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Microsoft Surface

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Microsoft announced their new tablet, the Microsoft Surface. Although it's a bit funny, I'm glad to see Microsoft has started to take pages from Apple's book of marketing tricks. Their focus on weird hardware details like the camera and kickstand both being tilted at 22 degrees, and the numerous iterations they went through to get the kickstand snapping sound like Steve Jobs at his best. A third contender on the tablet market can only be a good thing, especially now hat Apple is showing signs of laurel-resting with their latest iOS version.

Since it's Microsoft, I'm always expecting them to stumble and make fools of themselves at some point in the process – the tablet will be delayed, or it will be buggy and slow, or no-one will want to develop for it, something like that. I hope it turns out good, though. It looks like a pretty god damn sweet piece of technology, and if it runs a fast, slick OS that lets people surf the web (with Flash omg!), do their email and play their Draw Some Angry Temple Rides without draining the battery or crashing too much, this might be the best Microsoft hardware since the Sidewinder Force Feedback 2.

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Wasn't there already a Microsoft Surface that was meant as a coffee table add-on for either Dungeons and Dragons nerds or obsessive photo organizers?

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Wasn't there already a Microsoft Surface that was meant as a coffee table add-on for either Dungeons and Dragons nerds or obsessive photo organizers?

That was its original form, and I would have bought it in a hot minute for D&D. This... less so.

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Yeah, they're just using the Surface name, but it's not even remotely related to the original Surface project, at least hardware-wise. I doubt there's much actual software from it, since it's using a completely different touch system.

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On the surface (see what I did there? ha!) it looks like Microsoft is getting its act together, but then you closer and see that they are still up to the same old Microsoft pitfalls they have every time they launch a product. I think the decision to use two completely different sets of hardware and versions of the OS creates a "crappy tablet" and "tablet you really wanted but couldn't justify buying" scenario. They can't just make a product and put it out there, they always have to do pro and home editions for everything. And then you kind of have to ask yourself, "If it's a touchscreen tablet, why do I need a keyboard, trackpad, and stylus?" Basically, they're still trying to be all things to all people instead of just designing a product and letting it stand on its own. The only time they deviated from that strategy they created the Xbox and it has been a great success for them.

I thought the keyboard covers were nice and the built in kickstand, but those just feel like evolutionary add ons. I'm sure it will do well, because even the Zune moved a good amount of units, but I just feel meh about it. Nothing blew me away.

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Looks nice, but like the OP, I predict this will severely lose steam in some fashion before it releases. I would love to see it succeed, though. Competition is always a good thing.

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Yeah, I'm sort of expecting they'll end up doing a Microsoft. I'm not sure I'd compare the ARM and i5 versions to Home and Pro, though – the difference in architecture isn't artificially constructed to hit all the quadrants for max damage – they're in two different market segments, like iPads and ultrabooks. I see how they couldn't simply drop either one of those, even though I agree it might end up hurting the brand. One could argue they're too different to be two different models of the same product.

When competing with ultrabooks (which I understand they are) you *have* to have a good keyboard solution. The keyboard/trackpad cover is both an awesome talking point – I can see it hitting that sweet point where you want an iPad for its portability between important business meetings, and don't want to drag a bluetooth keyboard and stand with you. I like it.

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My friend lent me his PC tablet that he stuck Win 8 on before I left and from what I can tell, it's pretty much a surface. Maybe the surface will run faster, but from my experience in the Surface knock off with Win 8 is that it sucks, I find myself just connecting a mouse to it and going to classic desktop.

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The original Surface, the table, now lives under the oddly-named "PixelSense" so D&D and photo folks can still have their crazy table.

BigJKO that image is entertaining, but deliberately (and in a pretty trollish manner) avoids the differences of the multi-touch display, and the modular nature of the Surface's design. I don't really want a Windows-based tablet, and I have no way of telling practically who out there will want the Surface, but some of the stuff MS is trying is, I think, pretty cool.

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Having a sleek keyboard built in is definitely pretty attractive to me. I recently bought an iPad so I'm not going to out and buy a Surface, but the biggest thing I wish the iPad had was a good low-profile keyboard, because the thing I end up using the tablet for most often is writing and taking notes without the need for a full computer. All the existing iPad solutions are either pretty bulky or seen as fairly low-quality. I think there really is a midpoint between laptop and tablet that would be well-served by what the Surface is trying to do--allowing it to be essentially a laptop when you need it to be, but not locking yourself into that form factor and weight.

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When I used it for making notes during a few presentations, I found the standard iPad writing program pretty functional. Maybe not as good as a tactile keyboard, but certainly the next best thing.

About the presentation; at least the huge video background didn't bluescreen!

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When I used it for making notes during a few presentations, I found the standard iPad writing program pretty functional. Maybe not as good as a tactile keyboard, but certainly the next best thing.

About the presentation; at least the huge video background didn't bluescreen!

I'm not saying the soft keyboard is useless, I'm saying it is much less robust and allows for much less fluid input than a physical keyboard.

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I see a fair amount of people in my classes using iPads for taking notes and a lot of them have the stands that have keyboards like

keycase-ipad-folio.jpgOr similar such things

Edit: just saw that Remo already addressed these.

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Yep, I too think the Surface is pretty cool. If it forces Apple to start opening up the walled garden because they finally have a serious competitor, then all the better.

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BigJKO that image is entertaining, but deliberately (and in a pretty trollish manner) avoids the differences of the multi-touch display, and the modular nature of the Surface's design. I don't really want a Windows-based tablet, and I have no way of telling practically who out there will want the Surface, but some of the stuff MS is trying is, I think, pretty cool.

Oh, yeah, didn't mean for that to be a serious contribution to the topic at hand. I think the Surface looks great and it would be exciting if this took off as a serious competitor to the iPad.

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I wish this thing would have pen tilt and pressure sensitivity so you could have a cheap version of the Cintiq. Alas.

Yep, that's the only thing that holds me back from getting any tablet so far. I might finally go for an iPad if TenOne Design's solution turns out alright.

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Yep, I too think the Surface is pretty cool. If it forces Apple to start opening up the walled garden because they finally have a serious competitor, then all the better.

Just like the technological superior Zune did to the Ipod!

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Yep. Well, this time at least it seems as though the media is on their side. They buried the Zune despite it having a better experience, as you say.

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Yep. Well, this time at least it seems as though the media is on their side. They buried the Zune despite it having a better experience, as you say.

Having owned two Zunes (don't ask), it really wasn't any better. The squircle is a great hardware interface, but it was so cheap that I kept getting false positive inputs. That really ruined the rest of the well thought software UI for me. The rest of the device was pretty crappy as well.

The Zune HD is really nice, but the iPod touch came at around the same, so it was too little, too late.

Also, tech journalists consistently pick the "technological superior" over more usable devices. And they're *always* painfully, painfully wrong.

See also:

- iPod vs more "fully functional" music players

- iPhone vs smartphones with keyboards

- iPad vs netbooks

- DS vs PSP

Given their track record, I wouldn't put much stock in the tech media's support.

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I wish this thing would have pen tilt and pressure sensitivity so you could have a cheap version of the Cintiq. Alas.

Isn't the tilt and pressure on Wacoms governed by the pen? It certainly was on the last one I owned years ago. I see no reason why a pen for this — or any tablet really — couldn't be developed that works with software to communicate what the current tilt/pressure is. There's definitely a market here waiting to be tapped (ho ho).

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Isn't the tilt and pressure on Wacoms governed by the pen? It certainly was on the last one I owned years ago. I see no reason why a pen for this — or any tablet really — couldn't be developed that works with software to communicate what the current tilt/pressure is. There's definitely a market here waiting to be tapped (ho ho).

There are at least a couple different companies working on pressure-sensitive tablet pens, like this: http://www.tenonedesign.com/bluetiger.php

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