back to article Microsoft: Surface is DEAD. Long live the Surface 2!

Undeterred by its critics, Microsoft has torn the wraps off Surface 2: its upgraded Windows 8-powered tablets, now with faster processors, better graphics, a load of new accessories, and not one but two kickstand positions. Surface Pro 2 with docking station The Surface Pro 2 with its new docking station Redmond has …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Windows

    Sounds like some improvements...

    We'll see if the relative lack of apps and a "cool" brand continues to impede performance vs. Apple and Android tablets.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      What lack of app?

      The Pro 2 runs more and better apps than any iPad/Android tablet. Real professional app and not smartphone-designed ones.

      1. MIc

        Re: What lack of app?

        nothing like 5 down votes for an accurate statement....

        1. Jess

          an accurate statement...

          True, but a very misleading one.

          All these extra apps are designed for standard workstations, and will be dreadful to use in a tablet configuration.

          1. Petalium

            Re: an accurate statement...

            No, it is not dreadful to use ordinary programs. Having used a pro for several months i have found absolutely no problem at all running any windows program including development environments, office programs and a host of other more special programs needed in my daily work.

            As for the price complaints, who cares? if you use it for work, the price is not important, if you only want it for laying in your sofa and surf the web, then by all means, by the cheapest android.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: an accurate statement...

              Bit of a strange anology that....

              If I wanted it for work I'd just get a better specced and much more producutive laptop, and yes if I or millions of others around the world wanted it for the lounge, I'd get an iPad or a high-spec Android tablet.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: an accurate statement...

            Did you ever try a Pro? That's why it comes with a detchable keyboard and a digitizer. It runs smoothly desktop applications, even if not designed for a touch interface. I guess you also never used software with a graphic tablet...

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What lack of app?

        Indeed the Pro will run more apps since it will run the millions of regular Windows apps. The problem is that it is way too expensive when sold as a tablet, and is saddled with a terrible keyboard when used as a laptop. It tries to be both and therefore is successful as neither. For the same price you could buy a proper laptop and tablet, and each will fill its particular role better than the Surface Pro.

        It is the computing equivalent of one of those combination car/boat vehicles that doesn't make a good car or a good boat, and costs as much of having one of each.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What lack of app?

          Sure, you can buy both. And carry around both. And charge both. And buy apps for both. And move data around to/from both. Maybe there are people who prefer just one device...

          1. big_D Silver badge

            Re: What lack of app? @LDS

            Exactly. That is why I love my Samsung ATIV tablet. It gives me everything in one package, a full Windows PC and a tablet. No having to worry about syncing data.

            I wouldn't trade it for an iPad or an Android tablet if you paid me.

        2. largefile

          Re: What lack of app?

          So you've tried both of the newly improved keyboards already and you have determined they are terrible?

          1. Z-Eden

            Re: What lack of app?

            Yes because tweaking the keyboard will really help this fly off the shelves...

        3. Franchesca

          Re: What lack of app?

          I have one (the first Surface Pro) with a type cover, and I love it. I previously had an iPad but it really was just a toy, and I had to go to my PC to do useful stuff. My PC is now mouldering in the garage and I don't miss it one bit (though we do have other network storage available for storing big files such as movies, and my old iphone converted to a media centre for the TV).

        4. mmeier

          Re: What lack of app?

          What's wrong with a car/boat comby? The last I used wasn't all that fast but it could swim nicely, reach 100km/h on the road, 800km on a single refueling, sun roof, high seating (and place for the friends), all wheel drive, stell bumpers, very silend and it never got towed away.

          Ah, that old TPz "Fuchs" was fun back then...

      3. Bill the Sys Admin

        Re: What lack of app?

        what is the definition of a real professional app?

        1. HwBoffin

          Re: What lack of app?

          minesweeper

          1. big_D Silver badge

            Re: What lack of app? @HwBoffin

            Minesweeper on Windows 8 is great fun... Much better than the Windows 95 version.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What lack of app?

          "what is the definition of a real professional app?" Anti-Virus software.

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What lack of app?

          Applications that pays your salary at the end of the month (and yes, even PowerPoint slides help to pay salaries). And they are not Angry Birds or YouTube - unless you're the developer of Angry Birds, or the owner of YouTube.

      4. darklordsid

        Re: What lack of app?

        Yes, too bad MS is so eager to call them "legacy" and hide the desktop under tiles, just to turn win32 developers away!

      5. Sr. Handle
        WTF?

        Re: What lack of app?

        For the price I think is a way better an ultrabook (and even much much better an MBA).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sounds like some improvements...

      Still won't sell

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Sounds like some improvements...

      Unfortunately, the prices are still out of whack when you look at either a comparable Android tablet or a much more powerful laptop.

    4. LarsG

      Re: Sounds like some improvements...

      Wouldn't it be good if people started to buy the product?

      Is it an overpriced tablet? Or an expensive small laptop?

  2. Ilsa Loving

    My reaction to this news

    So I sat here reading the article, seeing nice improvements all around for the Surface.... and then I get to the price and any interest I had evaporated before I even finished reading the sentence.

    I'm sorry, but you just can't keep charging premium prices when your device is already a flop.

    We'll see how things go with Surface 3. For some reason it always takes Microsoft 3 revisions before they finally do something right.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How much an Ultrabook costs?

      The Surface Pro is an ultrabook with a detachable keyboard. You have to compare it with that class of devices, not an iPad or a Galaxy. A MacBook Air 11" with 128GB starts at $999.

      While at $439 the Surface has an average price for an high-end tablet - although it's still less appealing than Apple and Samsung models, until MS gets Windows RT right.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

        "The Surface Pro is an ultrabook with a detachable keyboard."

        Great, but the screen is too small and the Microsoft-provided keyboard options are not suitable for doing any significant amount of typing. Even the 11" MacBook Air's screen is 20% bigger and it has a nice, standard Apple keyboard and trackpad, not a floppy keyboard with a minuscule amount of key travel and a nearly pointless trackpad.

        I know a couple people who have Surface Pros. They tried to use them as real laptops a few times. Now they just collect dust.

        1. Paul Shirley

          Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

          "Great, but the screen is too small"

          Now remember Intel upping the expected screen size for the Ultra spec *after* extensive consumer research showed the screen was too small. Surface Pro is an Ultra Book 1.0 form factor that the public rejected before work on Surface even started!

          As usual Microsoft will have to learn the hard way that they cannot dictate what the buying public *want* and without a functional monopoly they cant force something they don't want on the public.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

          I keep swiping on my macbook air's screen and nothing happens...

          gotta compare apples with, er apples.

          1. Nathan Askew

            Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

            Part of the problem is that windows 8(.1) is not very good as a touch OS, or very good when controlled with a keyboard and mouse. How can you use a touch OS which needs a keyboard to find an app quickly?

            Good luck to any who buys these devices. I fear there will be plenty of non-techy people talked into buying one but some spotty sales person. I saw someone buying a Surface RT yesterday ??

        3. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

          Sorry your math is out. The surface has a 10.1" screen, 20% bigger would be a 12.3" screen. 10.1" to 11" is a 9% increase.

          Also you are comparing the touch cover to the MacBook Air's keyboard? At least do a fair comparison and compare it to the physical TypeCover.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            @MattEvansC3

            It is your math that is out. 20% bigger refers to screen area, not diagonal measurement. Doubling the diagonal measurement of a screen would make it four times larger, not twice as large. The increase from 10.1" to 11" is about an 18.5% increase in screen size.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: @MattEvansC3

              Should've understood it was referring to total screen space, my bad.

          2. Richard Plinston

            Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

            Sorry your math is out. The surface has a 10.1" screen, 20% bigger would be a 12.3" screen. 10.1" to 11" is a 9% increase.

            Both the width and height increase. With the same aspect ratio the increase in area is 18.6%

          3. Jeff Green

            Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

            10.1 is a linear dimension increasing that by 10% gives you 20% more screen area ...

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

          1) Screen too small? Why? Too small for what?

          2) Did you try the new keyboards already?

          3) Does the MacBook Air 11" have a ten point touch screen?

          4) Does the MacBook Air 11" have a 1920x1080 resolution?

          5) Can you detach the keyboard from the MacBook Air and use it as a tablet?

          1. asdf

            Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

            LDS is like the dutch boy with his finger in the dyke. He just knows eventually Stevie Ballmer's vision will allow Microsoft to conquer the mobile market if we all just believe.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

              And most people here are just MS haters who can't judge a device just on technical grounds. If this device was shown with Ubuntu installed instead of Windows 8 I'm sure praises would have skyrocketed, while some people on their knees would have thanked their gods for such a gift.

              But because it's MS it has to be destroyed and burned. Maybe the Surface will be eventually successful, maybe it won't. If you're so sure about it's failure, what do you have to worry about?

              I don't like Ballmer either, but I just don't hate any MS product just because Ballmer is the CEO. Nor I spend time denigrating Apple products on every article about them just because I didn't like Jobs too and his "walled garden" mania. Nor I like Google's "all your data are belong to us" mania, just avoid its products and again, don't spend time firing on any articles about Google new products. Just skip them.

              Maybe there are too many people who are really afraid eventually MS could return successful in the mobile space as well... after all before the iPhone and the iPad Apple in its worst day tried to sell the Newton and the market didn't accept it - while Palm sold tons of its PDAs. Then Palm failed and Apple came back.

              You could never tell what future will bring... especially people with short memory can't.

              1. asdf

                Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

                >But because it's MS it has to be destroyed and burned.

                Might have to do with all the goodwill they burned with their illegal monopoly. I never want to see that company ever take over a market again. Nobody destroys choice like Microsoft not even Apple who specialize in it. Microsoft's business model is summoned up in two words trojan horse.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

                  And in fact I was totally happy when MS was forced by the EU to open its protocol and APIs to ensure interoperability. And it was EU - not US antitrust law now that US are much too worried to touch any US company - be it MS, Apple, or Google. But despite its attempts, MS was not so good at "destroying choices". In many sectors it failed - and when it was successful, many competitors (Novell, Lotus, Wordperfect, Borland and others) should often blame themselves also for some huge mistakes they made. (I did buy their software to avoid to buy MS, but missing features and lots of bugs made me drop them too).

                  After all even Apple could make a lot of money from iDevices because Palm and Windows Mobile screwed up by themselves, should MS blame Apple because it wasn't able to deliver a good mobile OS?

                  Adobe still holds the media software crown (and maybe is Adobe that destroyed choice there?), database software still see Oracle and others playing well, Internet Explorer no longer dominates the Internet, asp.net is just a way to develop web sites (and not the most widely used), while VMWare dominates the virtualization market despite Hyper-V. Linux took a large share of the server market, and MS couldn't stop it, despite its server software is far better than what NT Server was.

                  But what has to do a new product review and a monopoly that no longer exists? MS has no way to reinsate such a monopoly, even if the Surface (Pro) succeed, unless Apple or Google do disastrous mistakes with their products. Anyway a Google monopoly on mobile devices is as much as dangerous as MS monopoly on desktop systems. As long as user can choose a different project, the more difficult for any company deliver products which work against the user - because of lock-in or because of data collection.

              2. Mystic Megabyte

                Re: How much an Ultrabook costs? @LDS

                " If this device was shown with Ubuntu installed instead of Windows 8 I'm sure praises would have skyrocketed,"

                That is because it would be £100 cheaper and therefore good value. I get by perfectly well without any Windows applications, with the exception of occasionally running Sketchup in a XP VM.

                1. Paul Shirley

                  @Mystic Megabyte

                  A device with Ubuntu preinstalled would be mildly welcomed because we could *replace the OS on it*. Ubuntu is a steaming pile sharing many of the faults of Win8 Metro/Modern but at least they don't charge an arm and a leg for it.

                  An ARM device with Ubuntu would be eagerly welcomed compared to Win8 RT because again we could replace the stinking OS, unlike the RT device.

                2. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: How much an Ultrabook costs? @LDS

                  Well, for people needing to use Windows applications - and they are not a few - £100 more are not a huge price increment.

              3. Horridbloke

                Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

                " If you're so sure about it's failure, what do you have to worry about?"

                We're not worried. We're laughing.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

                  Yes, a nervous laughter, I guess...

              4. Pookietoo
                FAIL

                Re: But because it's MS it has to be destroyed and burned

                No, because it's a poorly conceived product, with laughable marketing and ridiculous high-end aspirations, it has to be trashed.

              5. Richard Plinston

                Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

                > Maybe there are too many people who are really afraid eventually MS could return successful in the mobile space as well.

                Yes, they are afraid of that. Microsoft's business model is not just to succeed but it is to ensure that any competition fails completely and is wiped out. Many of those afraid have experienced their favourite products being killed by Microsoft's anti-competitive, illegal, and underhand tactics.

                Apple may have a walled garden and may not offer its products for others to sell, but it doesn't go around actively killing competition by threatening OEMs, resellers and retailers to only ever selling their products.

                For example 'Windows on ARM' seems to have been aimed at OEMs in order to extend the 'loyal discount' control over what products they can make and sell to also include ARM based tablets. It may well have been cheaper for HP to dump WebOS rather than lose the discounts on _every_ MS product.

                Fortunately, the failure of RT has removed that threat and HP can now make Android tablets because of that failure. Potentially they could bring back WebOS too, possibly with an Android emulator to enlarge the supply of apps (granted that hasn't worked for Blackberry).

                This is why we cheer the failure of Surface, its success would be over the bodies of dead competitors. Its success would (eventually) reduce progress, just as Windows and IE killed off many competitors from the mid 90s for a decade or more.

                If Linux had been a company MS would have bought and killed it just like it did for so many others.

                (One reason that Apple did not get killed off by MS is that MS was under investigation for anti-competitive practices, and when that was over it was too late).

                You may think that killing off competition is a good thing, perhaps because everyone running the same system makes life easier or more rewarding for you. A Ford car dealership may want everyone to buy their brand, but I don't want a Ford, and I don't want Ford buying and killing the brand that I like (granted they don't do that much).

                1. mmeier

                  Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

                  MS did not buy Atari, Amiga, Acorn or IBM and still TOS/Amiga/RiscOS/OS2 failed

                  MS did not buy StarOffice (Sun did) nor Corel or Novell and still these Office packages failed

                  MS did not buy Interactive or SUN and still those UNIX systems failed

                  ...

                  1. Richard Plinston

                    Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

                    > MS did not buy StarOffice (Sun did) nor Corel or Novell and still these Office packages failed

                    StarOffice is now called OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice and did not fail. In fact they are still alive because they are not in a position where MS could buy them.

                    Corel and Novell (both owned WP at times) WordPerfect for Windows 'failed' because Microsoft withheld and changed APIs so that WP was not able to compete against the in-house product (see various law suits).

                    > MS did not buy Interactive or SUN and still those UNIX systems failed

                    The server market is approx 1/3 each to Unix, Windows and Linux (depending on who and how it is measured) so UNIX hasn't failed.

          2. Bucky O' Hare

            Re: How much an Ultrabook costs?

            3) And precisely what use does ten point touch screen have? :)

            Apart from producing fancy looking yet highly pointless struff. This is the real world, and nobody has any need for tripe like that.

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