* Posts by HollyHopDriveII

1 publicly visible post • joined 14 Dec 2012

John Lewis agrees to flog Microsoft's Surface RT tablets

HollyHopDriveII

Re: This can only be a good thing

Apple will never reduce their price. Its a premium brand that knows to discount devalues its brand. And the ipad mini is still pretty expensive for what it is. If the hugely popular nexus 7 hasn't forced down their prices I can't see the microsoft one doing it!

The problem Microsoft are facing is there is no compelling reason to buy one. Apple have itunes which like it or not ties you into their platform. Its also a very comprehensive shop of media. And that is a selling point drives you to buy an ipad. They also make damn nice hardware (ipad mini the exception imho) another selling point and its considered cool. That is 3 good reasons to buy apple.

Android tablets (by that I mean samsung and nexus 7/10 offerings) are cheaper. Way cheaper. The user experience is now excellent and the cloud integration is second to none, and that is the 2 points where they have the lead over apple. its the USP. Their prices are also hugely competitive. (lets be honest you can get a 32gb nexus 7 for way less than an ipad mini with less 'hardware' in it). And google does have a certain amount of brand credibility and coolness.(albeit not as cool as apple) They also now have a fairly comprehensive collection of music and movies which granted isn't as good as apples but still pretty good. (not to mention you can buy from alternative vendors easily - amazon mp3 being a particularly good example). And the apps are generally on par and bought to market at the same time as ipad now. Oh, one last thing (and I can see this being a killer feature that the others will copy at some point) android now supports multi user on the tablets so I don't have to have the kids junk on my 'profile' any more. The family can truly share a single tablet.

For Microsoft they have come to the party last. Their hardware is not exactly exciting, those cover keyboard things are nice, but given the typing experience is not bad on the apple/google devices it feels like they made it *to* be different rather than because it *needed* to be different. You can't deny it does look pretty with those tiles, but again its not a must have feature. The app store isn't isn't going to be as comprehensive and you know you are going to be last to get the apps. Also, there is always the danger the firmware wont move on like with the windows phone 7 fiasco. It also isn't very cheap. So buying one of these could be an expensive mistake. You know you can offload your ipad for nexus 7 for pretty much what you paid for it. Not sure you'll have the same luck with a windows slab. Also, and this is key, Microsoft are just not cool. If you buy one it feels too much like you are buying a piece of office equipement, like a printer. Remember, home use drives business use for new devices. It doesn't feel exciting. Flashy adverts full of young people doesn't make it exciting.

Feel free to flame me, I'll openly admit I'm an android fan but I just can't help but feel unless microsoft do something amazing (like the kinnect for xbox) they are always going to struggle and it will continue to be a two horse race.