News Microsoft announces Surface pricing

would rather buy a laptop.

 

Edit: Late night rant. Feel free to laugh, skip read and move on.

Classic! You can't compare two eco systems because one has thousands of different accessories and the other doesn't even have an eco system yet?

No need to shout sweetie.

I do know a little bit about developing for raster and vector based systems but I'm not about to compare CVs, and if you believe that it's less work to create a vector image that will scale nicely to any resolution compared to a raster image then you're right... but also wrong. It's not as simple as saying Vector > Bitmap. They're different and each has their advantages.

First up. If working with bitmaps you can generate those from vector sources. If working with vectors you can't easily create them from bitmaps.

Complicated images such as full colour icons with gradients etc will (on most systems) display with less CPU/GPU overhead if they are pulled from a bitmap rather than rendered on the fly. Alpha transparency can be a killer on some platforms.

If you want to adjust your image so that it looks optimal (and not just smaller / larger) on different PPI settings then you sometimes need to adjust the content of the image. For example an icon for a page of text may have 5 lines of text at 350ppi but only 3 lines at 72ppi. Easy with vector, a bit more complicated with vector.

LOL. Windows is crap at scaling assets as it wasn't designed to do this and the assets are low res to start with. OSX has it's HiDPI mode which when handled correctly by developers (Still unfortunately early days) works perfectly. Yes Apple and devs have to create multiple versions of files and OSX will pick the best one but the result is perfect and has a performance hit no matter how many assets onscreen, how complex or at what size.

You can get perfect results using vectors or bitmaps. Vectors are easier for some things, bitmaps are easier for others. Both will look identical if they are displaying the same pixels.

Shoddy assets look shoddy no matter what. Poor scaling choices are poor no matter what.

This is the same process everyone is already using on their premium devices that have been released since the manufacturing technique was perfected. Apple has it on the iPhone 5 & rMBP etc. I can confirm the rMBP does indeed have less reflections than older screens. It's great MS are using the latest tech, and I'm sure everyone will be doing this on their premium screens within the next 6/9 months.

So you couldn't see any difference between an iPad 2 screen and an iPad 3 screen and yet you could see when icons were horribly pixilated on an iPad 3? That doesn't make any sense at all! Either you can see a difference or you can't! You can't on one hand say the retina screens are identical to the lower res screens and simultaneously say than non-retina apps look awful on a retina screen.

It would be like saying you can see zero / nada difference between 1080p and 480p and then stating that 480p content doesn't look as good as 1080p.

I'm confused... and if it was someone else saying this I'd think they were trolling.

As to apps...

I haven't seen any "broken" apps on a retina iPad. 100% of standard assets are retina aware and I don't know of any app that hasn't been updated since the iPad 3 came out and hasn't been updated to retina. I bet there's some apps out there that haven't been touched in years though, so I'll concede a point.

Again I stand by my challenge. Anyone who can tell the difference between quality of screens will very quickly come to see a retina screen as 'normal' and a non retina as 'pixilated' when used for text based reading or work.

I think most people here on BT could tell the difference between a high PPI and a low PPI screen in the same way they'll be able to judge low FPS, poor antialisasing and screen tearing.

If you can't see a difference, or don't care about the difference, or are just on a big ol' anti Apple tirade then fine.

 

Oh dear I've turned into the local uber posting, multi quoting rant bitch.

I think I'll stop now.

 

Dupe

 

Greetings!

What they say about the screen:

 

I didn't compare the 2 eco system. Beside the new iPad/IPad mini will use a new connector, so all accessories will not work. We are restarting from scratch.

As mentioned, I am comparing official accessories with official accessories.

I am not talking about doing games. I am talking about program layout. When you do something in vector graphics, you cache it, so that the GPU or CPU doesn't need to render it at every frame. When you are using vector graphic, to do a good job, you want to push everything on the GPU (which Windows 8 does, Flash does not entirely). Plus there is a lot of optimization you can do. The best is a hybrid system, which Windows 8 does use, so you bring the best of both worlds, and reduce downsides.

That is one optimization technique yes. It can be done once it draws it.

You haven't used Windows Vista or newer Windows OS from what I can see.
As for "when handled correctly by developers ", that applies to Windows too. As most developers don't have high resolution monitor, or more like, as 99%, if not, 100% of their market share don't even touch the DPI settings in Windows, developers don't bother.

Let me try and simulate what I saw, it's not going to be exact, for sure, and bellow will be a complete exaggeration, as I am simulating it, but it's show you an idea

iPad 2:


iPad 3:

I saw the iPad 3 when it came out. I dont' know the current state of iPad users, but I can imagine a lot of developer being so pissed to require to get their graphic artist redo icons in high HD, instead of working on their next project.

The text was equally clear and equally easy to read. I am not using a desktop computer, I am using a tablet.. the same way I not using a computer, I am using a phone. So all these "Super XHD resolution" on small device is useless. If I buy a tablet, its for quick work on the go, as my laptop. As long as the resolution is "proper" to me, and provides me with more work area, than I am happy. Seeing things in higher definitions provides me with no advantage, and all it makes is reduce my battery life, make my device warmer, and make my movies look all pixelated, like watching a 320p youtube on a 30inch screen (2560 x 1600). There is just so much scaling you can do to a content before it looks like crap.

 

"If you can't see a difference, or don't care about the difference, or are just on a big ol' anti Apple tirade then fine."

Couldn't that just be turned around on you as a "big ol' anti Microsoft tirade?

 

The big difference is advertisement microsoft has no advertised this at all on tv to the general consumer it's aimed at, there has been 0 tv adds in uk and no advertisement on boards or out at all.

Apple on the other hand is basically everywhere you go, it's called building hype its what apple is good at.

 

Greetings!

 

I am sure its an honest mistake.
Once the product is release, they'll get a letter form EU, and update the website.
I highly doubt they'll fight it.

 

No, it is the UK system, where you get one year warranty from the seller and the rest works who knows how .

German page has this :

 

A membrane keyboard for £100 - screw that, I know I am contradicting myself but that's a silly price.

 

Greetings!

 

Why are you doing a face palm?

This does not surprise me at all:
I think this is correct. And this doesn't surprise me. I mean:
-> Storage space mentioned is not what you get in real life, (like all SSD/HDD's that you buy)
-> You have Windows RT

-> You have the entire structure for multiple accounts system
-> Desktop
-> Multi-monitor support (clone, extended, and external only)
-> Security features
Well my point is that Windows RT is a freaking complex and powerful OS, compared to iOS and Android. Every feature small or big ads size to the OS/software​

-> Printer drivers, controller/joystick drivers (like the XBox controller) and any other drivers Microsoft wanted to provide via its USB port
-> You have Office which is big by itself
-> You have hibernation file (fast boot), and page file (so that you are not limited by RAM)
-> You have ALL the Windows 8 tools built-in Windows RT (Notepad, Firewall, Calculator, Disk Management, Paint, Resource monitor, task manager, event viewer, etc.)
-> All provided Metro apps.
-> Recovery for re-install without the need of any disk or other system.

So I don't see why anyone would be shocked.

 

Greetings!

Of course not.

Microsoft has now removed the FAQ entry. Too much info.

 

The storage thing is pretty much the same as with PCs, if you buy a Harddisk that is advertised with a capacity of 2TB they also don't write on the box that the OS will take up several GB on it.

Personally I see the low res screen as the bigger issue.

 

You either have reduce performance, reduce battery life and a hot tablet (see iPad 3), or have what Microsoft picked, a reduced resolution. The Tegra 3 chip is a bit old in today's technology, so its not very powerful. Even the iPad 3 GPU is still not much, hence the hotness and reduce battery life.

We are close to exactly what we have on the desktop GPU. if you want a 2560x1440 monitor back in the GeForce 400 series days, you are looking at getting SLI setup, if you wanted a smooth gaming experience at max settings. But now you are balancing battery life and heat.

 

Greetings!

Just missed for ~6GB.

 

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-11-29/microsoft-prices-pro-version-of-surface-at-899

$899 for the Pro version, that doesn't sound bad at all.