Microsoft says Surface Pro 3 more powerful, flexible than MacBook Air in latest ads

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  • Reply 21 of 288
    You know: MBA can run Windows 8 too...
  • Reply 22 of 288
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member

    M$ made a product stuck between two world, and so is many other PC companies. They see their computer sales dying and no one has come up to an Ipad alternative. Google screwed them all, and M$ seems to want one platform no matter what you are doing.

     

    M$ is also stuff only marketing against Apple they can not attempt to market against their partners of they will be the death nail.

     

    There will be a group of people who will buy this stuff, but it will not be a hit. 

  • Reply 23 of 288
    lilgto64lilgto64 Posts: 1,147member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mknopp View Post

     

    I am afraid that the change in leadership at Microsoft doesn't seem to give Microsoft any more forward vision.

     

    Are these similar to the "I'm a Mac" commercials? Yeah, in a way. But in a much more important way they are nothing like the "I'm a Mac" commercials.

     

    The "I'm a Mac" commercials were never about selling a particular Mac. They were about building the perception of all the Mac products, and honestly all of Apple's products. These Microsoft ads aren't about building the Microsoft image. They are just more of the same old stodgy and mostly cherry picked, deceptive ads that most people just ignore.

     

    It is a very thin line to tread. And Apple didn't always tread it well itself. There were a few "I'm a Mac" commercials where they moved much more into the malignant, and these tended to get some well deserved flack. The brilliant and effective "I'm a Mac" commercials were ones that poked a gentle humor at PC. Subtlety and humor are the keys.

     

    Samsung and Microsoft's commercials are about as subtle and funny as a sledgehammer to the face.


     

    I was thinking along the same lines. 

     

    The "I'm a Mac" series (to my recollection) never once claimed Apple had a faster processor or a larger screen or a name any other individual feature of a product. Where the MS and Samsung ads are rife with individual feature comparisons, ours has a huge magnificent 6.7" screen while Apple has a tiny paltry 4.0" screen. As if that single factor alone makes a great product. Lets ignore for a moment the resolution or refresh rate, color gamut, viewing angle, and contrast of one versus the other. It does strike me as funny that Apple haters believe that somehow users of Apple product have fallen victim to hype and are settling for an inferior product at a higher price just to be one of the "cool kids" but then turn around and claim that only by blindly following their choice is the better option. Apple's ads focused on the experience, and how do you quantify that in a product spec sheet?

    A friend of mine has a giant phone (perhaps more properly a phablet) not sure the model, Galaxy S3 maybe? and ever time I see it I think of the old brick phones and he says he hates it. 

    One time that I got onto an elevator a phone rings next to me and the guy pulls out a "phone" plus case that is so big that when he puts it up to his ear I can barely see any part of his head and I am standing about a foot away from him. 

     

    I have used a variety of operating systems for a number of years and my personal preference for what works best for me is Mac OS and iOS - does that mean it is the bet choice for everyone, everywhere, no. The folks I have run across who have been the most vocal against Apple in favor of MS - when pressed for an answer - have admitted that they never actually use an Apple product. 

    I have also notice through a couple decades of using pretty much every version of both Mac OS (starting way back before System 6 even) and Windows (starting with DOS actually, and Windows 3.1 through NT etc) across a variety of hardware and with a plethora of applications/programs spanning web, graphic design, real estate, code development, etc, perhaps the most telling observation that I have made its that in my experience Microsoft's products tend to focus on themselves where the highest priority in the Windows operating system is the operating system itself, while Apple's products tend to focus on the user where the highest priority is the user experience. 

    So even in cases where a system running Windows may be faster on a benchmark and even less expensive that does not mean the user will be more productive using that system. A great example of this is from the days of PageMaker (pre-historic version of Adobe InDesign) - using the same version (around 6.5 or so) on a Windows system when you clicked on a page and it started to redraw then you clicked on a menu item - the menu would NOT appear until AFTER the previous command was fully executed and the page fully rendered THEN the menu would appear, forcing the user to WAIT until the computer was ready for the next user input. Whereas on a Mac, when you clicked the menu, the page render would pause and the menu would appear - and if the selection you made in that menu change the page the incomplete page render would be abandoned and the app would move to the newly selected page ( or the render would begin again with the next setting ). 

    That may have been in part a difference in how the code for that specific app was written but I have observed similar behavior in other cases.

    If you pay attention on Windows - watch how many times you are doing something like scanning the Start menu for an program to launch when the OS rips control of the computer away from you and then you have to start over with what you were doing - or a dialog pops up and you inadvertently click or hit enter on the wrong choice. The is rare on a Mac - and most common in MS Office - the vast majority of the time any sort of alerts do not change the focus on the Mac allowing you to complete what you are working on before switching gears to handle the alert. 

  • Reply 24 of 288
    touch input in kickstand mode = "flop" (literally)
  • Reply 25 of 288
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    The Surface is a compromise product.

     

    Not as light or easy to use as a tablet.

    Not as powerful or easy to type as a laptop.


    Respectfully, I'm not sure I completely agree. Yes, it's not an iPad, but the weight is reasonable (it's 1.7 lbs vs 1 lbs). Also, it is as powerful as many entry to mid level laptops.

     

    I think it's a fine device for those that must have full blown Windows on the go. That said, I think I'd still rather have an MBA or iPad MBP combo.

     

    I'm an Apple fan, but this is the first device that I've taken notice of where I haven't said, "wow, this is dead in the water."

  • Reply 26 of 288
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by knowitall View Post

     

    So funny MS.

     

    By the way A.I. the iPhone A.I. app doesn't let me pinch and zoom (most important feature of iOS) and doen't follow the screen rotation even when i'm playing it fullscreen ...

    And why is the web page the slowest I know of?

    Could you please fix this.


     

    Watch the video from the main article page, not the comment page, and you will be able to view it in landscape.

  • Reply 27 of 288
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post

     
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by waldobushman View Post



    It runs Windows 8. That is not a selling point.




    Running Windows is oh so 1990s! image

  • Reply 28 of 288
    Two people in my office have Surface devices, and they took great delight in telling us how great (and better) they were than the rest of us who are bringing Mac Air's into the meetings.

    They have a Mac Air each now. The laughing stopped.
  • Reply 29 of 288
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by mitchell_pgh View Post

     
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sog35 View Post

     

    The Surface is a compromise product.

     

    Not as light or easy to use as a tablet.

    Not as powerful or easy to type as a laptop.


    Respectfully, I'm not sure I completely agree. Yes, it's not an iPad, but the weight is reasonable (it's 1.7 lbs vs 1 lbs). Also, it is as powerful as many entry to mid level laptops.

     

    I think it's a fine device for those that must have full blown Windows on the go. That said, I think I'd still rather have an MBA or iPad MBP combo.

     

    I'm an Apple fan, but this is the first device that I've taken notice of where I haven't said, "wow, this is dead in the water."


     

    No, the weight isn't reasonable. 1.7 lbs is too heavy, even taking into account the size of the screen.

     

    Try not using the words, "I'm an Apple fan, but," as it marks you out as the exact opposite, a troll.

  • Reply 30 of 288
    formosaformosa Posts: 261member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by allenbf View Post



    I think it's pretty obvious - MS killed the iPad, now they're moving on to kill the MBA next.



    /s

     

    Don't forget their funeral for the iPhone...

  • Reply 31 of 288
    rooorooo Posts: 1member

    Because the Air is actually where the Surface actually competes. 

     

    Almost everybody else thinks the Surface competes against the iPad, but Microsoft has no vision of where the iPad fits in at all. 

     

    So, they still have quite a confusing message about it, although the big "my laptop can do touch" only exists because they made their OS only work effectively with a touch screen. If they didn't force the users to use touch, most people would consider the surface a laptop like the Air.

  • Reply 32 of 288



    I laughed, but this would have been funnier with proper punctuation.

  • Reply 33 of 288
    gtrgtr Posts: 3,231member

  • Reply 34 of 288
    knowitallknowitall Posts: 1,648member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Benjamin Frost View Post

     

     

    Watch the video from the main article page, not the comment page, and you will be able to view it in landscape.


    I do that. Doesn't work.

    Maybe iOS 8 ?

  • Reply 35 of 288
    MS never fails to fail!
    They use the surface aka tablet moniker knowing full well that that are selling a full fledge laptop and not a true tablet.
    But to the untrained geek, what they see is a tablet(wink wink) goIng against a full fledge laptop when in fact it's a goddamn full fledge laptop disguised as a tablet(hence the use of the term SURFACE).
    Sorry MS but you just got busted.
  • Reply 36 of 288
    rogifanrogifan Posts: 10,669member
    Microsoft following in Samsung's footsteps. Go to The Verge article on this and there are almost 400 comments. That's all this is for - to stir up fanboy flame wars on tech sites.

    Edit: there are now almost 500 comments on The Verge website.
  • Reply 37 of 288
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    gtr wrote: »
    Yup, MS is still smarting from that 2006 assault. I am not surprised and in truth, fair do's. Not sure it will do much good over all but the stats are probably telling them the ads are paying for themselves many times over. Apple set itself up for this and will have to grin a bear it.
  • Reply 38 of 288
    Not a bad attempt from Microsoft. Keyboard and track pad are half decent, screen is nice but Win8 is neither fish nor fowl. Let's hope Win9 will remedy dual personality disorder present in Win 8. I'll wait till Surface Pro 4 or 5 comes around, then I might give it a try.
  • Reply 39 of 288
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Satya Nadella has his work cut out for him. I wonder if he knows that?
  • Reply 40 of 288
    While they make a good point about Apple's refusal to include a touch screen on their laptops, all you really need to know about the Surface is that it runs a bloated slow buggy insecure operating system that dates back to the early 90's and looks like a toy.
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