Biggest issue I see in the product is running MS Office on a 10” display device isn’t a productive experience, and there are a lot of 13” Windows laptops that people can get for the same price. Windows applications in generation won’t be a good fit for 10” devices.
There doesn’t seem to be anything different strategy wise from MS’ attempts with the older generation 10” Surface devices.
And yet, people run MS Office apps on an 9.7" iPad all the time. So, what's the difference? Also, it's much easier to "dock" this Surface GO to an external monitor/mouse/kb than an iPad will ever be, making for an easy "desktop" transition. And with a USB port you can add or do anything with this, unlike the iPad, again hampered by a lowly lightning connector with very limited functionality.
I really think comparing the iPad to a Surface PRO/GO is comparing apples and oranges. An iPad isn't a computer replacement for most people and a Surface isn't a convenient touch device meant for media consumption (mostly due to Windows 10 and apps aren't touch-friendly).
I think running Win10 on a 4GB device with a crappy processor and eMMC memory hinders the GO’s usability much more than the iPad’s Lightning port.
I have both a Surface 3 (LTE, 4GB RAM, 128 GB SSD, Cherry Hill Process) and the New SurfacePro (gen 5 with LTE, i5 chip and 8 GB). The Surface Pro has acceptable performance for working on a light-weight laptop - The Surface 3 was painfully slow (like using my gen 3 ipad after 4 years old). I just can't see using this (even though they will get MS Office which I like).
Surface just doesn't work as a Tablet very well. love using either my iPad Pro (12.9 inch) or iPad Air2 more .I think Apple will have mouse support Added (in 5-6 years) to iOS and it will work better than Surface works as a tablet. MS seems to have abandoned mobile oriented UI development and this will ultimately mean the death of Windows.
Surface tablets = not very good tablets and not very good laptops. Plus this model has a slow cpu and storage. Would be a better idea to pickup a cheap windows laptop for the same money.
iPad isn't that good either as a desktop replacement. if you compare iPad + Smart Keyboard vs Surface Pro w/ keyboard, you'll have a better experience with the Surface as a desktop / laptop replacement. There are cases where the Surface Pro is a better option than an iPad or a Macbook / Macbook Pro and vice versa.
I have to say I am looking very seriously at the surface go. I have an iPad 2018 which is why I can’t just get one....
I find the tablet mode on windows 10 so much more efficient than the iPad. Windows seems to be designed for multitasking and productivity and runs so much better on flash memory (hard disks are another story, so bad I had to erase windows and stick on chrome os). Typing 10 inch is fine for productivity for me, in fact I wrote my dissertation on an iPad mini! the only key pause is app gap, I like to play some games and would decide if I was ok just playing them on my phone.
“Regarding the hardware, our best guess why Microsoft rolled out the Surface Go is to try and capture the school marketshare from Chromebooks...”
Possibly. But does Microsoft have much of a K-12 initiative? I’ve never read much about that. I think Apple is making in-roads though, and touch devices really are great for kids. Much more engaging at the lower grade levels.
Oh, and, it’s never “try and...” is it? The proper grammar would be “try to...” (since we’re on the subject of education).
Still waiting for Xcode on the iPad. In the meantime, this $400 Surface is not a bad device for a software developer since it runs Visual Studio just fine. Going to keep harping on this until my iPad "Pro" is actually usable by a pro software developer.
Putting anything like the current version of Xcode on the iPad would be a horror show with a dumpster fire subplot. But I do see where something more professional developer oriented than Swift Playgrounds on the iPad could be useful. A lightweight development environment specifically tailored to the iPad and limited to iOS development only would be interesting, especially if it supports debugging directly on the device. Pulling this off may require a special dev-only build of the host iOS operating system.
Biggest issue I see in the product is running MS Office on a 10” display device isn’t a productive experience, and there are a lot of 13” Windows laptops that people can get for the same price. Windows applications in generation won’t be a good fit for 10” devices.
There doesn’t seem to be anything different strategy wise from MS’ attempts with the older generation 10” Surface devices.
And yet, people run MS Office apps on an 9.7" iPad all the time. So, what's the difference? Also, it's much easier to "dock" this Surface GO to an external monitor/mouse/kb than an iPad will ever be, making for an easy "desktop" transition. And with a USB port you can add or do anything with this, unlike the iPad, again hampered by a lowly lightning connector with very limited functionality.
I really think comparing the iPad to a Surface PRO/GO is comparing apples and oranges. An iPad isn't a computer replacement for most people and a Surface isn't a convenient touch device meant for media consumption (mostly due to Windows 10 and apps aren't touch-friendly).
I think running Win10 on a 4GB device with a crappy processor and eMMC memory hinders the GO’s usability much more than the iPad’s Lightning port.
I use a 10" Windows convertible, 4GB RAM and eMMC for traveling, perfect form factor when flying. While this is no speed demon, it is definitely good enough for MS Office and small programming projects (e.g. PyCharm, CLion).
That's exactly why I don't want Apple to combine IOS and Mac OS. It would be a shoe horn that would fail miserably. The OS software has a purpose and trying to combine the two will inevitably fail. This entry surface is a cheaper wannabe toy that will perform horribly and end up costing customers more as they will have to buy another one later anyways with better specs.
“Regarding the hardware, our best guess why Microsoft rolled out the Surface Go is to try and capture the school marketshare from Chromebooks...”
Possibly. But does Microsoft have much of a K-12 initiative? I’ve never read much about that. I think Apple is making in-roads though, and touch devices really are great for kids. Much more engaging at the lower grade levels.
Oh, and, it’s never “try and...” is it? The proper grammar would be “try to...” (since we’re on the subject of education).
Microsoft and its OEMs appear to control most of the global (non-US) K-12 market. I'm curious to know if they're doing anything further to target Google in the US.
Comments
Surface just doesn't work as a Tablet very well. love using either my iPad Pro (12.9 inch) or iPad Air2 more .I think Apple will have mouse support Added (in 5-6 years) to iOS and it will work better than Surface works as a tablet. MS seems to have abandoned mobile oriented UI development and this will ultimately mean the death of Windows.
I find the tablet mode on windows 10 so much more efficient than the iPad. Windows seems to be designed for multitasking and productivity and runs so much better on flash memory (hard disks are another story, so bad I had to erase windows and stick on chrome os). Typing 10 inch is fine for productivity for me, in fact I wrote my dissertation on an iPad mini! the only key pause is app gap, I like to play some games and would decide if I was ok just playing them on my phone.
Possibly. But does Microsoft have much of a K-12 initiative? I’ve never read much about that. I think Apple is making in-roads though, and touch devices really are great for kids. Much more engaging at the lower grade levels.
Oh, and, it’s never “try and...” is it? The proper grammar would be “try to...” (since we’re on the subject of education).