First off, Microsoft is simply being conservative. The numbers it gave for Surface RT's free space were lower than they were in reality. I bet it will be the same for the Pro. Second, I think it's the customers who cannot think things through. You think a recovery partition takes up too much space? Here's an idea: delete it. Or better still, move it to an SD card. There's an easy way to do that, too. Start the "Create a recovery drive" tool and it gives the option to copy the recovery partition to a USB key and then remove it from the hard disk. Problem solved. This is not that different from the olden days when laptops did not come with a Windows installation disk, but you had to create your own recovery disk from a partition on the laptop's harddisk. After that you simply deleted the partition if you wanted. You want to take 15 films with you? Drop them on a 64Gb SD card, shove it in your Surface. Problem solved. You want to take 10.000 music tracks with you? Drop them on another 64Gb SD card. Hell, go large: but a 128Gb card and you don't even have to swap. I think it is stunning that people can't work that out for themselves. I thought you were a geek, man!
A music service that does not let you download songs on a mobile device that you have on a desktop PC is complete crap. I do not want to stream my music, I want to download it, is that not what I am paying them 8 GBP a month for?!
I wish I could help you or better understand your problem, but I don't have a Windows Phone 8 :/ From screen shots I see "Download" on a song you want, so I don't understand really the problem. My guess is that the Windows Phone 8 desktop program doesn't sync your downloaded music from your desktop to your phone. Right?
No this is what has happened. I installed the Music app on my Windows 8 PC, it sees that I own S&M by Metallica. I sign in to my Music account on my 920 and want to download S&M by Metallica. I cannot do this as all that I can do is stream it. I'm not at my PC all the time so I thought that it would be great to pay a small amount per month for music downloads but I cannot download the music that I want. Also the music app in Windows 8 is truly awful!
If you have an Xbox Music Pass you should be able to just download music on your Lumia for playing back offline. http://winsupersite.com/windows-phone/windows-phone-8-tip-use-xbox-music-pass
I can as long as I do not have that music on my PC, even if I delete it from my PC the cloud still thinks that I have it. There is no way to reset or clear the cloud memory of the music that you have.
For those interest in the Surface Pro. It ends up that the 64GB Surface Pro has 30GB free space and not 24GB. Microsoft initially just gave a very safe estimate. So there you go 6GB more then believed. Also, Microsoft answer questions and concerned about the Surface Pro on Reddit and confirm that they are working on new accessories for the Surface Pro, which will utilize the new bottom connectors on the unit at the bottom: Also Microsoft explained that they pick a smaller battery option on the Surface Pro on purpose (note that it's also higher powered, so it cost more to do that Microsoft did) to try and keep the device weight minimal, and keep the tablet thin. Hence why they added the bottom connector for a keyboard option with integrated battery for extended use. Also Microsoft confirms that the recovery partition is removable and transferable to a USB key. They purposely not provided a USB flash drive with it, as they didn't want people to lose it. By the way, this is true. A few years back there was a report that 90% of consumers that buys a new computer looses or trows away the system OS disk, and/or recovery disks. http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/18063g/i_am_panos_panay_with_the_surface_windows_8_pro/
Reading some reviews its getting hanged a bit. 4hr battery life is not really enough for me. ( not really enough for anybody who is not near a charger all day.) Microsoft have said they might make an external battery pack for the device which suggests they know its a problem. Most reviews saying it should include Microsoft Office like RT does. And every review says it does not know what it wants to be a tablet or a ultrabook. And every review says its a heavy tablet not something that your going to hold for very long which is kinda the point of a tablet id of thought. All reviews praise the technology that made it and comment that its a quality piece of kit with a few alterations it could be an awsome piece of kit. Most reviews seem to see little target market for such a device due to its battery life and the cost of adding MS office + keyboard on top of the bill, And the heavyness of the device. (2pounds) Microsoft is also slammed for charging $100 for 64gb of storage space. ( Apple was slammed for similar stuff) They also think most people will be confused as when they see it on display it will be in ultrabook style setup but when they get it, it will be a tablet unless they buy the extras. Wonder why they have not included office when RT gets it for free. I always thought it came with office guess i was mistaken on that front.
Yeah, the complaints seem to be based on... Short battery life compared to other tablets or ultrabooks Unpleasantly noisy under load (I had an OQO machine - I know what that is like) Easy to hit thermal limit of CPU/GPU and see performance fall. In 'laptop mode' takes up more room than an ultrabook Default DPI scaling renders desktop apps blury DPI scaling gives different results between metro & desktop modes (And both look 'wrong') 1:1 / 100% DPI scaling makes UI elements too small Office 2013 is worse for touch UI than Office RT (Smaller tap targets) Screen resolution not as good as other premium tablets Not as quick to 'wake and use' for quick grab 'n' check actions Track pad on keyboard is dreadful Desktop virtual keyboard doesn't have the same optimised features as metro version. So it's a tablet that isn't as good as a tablet and an ultrabook that isn't as good as an ultrabook. It's a tablet that will run desktop apps... but those desktop apps need a keyboard and mouse to use properly. It's a tablet with flaws and an ultrabook with flaws all rolled into one device. Personally I think it's the battery life that's the biggest issues with the hardware, seeing as they are using an 'old' Ivy Bridge chip that consumes 'too much' power. Worse still is the battery life is worse than comparable ultrabooks. I think Microsoft have aimed for Surface Pro to be the 'best of the best' but they have failed. Other x86 tablets will outperform it. As to the software. They deserve some credit for trying to come up with a solution that works for touch and Kb/Mouse but the 'two operating systems glued together' is something I feel is messy with unnecessary differences between the two sides of the OS
No no and thrice no. Why not just copy Apple & OSX and allow a full OS restore over the interweb? It's something that would need to be done very VERY rarely and only if the user themselves trashes the OS. In 2013 why should a normal user have a genuine need to perform a bare metal restore on their tablet? The thing is some people are so used to having to reinstall windows when things get slow, corrupt or tweaked too far they fail to remember there is an alternative. OSX can be broken if you're determined enough, but it can be restored (even to a brand new drive) from the net, and iOS can be restored to a factory default status from the device itself. How many forum threads do you see around the net with people asking where to get a compatible windows install disc from? Can I use my OEM disc on my friends Dell and use his licence key? Can the disc that came with my HP work with my Dad's Dell? Etc Etc. Recovery partitions should be sent to the scrap heap of history. They are useless for drive failures (A large factor in needing to restore) unless you remember to create your restore drive first. Restore drives / sticks are okay but not suitable for every device format and will only get the system back to a state of when they were last updated. You'll still need to update and patch via the net. So... Give everyone the option of restoring from the net and if you want to stay in the past allow them to create a local drive image / recovery partition if they choose to. Forcing people to use the worst possible option by default... is so... is so Microsoft!
It's kind of why I went with a Surface RT. I think that it is as yet technologically impossible to have a laptop-performance PC with all-day battery life, and how many legacy apps run well on a touch screen or laptop device anyway? Better to have something that does fewer things well than all things badly. The iPad proved that.
I think it also shows how far away mobiles and tablets actually are to replacing desktops/laptops too. It'll be another 2 generations at least before battery life and performance are good enough. Haswell should be a big step forward but I still can't quite see it being there. Theres also the GPU side, someone will want to hook it up to a TV and expect it to run Crysis with a 6hour+ battery life. I think I've decided to pass on the surface and take the Asus ME400. Surface seems a great product for the price since full fat windows seems to command some stupid price premium but ultimately RT still doesn't fully make sense to me. Is it just a poor mans windows? I think in the end price will kill the pro or related products quicker than poor specs.
No, Windows RT is the long-life Windows. You get stunning battery life but you'll have to sacrifice performance. In principle it is as capable as Windows 8; locking it to desktop applications was Microsoft's (dubious) decision, not an inherent limitation of the OS. There are people out there who don't want to run esoteric power applications on their laptop --they just want email, web and office productivity with a battery life that allows them move around and not be tethered to a charger and socket all the time. For those Windows RT ARM devices are just the ticket. I think that Microsoft should unlock the desktop and allow publishers to port stuff to ARM especially to cater to this market.
Hey Nexxo. Have you had much chance to use the remote desktop feature? I'm curious if it can smoothly play games? fps? civ5?
Remote desktop has never allowed 3d games to be displayed over it as far as im aware. Dont really see how any bandwidth would cope with whats been fed by the GPU either. there is 3rd party applications that would allow you to do it. But you need 100mb + connections ( basically wired Lan) to run even 640x480 at 24fps.( For Video files) Direct x 10 + opengl 3+ is not supported by any known application either. Games on the apps i messed around with either refused to load or give 1fps as max. ( thats on a 1gb each way lan using cat 5E cabling with 2 computers within 20feet of each other) Limiting factor for most is that your Router which is incapable of sending and recieving at the speeds that its required to be at. The only game you might get working is something like football manager which is just a glossy spreadsheet if you dont watch the matches.
Someone made a Surface RT x86 emulator. It requires your Surface RT to be jailbroken in order to work. http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2095934 Video: While I don't know how well it works. Here he tried it on very simple programs and really old games, and you can see performance isn't great. But it's something. I believe you better be plugged in when you run the emulator. Might be CPU intensive.
I will have a play with it when I get time. Perhaps it will run Minecraft (oh, the irony if it does!). The latest version of the jailbreak tool is really smooth now. Run, click volume button and presto: run any ARM-ported program on the desktop. So is the FlashEnable script: run, type in domain name and done.
