Friday, November 30th 2012

Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Pro Gets Priced

Through its official blog Microsoft has announced that the x86-flavored Surface tablet, which runs Windows 8 Pro (the ARM-based Surface RT is loaded with Windows RT), will arrive in January, priced at $899 (64 GB model) and $999 (128 GB).

Set to have about half the battery life of the Surface RT, the upcoming device is equipped with an Intel Core i5 processor and has a 10.6-inch (1920 x 1080) ClearType display supporting both finger and pen input, 4 GB of RAM, 802.11 b/g/n/ WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0, a micro SDXC card slot, two 720p HD LifeCams, stereo speakers, an USB 3.0 port, a mini DisplayPort output, and a kickstand. The Surface with Windows 8 Pro is 0.53 inches thick, has a VaporMg casing, and is backed by a one-year warranty.
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94 Comments on Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 Pro Gets Priced

#26
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
erixxI know that, but DP is 5% market share. snip......
DP can easily be converted into HDMI or DVI.

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#28
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
Easy Rhinodon't forget that you immediately lose 16 GB of space due to the bloated OS. for the price, you should just buy a 64GB ipad 3 and get a much better display with a slicker OS, better battery life and better graphics performance.
Or a nice android equivalent.. :)
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#29
Mistral
erixxI know that, but DP is 5% market share. That is more than Apple. LOL for your arguments. Unless MS is making some "for the history channel move" it is still not clear why they "innovate" putting DP on a tablet. 2 USB port plus miniHDMI would be much more "popular" if I am allowed to say that in an uber-killer-elite-geek forum.... haha
Would you prefer they would stick to USB2.0 because that's more "popular" and widespread?
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#30
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
brandonwh64Or a nice android equivalent.. :)
true, and the android tablets are a tad cheaper than the ipad but they are also way less powerful. you see, since the ipad was the first of its kind to hit the consumer market everyone else has been scrambling to come out with a competitor and open up different price point segments. you have cheaper tablets but are generally a lot slower or built like poop and you have things like the surface that are bloated and slow according to every benchmark and require massive processing power to even accomplish the most minimal of tasks. as you can see microsoft sacrificed battery life. pathetic.
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#31
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
Easy Rhinotrue, and the android tablets are a tad cheaper than the ipad but they are also way less powerful. you see, since the ipad was the first of its kind to hit the consumer market everyone else has been scrambling to come out with a competitor and open up different price point segments. you have cheaper tablets but are generally a lot slower or built like poop and you have things like the surface that are bloated and slow according to every benchmark and require massive processing power to even accomplish the most minimal of tasks. as you can see microsoft sacrificed battery life. pathetic.
The Ipad 3 only has a "Dual core, 1000 MHz, ARM Cortex-A9" when the Google nexus packs "Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 12 core GPU" How is the Ipad faster?
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#32
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
brandonwh64The Ipad 3 only has a "Dual core, 1000 MHz, ARM Cortex-A9" when the Google nexus packs "Tegra 3 quad-core processor, 12 core GPU" How is the Ipad faster?
the ipad 3 has a dedicated quad core graphics chip. that and the apple team designed iOS to use every single ounce of its power. something microsoft could never do and never has done and something the android community is still arguing about (open source standards)
Posted on Reply
#33
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
Easy Rhinothe ipad 3 has a dedicated quad core graphics chip. that and the apple team designed iOS to use every single ounce of its power. something microsoft could never do and never has done and something the android community is still arguing about (open source standards)
Yea I would agree on the MS part. I would like to see how the Ipads GPU would match the Nvidia on GPU power.
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#34
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
brandonwh64Yea I would agree on the MS part. I would like to see how the Ipads GPU would match the Nvidia on GPU power.
well then check this out...

www.redmondpie.com/a5-vs.-a5x-vs.-tegra-3-thoroughly-benchmarked-the-winner-is-rather-surprising/

notice how the marks are similiar with the tegra when using the retina display which is simply amazing considering it has almost 3 times the pixels to render. that is why you see the ipad 3 blow away the tegra with the offscreen mode enabled.
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#35
Drone
phanbueyexpensive.

most serious software is not designed for this form factor yet, so as of right now this is a $999 screw-around-on-the-internet tablet.
True but still better than iPad
Posted on Reply
#36
figuretti
I'm ok with my Iconia W700 Bundle

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#37
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
Interesting video I found

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#38
Easy Rhino
Linux Advocate
brandonwh64Interesting video I found

that is simply a terrible review. the ipad 3 has almost 3 times the pixels to render and it looks better doing it! sure you may lose some "eyecandy" but that simply could be because the developer chose to implement them for the android OS before iOS or simply did not know how to call that API on iOS.
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#39
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
I have to say I definitely prefer the android OS over windows on tablets and phones.
Posted on Reply
#40
creepingdeath
erixxI know that, but DP is 5% market share. That is more than Apple. LOL for your arguments. Unless MS is making some "for the history channel move" it is still not clear why they "innovate" putting DP on a tablet. 2 USB port plus miniHDMI would be much more "popular" if I am allowed to say that in an uber-killer-elite-geek forum.... haha
5%? If you say so. Anyway, HDMI doesn't support higher than 1080p in most implementations, NO ultrabook on the market will do higher than 1080p via mini HDMI. That is a deal breaker for me, I use a u3011 at home.

HDMI is fine for bigscreen TVs, however it is inferior for an external display. With HDMI, most implementations would require me to use 1080p on my u3011, which is godawful. The fact of the matter is, Displayport is superior to HDMI; besides which, If you really want HDMI--there are numerous conversion adapters for DP > HDMI.
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#41
erixx
It is okay, I am really not arguing with you, a pleasure by the way, but trying to understand MS's logic behind this. If DP is exotic, your display also is. WHY did they do this? Maybe it is the future. Maybe!
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#42
Mathragh
Imho, a comparison between this and any android/apple tablet is totally useless, for the simple reason that one cannot 99% of the work you can do on a surface pro on any other tablet.

Sure, you can do some writing(on sub-par software), or perhaps some designing(again, not seriously) on an android or apple tablet, but once you start thinking of real production applications, you simply cannot do those on a regular tablet.

Thats where the power of this Surface Pro tablet lies, not in casually browsing on your couch/on the move, but in applications like a fully fledged office suite, photoshop(with a dedicated touch sensor for stylus support with increased resolution thats included in this tablet), or even things like matlab.

So again, all the people saying you'd better buy a galaxy tab or iPad, you're kinda missing the main point of this tablet imo.
Posted on Reply
#43
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
Until tablets move from the 100MS response times to 1MS of the new touch screens then designing on a tablet is quite garbage.
Posted on Reply
#44
creepingdeath
MathraghImho, a comparison between this and any android/apple tablet is totally useless, for the simple reason that one cannot 99% of the work you can do on a surface pro on any other tablet.

Sure, you can do some writing(on sub-par software), or perhaps some designing(again, not seriously) on an android or apple tablet, but once you start thinking of real production applications, you simply cannot do those on a regular tablet.

Thats where the power of this Surface Pro tablet lies, not in casually browsing on your couch/on the move, but in applications like a fully fledged office suite, photoshop(with a dedicated touch sensor for stylus support with increased resolution thats included in this tablet), or even things like matlab.

So again, all the people saying you'd better buy a galaxy tab or iPad, you're kinda missing the main point of this tablet imo.
A million times this. I like the ipad but to me, it is nothing more than a toy; for real work I still use my desktop. The surface will actually allow me to do real work without using sub par software - all of the "productivity" apps i've tried on the ipad are a joke. In addition, thanks to x86 compatibility you can do all the fun stuff that one can do on an ipad or android tablet.

This is why the surface pro is enticing to me - it is the size of a tablet but with the full functionality of something much better. I don't have to compromise between work (desktop) and play (ipad)
Posted on Reply
#45
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
brandonwh64Until tablets move from the 100MS response times to 1MS of the new touch screens then designing on a tablet is quite garbage.
I saw a video a while ago where a company (Intel funded iirc) had something like that. Or maybe 10ms, but it was quite cool. I'll see if I can find it.
Posted on Reply
#46
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
FrickI saw a video a while ago where a company (Intel funded iirc) had something like that. Or maybe 10ms, but it was quite cool. I'll see if I can find it.
Yea I remember seeing the thread about it as well. If they would come out with a screen for tablets using that tech along with very high DPI stylists, we could all become artists!
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#47
Steevo
I know we are moving to devices like this in the next few years, but I want to see an AMD fustion version.
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#48
brandonwh64
Addicted to Bacon and StarCrunches!!!
SteevoI know we are moving to devices like this in the next few years, but I want to see an AMD fustion version.
I wonder how a say FM2 5800K tablet would go against what we have now in the market (Ipad3, nexus 7, exc)
Posted on Reply
#50
Mathragh
brandonwh64Until tablets move from the 100MS response times to 1MS of the new touch screens then designing on a tablet is quite garbage.
I know that in all probability you dont really mean 1ms. This because even the best screens on the market atm dont even have 1ms response times, even when ignoring the whole rendering/processing stages on the PC. Further more, iirc, for designing you need the best color representation possible, which is generally achieved by using IPS panels-> they generally have a response time which is quite a bit slower then regular panels(in the order of 10ms for quick ones).

However, I get your point, and for that matter, I can say from experience, that atleast the surface RT has quite good response times. I know it isnt exactly what you mean, but this shows that the response times on the surface RT, when rendering stuff, is atleast not awefull and compared to the nexus 10 actually quite good.
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