Typing on it can't be any worse than an on-screen keyboard, so at the least it'll be an improvement. How much we have yet to see. But it also won't eat up screen real-estate, which is a nice perk.
I wouldn't expect typing to be any better, but one will have benefit for not losing half of the screen to the keyboard. Since Android tablets are using 16:9 screen, you actually lose more than half of the screen when typing in landscape. Good enough for simple email, but any document with advanced formatting and/or graphical elements would be really nasty to deal with.
It isn't a tablet or a laptop. It isn't innovative or traditional. It isn't cute or ugly. It isn't even schizophrenic. It isn't really anything.
What a lot of nonsense.
That's funny. It's a tablet aimed squarely at the iPad. Hype and distortion won't carry this thing to success, and it won't succeed for the reasons I listed above. I just don't understand how anyone thinks MS has a good software strategy here, or what will possibly motivate Windows developers to recreate their apps over again for a version of Windows with no backwards compatibility. x86 backwards compatible code is the only real reason why windows exists and remains dominate.
MS is playing with fire with their strategy, at best it fails and at worst they lose considerable market share.
Or, MS is saying to OEMs "you cannot blackmail us with Android, because we will make our own". It is hardly a secret that, outside of Nokia, other OEMs did Windows Phone 7 just as "mee-too", but without much enthysiasm. I think MS simply tried to avoid this repeating with tablets. I think they are also trying to set standards and avoid/minimize market being overtaken by low quality product that would, on the long run, have more potential to damage than to benefit platform. It is a message to OEMs: If you want to sell this, you'll have to be at least as good as we are.
Re competition, it is normal in Windows market. MS does keyboards and mice, so does anyone else making PCs. So does Logitech, Genius, Cherry, Razer, Steel Series, Corsair... none of them gave up on making Windows PC peripherals just because MS does.
yeah but this is very different. MS does not make its own desktops or laptops.
if by some miracle W8 tablets become popular, the OEM's will crank out their own models eventually. but right now MS has iced the market, unless they price theirs at premium levels leaving room for others to hit a lower price market tier. and MS is charging them $85 for a license! so very few OEM's are going to take a risk on Windows tablets this year. we might see some OEM models for Xmas, but the production runs will be small.
of course, Redmond may already have already realized there was very little OEM interest in W8 anyway, and thus decided to go it alone very recently. this whole event had a feeling of being rushed and half-baked.
Speaking as someone who's opened up a bazillion computers over the years ... this picture is complete shite.
If I had a product with such crap engineering inside, the last thing I would do is show an exploded diagram of it.
But then if I was Microsoft coming out with this product today I'd be so ashamed I would quit the company. Not because it isn't good, but because it's just so obviously ripped off. Every single aspect of this thing is some kind of rip-off of Apple. Everything.
They even managed to refer to plain old drop forged magnesium (you know the metal that Apple made popular in computer design ten years ago), as "liquid metal."
They make Samsung look like they were just fooling around, and not copying Apple at all in comparison.
"Ballmer introduced the new device, likening it to the Xbox 360 in that it has a strong synthesis of software and hardware that push each other to new limits."
This new device is also like the devices, albeit not as elegant, made by a famous company that's known for creating products with tight integration of hardware and software. I wonder what company this is...
They could have really killed it with XBox integration. But in typical Microsoft fashion they half-assed it. Where's the content? Where's the battery life? Where's the ship date? Where's the price?
Consider that Asus Zenbook Prime ultrabook already packs full-HD IPS screen, i5 CPU and 8 hours of battery life... in device that doesn't seem to have more volume than this tablet. Probably less, considering mechanical keyboard.
There were talks about Xbox integration, and I don't think we have seen last of it. Such integration is only one OS patch away (or one downloadable app), and MS is a software company. Unless you expect to play Xbox games on tablet?
A lot of people are going to look at this and wonder why they need both an iPad and a MacBook when they can have one device that does both things for much less money.
How do you know it will be MUCH LESS money? Microsoft didn't announce a price. They didn't announce a lot of things actually, including whether it had 4G wireless.
In order to do as much as the iPad and MacBook, you would have to have at a minimum the "Pro" version. For a company that is only sticking their toe into the hardware market, to price that thing in the same ballpark as a MacBook and an iPad, with all the same features, and without economy of scale, I think they would be hard pressed to meet all the same price points, at least substantially.
Don't get me wrong, I think it addresses the needs of a lot of PC users, I just can't see it putting anybody out of business.
The one thing it has going for it, is that at least the Pro model comes with a universe of software that already runs on Windows. The consumer model will have a much harder sell.
But iOS has such a lead in Enterprise I don't see IS departments ditching their iPad investment anytime soon to move over to Windows. Maybe if the iPad fails to address a business' concerns in the future ... But it definitely will give PC centric companies a choice going forward ...
Kudos to MS for (1) keeping a secret and (b) hiring someone who knows how to make a product launch video that doesn't make Tim and Eric cringe.
I thought Surface as going to be table-sized and made by Samsung?
I'm most skeptical abou the keyboard/cover, and while the USB port is nice, no one needs to hook a printer directly to a tablet. The SD slot is nicer, hope Apple is listening. I'd give up 15 min of battery life for an SD slot on an iPad. Then again as an iPad is the least-dockable iOS device, I'd go to a micro USB like Kindle. If any. Since 5.x devices can sync wirelessly, the only reason for a cable is charging and micro USB does that just fine on every other device.
History repeats itself. If it first you don't succeed, dump another bilion dollars into it and watch it fail again. Ballmer the monkey boy losing more money for M$.
Anyone remember this POS?
Not forgetting this little beauty from 2010 - the HP Slate. They really shifted those babies.
I wish them well, but fail to see how their hardware will outsell anyone else's if any OEM can license W8 on hardware that can have a hundred other ideas/forms/feature sets. And the way to get a good idea is to have lots of them.
XBOX succeeds as MS hardware because they don't license the OS to anyone else. That's not the case here, and I suspect it's the one thing they glossed over in the meetings when they were hell bent on leapfrogging the iPad.
They continually want to be Apple. Envy is not the same as competition, and to truly be the leviathan they are used to being, they need to supress that urge.
Comments
Interestingly, my local broadsheet has labelled this as an "iPad challenger" rather than "iPad killer".
Quote:
Originally Posted by redbarchetta
Typing on it can't be any worse than an on-screen keyboard, so at the least it'll be an improvement. How much we have yet to see. But it also won't eat up screen real-estate, which is a nice perk.
I wouldn't expect typing to be any better, but one will have benefit for not losing half of the screen to the keyboard. Since Android tablets are using 16:9 screen, you actually lose more than half of the screen when typing in landscape. Good enough for simple email, but any document with advanced formatting and/or graphical elements would be really nasty to deal with.
Quote:
Originally Posted by greekmango
It isn't a tablet or a laptop. It isn't innovative or traditional. It isn't cute or ugly. It isn't even schizophrenic. It isn't really anything.
What a lot of nonsense.
That's funny.
MS is playing with fire with their strategy, at best it fails and at worst they lose considerable market share.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nikon133
Or, MS is saying to OEMs "you cannot blackmail us with Android, because we will make our own". It is hardly a secret that, outside of Nokia, other OEMs did Windows Phone 7 just as "mee-too", but without much enthysiasm. I think MS simply tried to avoid this repeating with tablets. I think they are also trying to set standards and avoid/minimize market being overtaken by low quality product that would, on the long run, have more potential to damage than to benefit platform. It is a message to OEMs: If you want to sell this, you'll have to be at least as good as we are.
Re competition, it is normal in Windows market. MS does keyboards and mice, so does anyone else making PCs. So does Logitech, Genius, Cherry, Razer, Steel Series, Corsair... none of them gave up on making Windows PC peripherals just because MS does.
yeah but this is very different. MS does not make its own desktops or laptops.
if by some miracle W8 tablets become popular, the OEM's will crank out their own models eventually. but right now MS has iced the market, unless they price theirs at premium levels leaving room for others to hit a lower price market tier. and MS is charging them $85 for a license! so very few OEM's are going to take a risk on Windows tablets this year. we might see some OEM models for Xmas, but the production runs will be small.
of course, Redmond may already have already realized there was very little OEM interest in W8 anyway, and thus decided to go it alone very recently. this whole event had a feeling of being rushed and half-baked.
Quote:
Originally Posted by csuess
The art of engineering.
Speaking as someone who's opened up a bazillion computers over the years ... this picture is complete shite.
If I had a product with such crap engineering inside, the last thing I would do is show an exploded diagram of it.
But then if I was Microsoft coming out with this product today I'd be so ashamed I would quit the company. Not because it isn't good, but because it's just so obviously ripped off. Every single aspect of this thing is some kind of rip-off of Apple. Everything.
They even managed to refer to plain old drop forged magnesium (you know the metal that Apple made popular in computer design ten years ago), as "liquid metal."
They make Samsung look like they were just fooling around, and not copying Apple at all in comparison.
I'm sure there's a job out there he can excel at.
"Ballmer introduced the new device, likening it to the Xbox 360 in that it has a strong synthesis of software and hardware that push each other to new limits."
This new device is also like the devices, albeit not as elegant, made by a famous company that's known for creating products with tight integration of hardware and software. I wonder what company this is...
Prometheus?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bdkennedy
They could have really killed it with XBox integration. But in typical Microsoft fashion they half-assed it. Where's the content? Where's the battery life? Where's the ship date? Where's the price?
Consider that Asus Zenbook Prime ultrabook already packs full-HD IPS screen, i5 CPU and 8 hours of battery life... in device that doesn't seem to have more volume than this tablet. Probably less, considering mechanical keyboard.
There were talks about Xbox integration, and I don't think we have seen last of it. Such integration is only one OS patch away (or one downloadable app), and MS is a software company. Unless you expect to play Xbox games on tablet?
The worst thing that could happen to MS isn't Apple or their iPad.
It's Android.
Ask OEMs.
In order to do as much as the iPad and MacBook, you would have to have at a minimum the "Pro" version. For a company that is only sticking their toe into the hardware market, to price that thing in the same ballpark as a MacBook and an iPad, with all the same features, and without economy of scale, I think they would be hard pressed to meet all the same price points, at least substantially.
Don't get me wrong, I think it addresses the needs of a lot of PC users, I just can't see it putting anybody out of business.
The one thing it has going for it, is that at least the Pro model comes with a universe of software that already runs on Windows. The consumer model will have a much harder sell.
But iOS has such a lead in Enterprise I don't see IS departments ditching their iPad investment anytime soon to move over to Windows. Maybe if the iPad fails to address a business' concerns in the future ... But it definitely will give PC centric companies a choice going forward ...
Looks like the Engineer in Prometheus
Remember when Microsoft announced Zune? They matched the then-current iPod price.
And Apple immediately dropped their iPod price by $100.
BOOM.
Will be interesting to see if Apple does the same thing when Microsoft announces Surface prices.
It's certain that Apple knew there would eventually be a serious iPad clone. Surface might be the one.
They could be planning exactly the same pricing tactic.
But who knows? Microsoft might undercut iPad pricing. They're used to shoveling cash into bottomless money pits.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaun, UK
Balmer practising for his next career as a waiter if this thing tanks lol
Ballmer's next career will be what his first one should've been: wearing a chicken suit and selling used cars.
Kudos to MS for (1) keeping a secret and (b) hiring someone who knows how to make a product launch video that doesn't make Tim and Eric cringe.
I thought Surface as going to be table-sized and made by Samsung?
I'm most skeptical abou the keyboard/cover, and while the USB port is nice, no one needs to hook a printer directly to a tablet. The SD slot is nicer, hope Apple is listening. I'd give up 15 min of battery life for an SD slot on an iPad. Then again as an iPad is the least-dockable iOS device, I'd go to a micro USB like Kindle. If any. Since 5.x devices can sync wirelessly, the only reason for a cable is charging and micro USB does that just fine on every other device.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mac.World
History repeats itself. If it first you don't succeed, dump another bilion dollars into it and watch it fail again. Ballmer the monkey boy losing more money for M$.
Anyone remember this POS?
Not forgetting this little beauty from 2010 - the HP Slate. They really shifted those babies.
I wish them well, but fail to see how their hardware will outsell anyone else's if any OEM can license W8 on hardware that can have a hundred other ideas/forms/feature sets. And the way to get a good idea is to have lots of them.
XBOX succeeds as MS hardware because they don't license the OS to anyone else. That's not the case here, and I suspect it's the one thing they glossed over in the meetings when they were hell bent on leapfrogging the iPad.
They continually want to be Apple. Envy is not the same as competition, and to truly be the leviathan they are used to being, they need to supress that urge.
Quote: @ Quadra610
The worst thing that could happen to MS isn't Apple or their iPad.
It's Android.
The third-worst thing that could happen to Android (in the pad space) has already happened: the Amazon fork of Android 2.3.
The second-worst thing that could happen to Android (in the pad space) is inevitable: Samsung either forks Android or dumps it for Tizen.
Just to get rid of all that Google spying and adspam.
And the #1 worst thing that can and will happen to Android in the pad space?
Wait for it...
Chrome OS. Google execs have publicly stated that Chrome OS is the future, and that Android is not essential to Google's future success.
Google simply can't break out of web-page-think, where everything looks like a web page with pay-for-placement search results and banner ads.
Chrome OS is their only hope for making that happen on a mobile device of their own design.
So no, MS isn't worried about Android in the iPad clone space. Neither is Apple.
Ah yes. The HP Slate 500.
I hear they sold a whopping 9,000 before the project was canceled.
Could be worth a lot of money in 50 or 100 years. Plenty of potential collector value.