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Spatule posted:After the latest updates my Surface 2 is finally usable (the battery doesn't self discharge in a day anymore).
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Apr 30, 2014 23:01
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KingSlime posted:Granted, she'd never know whether she was running either/or because all she does is media and office, but still. I don't know, this seems like one time when their marketing was actually spot on, and she got exactly what she needed.
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May 1, 2014 02:38
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Until she happens to need a native windows app for whatever reason, then she's in for a bit of a surprise/letdown. I realize it's a sample size of one but when a grad student thinks RT is no different than Windows 8, I'd say MS is being pretty sneaky about their presentation of what RT is. Unless you mean they succeeded in confusing customers, in which case I absolutely agree with you. Once again, anecdotal, but I've had to explain the differences between the OS's to college students several times. My friends's "techie" cousin tried to sell him on the idea of a surface rt very heavily as "it's basically perfect for students and my wife loves hers". Well, not so much for engineering students like him who need to run programs like AutoCAD. He would obviously be better off with a laptop that runs real windows in the same price-range as a surface rt but there was no dissuading the "techie" cousin. I had to visually show my friend how rt devices cannot run many programs engineers rely on before he decided on a classy-lookin' Lenovo. (Also, I'm surprised how many engineering students are absolutely incompetent with computers, I imagine this is not the case for most professional engineers in the field, but I don't know. I'm a rhetoric/writing studies guy). KingSlime fucked around with this message at 04:21 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 04:17
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Well, it's an office machine with an ipad-like finish - she seems to like the build quality and uses office, so job well done in this specific instance? Sure if she wants to run some x86 app that's not going to work out but there's actually a fairly large slice of people out there that just browse the net, use office and watch videos or listen to music. These are the sort of people that can pretty much do away with their old laptop in favour of an ipad for their basic needs, which the RT does fine with the added bonus of proper office on a keyboard.
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May 1, 2014 05:56
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I have an 8" baytrail tablet, but to be honest I'm not sure I've ever used it for any x86 type app. It's my browsing/email convenience machine. I have two sisters that both have Surface RT and they're also perfectly happy with it (they did the refurbs at $200). Simple pleasures I guess.
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May 1, 2014 07:25
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Fair enough. I don't argue that RT certainly does the trick for many users, I just disagree with the way MS is trying to blur the lines between the two. For what it's worth, my t100 is also primary a web/media device with office work, which an rt-based device would certainly handle. Still, making the OS's visually identical doesn't sit well with me personally. Why even make RT in the first place? Admittedly, I honestly don't know why they made RT in the first place so there might be a reason I'm not considering.
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May 1, 2014 20:38
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KingSlime posted:I honestly don't know why they made RT in the first place so there might be a reason I'm not considering. They bet against intel and lost basically. It was a hedge that x86 wouldn't be able to be power and price competitive with ARM and they needed something for that space. Then intel came along with Clovertrail and Baytrail and completely invalidated that concern. Then Microsoft themselves further eroded the reason for RT by slashing OEM licensing costs for full Windows 8.1 on lower priced devices. RT is left without a market now and the current Surface 2 should be the last RT device ever made.
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May 1, 2014 21:06
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What he said plus I think it feeds into the new mantra of windows on everything. Getting windows on ARM is probably related somehow to the unification of apps, devices, kernels, other smart things that are beyond me. See their "Internet of Things" initiative, etc.
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May 1, 2014 21:14
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bull3964 posted:They bet against intel and lost basically. Even if not successful I think Windows on ARM was necessary simply for appearances; no one would have taken Windows on tablets seriously if it was tied to an as of yet unrealized promise of a downscaled x86. It is really much like the Windows NT ports to Alpha, POWER and Mips, they didn't achieve much, but it was done at a time where legitimacy in the server room revolved around old RISC vendors to a great extent. From another perspective they needed to do most of the work either way for the sake of Windows Phone 8.
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May 1, 2014 22:46
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Cybernetic Vermin posted:Even if not successful I think Windows on ARM was necessary simply for appearances; no one would have taken Windows on tablets seriously if it was tied to an as of yet unrealized promise of a downscaled x86. It is really much like the Windows NT ports to Alpha, POWER and Mips, they didn't achieve much, but it was done at a time where legitimacy in the server room revolved around old RISC vendors to a great extent. The problem is, it didn't lend legitimacy to the platform. RT has been a joke since it was announced. It was questionable decision layered upon questionable decision. They backported an entire desktop environment that would never be any use for Windows Phone (and was questionable use to RT users.) They also created confusion in their own marketspace by giving the world an OS that looks and feels like real Windows, but was a facade. Intel's roadmaps were not secret. I can understand how people could potentially be skeptical of what x86 could do in that form factor, but one does not generally bet against Intel when they say they can do something. That's not to say they shouldn't have gone through the development process just in case Intel was wrong this one time, but it does mean that it should have never been released to the public once it was clear that Intel could compete in the space. It should have been relegated to the design dust bin. The release of the Surface RT seemed like Microsoft's engineers being so proud of themselves from a hardware design standpoint that they couldn't resist putting it on the market even if the product didn't make sense and did more harm to their entry into this space than good. I would also be willing to bet that some Nvidia contracts factored into things as well. Microsoft should have only released the Surface Pro for the first generation and followed it up with a Surface 2 Baytrail instead of Tegra 4. As it stands today, RT based tablets hold no advantages. 1) They are not any cheaper 2) They are not any faster running modern UI apps 3) They do not have significantly better battery life 4) They are not any slimmer or lighter Microsoft just needs to put a stake in it and stop screwing up their own tablet market with confusion. bull3964 fucked around with this message at 23:49 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 23:27
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I dunno, it seems like a lot of whitewashing of history. If you go back to see the old keynotes with Sinofsky, etc. they were making a huge push for ARM. People were genuinely excited about Windows on ARM, like when they showed a normal version of office running and printing. There were dreams of running windows apps on hardware as nice as the iPad. However what we finally got was pretty far from Windows on ARM, it was a disjointed mess of Metro and Office on lukewarm tablet hardware. Win RT was a pretty big screwup, and the timing was terrible since folks were starting to buy tablets and the Win RT / Surface options couldn't compete at all. edit: Was replying to two posts above.
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May 1, 2014 23:32
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bull3964 posted:Intel's roadmaps were not secret. I can understand how people could potentially be skeptical of what x86 could do in that form factor, but one does not generally bet against Intel when they say they can do something. That's not to say they shouldn't have gone through the development process just in case Intel was wrong this one time, but it does mean that it should have never been released to the public once it was clear that Intel could compete in the space. It should have been relegated to the design dust bin. In retrospect its easy to say that Bay Trail and Clover Trail turned out great and there's no need for ARM whatsoever, but in practice (aside from the kludgy Windows XP for Tablets interface) MS had been dragged down by Intel chips poorly suited to the tablet form factor for its first few forays. I suppose when the time came to select a chip for their upcoming tablet they weren't willing to make the 100% Intel bet yet again, and had to sign some contracts with chip suppliers to bet on ARM.
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May 2, 2014 00:37
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bull3964 posted:The problem is, it didn't lend legitimacy to the platform. RT has been a joke since it was announced. It was questionable decision layered upon questionable decision. RT not working out is entirely irrelevant to the purpose I am outlining, the entire thing was that Microsoft needed to, for various reasons, demonstrate that it was something that could technically be done. Get it into peoples minds that Windows on everything was something that was possible and not just talk, scare Intel a bit to ensure that they would work hard in the right direction, etc. You are still talking about the quality of the experience on consumer products, which is really a couple of steps beyond what Microsoft needed to have work out with the x86 end getting its poo poo together.
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May 2, 2014 00:39
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Cybernetic Vermin posted:RT not working out is entirely irrelevant to the purpose I am outlining, the entire thing was that Microsoft needed to, for various reasons, demonstrate that it was something that could technically be done. Also note that Windows Phone 8.1 now runs on exactly the same "WinRT" core operating system as Windows 8 (including WindowsRT), and uses exactly the same graphics/UI libraries, the same networking libraries, the same everything. I won't disagree with people's experiences about the usability of ARM-based windows tablets... But as for the engineering aspects of running WinRT on ARM - it's pretty much the same low-level engineering (and app development) whether it's running on ARM-based WindowsRT tablets, or on ARM-based (Qualcomm Snapdragon-based) Windows Phones.
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May 2, 2014 04:16
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bull3964 posted:RT is left without a market now and the current Surface 2 should be the last RT device ever made. Well, there's a fair chance that the Surface Mini will run on RT, and also Windows Phone 8.1 is RT.
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May 2, 2014 05:47
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bull3964 posted:RT is left without a market now and the current Surface 2 should be the last RT device ever made. I really hope so. If they were priced cheaper, sure, but a Surface 2 is 449, where a t100 is 399 WITH a keyboard and office. People also really don't understand RT. Most people want to compare it to an iPad or have an iPad that they enjoy, but the moment they find out RT doesn't run Quickbooks or iTunes they flip out. It makes no sense. Working at a Microsoft Store and explaining the differences between RT... It's loving awful.
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May 2, 2014 06:50
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Where are people reading that Win Phone 8.1 is Win RT? Win Phone 8.1 supports new universal apps that can run on RT, phone 8.1, or win 8, but that doesn't mean the Win RT app store and existing apps will work. Apps will need to be built as a new universal app to support all the platforms. I would be pretty surprised if the mini Surface is an RT device too. Even people inside MS have to realize how much the platform is flopping. There are already small-ish tablets like the Dell Venue 8 Pro that use bay trail, etc. to run full Windows so it would be dumb to release an RT device the same size.
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May 2, 2014 07:53
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mod sassinator posted:Where are people reading that Win Phone 8.1 is Win RT? Win Phone 8.1 supports new universal apps that can run on RT, phone 8.1, or win 8, but that doesn't mean the Win RT app store and existing apps will work. Apps will need to be built as a new universal app to support all the platforms. The problem here is that you're confusing Windows RT with WinRT. They're completely different things, but Windows RT (the OS) is named after WinRT, which is an "application architecture" shared by Windows 8, Windows RT, and now(?) Windows Phone 8.1. Microsoft's confusing naming at work.
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May 2, 2014 08:07
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mod sassinator posted:Where are people reading that Win Phone 8.1 is Win RT? I'd say that's because there's been a lot of continuing rumbling about WP and RT merging. The 1520 seems capable enough as a phablet; something only slightly larger running some merged WP/RT OS is conceivable.
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May 2, 2014 09:01
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Microsoft's most boneheaded product is about to be killed offquote:Microsoft is about to take the ax to one of the stupidest products it ever created. So, there you have it. Windows RT goes out with a wet fart.
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Jul 24, 2014 17:21
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Werthog 95 posted:Microsoft's most boneheaded product is about to be killed off Clippy was not a dud! 
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Jul 24, 2014 17:48
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Nothing I have read suggests that this is the end of RT in anything but branding.
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Jul 24, 2014 17:59
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Well, if the brand is gone and no one is making hardware, it's really the same thing. Could, someone, in theory make an ARM windows tablet in the future? Yes. Will someone? Likely not.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:02
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Thankfully I sold my Surface 2 last week!
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Jul 24, 2014 18:29
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Microsoft is going to have to debloat the hell out of windows for this to work.
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Jul 24, 2014 18:48
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A) Clippy was awesome  B) that's not what Nadella actually meant: http://m.winsupersite.com/windows/microsoft-muddies-one-windows-waters quote:Mr. Nadella said two things about Windows convergence yesterday. The first seems to imply that there will in fact only be a certain version of Windows:
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Jul 24, 2014 21:24
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I for one am happy to see RT being taken out to the back and put down with a shotgun.
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Jul 24, 2014 22:20
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RT isn't going anywhere. You're going to see is an RT model without a desktop. Instead, you'll see a modern file explorer app, and "Modern Office". It'll still be ARM. And people will still praise Chrome OS and despise Windows RT
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Jul 24, 2014 22:42
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Rent posted:RT isn't going anywhere. You're going to see is an RT model without a desktop. Instead, you'll see a modern file explorer app, and "Modern Office". It'll still be ARM. I think 'see' is a strong word. About the only entity I see building such a beast is Microsoft themselves. OEMs right now are having enough trouble chasing down sales of 8" full pc tablets, the market for an ARM version is going to be even more limited. I don't think anyone will feel it's a market worth pursuing. There's just no way they will be able to make those ARM devices much cheaper than full x86 ones to make a difference and make it worthwhile.
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Jul 24, 2014 23:36
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Basically, the small 8 inch full Windows PCs are already going for $250-400, around the price of a Chromebook, and now Microsoft is making Windows free for OEMs on screen sizes below 9 inches, so you can buy a tablet PC hybrid thing, use the apps and web browser (RT, essentially), and get the desktop and desktop apps on top of that if you need or want them.
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Jul 25, 2014 00:13
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Rent posted:And people will still praise Chrome OS and despise Windows RT Chrome OS has its issues, but the hardware is cheap and the software is about as simple as you could possibly get. They've got valid uses. Windows RT launched with $500 hardware and sacrifices most of what makes Windows powerful while keeping most of what makes it complex. Once Bay Trail happened RT wasn't really a perfect fit for anyone. Chromebooks do simplicity better, Windows 8 does powerful better, and both of them managed to have hardware at lower prices than either of the Surfaces. There's certainly an argument for Microsoft needing an ARM-oriented platform, but it's hard to argue at this point that RT was anything resembling the ideal solution. sethsez fucked around with this message at 01:55 on Jul 25, 2014 |
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Jul 25, 2014 01:53
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Now that I'm not travelling extensively, something for which my Surface RT 2 was perfect, it makes a very good digital picture frame from which you can also check the weather and skype. Good job microsoft, such a versatile machine !
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Jul 25, 2014 11:21
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Rent posted:RT isn't going anywhere. You're going to see is an RT model without a desktop. Instead, you'll see a modern file explorer app, and "Modern Office". It'll still be ARM. Just quoting this "for posterity," as they say.
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Jul 29, 2014 16:42
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$100 price cut on the Surface 2 RT: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2597526/microsoft-cuts-surface-2-prices-by-100.html#tk.rss_all Does anyone actually care?
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Aug 26, 2014 07:07
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I think most people assumed it had been discontinued when they never mentioned it during the surface update.
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Aug 26, 2014 17:23
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I found out this week that the interview rooms I'll be using to collect research data don't have a power outlet so I couldn't use my laptop (even with a new battery it can't keep a charge for 8 hours). I thought I would buy a tablet and I saw that the surface 2 had just dropped in price and had office pre-installed so I thought it was serendipity. I ordered one online <then> I read this thread to see if I made the right decision. This morning I promptly cancelled my order (thankfully they hadn't shipped yet). Thank you, thread, for helping me avoid making a terrible and costly mistake!
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Aug 27, 2014 00:56
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For what it's worth, depending on what you need they can be pretty great machines. My staff uses them for a web-based application and prefers them over the ipads and android tablets we tried (the kickstand makes a great wedge to put your hand in if you use them while standing up or walking). Absolutely not a Window 7/8 pro replacement, but they're nice tablets.
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Aug 27, 2014 01:08
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I like mine a lot and since unfortunately breaking it I've been using my Kindle Fire HD which sucks compared to it.
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Aug 27, 2014 01:58
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mod sassinator posted:$100 price cut on the Surface 2 RT: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2597526/microsoft-cuts-surface-2-prices-by-100.html#tk.rss_all EDIT: The Surface doesn't even support Silverlight? Hahahahahahahhahahaahahhaha what the gently caress http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...dd-ccfdb601cca1 Assepoester fucked around with this message at 13:49 on Aug 27, 2014 |
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Aug 27, 2014 13:46
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Cardboard Box A posted:Does the Surface 2 use WIMBOOT so that it actually has some space left over? Silverlight is abandoned.
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Aug 27, 2014 14:36
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