

Wired's Review of the Microsoft Surface - colinplamondon
http://www.wired.com/reviews/2012/10/microsoft-surface/all/

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corporalagumbo
I like this review. It's genuinely quirky, and no bullshit.

Honestly despite all the quibbles (across all the reviews) I think this is a
big win for MS. The praise for the fit and finish, the feeling of the
kickstand, the click in of the covers, the covers themselves - it's
astronomical. Words like 'meticulous' and 'remarkable' are massive praise
here. This might be revision one, but sounds like it definitely holds its own
against the iPad. MS has made a product that is extremely, extraordinarily
confident. And that's the most important thing really - because they've lacked
or seemed to lack confidence against Apple for a while, and it's been their
biggest problem.

Gosh I'm excited. This only bodes well, for MS and for us. A reinvigorated MS
will be an amazing thing to experience - it's time for an end to this boring
iEverything monoculture! I personally cannot wait for Apple to get their
smugness rubbed right back in their snotty faces.

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tvon
> _Yes, you can use it as your only computer. I would never have made that
> claim about an iPad or Android tablet. But if you only need to live in
> Microsoft Office and the web and e-mail, and use your computer for media
> consumption, you’ll do great with this._

So an "only computer" requires Microsoft Office, everything else is
negotiable.

~~~
steverb
For 90% of the working world, I'd say that is a true statement. I personally
need compilers and geeky utilities, but my boss could probably get by with a
browser and a copy of MS Office just fine. My bosses boss definitely could.

~~~
freehunter
I work deep in IT (information security) and spend 90% of my working time in
the browser looking at our security monitors. Another 5% in Word preparing
memos or taking notes. The rest is split between the command prompt (nslookup,
ping, basic stuff), Excel, OneNote (time/project tracking), SSH, and that's
about it. Everything else I do at work is personal stuff done on personal time
at the office.

I'm not a boss of anything or manager of anything. Programmers will always
need computers targeted to whatever they are programming to, but I would guess
that most other IT workers would be fine with a browser and Office (except
stupid legacy apps that your office makes you use that were written in Java,
talking to VB6 which really only interfaces with a database. You know what I'm
talking about).

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Steko
Well all the speculation can be put to rest, the keyboard cover works and
fantastically.

~~~
joejohnson
It sounds like it just works. And after "[struggling] mightily with typos and
finger placement for the first 24 hours". Who's going to put up with that?

~~~
firefoxman1
I'm wondering why you would want that touch keyboard in the first place. If
their laptop-style keyboard is just as thin and it gives you tactile feedback,
what's the reason for touch-only style?

~~~
russgray
Sounds like the touch keyboard is a slightly better cover, and slightly
cheaper. I think if you want a laptop replacement that can be used as a
tablet, go for the real keyboard. If you want a tablet that can occasionally
double as a laptop, get the touch keyboard.

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purplelobster
I don't get the whole "not enough apps in the app store" critique. What are
they expecting? The tablet is not even out yet and they expect a million apps
or what? Obviously this is a problem with a new operating system... It's a
valid critique in a way but there is nothing Microsoft can do short of hiring
ten thousand developers to just make apps for it before launch.

~~~
coffeeaddicted
They could have allowed running native applications. Not really sure how they
expect to sell the Surface RT when it's competing with the Surface Pro. Except
maybe the price of the Pro will be far out (I haven't found a price so far for
Pro, it's not yet known?). Also if they had supported XNA for that thing
formerly known as Metro they would at least have more games now. I'm rather
puzzled why they don't support one of their most popular libraries for game
development when introducing a new platform.

~~~
freehunter
What native applications are there for Windows on ARM?

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joejohnson
The review starts out comparing the Surface to the iPad, saying both are
better and worse than the other in different ways. But then the review goes on
the trash almost everything unique to the Surface. It sounds like a rather
splendid failure. I doubt we will be talking much about this product in 2-3
years.

~~~
monkeyfacebag
That's not the conclusion I came away with. He wrote at the end "this is a
great device." Obviously the jury's out on whether or not this thing will
actually sell (and thus be worth talking about 2-3 years from now), but he
clearly doesn't conclude that Surface is a failure.

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hnriot
Wow, looks awesome and for business, the ability to use Microsoft office is
the "killer app", as much as I dislike ppt and word and wheel they are the
staples of most companies so the lack if office on iPad is hurting it for
business users and this will be just what they are looking for. I am glad to
see a new player (although msft are well experienced at touch computers) and
excited to get my hands on one. They hit the pain points of the iPad out of
the park, can't type for toffee, and lack of msft office for work stuff.
Google docs is great for trivial things but not for getting real work done in
a team where everyone else has Office.

~~~
buro9
OneNote on Windows RT could be the killer app that makes me want one.

I want a sketchpad, handwriting recognition, the ability to insert audio clips
and videos and images, OCR for text in those images... in fact let me take a
photo, paste it in and then extract the text in the photo... quick text tools
with basic formatting... and all of this should be searchable, shareable,
integrated.

That's OneNote.

On the desktop I always felt OneNote was being held back. It begged and
screamed for a tablet to bring it alive.

The only thing that makes the Surface compelling for me is: Does it have a
full-featured OneNote?

Unfortunately the reality is that OneNote falls short just a little.

Surface has OneNote MX which is a version of OneNote that doesn't have feature
parity with the desktop version.

And that sucks, as if it did Microsoft would have me buying a Windows OS once
again, just for that application.

~~~
NZ_Matt
Well the good news is that you are mistaken, Surface RT comes with both the
desktop version of OneNote and OneNoteMX. [http://office.microsoft.com/en-
nz/home-and-student/office-ho...](http://office.microsoft.com/en-nz/home-and-
student/office-home-student-rt-preview-FX103210361.aspx)

~~~
buro9
The reviews I've seen say that there are far fewer features. If you've ever
tried OneNote on Android you'd know that in the worst case this could be just
turning it into a basic note-taking program.

I want to be wrong, but nothing on the Microsoft site (or anywhere else I've
seen) shows me a side-by-side compare of the features of OneNote for every
platform and version.

What I've read is that OneNote is available for Surface, but it's a feature
limited version. No real details on what features are limited or missing.

~~~
NZ_Matt
Everything that I've read claims that the differences between Office 2013 and
Office RT are negligible. The full desktop version is definitely included,
it's the metro version that lacks features.

~~~
wlesieutre
Windows RT doesn't have desktop apps, they'll only be supported in Windows 8
on x86/64 processors. ARM tablets like this version of Surface are Metro only.

~~~
timthorn
This is wrong. You're unable to install desktop apps, but there are desktop
apps bundled, including Office Home & Student.

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ctdonath
22 paragraphs before getting into what the thing actually _does_.

22 paragraphs dominated by nobody noticing it, the kickstand is pretty good,
and at first coerced glance people prefer iPads.

Then it gets into what the tablet isn't: Windows as you know it.

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ashleyblackmore
That's almost an Ubuntu logo on the f6 key. :P
[http://www.wired.com/reviews/wp-
content/uploads/2012/10/tabl...](http://www.wired.com/reviews/wp-
content/uploads/2012/10/tablet001.jpg)

~~~
joenathan
That is the sharing icon and it matches the meaning of Ubuntu:

ubuntu (uncountable)

(South Africa) A South African ideology focusing on people's allegiances and
relations with each other

humaneness, solidarity

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emehrkay
That guy was slamming the keyboard and tablet around pretty aggressively

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robryan
The tech industry is really fleshing out every form factor between phone and
full sized laptop now.

As others have said this could fill a niche for who only need office in terms
of productivity tools and also want the benefits of a tablet. So as well as
business people students would fit that niche.

Personally though for anything productivity wise I am going to be happy to
carry around a laptop, any tablet usage is purely as a consumer.

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FrojoS
So how long until someone makes such a cover/touch-keyboard, with bluetooth,
for the iPad?

~~~
corporalagumbo
They've tried. A lot. Newsflash: iOS is a touch-only OS born and bred, and
trying to control it with a keyboard makes about as much sense as strapping
tits on a bull. Sure, you can type away in an isolated text box and it's sorta
alright, but beyond that you're looking at a severely hobbled experience -
because that's what you get when you just inflate your apps 'n icons phone OS
and toss a keyboard into the mix. Whereas Microsoft has developed their OS
from the ground up to mix between different input styles and it shows.

Microsoft is simply leagues beyond Apple when it comes to really optimising
for productivity. They -get- productivity - Apple doesn't.

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scottscanlon
Yeah, it would be nice for tablet diversity but it still feels like it doesn't
know what it wants to be... haven't used it yet though so I'd be willing to be
swayed.

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LaRakel
>"doesn't know what it wants to be"

You could just as well say that about smartphones.

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darklajid
Can we enforce a tag or for auto-playing videos with sound, maybe?

I'll look into solutions on my side after the second most unfavorable
situation because of links with this bull... on HN.

But please.. Mods, can't we change the to something helpful in these cases?

Something like NSFW (which it very well might be as well)?

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asdfprou
Thank you very much for linking to the "view all" page.

