The Surface RT is criminally underrated

[Red Storm]

It has a kickstand and the touch and type covers, those are the only things I like about Surface.

 

[Eug]

PPI isn't everything. I'll take Metro over the stale iOS layout any day. It just looks better even on lower PPI. It looks like it is meant to run on tablets versus iOS which is the same small icon grid as Android and a dozen other mobile OS.

I wouldn't. The RT is essentially irrelevant at this point. Perhaps in a year it may be relevant, but not now.

 

[desura]

PPI isn't everything. I'll take Metro over the stale iOS layout any day. It just looks better even on lower PPI. It looks like it is meant to run on tablets versus iOS which is the same small icon grid as Android and a dozen other mobile OS.

And I'm saying that while using an HTC One (468 PPI).

Really, as I said earlier...android devices are the kings of specs, but they kind of falter when delivering a total user experience. They seem to underperform relative to hardware.

I'm thinking about getting one of these things for my mom...if I see another surface sale I'd probably pick one up for her, but in the meantime, have the other OEM's made good tablets? Like, the Lenovo ideapad lynx looks promising, windows 8, 64gb ssd, intel ATOM processor.

 

[desura]

Well, based on a quick google search...

Lenovo's thinkpad2 tablets look the most promising...except it kind of falters when it comes to integrating a keyboard, since they do a bluetooth keyboard with stand -- nowhere near as innovative as the Surface's implementation.

Asus kind of looks like the transformer tablets with a keyboard dock that lets it fold up like a laptop.

And Acer isn't worth considering at all. It's basically the very lousy Iconia line with Windows 8 slapped on it.

And...the guy who created Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, was kicked out b/c Ballmer was jealous? WTF is this shit?

 

[Ravynmagi]

I'm thinking about getting one of these things for my mom...if I see another surface sale I'd probably pick one up for her, but in the meantime, have the other OEM's made good tablets? Like, the Lenovo ideapad lynx looks promising, windows 8, 64gb ssd, intel ATOM processor.

The Lenovo Lynx is a major POS. The tablet is chunky, cheap feeling, with rough edges. And the keyboard is the worst keyboard I've ever used. Definitely not a buy.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Well, based on a quick google search...

Lenovo's thinkpad2 tablets look the most promising...except it kind of falters when it comes to integrating a keyboard, since they do a bluetooth keyboard with stand -- nowhere near as innovative as the Surface's implementation.

Asus kind of looks like the transformer tablets with a keyboard dock that lets it fold up like a laptop.

And Acer isn't worth considering at all. It's basically the very lousy Iconia line with Windows 8 slapped on it.

And...the guy who created Windows 8, Steven Sinofsky, was kicked out b/c Ballmer was jealous? WTF is this shit?

Yeah, I hear good things about the Thinkpad Tablet 2, but I wish it had a keyboard dock. The Thinkpad line has the good keyboards and sadly the Ideapad line has the cheap keyboard and the Lenovo Lynx was an Ideapad line device.

The ASUS tablet look good, but $800 just for an Atom tablet without a keyboard. At least that was the original price. It was too freaking expensive. I just did a quick look on Amazon and see the tablet is still selling for $730. Yeah, still overpriced.

I kinda regret not getting an Acer W510 when it first came out. It was kinda ugly, the keyboard wasn't that great. But it was one of the first Windows 8 tablet to go on sale, I like the 10.1 inch size, and it turns out just about every Windows 8 tablet after it had major screws up too and I'm still waiting for a good one. But yeah, I wouldn't buy a W510 today.

Steve Ballmer just announced he's retiring it a year. So I can't imagine he was worried about Sinofsky taking his job or jealous of him. Sounds like Sinofsky was a major asshole.

 

[Eug]

The Lenovo Lynx is a major POS. The tablet is chunky, cheap feeling, with rough edges. And the keyboard is the worst keyboard I've ever used. Definitely not a buy.

Even worse than the Surface keyboard?

 

[shortylickens]

Would rather have a 300 dollar laptop.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Even worse than the Surface keyboard?

I haven't really typed on a Surface keyboard. But I suspect the Lynx keyboard is probably worse. Despite having physical keys, it failed to register a lot of my key presses. Was very frustrating. I found myself wanting to use the on-screen keyboard instead of the actual keyboard.

 

[desura]

Would rather have a 300 dollar laptop.

Not really. Portrait mode is pretty important to me, and cheap laptops cannot do this.

Also, the surface is much slimmer than most laptops, has much better battery life, much less heat/noise.

Really, one of the best electronics buys I've made recently. Bang for the buck, better than like a Nook HD.

 

[desura]

Even worse than the Surface keyboard?

The keyboard is pretty impressive!

it's better than using most bluetooth keyboards with tablets, I'll tell u that.

 

[darkswordsman17]

OP, I agree to an extent. It was really close to being an excellent product even with the application limitations. If they'd have given it the display and stylus input from the Pro, it would have been a great product. If Intel had a better tablet SoC ready, it likely would have also helped. Hell I'd have loved a Bobcat based one even with its likely limited battery life. It would have made for a great art tablet (the Surface Pro has been a hit with digital artists thanks to its stylus and great palm rejection, although Microsoft might have also needed to push for some software tools like from say Adobe). If they'd have bundled it with the limited Office, a limited but still functional Adobe creative suite, and the stylus, it would have been a hit at $500 I think. It would've garnered a bunch of education sales based on that alone I would think.

 

[Eug]

^^^ Lots of ifs there.

 

[Crono]

^^^ Lots of ifs there.

True. Microsoft rarely hits a home run with their first iteration, though. Improvements in hardware make it easier and cheaper to do that with the next generation.

My fear is that they will kill the product after they have perfected it, liked they did with the Zune. There is such a history of in-fighting at that company that good products and ideas can still easily die. It still pisses me off that the Courier was never made. The hardware is doable right now and the concept art for the UI and design is incredible, but it won't see the light of day as a mass market product.

 

[champion-7891]

OP, I agree to an extent. It was really close to being an excellent product even with the application limitations. If they'd have given it the display and stylus input from the Pro, it would have been a great product. If Intel had a better tablet SoC ready, it likely would have also helped. Hell I'd have loved a Bobcat based one even with its likely limited battery life. It would have made for a great art tablet (the Surface Pro has been a hit with digital artists thanks to its stylus and great palm rejection, although Microsoft might have also needed to push for some software tools like from say Adobe). If they'd have bundled it with the limited Office, a limited but still functional Adobe creative suite, and the stylus, it would have been a hit at $500 I think. It would've garnered a bunch of education sales based on that alone I would think.

As Anand likes to say, there are no bad products, only bad prices.

Think if the SurfaceRT had launched @ 350$.

 

[Imaginer]

If they'd have bundled it with the limited Office, a limited but still functional Adobe creative suite, and the stylus, it would have been a hit at $500 I think. It would've garnered a bunch of education sales based on that alone I would think.

A hit? Priced Surface Pro at $500 is a triple home run play CONSIDERING it also has what amounts to a $1000 included Cintiq. You mention it is a hit amongst artists, this is ONE major reason.

And the Adobe issue has long been solved by Wacom.

Of course, earlier Samsung has the ATIV Smart PC Pro, but I have complaints of trying too hard in keeping a traditional laptop mindset, and not exactly working in that area.

 

[mikeymikec]

I wonder whether the mistake that Microsoft made with RT was to attempt to blend other products running Windows 8 with it.

Instead of the marketing line being "here's a multitasking tablet with the familiarity of Windows which also has an optional keyboard and touchpad and you can run Office on it", I think the impression that got across was "here's a crap laptop errr tablet that you can't run x86 apps on", partly thanks to Win8 looking the same on a desktop, laptop or tablet. To complicate matters further, one could have an x64 Win8 tablet or an RT/ARM Win8 tablet.

Tablets are the latest "must have" toys, people don't want to choose the obviously inferior one (RT) unless they absolutely have to, and RT tablets weren't the cheapest on the market, so why would the bargain hunters go for it.

Windows RT should have been Microsoft's mainstream tablet solution. If they really still wanted to have a better option on the market, then maybe going for some big-ass tablet (say 15.6" wide screen >1080p) with say a Core i5/7 for a niche price and the same optional keyboard and touchpad as the RT, *might* have worked, but I'm not sure who they should aim such a product at.

 

[Red Storm]

As Anand likes to say, there are no bad products, only bad prices.

Think if the SurfaceRT had launched @ 350$.

At $350 it's still bad. Windows RT is bad period.

 

[ultimatebob]

The Surface RT was grossly overpriced when they originally shipped, and the software selection for it is still pretty bad a year after launch.

Oh, and the type cover (the one cool feature that made it different from other tablets) was a $100+ add on. No wonder this thing was dead on arrival.

 

[hans007]

surface RT honestly is still massively overpriced. At this rate its abandon ware given windows RT is probably dead anyway.

maybe for $200 it'd be worth buying at this point. i mean would you buy say a blackberry playbook for $100? i still wouldnt, its abandoned.

micrfosoft has no idea wtf they are doing. i mean look at their mobile strategy. 3 different OS kernels in the last few years. all incompatble completely. on top of that, they aren't considered "cool" so their stuff is hard to market.

the nokia buy is just another sign of how screwed they are. the only reason windows phone has any market share at all is because of countries without phone subsidies and almost cheifly because they are practically giving the lumia 520/521 away. its the only compelling value in their entire lineup.

They had to buy nokia because nokia was going bankrupt even with them subsidizing them. The finance community knows this. Why woudl nokia need a 1.5 B bridge loan immediately , while waiting for the nokia transaction for 7+ billion to go through before early 2014. because they were nearly broke. it was that bad, that is how terrible adopting windows phone was of an idea.


and microsoft knows it. RT is dead. Windows phone is still by all means dead. had nokia gone bankrupt and microsoft not bought them it would ALREADY be dead from lack of support. microsoft buying them just saves face and buys them time until they can figure out a phone strategy that works if its even possible. can microsoft turn nokia around and be an actual player? maybe, probably unlikely.

what they probably should do is see that the giving phonse away strategy is working. they should just give away windows phones, even at a loss just to get an installed base. buy a windows computer, get a free lumia 520. buy a windows signature computer get a free 920. then maybe the ecosystem would start making sense.

 

[desura]

I just picked up an RT for $200. Couldn't be happier with the purchase.

I probably wouldn't have considered the purchase at a higher price point though.

It is really lousy that they didn't make the RT compatible with Windows 8 mobile apps. I thought that they had.

 

[ultimatebob]

At $350 it's still bad. Windows RT is bad period.

Yeah... I think that Lenovo hit the nail on the head. Now that there are low cost and low power Intel processors coming out, the need for an ARM version of Windows 8 isn't all that necessary.

Something tells me that Windows RT will be dead in a year. Hopefully the Surface Pro won't die with it, because it's a pretty cool idea that just needs better battery life to become a good product.

 

[MrX8503]

Windows RT is a frankenstein child from Windows 8 and Windows Phone. It can't run native Windows apps, but can it run Windows Phone apps?

That's the problem with RT, confusion. Why would anyone pay for a device with no apps? This is why MS took an almost $1B write off for the RT, its shit.

 

[Ravynmagi]

Yeah, it's unfortunate that Microsoft is trying to compete against Apple and Android by dividing developer resources between two gimpy app stores.

I don't like the idea that my phone apps won't work with my tablet and vice versa.

 

[Spineshank]

I like the hardware design of it. The stand. The keyboard. But I cant stand Windows.