Little Demand for Microsoft's Surface RT Tablet

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pelo said:
Followed by:



It's the same way they judged their RT battery life, meaning mixed workloads at probably ~200nits brightness. So, no, it won't get 4 hours of 1080p playback and it'll be even less.

Is that better?
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I'll wait to see if it really gets the 4 hours, I'd like to see if that number is really true or not. I'm not expecting it to be much better if it is.
 
heatlesssun said:
Try using that MBA standing or moving around.
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I have, it's not that hard. I can use my UX31A standing as well. Either way you have to support 2lbs with one hand, so I'm not sure what your point really is. If the MBA is too hard to use standing or moving around, so too is the Surface Pro.

Yeah, and how many of those ultraportables are running 1080P screens? The x230 is only 1366x768. All I am pointing out is that a number is being thrown around and we have no a clue how it is being derived other than a comment from a single tweet that said half the life of the Surface RT.
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The UX21A/UX31A both have 1080P screens. And the Surface gets ~9 hours of web browsing battery life and ~10 hours of 720p video playback. It's pretty easy to divide those by 2.
 
heatlesssun said:
Try using that MBA standing or moving around.



Yeah, and how many of those ultraportables are running 1080P screens? The x230 is only 1366x768. All I am pointing out is that a number is being thrown around and we have no a clue how it is being derived other than a comment from a single tweet that said half the life of the Surface RT.
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Catch being I've never heard of a manufacturer advertising a low end minimum battery life...usually the exact opposite; minimum screen brightness and idle cpu and gpu state. But you are right in the lack of certainty.
 
So 3 to 5 hours? That sounds a lot like 4 to hours to me.

Remember that MS stated that the RT had 8 hours, so the Pro, given the same testing, would net you 4 hours.

You keep trying to spin this in a direction that's somehow not as bad. 4 hours doing anything on a modern day tablet or laptop is fucking pitiful. When I bought my X220, the first thing I looked for was a 9-cell battery for that 12hr battery life because when I'm using it with WiFi and working on it I know it would drop to ~8-10hrs which gets me through the day. I would need to charge the Pro 3 times to last me through a day of work.
 
ocellaris said:
1366x768 resolution is pretty damn terrible for a modern product. I wouldn't use that spec as a defense or justification for anything.
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1366x768 is the resolution of the Surface RT, you know. The X230's screen is really good, although yeah the resolution is a downer. The point with that one is that you can easily get 12+ hours of heavy usage out of it. If you want a portable machine that will literally last all day, it's one of your only choices.

I just don't see many people going for a $900 tablet that's hot, heavy, has a fan, and has half the battery life of other tablets. Sure, it can run more desktop apps, but it has a terrible selection of actual tablet apps compared to, say, the iPad.
 
kllrnohj said:
I have, it's not that hard. I can use my UX31A standing as well. Either way you have to support 2lbs with one hand, so I'm not sure what your point really is. If the MBA is too hard to use standing or moving around, so too is the Surface Pro.
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You can hold a Windows 8 table with two hands and thumb type and control the Metro UI. The bottom line is that a folding clamshell design that is keyboard and mouse only is simply not as easy to move around and manipulate than a touch slate.

kllrnohj said:
The UX21A/UX31A both have 1080P screens. And the Surface gets ~9 hours of web browsing battery life and ~10 hours of 720p video playback. It's pretty easy to divide those by 2.
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But then that's five hours 720P video playback, which is 20% more than 4 and certainly not four hours of mixed and mostly desktop usage. It's easy to divide by 2, the question is what is being divide by 2.
 
I thought everyone loves W8? Judging by the hordes of gloaters in the W8 threads I would have thought they would be all over it.
 
heatlesssun said:
But then that's five hours 720P video playback, which is 20% more than 4 and certainly not four hours of mixed and mostly desktop usage. It's easy to divide by 2, the question is what is being divide by 2.
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25% more.

/maths_nazi
 
MajorDomo said:
We ran an article several days ago where Microsoft announced the price of its new Surface Pro RT starting at $899. If interest is any indication of a price drop, the price is sure to come down. Microsoft has cut the initial order for the Surface from four million units to just two due to ‘weak’ consumer demand.
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There is no such thing as a Surface Pro RT

There is Surface RT based on ARM
and
Surface Pro based on x86
 
pelo said:
So 3 to 5 hours? That sounds a lot like 4 to hours to me.
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But that's 4 hours of video playback, that's not at all the same thing as 4 hours of desktop use.

pelo said:
You keep trying to spin this in a direction that's somehow not as bad. 4 hours doing anything on a modern day tablet or laptop is fucking pitiful.
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4 hours 720P on a Core based device that weighs less than 2 lbs. isn't bad. And I'm not really trying to spin anything, I'm just pointing out that this 4 hour number is being tossed around an no one has a clue what it is 4 hours of. Spin that all you want, we just don't know.

pelo said:
When I bought my X220, the first thing I looked for was a 9-cell battery for that 12hr battery life because when I'm using it with WiFi and working on it I know it would drop to ~8-10hrs which gets me through the day. I would need to charge the Pro 3 times to last me through a day of work.
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I have an x220t with a 3, 6 and extended battery, the design on the x220t didn't allow for the 9 cell option unfortunately. At any rate, and x220 is twice the weight of a Surface Pro and even though my x220t is a convertible I almost never use it that way anymore as much thinner and lighter tablet works better.
 
heatlesssun said:
You can hold a Windows 8 table with two hands and thumb type and control the Metro UI. The bottom line is that a folding clamshell design that is keyboard and mouse only is simply not as easy to move around and manipulate than a touch slate.
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You can't use just your thumbs on a 10" widescreen tablet. Sorry, that just doesn't work, not even close. You will still need to hold the Surface Pro with one hand and use it with your other.

It's easy to divide by 2, the question is what is being divide by 2.
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Doesn't seem to really matter - web or video, the RT gets about 9-10 hours. That's probably the workload they are using to say "roughly half", as I'm fairly certain they aren't talking about battery life while gaming.

Sure, we'll need reviews to get the hard details, but the generalities are still telling a story, and that story isn't very interesting so far.
 
I plan to get a Surface Pro almost as soon as they come out. It's thinner and lighter than even a Macbook Air, and even has a 1920x1080 resolution screen while the other thin and lights like the Macbook Air are stuck at 1366x768. You're GOING to get the keyboard cover bundle at $999 for 64, $1099 for 128, so essentially it's at price parity with the Macbook Air. It runs a full OS so basically the sky is the limit on what you could do with it - want an app that normally runs on Android? Install Bluestacks. Feel like some emulator fun? Install Dolphin and use the built in bluetooth to use a Wii controller. Heck, with Intel's HD4000 performance you can run games like Skyrim on Medium-High settings nowadays - they've really come a long way for integrated graphics. All in a form factor that just seems like it'll be a lot more portable because of the thinness, weight, and shape than older laptop designs.
 
I work at a mall that has a Microsoft store, and every time I walk by that store it's always busy
And people are crowded around the tablet so this news is quite shocking to me. But considering that they only sell it in one store I understand why the demand is lower than expected. However this is one of the most advertised products I have seen from Microsoft. There is a billboard near my house, and the public transportation system is plastered with those ads.
 
kllrnohj said:
Yeah, very expensive, low specs, sluggish, and a confusing interface. Color me shocked that it didn't sell well.
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If thats the take you have, I can say you havent actually used one. They are freaking awesome, and smoother than then current gen ipad, not to mention they do a hell of a lot more.
 
I paid $1500 for my Vaio Duo and I am very happy with it. It replaced my iPad, android tablet, and my laptop in one device. Plus it gave me pen input. The pro is really meant to be a tablet/laptop replacement. It suffers in battery life and more weight compared to a tablet but gives infinitely more usability. Its lighter and more mobile than a laptop, but a little slower. It has weaknesses when being compared with a tablet only device or a traditional laptop. But it has the strengths of both, and overall the compromise is quite small. For next gen devices I think it well quell all the negative points about hardware. W8 itself is wonderful, all its missing is the apps, but then again you have a full desktop so its about equal there.
 
kllrnohj said:
You can't use just your thumbs on a 10" widescreen tablet. Sorry, that just doesn't work, not even close. You will still need to hold the Surface Pro with one hand and use it with your other.
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The Modern UI was optimized to be operated on devices in landscape being help with two hands and using thumbs for navigation, that's why all of the basic UI controls are on the edges of the screen and why there are no multi-touch gestures in the basic UI except pinch zoom which can still be done with thumbs.

My primary Windows 8 tablets are both 11.6" devices and the normal way I hold them is with both hands using thumb navigation. Of course not all apps can be driven entirely with thumbs but many basic activities like web browsing in IE, reading in the Nook or Kindle apps, etc, can be done with thumbs. Thumb navigation is also a reason why Modern UI apps tend to scroll horizontally instead of vertically and the size of the device doesn't really matter, it's still thumbs on the edge and things not in range can be pulled under a thumb.
 
The reason nobody bought a Windows RT tablet is the reason why Windows 8 sucks. If you get one, you're going to have a bad time. You wouldn't be able to run x86 applications, or even install your own ARM apps. To the market store with you, which is a very small market.

Basically Windows RT is like a whole new OS, which needs totally new apps.
 
///AMG said:
W8 itself is wonderful, all its missing is the apps, but then again you have a full desktop so its about equal there.
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Of all of these issues facing Windows 8/RT, this is probably the one of the least problematic as in time there's simply going to be too many Windows 8 devices for developers to ignore and the Windows Store does seem to be coming along pretty decently. The biggest problem is a lack of top tier apps like Instagram, Words with Friends, an official Pandora app, but the first too just came out for Windows Phone so I would imagine that they'll be hitting Windows 8 sometime next year.
 
heatlesssun said:
The Modern UI was optimized to be operated on devices in landscape being help with two hands and using thumbs for navigation, that's why all of the basic UI controls are on the edges of the screen and why there are no multi-touch gestures in the basic UI except pinch zoom which can still be done with thumbs.

My primary Windows 8 tablets are both 11.6" devices and the normal way I hold them is with both hands using thumb navigation. Of course not all apps can be driven entirely with thumbs but many basic activities like web browsing in IE, reading in the Nook or Kindle apps, etc, can be done with thumbs. Thumb navigation is also a reason why Modern UI apps tend to scroll horizontally instead of vertically and the size of the device doesn't really matter, it's still thumbs on the edge and things not in range can be pulled under a thumb.
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Scrolling horizontally with your thumbs on the edge is *HARDER* than scrolling vertically with your thumbs on the edge - significantly so. And while the charm options are on the sides, the app's menus and options are on the top and bottom. And of course all the interesting bits are in the middle of the screen.

BBA said:
If thats the take you have, I can say you havent actually used one. They are freaking awesome, and smoother than then current gen ipad, not to mention they do a hell of a lot more.
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http://www.anandtech.com/show/6385/microsoft-surface-review/10
Application launch times are another thing entirely. Nearly every application I launched took longer than I would’ve liked on Surface. I can’t tell if this is a hardware issue or a software optimization problem, but application launches on Surface/Windows RT clearly take more time than on an iPad. I timed a few just to put this in perspective.
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Sorry, but I don't care how smooth it is if there is a 7 second launch time for the fucking mail app, that's just pathetic. Smooth != fast.

And no, the Surface doesn't do a hell of a lot more than an iPad. It does a hell of a lot *LESS* because it doesn't have any apps or ecosystem yet. You could make that argument for the Surface Pro. I'd still disagree as you'd be dealing with desktop apps on a touch screen which sucks, but you would at least have a reasonable argument. But it doesn't apply in the slightest for the Surface RT.

It also isn't smoother than the iPad 4, despite the iPad 4 driving 3x more pixels.
 
I saw this coming from a mile away. Apple is a cult that can convince gullible fools to buy their over-priced crap. Microsoft is not.

Windows RT is censorware in which Microsoft gets to dictate what you can and cannot install on their tablet (it is not yours because in order to own the tablet, you must be free to install whatever software you want on it including other operating systems; in essence, you are paying $500 to lease a tablet that you never truly own).
 
kllrnohj said:
Scrolling horizontally with your thumbs on the edge is *HARDER* than scrolling vertically with your thumbs on the edge - significantly so.
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I've been scrolling horizontally and vertically with my thumbs on Windows 8 tablets for over a year and this makes no sense to me. The thumb action is very similar to using a game controller where one's thumbs are generally moving in on horizontal and vertical plane.

kllrnohj said:
And while the charm options are on the sides, the app's menus and options are on the top and bottom. And of course all the interesting bits are in the middle of the screen.
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But in Modern UI apps the app bar options tend to be on the sides of the top or bottom, look at the app bar for the Start Screen as an example. As I said, not everything works like this with thumbs, inking would be a big exception in my case, but the majority of the time I'm using a Windows 8 tablet for things like web browsing, watching video, reading, things of this nature, I'm holding the device in landscape mode with both hands holding the sides and this was by design and does work well overall.
 
damicatz said:
I saw this coming from a mile away. Apple is a cult that can convince gullible fools to buy their over-priced crap. Microsoft is not.

Windows RT is censorware in which Microsoft gets to dictate what you can and cannot install on their tablet (it is not yours because in order to own the tablet, you must be free to install whatever software you want on it including other operating systems; in essence, you are paying $500 to lease a tablet that you never truly own).
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This is justified now, however, since it is now "Microsoft hardware", just as an iPad is "Apple hardware".
These are not PCs, by definition, considering they do not have x86 processors and do not allow for the same freedom that a PC would allow.

You're right, Microsoft is not a cult (though heatlesssun would lead others to believe otherwise) and individuals want the freedom of a PC.
The last thing they want is to be restricted by what someone says they can and can't use.

I was really hoping for a better breakout of Microsoft's entrance onto the ARM architecture (outside of smartphones).
 
Red Falcon said:
This is justified now, however, since it is now "Microsoft hardware", just as an iPad is "Apple hardware".
These are not PCs, by definition, considering they do not have x86 processors and do not allow for the same freedom that a PC would allow.

You're right, Microsoft is not a cult (though heatlesssun would lead others to believe otherwise) and individuals want the freedom of a PC.
The last thing they want is to be restricted by what someone says they can and can't use.

I was really hoping for a better breakout of Microsoft's entrance onto the ARM architecture (outside of smartphones).
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The fact that it is not x86 does not justify their unethical user subjugating actions.

What they and Apple do is fraud. They sell their tablets to people who are led to believe that those tablets are theirs. At no point in the marketing materials does it say that the Surface will only allow the installation of programs that Microsoft finds acceptable.
 
damicatz said:
The fact that it is not x86 does not justify their unethical user subjugating actions.
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Oh I understand that, I was just pointing that out in that because it is not x86, that it cannot be classified as a 'PC'.
The fact that it is running on Microsoft hardware was really Microsoft's chance to show that they are different from Apple, but in turn, they are really just following in their footsteps.
 
^ Hooray for lack of freedom.
This will only last until Microsoft realizes that the apps can potentially be dangerous to the OS, much like how those crap "gadgets" were all the rage with Vista and 7... until MS decided to pull the plug and abandon them with a lameass statement about how they can potentially be dangerous to the OS.

In otherwords, gadgets were a complete waste of everyone's time, much like these "RT-only apps" will end up being.
lulz Microsoft.
 
damicatz said:
I saw this coming from a mile away. Apple is a cult that can convince gullible fools to buy their over-priced crap. Microsoft is not.

Windows RT is censorware in which Microsoft gets to dictate what you can and cannot install on their tablet (it is not yours because in order to own the tablet, you must be free to install whatever software you want on it including other operating systems; in essence, you are paying $500 to lease a tablet that you never truly own).
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Enough with your Apple is a cult bullshit. Compare Apple and Microsoft advertising. One advertises using people actually using its product, the other doesn't. It's Microsoft's fault for it's poor advertising. It's of people dancing, MS could have shown people using the Surface for... anything besides attaching a keyboard.

I guess I'm lucky to work near a MS store and I can play with a Surface a couple times a week. Eavesdropping on conversations I overhear the following often:
1. So I can't run Windows' apps?
2. I have to download apps from the Microsoft store like an iPad?
3. But it looks like Windows 8 and it has a desktop. Why can't I run Window apps?

The MS employee will then try to explain why a Surface RT can't run Windows desktop apps. The employe will then state, "if you want to run desktop apps you should wait for Surface Pro". Telling a customer a better (or more functional) product is right around the corner is a death blow to a product.
 
Red Falcon said:
In otherwords, gadgets were a complete waste of everyone's time, much like these "RT-only apps" will end up being.
lulz Microsoft.
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There is no such thing as an "RT-only" app, in fact some Windows RT apps only run on Windows 8.
 
So Microsoft screwed over their base (sycophants aside) for nothing. Nice to know.
 
Disco_Stu_04 said:
Who is the target consumer? What is the use of a 4 hour battery life tablet?
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Someone looking for a touch based ultrabook replacement really, this thing needs to be compared against the Macbook Air not an iPad. After all it really is just an ultrabook with a removable keyboard cover.
 
It's Microsoft's fault for it's poor advertising.
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No no, we should be blaming heatlesssun, I mean he's only covering about 80% of Microsoft's marketing right now.
But he should be covering at least 99.9% of their marketing, and there is a 0.1% margin of error, mind you.

There is no such thing as an "RT-only" app, in fact some Windows RT apps only run on Windows 8.
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I would assume RT apps would run on Windows 8, um, you know, because Windows RT is basically Windows 8: ARM Edition.
You're point is?
 
KENNYB said:
The MS employee will then try to explain why a Surface RT can't run Windows desktop apps. The employe will then state, "if you want to run desktop apps you should wait for Surface Pro". Telling a customer a better (or more functional) product is right around the corner is a death blow to a product.
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There's no need to wait for wait for Surface Pro if one wants a Windows 8 tablet and I believe that The Microsoft Store typically carries a number of Windows tablets. And as many have been commenting that more functional device has a number of tradeoffs, notably price and battery life. Person looking at Windows 8/RT devices needs to understand the three major platforms (ARM. Clover Trail, Core Series) and what the pros and cons are.
 
Red Falcon said:
I would assume RT apps would run on Windows 8, um, you know, because Windows RT is basically Windows 8: ARM Edition.
You're point is?
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My point is that there is no such thing as an "RT-only" app which is and that some Windows RT apps don't actually run on Windows RT.
 
MS needs to look at it's competition, as it's easily 5 years behind. Apple presents a sleek, easy-to-use package and Google has or promotes a diverse, functional, and cheaper alternative. MS is all over the place and more expensive; there's no wonder people aren't flocking to the Surface.
 
heatlesssun said:
My point is that there is no such thing as an "RT-only" app which is and that some Windows RT apps don't actually run on Windows RT.
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That makes no sense.
Why have an app available on Windows RT that can't be run on Windows RT?

I get that one could purchase an app on Windows RT designed for Windows 8 (x86), is that what you mean?
 
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