

Microsoft Surface RT price announced - vignesh_vs_in
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/16/microsoft-surface-rt-priced-32gb-for-499-without-touch-cover-599-with-64gb-for-699/

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takluyver
Pricing like an iPad, fewer apps than Android tablets, and no way to run
legacy Windows applications. It's hard to see what the selling point is here.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
$100 cheaper than an iPad.

~~~
Toshio
$100 more expensive than an iPad 2.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
New things cost more than old things.

~~~
adrr
Its more equivalent to an Ipad 2 than the Ipad 3 since it doesn't have a
retina like screen. The Surface pro has the screen where pixels aren't
visible.

I do wonder if the surface will be more reliable than a xbox 360. I'm on my
second one and it just broke again. Microsoft isn't know for reliable devices
and as a business, i can't have tablets die on my employees. With apple, i
haven't had any issues with three year old ipad that is used daily.

~~~
dpark
> _I do wonder if the surface will be more reliable than a xbox 360. I'm on my
> second one and it just broke again. Microsoft isn't know for reliable
> devices and as a business, i can't have tablets die on my employees. With
> apple, i haven't had any issues with three year old ipad that is used
> daily._

Well if we're trading anecdotes, I went through 3 Macbook Pros in 3 years. Two
screens broke and one trackpad stopped working. One of the headphone jacks
also broke. Apparently the issues I hit were fairly common, at least on the
generations I had. This doesn't mean Apple makes bad hardware. It means that
their hardware isn't perfect (no one's is), and that I got unlucky.

My wife has a Dell laptop that's years old and has no problems except that the
battery needs replacing. Anecdotes don't count for much.

Disclosure: Microsoft employee

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esusatyo
$110 for the soft keyboard cover, $120 for the hard keyboard cover. They think
$10 difference is big enough for giving customers confusion of choice.

It's still the same company that released 6 editions of Vista.

~~~
dpark
> _They think $10 difference is big enough for giving customers confusion of
> choice._

Who says they're trying to confuse anyone? The touch cover is the primary
offering, which is why it's in all the ads. The type cover is a secondary
offering, intended for people who want a more traditional keyboard and are
willing to tolerate the extra thickness. The $10 difference presumably covers
the difference in manufacturing costs.

I guess you'd be happier for some reason if they didn't offer the type cover?

Disclosure: Microsoft employee

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elorant
So with a price similar to the iPad it's obvious MS doesn't want to compete on
price but rather on features. Well good luck on that.

~~~
lrem
Well, they may be the only party able to do that. While Google and its herd of
OEMs play catch up, MS is actually trying to think different...

~~~
jan_g
Excuse me, but I believe it's actually the android ecosystem that produces
many different products and the user really has a lot to choose from.

One example: <http://youtu.be/AxE_Im20UZM>

Another example: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX9KG369evA#t=10m34s>

Yet another: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Wf_PqPi2tw>

Now, I'm not saying that those examples are better than products from iOS or
WinRT ecosystem, but you can hardly say that there's no innovation.

~~~
lrem
Well, these are nice experiments. Remind me of the good old Nokia...

In the meantime, the mainstream Android tablets (Fire, Nexus, Galaxy Tabs) are
actually "me too" devices, lagging visibly behind the iPad.

Disclosure: I'm a happy Android user, both phone and tablet.

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lini
Really hoped that it will be priced lower than that. Now it's very uncertain
if this will be a hit with the Windows Store Apps so few and developers still
not convinced about the platform as well.

It's still $100 cheaper than the 32GB iPad but storage is useless if you don't
have Apps to fill it.

~~~
wcchandler
That's a nice note on the dev perspective. If they were smart, they'd have
something similar to Google I/O and give tons away to potential developers.

~~~
Roritharr
They already did that for Windows Phone, nearly every mobile dev i know got a
free Nokia Lumia or similar at certain conferences (Droidcon Berlin was an odd
choice tho).

It didn't seem to have helped that much.

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cooldeal
I think it did help. They have 100K+ apps in the Windows Phone Store.

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randomfool
Interesting that there's no mention of Office in the screenshot. I had assumed
that at that price the inclusion of it would be the differentiator over the
iPad since the Surface RT app ecosystem is minimal right now.

Personally, I'd have a very hard time recommending this as a purchase. I'm
much more bullish on Surface Pro as its legacy support can mitigate any Win8
App Store holes.

~~~
takluyver
Right at the bottom: "Pre-loaded with Windows RT, Microsoft Office 2013
RT...". I'm not sure it will be enough to set it apart from the competition,
though.

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Synaesthesia
Wow, it doesn't have 3G standard! If it came with 3G I think this pricing
would be acceptable. As it is, good luck MS!

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Nursie
Indeed, Meh.

No 3G or 4G. I'd spend the extra $30 for the entry level iPad2 instead of the
entry level RT tablet. And I don't even like Apple...

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hhudolet
As early adopter of WP7, i'll make that mistake again. Those devices always
looks great on commercials and (biased) reviews, but when you start using them
on daily basis you notice that they're missing some important features (like
buggy notifications on WP7).

Also, metro apps often crashes on my desktop Win8 rtm, and not third party-
ones ....

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tiredoffps
Terrible strategy by Microsoft. Don't they realize they are behind in the
race? MS Phone still has no devs...The iPad is viewed as "cooler". Average
users won't see the tech differences between the iPad and Surface. At the same
price they'll pick the iPad because it's "cooler" and the Joneses have it too.

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bobsy
I really like the look of this. I don't mind Windows and if I didn't have an
iPad - which I only use for consuming content and browsing the web - I would
probably consider getting one. Maybe when Apple stops supporting iPad2 eh?

The problem for me is the price. With Apple you know you are paying a premium
for what is a luxury item.

Microsoft's brand to me isn't luxury. Its functional or economical. Its like
the XBOX. Its a nice system but its middle of range in terms of cost, design
and specs. Maybe this is the start of Microsoft re-branding? The trouble is I
still have memories of cheap laptops taking a minute+ to boot up running
windows. I associate these horrible machines with the Microsoft brand. This is
why I find it hard to see myself paying what is essentially an Apple price for
a Microsoft product.

~~~
mamp
If the iPad is a luxury item why have other companies not beaten it in
price/performance? The Surface doesn't have a retina display, for example.
Yes, Apple make a profit on their hardware, which is apparently not the case
for Nexus tablet or Surface (rumor has it), but their devices are pretty
competitive in price for equivalent quality. They just ignore the low-end
market in the non-iPod category.

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emehrkay
I like the idea of windows 8, just not the execution. If MS' future is Metro,
they should have went the iOS route with dedicated devices -- windows phone 8
and windows tablet metro that run the same apps -- and eventually added
classic desktop as an app when x86 emulation was good enough on arm.

There should had been a clear distinction between the two environments. As it
stands now, metro is billed as the only start menu on x86 devices, but the
full os on RT devices. This is confusing and offers no compelling reason to
buy the RT version.

I see Apple releasing OSX as an iOS app in the near (>=5 years) future. The
reason that will work for them is because iOS is a standalone brand that
people understand.

Just my 2¢, I'm not a windows user.

~~~
WrkInProgress
You do realize that Microsoft is going to release exactly that in a little
under ten days.

The "desktop" is a tile on the Start Screen.

~~~
emehrkay
Well, the "desktop" in RT is completely different than the desktop in x86.
What I said was that Metro and Windows 8 should be separate products until the
x86 desktop can be emulated as an app inside of Metro.

As it stands now, your RT "desktop" apps will not run in the x86 desktop and
vice versa. Those two desktops are only similar in look and feel. I do think
that the Metro apps will run on both x86 and RT, not too sure about this
though.

This is so fucking confusing. We have two versions of Windows 8: x86 and RT,
both with two separate environments: desktop and metro. If an app can run on
metro in both rt and x86, the consumer is faced with a 1/3 chance that a given
app will work on their Windows 8 machine.

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james-skemp
For those who don't like TC, $499, $599, or $699. According to the mistakenly
launched product page.

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mikecane
The only way I'd get an RT tablet is if all of the XP (yes, I'm still using
it!) programs I use came out with an RT version. That's very unlikely. Is
there still a controversy over Firefox having an RT version, btw?

I'll wait for the full 8 Surface -- but if the rumored $899-$999 pricing for
that is true, I might wait and wait and wait for prices to drop.

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JimmaDaRustla
Not the price point many people were hoping for.

So now I have to do a "proof of concept" that I can use it for business - I'm
going to download Win8 and test apps before I ever buy the tablet.

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solarchaos
If you read Hacker News, this product isn't aimed at you, sorry...

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r00fus
So who is it aimed at? Why would my mom or college-attending cousin get this
over say, a Transformer or iPad?

Windows apps? Not available for RT option. Cover? $100 more.

What need does this product fill for it's users that it shines at?

~~~
solarchaos
My parents bought an ipad and then paid $100+ for a keyboard case, they use
their ipad like a laptop - even though that's not really the intention of the
ipad whereas it is with Surface

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cooldeal
The new TV ad is here <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mSckyoAMHg>

The Surface RT does some things better than the iPad. For example, it has a
MicroSD slot and a full USB port. The side-by-side multitasking view is pretty
nice to put a chat or Twitter client while browsing/working etc. The built in
snap out stand is also pretty cool.

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lelf
Oooh. _Who on earth_ will like this ad?

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thedrbrian
The crazy people who are proclaiming this as an iPad killer before it has even
gone on sale

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Toshio
Still no information on battery life.

