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News Microsoft announces Surface Windows tablets

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by Gareth Halfacree, 19 Jun 2012.

  1. FuzzyOne

    FuzzyOne

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    Had you watched the speech, Balmer said that next year targets are for OEM's to ship 375+ Million PC's, the largest year ever, I doubt that the PC is going anywhere soon.
     
  2. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Catastrophise much? :lol:

    Any hardware that Microsoft has released in the past has been nothing short of excellent (barring perhaps those overheating X-Boxes). Nevertheless this has never stopped other manufacturers such as Logitech from bringing out equally excellent hardware. And if you think that other manufacturers are not going the proprietary black-box route, think again: HP, Dell, Asus, Sony (especially Sony) and now Vizio are all releasing laptops and all-in-one devices with no user serviceable parts inside. It's the future, I'm afraid, as with anything that becomes a mainstream product used by mainstream consumers.
     
  3. fdbh96

    fdbh96 What's a Dremel?

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    Not sure about the casing being 0.65mm thick in some places, as surely a badly placed scratch will just go straight through :/
     
  4. Snips

    Snips I can do dat, giz a job

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    it does have an optical output using display port but whether it actually allows dual displays I guess we'll have to wait and see.
     
    Last edited: 19 Jun 2012
  5. Snips

    Snips I can do dat, giz a job

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    please remove
     
    Last edited: 19 Jun 2012
  6. Jehla

    Jehla Minimodder

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    That would be one hell of a scratch.
     
  7. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    0.65mm of badass titanium, dude.
     
  8. Bauul

    Bauul Sir Bongaminge

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    That line HAS to go on the official spec sheet!
     
  9. Nikumba

    Nikumba Minimodder

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    I thought it was made of magnesium alloy and not titanium?

    Also do want
     
  10. jrs77

    jrs77 Modder

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    Let me think about it for a second...

    A tablet with an attached keyboard and possibly a full blown version of Win8...

    Oh wait... It's an ultrabook with a touchscreen :facepalm:

    Seriously. The full blown Win8-version with i5-CPU will have a very low battery-life and it only makes sense with the keyboard attached, especially if you want to do some work.
    In that case an ultrabook will make moch more sense though, as it'll beat the performance of the tablet any day without being much bigger.

    A tablet is a mobile multimedia-device, that needs to offer as much as battery-life as possible, while being small and light imho and keyborads and x86-CPUs are counterproductive here.
     
  11. yakyb

    yakyb i hate the person above me

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    PC is going no-where

    Developers, artists and the like all require different builds with multi monitors with many many GB of Ram

    and PC Gaming is far from dead whatever many people may say.
     
  12. yakyb

    yakyb i hate the person above me

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    depends on how well it handles low power usage scenarios. and whether it is possible to switch power profiles easily.

    I'm really looking forward to a system i can fire up Visual studio / Office on, and then firing up metro when i want to use some of the apps that will be available or watching a movie (or for that matter connecting to a television so i can watch a movie held on a home server)

    personally I will be buying one, and probably on release day.
     
  13. faugusztin

    faugusztin I *am* the guy with two left hands

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    The Core i5 version will probably have similar battery life as any other Ivy Bridge Core i5 ultrabook - that means ~6-7 hours of web browsing. I am pretty sure i will buy one (not the RT version).

    What i dislike is Balmer speaking :D
     
  14. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Nice to see them doing an Apple. :D

    Still: iPad killer, right there.
     
  15. Byron C

    Byron C Multimodder

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    I watched the full keynote yesterday, and I have to say that I'm very damn impressed with these devices - particularly the keyboard covers. The ARM version doesn't look like much to write home about - aside from the fact that it runs Windows 8 RT - but the x86 could be a killer. *IF* the battery life holds up and *IF* they don't set a stratospheric price tag, that is...

    The key questions are still: what does it cost, when will it be available and what is the battery life? I don't necessarily think that having two different versions will be much of a problem - ARM version for consumers, the "Pro" model for the more tech-savvy/those who want more power/enterprise customers - but the problem will be convincing the average consumer that they need this over an iPad.

    I can easily see the x86 version taking off in the enterprise market. Sure there are enterprises that use iPads already, but it likely involves additional software and/or licensing to do so. The Surface however runs Windows, so in theory you have enterprise compatibility straight out of the box.

    Apple did not invent the tablet/slate form factor; it's been around for 10/11 years now. They may have popularised it, but it doesn't belong to them. If you want to throw the word "clone" around, then throw it at Apple: they are suing other companies for having products with a similar form factor to their own product, when their own product was based on earlier designs and concepts from other companies.

    How very short-sighted.

    In any case, Microsoft are already very much a hardware company as well as software. Perhaps you missed the Xbox/Xbox 360? The 360 is now 7 years old, by the way.
     
  16. Unicorn

    Unicorn Uniform November India

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    Have you been an Apple hater long, or is it a recent thing?

    /sarcasm

    Seriously though, you do realize that none of us would be using Kindles, touchscreen smartphones or tablets if Apple hadn't given the industry a kick up the ass in 2007 and released the first iPhone, right? You can't turn around and say "At last, a proper tablet" and mean it. There is a good chance we'd all still be walking around with PDAs and dumbphones or Blackberrys if Apple hadn't made the advances they have in the past 5 or 6 years. BLC is right, Apple don't own the concept of a tablet computer, but Apple were the first company to make it a success - to put technology in it that actually worked in the tablet form factor. If you're saying "at last, a proper tablet" in general, you're wrong. Apple beat them to it. If anything, you should be saying "at last, a proper Windows tablet".
     
  17. faugusztin

    faugusztin I *am* the guy with two left hands

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    As they said - priced as ultrabooks, that means 600-1300€ range for , i personally expect it to be around 800-1000€.

    When is a more important question - 3 months after Windows 8 release. So depending on when will be W8 released, it is going to be next December-February. But note how they talked about US only, which is what i fear most. US only launch at start, with rest of the world delayed by months :waah:.
     
  18. steveo_mcg

    steveo_mcg What's a Dremel?

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    Say what you like about Apple but when they launch a product the months you have to wait are usually down to it selling out rather than being an attempt at at a hype inducing soft launch.
     
  19. Byron C

    Byron C Multimodder

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    Have you been an Apple fanboy long, or is it a recent thing? :p

    (That was obviously a joke!)

    My point was more that, while Apple have undoubtedly done an awful lot to further tablets (and indeed smartphones), they haven't really done anything truly revolutionary. Long before the iPhone launched I had a touchscreen HTC smartphone - once the biggest smartphone manufacturer that you'd never heard of - and they'd been around for a long while... They weren't as "slick" as the iPhone, but they were still there.

    My biggest problem with Apple is with their litigious attempts to stifle competition, and their use of software patents as a brute-force legal weapon. Attempting to get an injunction to ban the sale of the 10.1" Galaxy Tab because it has a similar form factor to the iPad really was the straw that broke the camel's back. How the hell can one company possibly claim to "own" a form factor?! Maybe I should give Stanley Kubrick or IBM a call and get them to sue all modern tablet manufacturers; after all, 2001: A Space Odyssey featured devices very similar to modern tablet computers (IBM provided computing consultancy for 2001)

    If the Surface does truly start to challenge the iPad, you can almost guarantee that Apple will try and take a swipe at it one way or another. I'm betting that Microsoft would not shy from the challenge either.
     
  20. Harlequin

    Harlequin Modder

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    Problem is though APPLE ar doing exactly that - and winning; therefore if they want to take on MS then it will get messy ; and if they dont that gives google (and samsung etc) ammo in the cases against APPLE , may even overturn the ` it looks like ours` ones.
     

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