Problem you have described is pointing to your GPU problem, likely drivers but also possibly hardware. It is not necessarily GPU hardware, it could be insufficient/fluctuating power, motherboard voltage regulators, chipset (though hardware problem usually would not be amendable by driver's restart) .
Of all the possible culprits, Windows 8 itself is the least likely.
Or would you prefer if your OS has frozen/BSOD on graphics failure, causing you to lose whatever you might have been working on at the moment, like good old XP would do?
XP actually could shutdown while keeping the graphics card running. I have a friend who ended up with a nice hole in his motherboard, graphics card and soundboard (which pretty much meant changing the whole machine anyway).
TS did previously mention problem with Intel graphics in his PC, so I don't think he is making this up. At least there is consistency in his story. Especially that I have also came across crappy Intel drivers for their integrated graphics, albeit different problem from what he is describing.
He might have several machines... I believe I've recently posted a pic of the machines on my desktop, and it includes Macs and Windows PCs...
As longs Microsoft will not understand the emerging mobile market really is driven by the public desires of a new and reboot from scratch platform, Microsoft will fail any attempt to push any Windows legacy.
Windows weight over the years has become ridiculously big, his DLL nightmare directory alone (WinSXS) is bigger than Mountain Lion whole OS.
The point is that neither is a desktop PC. $30 more or less doesn't matter. i7 vs i5 doesn't matter.
From a bang for the performance buck perspective the Mac Mini and iMac destroys both of them and both of those are (relative to cheap win pcs) expensive desktops.
Intel lists a $40 price difference between the two processors with the Core-i7 in the MBA being better (of course). This is more interesting interesting when you consider the MBA is NOT more expensive than the Surface Pro for the most comparable setup and the Surface Pro is well above the WinPC average while the MBA is well below the Mac average. When considering the demographics for Windows v Mac OS users this is an important distinction in determining what your market will be.
Then you have the options for making the MBA a much higher performer and increasing the already higher usable capacity of its storage. Again, this is important for their respective markets.
I'm not sure why you'd choose the Mac mini or iMac in a comparison to two portable devices. with fairly similar performance.
I still doesn't understand what the Surface Pro got any better than others failed Tablet PC from the past 15 years...
The issue here is not the hardware, but with legacy Windows software unfit for tablet screen size and touch input. BTW I wonder how anybody can considering a 10in Windows device for Pro working...
Failed Tablet PCs from the past 15 years have largely been overweight slates. I've owned several motion computing tablets before giving up on tablets until the iPad. I've always wanted a 11" MBA based tablet with a stylus.
So a lot of it has been the hardware being either too big or too slow or both.
As far as software goes I enjoyed using OneNote when I had it.
Intel lists a $40 price difference between the two processors with the Core-i7 in the MBA being better (of course). This is more interesting interesting when you consider the MBA is NOT more expensive than the Surface Pro for the most comparable setup and the Surface Pro is well above the WinPC average while the MBA is well below the Mac average. When considering the demographics for Windows v Mac OS users this is an important distinction in determining what your market will be.
Then you have the options for making the MBA a much higher performer and increasing the already higher usable capacity of its storage. Again, this is important for their respective markets.
The Surface Pro has a (probably) wacom digitizer and a capactive touch screen. The MBA does not.
The Surface Pro has an optically bonded screen like the iMac.
The Surface Pro has a SDXC reader. The MBA does not.
The Surface Pro is 1920 x1080. The MBA is 1366x768.
The Surface Pro has a 42 Wh battery. The MBA a 35 Wh battery.
The Surface Pro has two 720p cameras. The MBA has one.
The Surface Pro has a gyroscope, compass/magnetometer and accelerometer. The MBA does not.
The MBA has thunderbolt. The Surface Pro does not.
/shrug
I think the Surface Pro is priced well against the MBA.
Regarding the demographics...windows users run the gamut of demographics and the top tier ultrabooks are priced similarly. The build quality has been uniformly reported as very high and they use injected moulded magnesium (VaporMg) and not plastic. I think MS has been very smart with respect to Surface pricing where they build a flagship device with a built in significant price umbrella for their OEM partners.
Unlike Google that effectively cratered the profitability of every other 7" tablet maker not named Amazon or Apple.
Quote:
I'm not sure why you'd choose the Mac mini or iMac in a comparison to two portable devices. with fairly similar performance.
Again, my point is that neither the MBA nor the Surface pro is a desktop, expensive or otherwise.
My thoughts are I wish it had thunderbolt and Haswell. If anything makes me not get the launch Surface Pro is the fact that simply replacing the CPU with Haswell is going to vastly improve both GPU performance and battery life...although not at the same time. The Surface Pro 2 is going to be a major improvement like going from the original MBA to what we have today.
That might be as early as fall 2013 in time for XMas.
Mac Pro. It already is the best case and the best fans available anywhere on the market.
The GPU just crashed. Period. Because Windows has no idea how to manage graphics.
I have win7 setup with same type of ati graphics card. it is both overheating issue with cooler/fan and terrible driver/software.
best option is to go to gpu settings to underclock and forcing fan to stay on 60-70%. cant remember name offhand but there is an ati utility which also causes system hang when it tries to report the gpu problem.
Failed Tablet PCs from the past 15 years have largely been overweight slates. I've owned several motion computing tablets before giving up on tablets until the iPad. I've always wanted a 11" MBA based tablet with a stylus.
So a lot of it has been the hardware being either too big or too slow or both.
As far as software goes I enjoyed using OneNote when I had it.
The Surface Pro is still a overweight slate with poor performance and battery life when compared to WinPC and other tablets. You may want a stylus for precise works, but driving the UI with a stylus is just plain wrong. No PC or Tablet have being ever successful with a pen driven UI. You don't want a pen for browsing, reading your email and watching videos, works for what tablet are really made for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
The Surface Pro has a (probably) wacom digitizer and a capactive touch screen. The MBA does not.
The Surface Pro has an optically bonded screen like the iMac.
The Surface Pro has a SDXC reader. The MBA does not.
The Surface Pro is 1920 x1080. The MBA is 1366x768.
The Surface Pro has a 42 Wh battery. The MBA a 35 Wh battery.
The Surface Pro has two 720p cameras. The MBA has one.
The Surface Pro has a gyroscope, compass/magnetometer and accelerometer. The MBA does not.
Do a need to remembering you the Surface "Pro" is a 10inch netbook with a fabric keyboard and minuscule trackpad, what pro work you ever want to do on this computer? Have you ever use Office or Photoshop on a 10 in screen? Actual windows software can't be use adequately on this setup, Microsoft should have built a new platform instead of promising a tablet running Windows crapware.
The Surface Pro is still a overweight slate with poor performance and battery life when compared to WinPC and other tablets. You may want a stylus for precise works, but driving the UI with a stylus is just plain wrong. No PC or Tablet have being ever successful with a pen driven UI. You don't want a pen for browsing, reading your email and watching videos, works for what tablet are really made for.
Do a need to remembering you the Surface "Pro" is a 10inch netbook with a fabric keyboard and minuscule trackpad, what pro work you ever want to do on this computer? Have you ever use Office or Photoshop on a 10 in screen? Actual windows software can't be use adequately on this setup, Microsoft should have built a new platform instead of promising a tablet running Windows crapware.
I've heard several people talk about the Surface Pro being great for doing photoshop work, but as noted above, I just cannot see photo professionals going gaga over doing serious (professional) work on a 10" screen. Not that I think a professional would any more use an iPad for doing said work. These types of comments of the Surface Pro being great because...sound like red herrings to me. Same goes for running legacy programs, designed and built to be run on a desktop or laptop form factor, being anything but problematic when pushed down to a wide format, landscape mode, 10" screen.
The other thing that bugs me about supporters of a tablet/netbook like the Surface (pro or rt) is that they talk about it being a real OS vs iOS (or Android). How can they not understand that apps built for the iPad (for example) do what they are intended to do using the form factor and OS that the iPad was designed for. When I use my iPad 4 for editing proposals, for example, that I created on my MBA 13" and saved to iCloud, I don't think negatively that Pages or Numbers is running on a mobile OS - because I can do whatever I need to do on it to edit or create what I need. Of course it's different, because I'm holding a tablet and not using a trackpad and physical keyboard to input into the apps. That's the whole point. MS simply tried to miniaturize the laptop, forgetting that the tablet experience is different and should be different.
I'm now at that point where I am seriously considering selling my MBA and getting another iMac (just got a new 21" with fusion drive for work) because I am not traveling with the Air any more and working on a big screen while in-office is a better experience. I wonder if that is in part what Apple is seeing, which is why they're not keeping up with iMac production (beyond the screen lamination issues)?
I will admit that I could be missing something here but, this device will be priced at the same range of some higher performance/end laptops that will undoubtedly have a larger storage space, RAM, etc. With that in mind, why buy this at all?
I've heard several people talk about the Surface Pro being great for doing photoshop work, but as noted above, I just cannot see photo professionals going gaga over doing serious (professional) work on a 10" screen. Not that I think a professional would any more use an iPad for doing said work. These types of comments of the Surface Pro being great because...sound like red herrings to me. Same goes for running legacy programs, designed and built to be run on a desktop or laptop form factor, being anything but problematic when pushed down to a wide format, landscape mode, 10" screen.
The other thing that bugs me about supporters of a tablet/netbook like the Surface (pro or rt) is that they talk about it being a real OS vs iOS (or Android). How can they not understand that apps built for the iPad (for example) do what they are intended to do using the form factor and OS that the iPad was designed for. When I use my iPad 4 for editing proposals, for example, that I created on my MBA 13" and saved to iCloud, I don't think negatively that Pages or Numbers is running on a mobile OS - because I can do whatever I need to do on it to edit or create what I need. Of course it's different, because I'm holding a tablet and not using a trackpad and physical keyboard to input into the apps. That's the whole point. MS simply tried to miniaturize the laptop, forgetting that the tablet experience is different and should be different.
I'm now at that point where I am seriously considering selling my MBA and getting another iMac (just got a new 21" with fusion drive for work) because I am not traveling with the Air any more and working on a big screen while in-office is a better experience. I wonder if that is in part what Apple is seeing, which is why they're not keeping up with iMac production (beyond the screen lamination issues)?
I completely agree with you. Microsoft has follow the wrong path with mobile products, Keeping their "incompatible" windows everywhere strategy is plain wrong and alienated their consumer with confusing product line sharing the same name but not the same softwares. Even worst with Windows 8 they created a dual headed beast unfit for desktop and tablet uses. Microsoft view of an "no compromised" platform is a mess without any clue.
Really? We're still intermixing BASE-10 and BASE-2 measurements? Are we doing this so the MS Surface looks worse or are we really not understanding that vendors state the capacity as 1000 for Kilo, not 1024?
59.60 GiB for the 64GB model and 119.2 GiB for the 128GB model. Win8 is still a hefty beast, just not as bad it's made out to be here.
The OS should take up about 36GB as the Windows filesystem reports it or about 39GB as Mountain Lion would report it. It's still pretty close to the 'as little as 36% left' on the 64GB model.
They should hackintosh Mountain Lion onto it so it's under 10GB used.
The issue here is not the hardware, but with legacy Windows software unfit for tablet screen size and touch input. BTW I wonder how anybody can considering a 10in Windows device for Pro working...
Plug it into PC peripherals; problem solved. It's a portable PC that you can take anywhere and plug into anything, or just use its screen when nothing else is available. That is, at least, how I regard the Windows 8 tablets, and that's why I would definitely buy a decent Windows 8 gaming tablet to use as a portable Steam Box merging the best of PC gaming with the best of console gaming.
The Surface Pro is still a overweight slate with poor performance and battery life when compared to WinPC and other tablets. You may want a stylus for precise works, but driving the UI with a stylus is just plain wrong. No PC or Tablet have being ever successful with a pen driven UI. You don't want a pen for browsing, reading your email and watching videos, works for what tablet are really made for.
It's 1.99 lbs which is a tad heavy as a tablet but it's a pound or two lighter than the motion tablets I had. The iPad is 1.46 lbs.
The UI is driven by touch, not the stylus.
Quote:
Do a need to remembering you the Surface "Pro" is a 10inch netbook with a fabric keyboard and minuscule trackpad, what pro work you ever want to do on this computer? Have you ever use Office or Photoshop on a 10 in screen? Actual windows software can't be use adequately on this setup, Microsoft should have built a new platform instead of promising a tablet running Windows crapware.
The type cover keyboard is your usual plastic keyboard. Described by Anand as:
"Surface Pro uses the same type and touch covers as Surface RT. These two remain the best tablet keyboards I've ever used, not in that they are great keyboards but they offer a great balance of usability and form factor. Type/touch cover really do feel like a cover that you never need to remove, whereas most other tablet keyboards make me feel like I've turned my tablet into a notebook."
I played with it at the MS kiosk at the mall and I agree...they are very good tablet keyboards but not great keyboards overall.
The display is physically small but functional for drawing and taking notes on the go. To some extent this depends on your visual acuity since it's a 1080p display...giving you the same screen real estate as the monitor I use at home.
At home or work and docked with a montor, BT keyboard and BT mouse it should be like any other Core i5 windows machine with integrated graphics...only with a 10" drawing pad. Something some photoshop users will enjoy having.
"We also ran Surface RT with an external display, driving a behemoth, high-res monitor via the Pro’s Mini DisplayPort adapter. OK, that was a revelation. When attached to an external monitor, the Surface Pro really does become a full PC—and in this mode, the tablet itself can function as a drawing pad for full-fledged graphics applications, thanks to its included pen."
I've heard several people talk about the Surface Pro being great for doing photoshop work, but as noted above, I just cannot see photo professionals going gaga over doing serious (professional) work on a 10" screen. Not that I think a professional would any more use an iPad for doing said work. These types of comments of the Surface Pro being great because...sound like red herrings to me. Same goes for running legacy programs, designed and built to be run on a desktop or laptop form factor, being anything but problematic when pushed down to a wide format, landscape mode, 10" screen.
There's interest in both the iPad and the Surface Pro for use on shoot.
The desire, as I understand it, is to preview and do minor touch up of the files for quick review by the photographer or clients. It is certainly easier to see the photo and histogram on a 10" screen than a 3" screen built into the body of your DSLR.
Take a CF card and pop in the reader connected to the USB3 port and you can do this pretty quick.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikon133
This doesn't make much sense.
Problem you have described is pointing to your GPU problem, likely drivers but also possibly hardware. It is not necessarily GPU hardware, it could be insufficient/fluctuating power, motherboard voltage regulators, chipset (though hardware problem usually would not be amendable by driver's restart) .
Of all the possible culprits, Windows 8 itself is the least likely.
Or would you prefer if your OS has frozen/BSOD on graphics failure, causing you to lose whatever you might have been working on at the moment, like good old XP would do?
XP actually could shutdown while keeping the graphics card running. I have a friend who ended up with a nice hole in his motherboard, graphics card and soundboard (which pretty much meant changing the whole machine anyway).
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikon133
TS did previously mention problem with Intel graphics in his PC, so I don't think he is making this up. At least there is consistency in his story. Especially that I have also came across crappy Intel drivers for their integrated graphics, albeit different problem from what he is describing.
He might have several machines... I believe I've recently posted a pic of the machines on my desktop, and it includes Macs and Windows PCs...
As longs Microsoft will not understand the emerging mobile market really is driven by the public desires of a new and reboot from scratch platform, Microsoft will fail any attempt to push any Windows legacy.
Windows weight over the years has become ridiculously big, his DLL nightmare directory alone (WinSXS) is bigger than Mountain Lion whole OS.
Intel lists a $40 price difference between the two processors with the Core-i7 in the MBA being better (of course). This is more interesting interesting when you consider the MBA is NOT more expensive than the Surface Pro for the most comparable setup and the Surface Pro is well above the WinPC average while the MBA is well below the Mac average. When considering the demographics for Windows v Mac OS users this is an important distinction in determining what your market will be.
Then you have the options for making the MBA a much higher performer and increasing the already higher usable capacity of its storage. Again, this is important for their respective markets.
I'm not sure why you'd choose the Mac mini or iMac in a comparison to two portable devices. with fairly similar performance.
Originally Posted by nikon133
TS did previously mention problem with Intel graphics in his PC, so I don't think he is making this up.
Radeon 4870. Sorry.
Originally Posted by Andrey
If it's a desktop I'll recommend to get better case and to add couple of silent fans on a front and a back.
Mac Pro. It already is the best case and the best fans available anywhere on the market.
The GPU just crashed. Period. Because Windows has no idea how to manage graphics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigMac2
I still doesn't understand what the Surface Pro got any better than others failed Tablet PC from the past 15 years...
The issue here is not the hardware, but with legacy Windows software unfit for tablet screen size and touch input. BTW I wonder how anybody can considering a 10in Windows device for Pro working...
Failed Tablet PCs from the past 15 years have largely been overweight slates. I've owned several motion computing tablets before giving up on tablets until the iPad. I've always wanted a 11" MBA based tablet with a stylus.
So a lot of it has been the hardware being either too big or too slow or both.
As far as software goes I enjoyed using OneNote when I had it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SolipsismX
Intel lists a $40 price difference between the two processors with the Core-i7 in the MBA being better (of course). This is more interesting interesting when you consider the MBA is NOT more expensive than the Surface Pro for the most comparable setup and the Surface Pro is well above the WinPC average while the MBA is well below the Mac average. When considering the demographics for Windows v Mac OS users this is an important distinction in determining what your market will be.
Then you have the options for making the MBA a much higher performer and increasing the already higher usable capacity of its storage. Again, this is important for their respective markets.
The Surface Pro has a (probably) wacom digitizer and a capactive touch screen. The MBA does not.
The Surface Pro has an optically bonded screen like the iMac.
The Surface Pro has a SDXC reader. The MBA does not.
The Surface Pro is 1920 x1080. The MBA is 1366x768.
The Surface Pro has a 42 Wh battery. The MBA a 35 Wh battery.
The Surface Pro has two 720p cameras. The MBA has one.
The Surface Pro has a gyroscope, compass/magnetometer and accelerometer. The MBA does not.
The MBA has thunderbolt. The Surface Pro does not.
/shrug
I think the Surface Pro is priced well against the MBA.
Regarding the demographics...windows users run the gamut of demographics and the top tier ultrabooks are priced similarly. The build quality has been uniformly reported as very high and they use injected moulded magnesium (VaporMg) and not plastic. I think MS has been very smart with respect to Surface pricing where they build a flagship device with a built in significant price umbrella for their OEM partners.
Unlike Google that effectively cratered the profitability of every other 7" tablet maker not named Amazon or Apple.
Quote:
I'm not sure why you'd choose the Mac mini or iMac in a comparison to two portable devices. with fairly similar performance.
Again, my point is that neither the MBA nor the Surface pro is a desktop, expensive or otherwise.
My thoughts are I wish it had thunderbolt and Haswell. If anything makes me not get the launch Surface Pro is the fact that simply replacing the CPU with Haswell is going to vastly improve both GPU performance and battery life...although not at the same time.
That might be as early as fall 2013 in time for XMas.
Jeez, Skil. You just stomp around here like Godzilla through a Japanese oil refinery, huh?
Kudos once again for Your compelling discussion. <roll eyes>
I have win7 setup with same type of ati graphics card. it is both overheating issue with cooler/fan and terrible driver/software.
best option is to go to gpu settings to underclock and forcing fan to stay on 60-70%. cant remember name offhand but there is an ati utility which also causes system hang when it tries to report the gpu problem.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
Failed Tablet PCs from the past 15 years have largely been overweight slates. I've owned several motion computing tablets before giving up on tablets until the iPad. I've always wanted a 11" MBA based tablet with a stylus.
So a lot of it has been the hardware being either too big or too slow or both.
As far as software goes I enjoyed using OneNote when I had it.
The Surface Pro is still a overweight slate with poor performance and battery life when compared to WinPC and other tablets. You may want a stylus for precise works, but driving the UI with a stylus is just plain wrong. No PC or Tablet have being ever successful with a pen driven UI. You don't want a pen for browsing, reading your email and watching videos, works for what tablet are really made for.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
The Surface Pro has a (probably) wacom digitizer and a capactive touch screen. The MBA does not.
The Surface Pro has an optically bonded screen like the iMac.
The Surface Pro has a SDXC reader. The MBA does not.
The Surface Pro is 1920 x1080. The MBA is 1366x768.
The Surface Pro has a 42 Wh battery. The MBA a 35 Wh battery.
The Surface Pro has two 720p cameras. The MBA has one.
The Surface Pro has a gyroscope, compass/magnetometer and accelerometer. The MBA does not.
Do a need to remembering you the Surface "Pro" is a 10inch netbook with a fabric keyboard and minuscule trackpad, what pro work you ever want to do on this computer? Have you ever use Office or Photoshop on a 10 in screen? Actual windows software can't be use adequately on this setup, Microsoft should have built a new platform instead of promising a tablet running Windows crapware.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigMac2
The Surface Pro is still a overweight slate with poor performance and battery life when compared to WinPC and other tablets. You may want a stylus for precise works, but driving the UI with a stylus is just plain wrong. No PC or Tablet have being ever successful with a pen driven UI. You don't want a pen for browsing, reading your email and watching videos, works for what tablet are really made for.
Do a need to remembering you the Surface "Pro" is a 10inch netbook with a fabric keyboard and minuscule trackpad, what pro work you ever want to do on this computer? Have you ever use Office or Photoshop on a 10 in screen? Actual windows software can't be use adequately on this setup, Microsoft should have built a new platform instead of promising a tablet running Windows crapware.
I've heard several people talk about the Surface Pro being great for doing photoshop work, but as noted above, I just cannot see photo professionals going gaga over doing serious (professional) work on a 10" screen. Not that I think a professional would any more use an iPad for doing said work. These types of comments of the Surface Pro being great because...sound like red herrings to me. Same goes for running legacy programs, designed and built to be run on a desktop or laptop form factor, being anything but problematic when pushed down to a wide format, landscape mode, 10" screen.
The other thing that bugs me about supporters of a tablet/netbook like the Surface (pro or rt) is that they talk about it being a real OS vs iOS (or Android). How can they not understand that apps built for the iPad (for example) do what they are intended to do using the form factor and OS that the iPad was designed for. When I use my iPad 4 for editing proposals, for example, that I created on my MBA 13" and saved to iCloud, I don't think negatively that Pages or Numbers is running on a mobile OS - because I can do whatever I need to do on it to edit or create what I need. Of course it's different, because I'm holding a tablet and not using a trackpad and physical keyboard to input into the apps. That's the whole point. MS simply tried to miniaturize the laptop, forgetting that the tablet experience is different and should be different.
I'm now at that point where I am seriously considering selling my MBA and getting another iMac (just got a new 21" with fusion drive for work) because I am not traveling with the Air any more and working on a big screen while in-office is a better experience. I wonder if that is in part what Apple is seeing, which is why they're not keeping up with iMac production (beyond the screen lamination issues)?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmgregory1
I've heard several people talk about the Surface Pro being great for doing photoshop work, but as noted above, I just cannot see photo professionals going gaga over doing serious (professional) work on a 10" screen. Not that I think a professional would any more use an iPad for doing said work. These types of comments of the Surface Pro being great because...sound like red herrings to me. Same goes for running legacy programs, designed and built to be run on a desktop or laptop form factor, being anything but problematic when pushed down to a wide format, landscape mode, 10" screen.
The other thing that bugs me about supporters of a tablet/netbook like the Surface (pro or rt) is that they talk about it being a real OS vs iOS (or Android). How can they not understand that apps built for the iPad (for example) do what they are intended to do using the form factor and OS that the iPad was designed for. When I use my iPad 4 for editing proposals, for example, that I created on my MBA 13" and saved to iCloud, I don't think negatively that Pages or Numbers is running on a mobile OS - because I can do whatever I need to do on it to edit or create what I need. Of course it's different, because I'm holding a tablet and not using a trackpad and physical keyboard to input into the apps. That's the whole point. MS simply tried to miniaturize the laptop, forgetting that the tablet experience is different and should be different.
I'm now at that point where I am seriously considering selling my MBA and getting another iMac (just got a new 21" with fusion drive for work) because I am not traveling with the Air any more and working on a big screen while in-office is a better experience. I wonder if that is in part what Apple is seeing, which is why they're not keeping up with iMac production (beyond the screen lamination issues)?
I completely agree with you. Microsoft has follow the wrong path with mobile products, Keeping their "incompatible" windows everywhere strategy is plain wrong and alienated their consumer with confusing product line sharing the same name but not the same softwares. Even worst with Windows 8 they created a dual headed beast unfit for desktop and tablet uses. Microsoft view of an "no compromised" platform is a mess without any clue.
edited to remove.
That is what Microsoft do themselves:
http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-US/storage
They do make sure to point out the distinction in size calculations but is mixed up again here:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/29/3929110/surface-pro-disk-space-windows-8
The OS should take up about 36GB as the Windows filesystem reports it or about 39GB as Mountain Lion would report it. It's still pretty close to the 'as little as 36% left' on the 64GB model.
They should hackintosh Mountain Lion onto it so it's under 10GB used.
An SSD? A decent display? A capacitive touchscreen?
Plug it into PC peripherals; problem solved. It's a portable PC that you can take anywhere and plug into anything, or just use its screen when nothing else is available. That is, at least, how I regard the Windows 8 tablets, and that's why I would definitely buy a decent Windows 8 gaming tablet to use as a portable Steam Box merging the best of PC gaming with the best of console gaming.
Quote:
Originally Posted by BigMac2
The Surface Pro is still a overweight slate with poor performance and battery life when compared to WinPC and other tablets. You may want a stylus for precise works, but driving the UI with a stylus is just plain wrong. No PC or Tablet have being ever successful with a pen driven UI. You don't want a pen for browsing, reading your email and watching videos, works for what tablet are really made for.
It's 1.99 lbs which is a tad heavy as a tablet but it's a pound or two lighter than the motion tablets I had. The iPad is 1.46 lbs.
The UI is driven by touch, not the stylus.
Quote:
Do a need to remembering you the Surface "Pro" is a 10inch netbook with a fabric keyboard and minuscule trackpad, what pro work you ever want to do on this computer? Have you ever use Office or Photoshop on a 10 in screen? Actual windows software can't be use adequately on this setup, Microsoft should have built a new platform instead of promising a tablet running Windows crapware.
The type cover keyboard is your usual plastic keyboard. Described by Anand as:
"Surface Pro uses the same type and touch covers as Surface RT. These two remain the best tablet keyboards I've ever used, not in that they are great keyboards but they offer a great balance of usability and form factor. Type/touch cover really do feel like a cover that you never need to remove, whereas most other tablet keyboards make me feel like I've turned my tablet into a notebook."
I played with it at the MS kiosk at the mall and I agree...they are very good tablet keyboards but not great keyboards overall.
The display is physically small but functional for drawing and taking notes on the go. To some extent this depends on your visual acuity since it's a 1080p display...giving you the same screen real estate as the monitor I use at home.
At home or work and docked with a montor, BT keyboard and BT mouse it should be like any other Core i5 windows machine with integrated graphics...only with a 10" drawing pad. Something some photoshop users will enjoy having.
"We also ran Surface RT with an external display, driving a behemoth, high-res monitor via the Pro’s Mini DisplayPort adapter. OK, that was a revelation. When attached to an external monitor, the Surface Pro really does become a full PC—and in this mode, the tablet itself can function as a drawing pad for full-fledged graphics applications, thanks to its included pen."
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2024690/microsoft-surface-pro-hands-on-impressions-from-ces.html
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmgregory1
I've heard several people talk about the Surface Pro being great for doing photoshop work, but as noted above, I just cannot see photo professionals going gaga over doing serious (professional) work on a 10" screen. Not that I think a professional would any more use an iPad for doing said work. These types of comments of the Surface Pro being great because...sound like red herrings to me. Same goes for running legacy programs, designed and built to be run on a desktop or laptop form factor, being anything but problematic when pushed down to a wide format, landscape mode, 10" screen.
There's interest in both the iPad and the Surface Pro for use on shoot.
The desire, as I understand it, is to preview and do minor touch up of the files for quick review by the photographer or clients. It is certainly easier to see the photo and histogram on a 10" screen than a 3" screen built into the body of your DSLR.
Take a CF card and pop in the reader connected to the USB3 port and you can do this pretty quick.