

Surface Pro: Hefty Tablet Is a Laptop Lightweight - evo_9
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324900204578285963270503862.html?mod=djemptech_t

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ChuckMcM
Seems like a pretty balanced look at the Surface. They do talk about the
'available storage' a bit but I wish they were even more clear about it,
something like "a 128G iPad has Xgb for users, the 128G Surface Pro has Ygb
for users." My thought is that calling it out helps make it a customer visible
difference that can be marketed against.

Waiting to see what the market makes of it.

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schiffern
iOS takes up less than 4 GB out of the box.

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periferral
comparing iOS to Surface pro is just a example of what is wrong with the
article and some of the comments here.

compare osx to the surface pro. Oh wait. OSX doesn't run on anything less than
a Macbook Air which weighs 2.8 lbs. It also ships with 80gb and 128gb disk of
which I do not know what is available to users. the 80gb air sells at $999 and
the 128gb at $1099. And the air doesn't function as a tablet, does not have a
touchscreen display etc etc.

Seriously poor reporting here. Compare apples to apples and then buyers can
make informed decisions.

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ChuckMcM
I agree that this (MB Air vs Surface Pro) is the larger story, and its not
being well covered, but I lay some of that at Microsoft's door rather than the
press. Generally there will be a 'press kit' with the demo device which
highlights things that the manufacturer thinks are important.

I've not seen Microsoft's press kit for the Surface Pro. It has been my
experience though that when I have seen the press kit the story written at
least mentions all the high points, if only to disagree or dismiss them.

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zmmmmm
It seems to me like the battery life is the killer here. A highly portable
device just needs long battery life. Mobility == no access to power, the two
just go together. It seems to me that MS would have been better to release the
RT stand alone and wait for the next generation of Intel chips (working
closely with Intel, if necessary) to dramatically decrease power and get the
fans out of this thing. If it had no fans and got 2x battery life it would be
a pretty awesome device.

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cooldeal
Earlier reviews today with discussion that were flagged off the front page.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5175190>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5176564>

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nextparadigms
No, they weren't flagged off the page. The first one slowly faded to the
bottom of the page, and the second got few upvotes.

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cooldeal
The second one was on the 3rd page with 30 points posted 2 hours ago which
doesn't happen without flagging.

<http://i.imgur.com/ADMcanz.png>

Copy pasting from my earlier reply to you about the first one:

Then why was it sitting below another article that was posted around the same
time but had only nearly half the points? <http://i.imgur.com/uFPTSqR.png>

Edit: Even now, it ranks lower than another article with the exact same points
posted a full four hours before it.

<http://i.imgur.com/Yg5kXJb.png>

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mixmax
I believe that a lot of factors go into determining the rank, including
domain, poster, and probably more. So it's hard to compare 2 submissions.

That said, if flagging pulls the submission down, which I believe it does,
then it's an obvious avenue for abuse for people with an agenda.

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OGinparadise
Neither of them sold. I wonder what's next for Microsoft, they did make some
computer cos mad and still didn't hit a homerun

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matsiyatzy
The point of the Surface "exercise" for Microsoft is not really to make a
profit.

They're trying to "lead the herd" in creating a feasible merge of the
"desktop" paradigm and the "mobile" paradigm, keeping Windows in the center.
This is _extremely_ important to Microsoft, since they have no foothold in the
mobile market, and that's where the entire consumer market is headed. We can
expect the merge of the desktop paradigm and mobile paradigm (i.e. keeping
both battery-life, light weight _and_ performance) to happen at _some_ point
in the future anyway, but meanwhile, Android and iOS/OS X are growing at a
rapid pace, all at the cost of Windows marketshare. If mainstream users move
to these OSs, the merge will happen with Android and iOS as center, and
Microsoft will have a real rocky road ahead.

Trust me, Microsoft is willing to throw tons of money at this problem.

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tmzt
Unfortunately it's a repeat of the Windows Mobile/CE debacle, the enthusiast
crowd that makes your product acceptable to the general computing public is
treated with apathy bordering on hostility. They shipped a Windows NT-based
system that cannot run win32 applications due to a marketing decision and
expected it to be sung with high praises. Compare this with Google Chromebook,
while Google is focusing on users using it with the ChromeOS (and no local
storage), they are not stopping anyone from using it how they choose. One of
the positive outcomes of the earlier experience was XDA, and it's members are
at it again: <http://forum.xda-developers.com/forumdisplay.php?f=1288>

