That's what school kids need, a sorry cheaply made rotting in the warehouse tablet. Let the young suffer with them. They should have given them away as a total loss they are.
You are quite wrong in saying the Surface is cheaply made. It is, in fact, very well made. Unfortunately, like the iPad, the capacitive screen means you can't handwrite well on the device. Apart from that, it's not a bad tablet except for the 16:9 aspect ratio which makes using it in portrait mode quite unpleasant.
$200 is a pretty good price though that price seems to not apply to individuals.
If they used a Wacom screen like the Samsung Note 8.0 or the Surface Pro then a lot of interesting possibilities would open up. The lack of handwriting capabilities is a major flaw with both the Surface RT and the iPad. Unless you plan on eliminating cursive writing I think any tablet that can't handle that should be kept away from kids. It's got to more offer than just poking and becoming typists.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, I'm guessing. I wonder if schools will even buy them at that price.
Giving away 10,000 of them is simply shedding stagnant inventory they'd have to write off anyway. Might as well try to grab some attention with some product placement. Will the educators even use them if they're free?
Personally, I think the Surface RT is pretty much a lost cause. Not sure yet about the 'pro' version, but this one they can only (barely?) give away%u2026? Nope, it doesn't bode well.
Looks like history repeating itself: Zune => Surface RT?
I bought a Surface for testing at work. I put it to sleep at the end of the work day and the battery is dead the next day! That thing is a total POS!!!!
I bought a Surface for testing at work. I put it to sleep at the end of the work day and the battery is dead the next day! That thing is a total POS!!!!
I had one for quite some time but that never happened to me. Perhaps you had it set up wrong? My complaints re the Surface RT were the 16:9 aspect ratio, no stylus and capacitive screen. Two of those three are also issues I have with my iPads. My nightmare scenario is having the iPad move to widescreen like they did with the iPhone and iPod Touch.
RT a loss leader at $199? Tegra 3 is old and available in bulk at $15 or less. And the screen used is a cheap low resolution one. And laptops running full Windows and are nearly as cheap so why would anyone bother accepting less with RT?
And yes, 16:9 was quite stupid when 16:10 is becoming more the norm.
Anyway, it ain't dead yet. Microsofts long term vision is selling RT phones and tablets at the budget end. Full surface is for a premium $1000+ price Macbook like price.
RT a loss leader at $199? Tegra 3 is old and available in bulk at $15 or less. And the screen used is a cheap low resolution one. And laptops running full Windows and are nearly as cheap so why would anyone bother accepting less with RT?
And yes, 16:9 was quite stupid when 16:10 is becoming more the norm.
Anyway, it ain't dead yet. Microsofts long term vision is selling RT phones and tablets at the budget end. Full surface is for a premium $1000+ price Macbook like price.
Because it's the same turd they tried to sell at more than twice that price last fall?
MS lost big on the product line, but they'll live.
I know it's a faulty comparison (for example R&D costs money, but it's not a marginal (per-unit) expense), Assuming $200 per RT, that would have been 4.5 million of them. If it cost them $150/unit, 6 million, the same quantity the article arrives at. They didn't even sell a million RTs.
Comments
As in "pants on fire"
You are quite wrong in saying the Surface is cheaply made. It is, in fact, very well made. Unfortunately, like the iPad, the capacitive screen means you can't handwrite well on the device. Apart from that, it's not a bad tablet except for the 16:9 aspect ratio which makes using it in portrait mode quite unpleasant.
$200 is a pretty good price though that price seems to not apply to individuals.
If they used a Wacom screen like the Samsung Note 8.0 or the Surface Pro then a lot of interesting possibilities would open up. The lack of handwriting capabilities is a major flaw with both the Surface RT and the iPad. Unless you plan on eliminating cursive writing I think any tablet that can't handle that should be kept away from kids. It's got to more offer than just poking and becoming typists.
Philip
Giving away 10,000 of them is simply shedding stagnant inventory they'd have to write off anyway. Might as well try to grab some attention with some product placement. Will the educators even use them if they're free?
Personally, I think the Surface RT is pretty much a lost cause. Not sure yet about the 'pro' version, but this one they can only (barely?) give away%u2026? Nope, it doesn't bode well.
Looks like history repeating itself: Zune => Surface RT?
And so ... the dumping of the POS RT officially begins (complete with no education software at all - but hey, it's got Office!).
next stop, the WalMart $99 bargain bins.
Last stop, free with a Big Mac family dinner!
I bought a Surface for testing at work. I put it to sleep at the end of the work day and the battery is dead the next day! That thing is a total POS!!!!
Delicious irony that it requires a very poor education for this to sound like a good deal.
I had one for quite some time but that never happened to me. Perhaps you had it set up wrong? My complaints re the Surface RT were the 16:9 aspect ratio, no stylus and capacitive screen. Two of those three are also issues I have with my iPads. My nightmare scenario is having the iPad move to widescreen like they did with the iPhone and iPod Touch.
Philip
RT a loss leader at $199? Tegra 3 is old and available in bulk at $15 or less. And the screen used is a cheap low resolution one. And laptops running full Windows and are nearly as cheap so why would anyone bother accepting less with RT?
And yes, 16:9 was quite stupid when 16:10 is becoming more the norm.
Anyway, it ain't dead yet. Microsofts long term vision is selling RT phones and tablets at the budget end. Full surface is for a premium $1000+ price Macbook like price.
Because it's the same turd they tried to sell at more than twice that price last fall?
MS lost big on the product line, but they'll live.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/492120/20130718/microsoft-takes-900-million-charge-surface-tablets.htm
I know it's a faulty comparison (for example R&D costs money, but it's not a marginal (per-unit) expense), Assuming $200 per RT, that would have been 4.5 million of them. If it cost them $150/unit, 6 million, the same quantity the article arrives at. They didn't even sell a million RTs.
"Because it's the same turd they tried to sell at more than twice that price last fall?"
Like many a false 2 for one offer they can reduce it to a pretend bargain basement.