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.
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 …
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.
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.
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).
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...
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.
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.
"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.
"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.
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 ??
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) 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?
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.
>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.
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.
" 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.
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.
> 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).
> 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.