News Microsoft announces Surface pricing

$999 for the 128GB version. Doesn't come with a cover tho afaik.

 

I'm interested in the battery life...

 

Sounds like an excellent deal to me.
I was expecting 1200$ product.

It beats most ultrabooks offering in build quality, display, and features. The only downside is the 1 USB 3.0, but a compromise that needed to be done for it's tablet form factor.

With it's mini-displayPort and built-in Bluetooth.. this system can easily be a desktop system, laptop, and tablet all in one.

 

I think it's a solid price. If battery life is halfway reasonable we have a future design classic in the making.

 

Surface Pro will have about half the better life of the Surface Pro.
So 4-5h, but at least the power adapter is small.

The Surface RT has 8h with wireless ON, browsing the web and playing music, at 50% volume, 200 nit brightness, based on TomHardware review.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/surface-windows-rt-battery-life,3346.html
So half everything.

 

Pity, but not surprising. It's a whole lotta processing power that requires a whole lotta juice. But it makes it clearer where the RT fits.

The second generation Surfacw Pro using Haswell might give us 8 hours. Then we have an all-round winner.

 

The digitize pen support is what eats the battery. I recall the Dell Latitude XT series gain battery life, if you disable its digitize pen support (I forgot how much). I don't know if you can with the Surface Pro.

Exactly. Already it has a bigger/battery battery, so its not like Microsoft didn't try with the Surface Pro to alleviate the impact.

I don't think Haswell will boost that much battery life, maybe we will have a solid 7h.

 

In my experience (Motion Computing LE1600 tablet) its not the pen digitiser as much as the handwriting recognition. Scribble in OneNote: no problem. Use the handwriting recognition to write a document in Word: battery drains at an alarming rate.

 

I like how many people on the internet says that the MacBook Air is cheaper.


MacBook Air - 64GB cost 999$
Surface Pro - 64GB cost 899$ + Type Cover (we will go fancy now) 120$ = 1019$.

Ok so let's have a deeper look:
-> MacBook Air needs Windows 8 for the same experience, so that's 140$. Now the MacBook Air is at: 1139$. So 120$ more.
-> No touch screen
-> Not a tablet
-> No digitize pen support, or any pen support for that mater.


Ok, the Surface Pro doesn't a backlit keyboard, but it has 2 web cams
The battery life is better?! Questionable. Windows 7 and much worse for Windows 8, Apple drive for BootCamp is complete utter crap. Specifically designed to break Windows experience to show how MacOS is better. If MacOS is so much better, Apple should not be doing these kind of tricks, as they should not be afraid of anything, and be proud of their product.

But lets assume longer battery life, the Surface Pro takes less time to recharge (assuming its close to the same as the Surface RT), and the power adapter is smaller, and it's bigger.

 

Could be, as it is CPU intensive task. I recall the reviewers were not specific at the time.

 

Greetings!

Compared with the RT version, it isnt bad at all.

_____________

 

Compared with any ultrabook it's not that bad at all.

As for the Digitimes article: ah, more rumours.

 

I still have yet to see any of the new Windows 8 tablets. And it is December already. I guess they dislike the christmas market, so they try to ignore it. Nokia has already pushed 920 to Q1/2013 in my country, seems like W8/WRT tablets are going the same way. At least that is a good news for Google and Apple.

 

Microsoft is failing epically at marketing and distribution. The Surface adverts are everywhere, but don't tell you where you can buy the thing. It does not show you what it can do (as Apple commercials always do). It does not follow the Windows 8 strategy of selling the first devices cheap to establish a market presence. It does not show demo models in all the major cities in Europe. It does not set up small franchises in all the major consumer electronics stores. It does not train its sales staff to know the product. It does not make clear that you can use the Surface RT for business (yes, it's covered by the Home and Student Office licence).

If the Surface RT succeeds it will be almost despite the marketing department. Microsoft should be laying off some people there.

 

Greetings!

They are failing Christmas. Although I did see some expensive WRT tablets yesterday over here.
Same thing for WP8 devices, late for Christmas and expensive, only 8X available.

 

Here in the UK the Lumia 920, 820 and the HTC 8X are available. Although the Lumia 920 is selling out. Several places in London has had some Surface RTs on display, but that's not nearly enough. The rest is other manufacturers' devices in consumer electronic stores.

Microsoft still has a lot to learn from Apple in marketing and selling hardware.

 

The problem that Microsoft has, is that they want to wake up OEMs in making better systems than what they are doing, however they do not want to frustrate OEMs, which are the one selling Windows 8 devices. So, they are not touching OEMs turf (retail store). The Surface lineof product and accessories, is only available are Microsoft online store, and SOME (not all), Microsoft physical stores in the states.

Sadly for Microsoft, it won't work. If you don't do a dent in OEM sales, they won't care.

 

I'd say: screw the OEMs. What are they going to do? Switch to Android? Good luck going up against the Nexus 7. Microsoft should just push the Windows 8 ecosystem as aggressively as possible and make the best, most aggressively priced hardware possible. If people want it, the OEMs will follow; that is how it works for Google. If the OEMs don't follow then Microsoft goes it alone; that's how it works for Apple. But if Windows has to ask its business partners respectfully and sensitively to please make slightly less crappy Windows products, then it has got the power balance all wrong.

 

Not seen a signle WP8/8 RT device in the flesh or for sale where I am... which is a shame as I was considering a WP8 phone...

 

I guess that Birmingham is a bit closer to civilisation than the Northern Wastes of Geordieland.