, not a tablet

detachable keyboard bro

@DelroyLindo said:

I dont get it, that looks like a laptop, not a tablet

Well it's a tablet with a cover, but the cover also works as a touch-keyboard.

@adambyrney said:

This will probably be better than the ipad but the sheep wont notice. I've started to realise all the expensive crap people buy from apple (and others) as if we are all CEO's.......when it is basically a twitter/youtube machine.

So yeah these tablets will be much more useful when they can handle/accomodate real work and content creation. Until then privileged white people will still have angry birds.

Exactly. I've been trying to get these things to run in tandem with Oracle. Not even trying to have Oracle on the thing, just trying to connect it to a remote cloud server to do a simple print job at local offices. Nope!

As far as this, "Until then privileged white people will still have angry birds" goes. I've seen people who can't even make their car payments on time, running around with these silly ass things...

I dont get it, that looks like a laptop, not a tablet

Cool, I'll check it out when it hits generation 3 or 4. First generation tech is always wonky, so I'll let the early-adopters find all the bugs and reap the rewards of their struggle in later editions.

@WinterSnowblind said:

@pornstorestiffi: In fairness, people made those exact comments when Microsoft announced the Xbox.

They did, and i loved my original Xbox, but it didn't do good. Lucky for Microsoft they had better luck with the 360.

@soralapio said:

@paulwade1984 said:

this thing will own 80% of the 20% share the i-pad doesnt have.

Yeah and what's up with Apple making a phone? That shit will fail so hard, it'll compete for the scraps Nokia, Blackberry and others leave off the table!

-- People in 2007

I don't think you read my comment properly.

The keyboard thing looks really cool. That could be a key fact in this thing doing well, if it dose.

@Slaneesh said:

@ptys said:

Microsoft really don't come up with the best names do they, I'm mean Xbox, come on! Admittedly Apple is just a terrible. Middle-age men in suits should not name commercial products IMO.

We all thought Wii was the worst name in history when the details came out

... and that changed?