
Don’t Call The New Microsoft Surface RT A Tablet, This Is A PC - vyrotek
http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/23/microsoft-surface-rt-review/
======
DigitalSea
Just because it has a full sized USB port does not make it a PC, it can't even
run PC applications. Overall a good review, a lot better than expected. Seems
like TechCrunch are upping their writing standards to compete with TheVerge
which have really shown just how bad other sites like TC are when it comes to
reviews and reporting.

I want one of these Surface tablets, they look nice and I really do like the
appearance of Windows 8. Give it time, the surface will be cracked and you'll
see people running variants of Linux on these things before you know it and
then I'll be more inclined to buy.

~~~
tesseractive
Does Linux run well on touchscreen type devices these days? I haven't really
kept up with developments there lately.

~~~
ok_craig
Android is Linux-based, so... yeah. It runs pretty well on touchscreen type
devices.

~~~
tesseractive
Well yes, if I loaded up Android on there, I'd be running Linux from a OS
design standpoint, but there are some pretty important practical differences
in what apps run on Android and what apps run on Ubuntu or Debian for ARM.

People have ported useful Linux tools to Android, but so far, it's not nearly
as comprehensive as having a full-on Linux package management system. So I
gues my question is whether there more Linuxy versions of Linux -- distros
that run XWindows apps, and where you can pull full-blown versions of things
like Octave, Emacs, gcc, and so on out of a package library -- with
touchscreen support in the same class as Android?

~~~
lloeki
> People have ported useful Linux tools to Android

I was genuinely surprised how the jailbroken iOS userland gives you a really
good debian-like experience, whereas with Android you often get just busybox
and the rest is more up to you like LFS.

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netcan
When Apple's designs have been good (or any company's really), others are
usually quick to copy. Philosophy is surprisingly hard to emulate though. One
of the things that has made Apple successful has been its tendency to make a
decision about the "right way" to do X, especially when X is new. The size of
an ipad, no stylus or keyboard on the iphone. 15" laptops are exclusively high
end… A lot of the time this is infuriatingly eliminates options for the
consumer. It does result in _an_ excellent option, pre-picked & perfected.

It's what has given Apple their "radical" feel.

MS has a lot of money. Good margins compared to PC manufacturers. They can
afford to be a little bold. Here instead of offering two different keyboards
(or no keyboard) and letting consumers choose, figure out which one works
better. Make the perfect keyboard for a touch device. Most consumers have
never had one of these devices before. Their guess at whether or not

Apple told us the best option was no keyboard. Android me-tooed. If Microsoft
have a better answer, I'd like to see them champion it with confidence. Commit
to the design. Letting the market decide is great and given a choice between
intelligent design only and evolution only, I'd go with evolution. But, I'd
rather have both. Since MS is leaving its world of software to create a
machine that demonstrates its new OS parading, I'd like to see them treading
confidently.

just do it Microsoft.

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dendory
A PC that can't run any PC app? You can like Surface RT if you want but let's
not be ridiculous, it's not a PC.

~~~
steverb
The author is obviously pointing out the he (or she, I didn't look) sees the
surface as being more than a content consumption device and possible contender
as a desktop/laptop replacement.

No need to be overly (and wrongly) pedantic.

~~~
smegel
> more than a content consumption device and possible contender as a
> desktop/laptop replacement.

Yeah I'd love a desktop replacement that cannot and will never run any legacy
Win32 apps. Sounds awesome.

~~~
esrauch
Is it not true that Linux and Mac OSX are viable for new desktops even though
they cannot and will never run any legacy Win32 apps?

Out of curiosity, what legacy Win32 apps are you actually looking to use? I'm
generally a Windows user, but not really for the legacy apps.

~~~
tomflack
Why don't we start with Photoshop? Perhaps Lightroom?

Every single App you currently use on Windows is a "legacy app" for Windows
RT. They'll all have to be written from scratch.

~~~
esrauch
Photoshop and Lightroom aren't available on Linux; Linux is generally still
considered a viable option as a Desktop replacement by a lot of people.
Anything that used to be Win32 only and is now on OSX or Linux was also
"written from scratch", and any product that has had the demand has been able
to do it.

I'm not going to get a Surface, but to be clear every singe app that I
currently use on Windows is definitely going to be available at launch on
Windows RT, assuming you count Chrome and IE10 as interchangeable (which non-
experts do) or if a version of Chrome launches (like the version on iOS). It's
going to launch with a browser, a chat client, a media player, and a random
set of games. There is nothing else that I run on Win7.

Anything intended to be used on a touchscreen device _needs_ to be written
from scratch. Any application intended to be used by a mouse used on a
touchscreen is an absolutely awful experience (I used a WinXP laptop with a
touchscreen display about 6 years ago, totally fine laptop but the touch
screen is useless because the usability in apps is not there). You can't
expect to just run Lightroom on a touchscreen and expect it to work well.

I had never heard of Lightroom before, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it
looks like it is targeted at professional photographers or hobbyist
photographers who have $1000+ camera equipment. I dual boot Ubuntu for
development, and I recognize that is esoteric hobbyist usage, and I don't
expect Windows to start supporting all the tools I want for development out of
the box. I can't imagine who really thinks that level of usage should be
supported by a low end consumer device.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
'Surface is a PC because Adobe haven't released their Photoshop for Linux
either.'

Doesn't make a compelling argument does it.

Presumably the point is that if it's a PC replacement then customers are
primed to spend more on it than if it's "just" a tablet. Tablets can replace
PCs for sure but not because they provide all the functionality and
performance, no instead it's because - like you it seems - people don't use
all the capacity of their PCs. However, MS wouldn't want to suggest that any
tablet might be a PC replacement for their customers, only this one ... blah,
blah.

tl;dr it's just a marketing angle

~~~
esrauch
That wasn't my argument, the statement you are attributing to me is obviously
false since my banana doesn't run Photoshop and it's not a PC.

My statement is in response to the claim 'Surface is not a PC because it won't
have Photoshop on it'; I do not think that is a compelling argument. My
statement isn't trying to go all the way to say that WinRT is a Desktop
replacement, it's merely that single argument shouldn't lead you to the
conclusion that it isn't.

That WinRT itself won't have Photoshop on it is probably already false if the
platform succeeds at all (there is already a reduced version of Adobe
Photoshop for iPad, Adobe would make a less-reduced version for RT if the
demand is there and the hardware supports it). Even assuming it is, lack of
Adobe Photoshop doesn't automatically make something not a viable desktop
replacement for 99.9% of people.

It looks like they are pushing Surface as something to be used with a keyboard
(at least more so that iPad). That seems like a reasonable thing to call out
in marketing as why this device might be able to replace the desktop for some
users when an iPad fell short.

Any new version of anything is going to leave out some percentage of the users
unless it is a strict superset of the old functionality. Apple Maps are
totally useless to anyone who only used Google Maps for public transit. It's
totally ridiculous to make the claim that Apple Maps isn't a viable
replacement for Google Maps based solely on the fact that for a specific
fairly small set of users it isn't a viable option; Apple Maps is still a
viable replacement for the vast majority of users.

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Nursie
Heh. Oh look it's a fully capable PC. Sure, it doesn't run win32 stuff, but
that doesn't matter!

Isn't this the exact same line MS used to use against linux? It can't run
win32 apps and is therefore useless?

How things change...

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rheide
tl;dr of this review: IE sux, keyboard sux, Windows sux, don't buy it. Read
Anandtech's review instead, which is much more nuanced.

You can really see how techcrunch rushed this one out the door as quickly as
possible without doing much error checking. None of the images work when you
click on them, there's spelling mistakes/typos everywhere and some weird
expressions that don't seem to make sense at all.

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fschwehn
In the review video the author says 'Because the screen is so wide, typing on
the surface is actually rather painful.' Is there really no keyboard split
feature like on Android or iPad? Did anyone have his / her hands on it
already?

~~~
kevingadd
Windows 8 has a split keyboard like the one introduced on the iPad. I think
they may have introduced it in developer preview builds before Apple did, in
fact.

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Mythbusters
I don't know how it can be called a PC. Maybe the Surface Pro version that
runs a full Windows 8 OS is the one they should be referring to. That is a
true tablet with full support for legacy apps not this one.

~~~
sixothree
I believe this classification was made because RT gives developers a familiar
and powerful platform.

~~~
flomo
Thanks, that reinforces my supposition that "It's a PC" is just a line of bull
Microsoft is feeding to conservative IT managers who are scared of
iOS/Android.

Maybe I'm oldschool, but IMO a Personal Computer is end-user programmable on
the device itself. RT comes with no devtools and doesn't cut it.

~~~
sixothree
On second read I think he might mean that because of the carppy form factor
it's not correct to call this a tablet; that it only really works with the
keyboard installed while resting on a desk - eg in pc mode.

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jvehent
a PT maybe ? Personal Tablet. :)

~~~
ChuckMcM
Its a Chromebook competitor not an iPad competitor :-)

Reading all the reviews this evening it looks like they are going for 'your
corporate road warrior' type. Clearly the iPad is making inroads there, and
office on the road? Check. Powerpoint to HDMI output? Check. Exchange email?
Check. Given their market share in that space it seems like the right place to
start.

