Why Is the Surface So Bad?

http://www.slate.com/articles/technol/technology/2012/11/microsoft_surface_why_is_the_new_tablet_so_much_worse_than_the_ipad.single.html

by bergie • 14 years ago

115 97 14 years ago

slate.com

Shivetya• 14 years ago

I wonder if the performance would seem better if Microsoft employed a similar trick that iOS uses, that being putting up a screen shot of the app while it loads. I am not sure if Apple still employs this trick but I do remember it being used and how it affected perceived performance.

clauretano3• 14 years ago

Yes, that trick is still used on iOS. Windows Phone and the Windows-8-style-UI or whatever they call it today use lots of drawn out animations to mask load times, but it isn't enough on the Surface. You end up wasting quite a bit of time watching loading spinners.

DrStalker2• 14 years ago

That would explain why they designed all-new spinners with dots twirling in circles or moving along a line in pretty patterns.

mtgx2• 14 years ago

Windows Phone and the Metro UI in general uses a ton of animations to make it seem "smooth" and "fast", when in fact you're just watching animations for the same time period it would take to load. But underneath all that, the overall responsiveness of the OS seems to be slower than both iOS and the latest Android versions.

WrkInProgress2• 14 years ago

I can't speak for Windows RT and Windows 8 because I haven't had a chance to use either extensively but I have used Windows Phone 7(.5).

In the past six months I've gone from a Samsung Focus to a HTC One X to a iPhone 5 and back to a HTC One X.

Despite running on seemingly antiquated hardware, the Focus and Windows Phone 7.5 was just as fast and reponsive, if not more so than the other two devices.

glhaynes• 14 years ago

What's the virtual memory situation on Windows RT? Does it use a pagefile?

firefoxman13• 14 years ago

When I first got an HP Touchpad, the touchstone stand, and the keyboard I understood what the "post-PC" era really was. It was perfect: physical keyboard for productivity, yet a touchscreen with a tablet interface, and the mouse had finally seen its end. The Asus transformer was the next big step, I think. Again, keyboard and touchscreen, but this time a 19 hour battery. If it allowed dual booting it would be perfect.

So when I saw the Surface I thought "yes Microsoft gets it!" Then you use windows 8 RT and realize they're about as out-of-touch as ever. Behind that nice tablet interface is the same old windows. Ever try using classic windows interface with your bulky fingers? That's exactly what you have to do with essential apps like Office or anything written > 3 months ago. It's the exact reason tablets didn't catch on in the early 2000s: windows wasn't designed for use on a touchscreen.

WrkInProgress2• 14 years ago

Hence the keyboard and trackpad.

There is a benefit of having both the desktop and "Metro".

firefoxman13• 14 years ago

Well here's the problem I've seen: the trackpad is (or should be) mostly useless in tablet mode, and the touchscreen is impossible to use in desktop mode. I much prefer a dual boot setup, so you aren't mentally switching every few minutes.

slaven• 14 years ago

I hear this a lot from people who haven't actually tried the keyboard and trackpad. Trackpad is so small that I truly found it unusable. It's fair to say that it's smaller than any laptop or even netbook trackpad out there. The non-mechanical keyboard was also unusable for me, but I think TypeCover keys would be much better.

thedrbrian• 14 years ago

But Microsoft could only think of using the desktop to run office RT. why didn't they make office an app and hide all of the pc bits to the user?

stephengillie• 14 years ago

Having used the HP Touchsmart 2500 (2007 laptop/tablet convertible), I feel the same about the "post-PC" era. Moving my hand from keyboard to screen became more natural than moving from keyboard to touchpad, or keyboard to mouse. At the time, I physically administered rackmount servers through a console with a trackball - it was painful in comparison to the touchscreen.

Ever try using classic windows interface with your bulky fingers? This is why the Touchsmart shipped with a weighted pen-sized stylus, even in models with the passive touchscreen.

How is Office with the Touchpad?

firefoxman13• 14 years ago

There's only quick office which isn't robust enough for most people. Full-blown Office was one of microsoft's main opportunities with the surface (price being the other), neither of which they did well.

powertower• 14 years ago

I think what you really mean is that Office is not meant to be used on a tablet with a touch interface. Especially on Windows RT running on a slow ARM processor. Surface RT is supposed to be a device that's 99% Metro mode, for simple consumer demands with a touch interface.

Office on the other hand is a production app. Not a consumption app. It's workflow fits best on the Desktop PC with a keyboard.

nooneelse• 14 years ago

> The Asus transformer was the next big step, I think. Again, keyboard and touchscreen, but this time a 19 hour battery. If it allowed dual booting it would be perfect.

I'm a fan of the Asus transformer too. One benefit from the keyboard having a battery that I didn't notice till I had been using it this way for a while is that I never charge the tablet directly. When it is low, I attach the keyboard and let that charge the tablet. Then when the keyboard is low I pull that off and charge it. So the tablet itself is never tied to a wall. Psychologically, the tablet feels a hair's breadth away from being a device I don't have to charge at all. The battery state is never in the way of me using it.

phaus• 14 years ago

I love Asus, and I really wanted to love the Transformer Prime, but I just can't use that keyboard. I don't think I have freakishly huge hands, but I can't fit my fingers on the home row without overlapping.

I'm going to take a look at the Atom-powered Vivo Tab that runs the full version of Windows 8 when it comes out, but I suspect that the keyboard may still be too small.

Samsung's convertible tablet is 11.6", which has already proven itself to be large enough for a full size keyboard, when its done properly.

I wish Asus, or someone else, would come out with a convertible that's as thin, light, and attractive as the Zenbook Prime, but with a screen that's 11-13" and 1080p, with an i5, 8GB of ram, a wacom digitizer, and a quality keyboard.

amorphid• 14 years ago

Surface isn't bad, it's early. I played with it over the weekend and liked it in general. It's also clear that it'd benefit from some bug fixes. It'll get better if MS doesn't drop it before they've been able to work out the kinks.

clauretano3• 14 years ago

Definitely early. Not helping matters is the fact that all the Microsoft employees getting free ones don't receive them until December. They should have gotten them early even if it meant delaying the launch in my opinion, at least then there would be more software available.

sounds2• 14 years ago

Why so many of this rejoinder? "Early release! Don't be so harsh!"

Ok, here's a direct quote from the article – how come everyone's ignoring it?

So if it took Apple a couple tries to perfect the tablet, shouldn’t we cut Microsoft some slack, too?

No, we shouldn’t. The first iPad was released in 2010. It may not have been perfect, but it was unquestionably the best tablet of its era. The Surface is hitting the shelves in 2012, when, in addition to Apple’s tablets, you can now get Google’s Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 or one of Amazon’s super-cheap Kindle Fires. Because it was first to market, Apple’s first-generation device had some leeway to miss the mark, but its competitors have little room for error. Anyone who’s considering this tablet will be forced to stack it against the competition, and the Surface doesn’t wear these comparisons well.

therobot243• 14 years ago

not to show a direct favoritism toward Microsoft, but his review reeks with personal bias:

"my first thought was, Boy, that’s heavy! When I looked up the specs, I discovered that the Surface is only about 20 grams heavier than the iPad 3, but somehow those grams make a difference."

"I’ve used many keyboards for the iPad, and the touch cover seemed just as good as those—meaning I could type on it somewhat more quickly than I can on a touchscreen, but it I wouldn’t call it a pleasant experience."

Don't get me wrong, there are some legitimate gripes in terms of speed, functionality, and as the reviewer points out - focus. The reviewer even admits that Microsoft isn't advertising this as an iPad killer, rather it's suppose to fill in the gaps. Though, throughout the article, the only thing the reviewer does is try to replace their iPad:

"In the years I’ve been using the iPad, I’ve come to recognize that it's good for specific tasks. I’ll write short emails on it but not long ones. I’ll use the iPad to shop for stuff on Amazon, but I won’t use it to buy something with lots of variables, like a plane ticket. To a lot of people, these limitations feel restrictive. The Surface was designed with those people in mind: It promises that you’ll be able to type faster, to use a pointer, to actually get things done and not feel like there are certain things your device just can’t do."

If the reviewer had made an effort to include the surface in parts of his or her life like buying a plane ticket, or shopping for something 'with a lot of variables' then we'd see how well the surface lives up to it's charge.

marknutter• 14 years ago

Well what else is he supposed to compare it to?

therobot243• 14 years ago

No doubt about it, the surface should be compared with the iPad, but that's not what i'm complaining about. The reviewer states:

"The iPad may not allow you to do everything, but Apple has made sure that it’s great at what it can do. The Surface, by contrast, will let you do everything you want. The problem is that you’ll have no fun doing it."

My problem, is that the reviewer (at least in the article) seemed to make no attempt to go outside of the limits of the iPad with the Surface.

mtgx2• 14 years ago

I don't think many people realized this but iPad 3 is actually heavier than iPad 2, and many might still remember how "light" the iPad 2 was compared to iPad 1. iPad 3 is somewhere in between the iPad 1 and 2 weights.

But I think the ideal weight for a tablet is around 300 grams, which half of what most 10" tablets have today. This is probably the most important reason why the "main iPad" will eventually become iPad Mini. 600 grams is too heavy for extended and comfortable use.

therobot243• 14 years ago

i'm curious if there's any reasoning to 300 grams. I don't have an iPad, but i've used one, and it seemed fine to me - i guess over a long period it could become uncomfortable.

alyx• 14 years ago

I own a Surface and disagree with everything in this article.

The Surface does have quirks, but as a v1 device from a company that has NEVER designed a commercial PC let alone a tablet, I think it is nothing short of fantastic tech.

I just sold my Couch-MacBook over the weekend because the Surface satisfies every single casual at-home PC scenario I have.

danso2• 14 years ago

Right...but the point of the OP was that Microsoft has all of the hindsight of Apple's iPads and the Android tablets, thus it should be held to a higher standard. The OP may be wrong about how good the Surface is, of course, but I think he's right not to give Microsoft a "it's just their first try" a pass.

bitwize• 14 years ago

The Surface does have quirks, but as a v1 device from a company that has NEVER designed a commercial PC

Not true. In the 1980s Microsoft attempted to standardize the 8-bit home computer market, and developed the MSX architecture, exemplars of which were built and sold by a few Japanese companies. The MSX did not see much traction in the United States but was popular in Japan and Russia.

bane• 14 years ago

I'd argue that Microsoft never actually built the MSXs, Microsoft more or less just spec'ed out what an MSX should be, similar to the way 3D0 never really built a machine (in fact I think some of the same companies who built MSXs built 3d0s if I'm not mistaken).

but...Microsoft did build the XBOX (which was a PC) and the XBOX 360 (which is less PCish, but still a computer).

wazoox• 14 years ago

In 1987 (IIRC) Microsoft even tried to sell PC-compatible under its own brand. I think it was a very short-lived experience (6 months or so).

tluyben22• 14 years ago

Also in Europe; in Spain and the Netherlands you can still find quite a few of them even now. I don't think MS designed the hardware though; they made the MSX Basic (which I like and program for fun still), but the specs where by ASCII corp Japan and where 'interpreted' within the confines of the standard by the mostly Japanese MSX creators (like Sony, Hitachi, Sharp etc). I'm not 100% sure but I cannot find any information about MS actually working on the hardware themselves although being in the standards body.

tluyben22• 14 years ago

Not to say this is not true at all, however can't that be said for the iPads and Androids as well? I'm curious; I see a Macbook is something different, but other tablets fall in that category as well or not?

tcohen• 14 years ago

Regardless of whether it's good or bad - what took them so long!? What have they been working on...

rm999• 14 years ago

>And that, I think, is the main reason the Surface falls short: It lacks focus

I see this as a general problem with the tech sector today: there is a lack of underlying vision that leads to innovation. How can Microsoft focus on something when they are chasing the moving target of Apple? Worse yet they only see what Apple is thinking/doing years after the fact.

The worst part of all this to me is that Apple isn't even trying to compete with Microsoft in this niche. Apple has left open a large space of power-users (I use this term loosely - people who type a lot fall in here - or users who want a full OS) who want tablet functionality. Microsoft should have done a better and quicker job of filling this niche.

BlackNapoleon• 14 years ago

I don't know WHY its so bad, I just know that based on MSFT's commercials, that it IS bad.

They don't even show anyone using the damn thing. Its just a bunch of choreography.

pagebrooks• 14 years ago

The only "usage" I have seen advertised is the picture password feature.

wizawuza2• 14 years ago

your logic is horrible.

I agree the ads are bad, but to say that it IS bad because of the lack of usage??

bencxr• 14 years ago

Personally, this is fine with me. I don't tend to trust commercials where people "use the thing", e.g. Apple's Siri commercial.

It is just too easy to show off a few "happy path" scenarios in 30 seconds.

gurkendoktor4• 14 years ago

You can never trust commercials, but at least you know whether the vendor is filling a gap that you care about.

programminggeek2• 14 years ago

The Surface is "Bad" because you're comparing it with the iPad 4, the Kindle Fire HD, the Asus Transformer (3rd or 4th gen), etc.

Microsoft missed the first 3 or so iterations of touch-only tablet computing. There are bug fixes and refinements to come I'm sure.

Compare the Surface to original iPad when it first came out and maybe it's not so bad?

Granted, the surface isn't competing with the original iPad, it's competing against the 4th gen iPad and that's a different beast altogether.

timcederman• 14 years ago

You're suggesting folks should grade on a curve?

RyanMcGreal• 14 years ago

FTFA:

> So if it took Apple a couple tries to perfect the tablet, shouldn’t we cut Microsoft some slack, too?

> No, we shouldn’t. The first iPad was released in 2010. It may not have been perfect, but it was unquestionably the best tablet of its era. The Surface is hitting the shelves in 2012, when, in addition to Apple’s tablets, you can now get Google’s Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 or one of Amazon’s super-cheap Kindle Fires. Because it was first to market, Apple’s first-generation device had some leeway to miss the mark, but its competitors have little room for error. Anyone who’s considering this tablet will be forced to stack it against the competition, and the Surface doesn’t wear these comparisons well.

danso2• 14 years ago

It makes sense to judge the Surface against the original iPad if the Surface were released in 2010.

greedo2• 14 years ago

When the iPad was first released, all the Windows/Microsoft apologists went on and on about how this was nothing new; that Microsoft had pioneered tablets for decades.

Now when MS releases a subpar tablet, they want to claim that it's new, and fragile, and shouldn't be compared to the competition; compare it to a two year old iPad instead!

Get real. This is the same MS that we've all known for decades. The hardware isn't too bad, but as usual, the OS is a kludge that makes poor design decisions, is poorly optimized, and performs terribly in comparison to its competitors.

atacrawl• 14 years ago

The Surface is "Bad" because you're comparing it with the iPad 4, the Kindle Fire HD, the Asus Transformer (3rd or 4th gen), etc.

Well, those are its competitors.

programminggeek2• 14 years ago

My only suggestion is that v1 of anything will be a bit jankedy. I'm not making excuses for Surface at all, just that a reasonable person expects problems with a v1 product, esp from MSFT.

nachteilig• 14 years ago

I kind of buy the 20 grams thing, actually. When I went to look at the iPhone 5 I noticed it felt lighter and discovered that it's only 28 grams lighter. Still, the surface didn't feel particularly heavy to me and I use iPad every day.

It's really not a bad first stab from Microsoft. I hope we can assume that the next rev will be even better a la Xbox (and not what happened with Zune).

wizawuza2• 14 years ago

The iPhone's 28 grams lighter is a huge percentage difference for such a light device.

Can't make the same comparison for 20 grams (~30% less of a difference) on a much larger device.

vinculus• 14 years ago

Is this a review of microsoft's hardware? Because there were all those really good reviews of windows 8 on touchscreen laptops last week, right?

rsynnott• 14 years ago

This isn't Windows 8.

MortenK• 14 years ago

Microsoft should probably have made a clear divide between tablet and desktop OS. Windows RT tablets running only the interface formerly known as Metro, and simply an incremental upgrade to the much loved Windows 7 for desktops.

Mixing the interfaces gives a non-satisfactory and confusing experience on both desktop and tablet devices. An exception could be devices that are a bit more of a laptop/tablet hybrid than the Surface (i.e. the coming Surface Pro).

It seems MS might still be limited a bit by their big-corp shackles. The whole Windows RT / Windows 8 issue causes more confusion than anything else, and ultimately seems as a decision made by commitee, rather than the result of a single, focused individual or team.

But Microsoft is just at step 1. And with the size of their pockets, they will not give up the tablet race just because of a not-quite-as-hot-as-expected launch. They are in it for years to come, so it would be odd if we don't see a much better implementation over the coming 2-3 years.

Whether or not Apple or Google manages to innovate further in that time remains to be seen. But from the uninspiring, incremental upgrades coming out of Cupertino the last few product cycles, it could seem MS is being given the chance to catch up within the foreseeable future.

In any case, computing in the hybrid form of a tablet form factor with full OS and keyboard / trackpad is here to stay judging from the huge success of the Transformer series and the more limited but still substantial success of the Windows 7 slates. So we will surely see a lot of interesting products released from all camps over the next few years.

Someone• 14 years ago

"They are in it for years to come, so it would be odd if we don't see a much better implementation over the coming 2-3 years."

I agree; I think the product (which I haven't seen in real life yet) has a future. However, I don't see how that would affect the review of today's product. They didn't promise free hardware upgrades for two years, did they?

pcwalton2• 14 years ago

Criticizing the browser for displaying a blurry image while pinching is unfair. This is standard practice for any browser with off main thread compositing, including Firefox Mobile, Chrome for Android, later releases of desktop Safari, and Mobile Safari, which pioneered the technique.

rayiner• 14 years ago

Pinching on mobile safari right now and it's sharp enough where I can't tell whether it's LCD lag or rendering blur. Maybe Apple is using a better image scaling algorithm?

pcwalton2• 14 years ago

It's just GL_LINEAR from what I can tell.

My iPhone Simulator is somewhat old though; perhaps they decided to start rendering while your fingers are down on iOS 6 or something. On a recent MBP, however, desktop Safari is just using GL_LINEAR scaling.

jarjoura2• 14 years ago

Here's how I see it playing out, Microsoft will be successful with the Surface if they take it seriously and update it often and fast. They have a lot of catching up to do and it's a seriously great start to something different and unique. I suspect it will move in the direction of how people use it and want it to work.

When Apple brought OS X out to the world for the first time, it was extremely slow, basically unusable, hideous to look at, and Microsoft fans laughed at the effort. In fact, the industry jumped on Windows XP and IE 6. However, Apple rev'd, and rev'd and rev'd and polished and brought things to OS X that were innovative and eventually surpassed Windows as an OS people actually wanted to live in all day long. All the while Microsoft seemingly sat around and watched it happen.

So for the Surface, at this point, it comes down to execution. Can the Windows team rev and rev and rev? Can marketing push it in a way that gets people buying it? Can evangelism bring enough top-tier designers and developers on board to write grade-A apps for it? If they can do that, then this sloppy launch will be simply labeled a turning point for Microsoft. Otherwise, it will be another failed product that just deserved a tiny pat on the back.

sukuriant• 14 years ago

I was going to come on to argue that you were wrong here about the Windows XP / OS X timing. I thought OS X came out years later; but, I was very wrong. Wikipedia says:

OS X Initial Release: March 24, 2001

Windows XP Initial Release: October 25, 2001

It certainly has been a very long time...

mrich2• 14 years ago

But it does not make much sense to compare these versions - Windows started being a modern OS with Win 2000 and arguably already Windows 95. These were the releases that won them the desktop dominance. That's probably why you are feeling Windows is "older".

trhtrsh• 14 years ago

Win2K was marketed to businesses as the last version of NT before consumer-pro unification. WinXP picked up consumers from Win98 who skipped WinME.

tallanvor• 14 years ago

So starting with OSX, Apple has introduced 9 versions and Microsoft has introduced 4. Now, granted, you can't actually have upgraded from 10.0 to 10.9 because of the dropped hardware support, but it would be interesting to compare the cost of upgrading through all the versions.

codinghorror• 14 years ago

I agree. The tech, despite this article, is really solid and actually innovative -- it just needs more polish and iteration. If Microsoft can show us that they're willing to rev quickly and fix and improve things, it could be pretty amazing.

First order of business, the absysmal default Mail app. That is just painfully awful. If they move quickly to update it to non-terribad status, that will be evidence that they can make this work.

vondur• 14 years ago

Mac OSX was never hideous to look at. The interface may have been slow, but the multi-tasking on it was awesome at the time. I remember being able to play DVD's and browse the web and download large files at the time and the system never blinked, and no frames were ever dropped on the DVD playback. Regarding the Surface, the hardware is nice, and the software can fortunately be fixed. The question is will enough people buy it?

jkn• 14 years ago

That is of course a matter of taste, but early OS X versions were very unappealing to me.

Here's a screenshot of 10.3 (Panther): http://iindigo3d.com/macos/macosx103.jpg

jarjoura2• 14 years ago

Check out this article. LOL, 10.0 also suffered from a mixture of poorly blended UIs. Brushed metal, pin-stripes, and old Carbon hybrid UIs with tiny fonts.

http://veerle-v2.duoh.com/blog/comments/mac_os_x_105_leopard...

woodpanel• 14 years ago

Why is this article so full of errors?

However, I've tested the RT and I woudn't buy it. But the RT is just a reduced version of what the pro version will be: Something that aims to be a laptop that you can work on.

After testing it I am definetly going to give the pro a shot. Not as an iPad replacement as the iPad was never something to work with. But as a laptop replacement. Because...

- it gets rid of the dead weight of a keyboard (but keeping its functionality)

- it adds the interface of a touch screen

This doesn't replace so much an iPad as it replaces the macbook air.

The author's main claim is that we need different gadgets for different tasks. After deciding each trip wether I'll take my smartphone/kindle/iPad/NetBook/Laptop with me I can assure him: I'd be more than happy to reduce that list.

danudey2• 14 years ago

Removing the keyboard is great, but removing the keyboard and then replacing it with a keyboard in a floppy foldable cover? That seems a little counter-intuitive. I mean, it's nice that you can not take the cover with you if you don't want to, but that would just require replacing it with some cover or another, so I may as well keep the keyboard.

potatolicious• 14 years ago

I love the touchcover concept actually. The point of removing the keyboard and replacing it with a floppy foldable cover is that the floppy foldable cover is really light and really thin compared to the keyboard that used to be there.

The second part is that convertibles/transformer tablets historically have handled keyboards crappily. Either you attach it to a folding swivel that's both bulky, heavy, and prone to breakage, or you make the two units entirely separate, in which case transportation/using the unit without the keyboard is awkward.

With the touch cover the keyboard just disappears when you don't need it. It needs neither a complicated mechanism nor do you need to remember to put the detached keyboard in your bag. Fold it over. Bam.

Responding to previous poster though:

> "But the RT is just a reduced version of what the pro version will be: Something that aims to be a laptop that you can work on."

I'm actually of the opinion right now that the RT is the more significant device. Having played with the RT now, and seeing the specs on the Pro, I think the Pro is too awkward to be a market fit. It's substantially heavier, has in all likelihood poorer battery life, and is thick. Also, it has a spinning fan in your hands.

All are acceptable compromises if you can really use it as a laptop replacement - but the touch cover's trackpad is frankly not good enough for that use. So what you've ended up with is a thicker, heavier, louder, warmer, shorter lasting version of the RT that will run non-Metro apps in ways that are nearly unusable.

zmonkeyz• 14 years ago

When you start it up Microsoft even refers to it as a PC. It should be obvious to people that Microsoft sees this as the future of PCs and don't want them to think of it as a "tablet".

gisenberg3• 14 years ago

What errors were identified in the article?

at-fates-hands• 14 years ago

>>>>> "The first iPad was released in 2010. It may not have been perfect, but it was unquestionably the best tablet of its era."

It's been two years, not exactly an "era". I also remember the Motorola Xoom coming out in 2010 and giving Apple a run for its money. Also, if the ipad was SO awesome for an entire "era", then why did Apple come out with the ipad 2 a year after the first one was released?

People just don't like it when someone comes out challenges Apple's status quo.

danudey2• 14 years ago

> I also remember the Motorola Xoom coming out in 2010 and giving Apple a run for its money.

From http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/oct/28/motorola-xo...:

> In the same period that those Honeycomb tablets have sold 3.4m, Apple has sold more than 25m iPads. In the period that Rubin says those 6m have been sold, Apple has sold just short of 40m iPads.

I'd hardly count that as 'giving Apple a run for its money'.

btbuilder• 14 years ago

I spent 15 minutes playing with a Surface at the MS store. I found that the typing cover was certainly much better than the touch cover. The typing cover is a very decent keyboard with even noticable mouse button clicks on the trackpad. It is certainly not just "slightly better". I didn't like the touch cover much but I noticed I was already getting used to it.

I tried to reproduce the typing speed problem in Word and it is definitely fixed. Even when I mashed the keyboard at max speed Word kept up. I did manage to get Powerpoint to slow down by downloading a presentation with a bitmap image in the background. Typing over the bitmap image was not realtime but still usable.

Certainly considering recommending this to someone who just want a super-mobile MS Office machine.

BenSS• 14 years ago

I develop for iOS and chugging that koolaid, but Surface really doesn't deserve such a scathing article. There's a definite lack of polish and kludgey details, but I'd rather have surface over an android tablet right now.

krichman3• 14 years ago

The iPad is locked-down enough that it's basically a toy for reading the internet and doing mail. If the Surface enables a different model of tablet computing, there's no reason why it shouldn't be a success. It's surely going to be rough around the edges to start with, but that doesn't mean people will miss the appeal entirely.

GuiA• 14 years ago

What you call a toy covers the needs of the vast majority of "everyday" users.

Regardless of your feelings on the matter, whether it's pertinent to call it a toy or not is left as an exercise to the reader.

geon• 14 years ago

Also, "the vast majority of everyday users" want a toy.

gisenberg3• 14 years ago

I waited in line for ~4 hours to pick up a Surface on launch day and ended up returning it a little over a week later.

This review touched on performance, but it really was abysmal. Nothing was quite as painful as watching other people use the device; swipe gestures and touch points were frequently missed, the swipe-down gesture necessary to close or dock a metro app lagged behind by several seconds and took literally a dozen tries to successfully pull off, and even after installing the optional updates by going to the desktop control panel, I was still able to out-type the stock Mail application, using the touch cover at an abysmal ~10WPM. That was after waiting 5-10 seconds for the mail client to launch in the first place.

App support was the biggest offender, and I get that this is a short-term problem. That said, searching the app store for an SSH client and seeing nothing was a deal breaker. In the absence of useful applications, a terminal window that I could use to get somewhere to do actual work would have been great. Even in games, it feels like the strategy was all wrong. The usual suspects (Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, etc) are there, but this would be my 4th or 5th time purchasing those games. Really don't have an interest in buying them again, and the original content under the New Releases section is really lackluster; apps that are still using the default Visual Studio app icon aren't uncommon, nor are apps with written entirely in different languages than the target market. The whole quality control angle seems sloppy.

If I could have installed another browser or had access to the Chrome web store, that would have been enough of a mitigation for app support, but those aren't options either.

The out-of-box apps are, understandably, incredibly Microsoft-centric. Couldn't change default search provider in Internet Explorer and the messaging client only had support for Live Messenger and Facebook. The app store currently has nothing available for music options (no Pandora/Spotify/etc). The browser is an option, but the Metro browser stops playing audio once the device auto-locks.

The speakers were really bad. With any level of ambient background noise, watching something on Netflix required my face to be less than a foot away to actually make out dialog. Was a common theme among other people using the device as well.

Touch cover was incredibly hit or miss and missed more often than not. In retrospect, I should have gotten a Type cover.

If the Surface had released with the iPad 2, it would be a competitive offering. At this stage in the game, though, it's competing with entrenched 4th generation and beyond offerings with years of developer support. Worse yet, it's walking into new tablets with specifications that are nearly twice as good for less money.

That said, the form factor of the Surface is incredibly solid. If someone sold a tablet with the Nexus 10 internals in a Surface form factor, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

rlu• 14 years ago

Were you honestly unable to type faster than 10wpm after using it for a week? I find that....odd to believe (not saying you're lying - I just find it strange). How fast can you type normally? On my regular desktop keyboard I type at an average of 80wpm which I think is ok. On my touchcover I can type at an average of like 65wpm. So sure, slower than my desktop keyboard but not frustrating by any means.

I'd say that I got up to speed and used to the keyboard within a day or two of use.

I'm glad that you acknowledge that the app store problem is short-term. A lot of reviewers disregard that. I am quite confident that the apps will come so you just need to be patient. With that said, I'd like to point out that there is a pandora app (not sure if it is official, but it works fine). Spotify I am still waiting for but Xbox Music does the job until then.

Agreed that the speakers are meh.

I don't know though. I'd still pick this over an iPad any day of the week. The keyboard really does it for me. I'm typing this comment out on my desktop but I could have just as easily typed it from my Surface. Try doing that on an iPad. It would be exhausting. So even for tasks that aren't "work" but just involve creating content (even something as small as a HN comment) - the surface runs laps around iPad.

edit: one final thing. Remote desktop is a great feature on this device. Whenever I want to use an x86 app on Surface RT, I just remote into my desktop at home. Works pretty much flawlessly. I especially like that typing seems to be simulated from the client end, so even if there IS network lag, your typing isn't affected by it.

gisenberg3• 14 years ago

On a normal keyboard, I hit 120+ WPM. On the Touch keyboard, I spent more time correcting typoos and missed keystrokes than typing for sure. I'd have to have a camera on the keyboard to see where things went wrong, because it _seemed_ like I should be hitting all the keys I expected to hit, but I'm more than happy to acknowledge that what I really wanted was the keyboard cover with tactile feedback. The Touch keyboard was something I didn't get used to at all.

My usage patterns were incredibly light; it mostly sat near desktops or laptops as a mail client. With the app ecosystem and text input as it was, I was at a loss for other things I could do with it. By the end of the week, it was more or less a front end for Trello boards.

One of the compelling points was having a tablet platform in which real work can get done, but in the absence of an SSH client or text editor with syntax highlighting, that didn't really hold true for me (again, short-term problems). I can see where it'd make sense for folks that specifically need Office to get meaningful work done, but that wasn't the case for me.

That said, the ability to sideload Ubuntu and Chromium on the Nexus devices looks incredibly compelling. Really curious to see how that shapes up.

greedo2• 14 years ago

You're not comparing the iPad in a fair manner. If you combine the iPad with a keyboard, it does just as well in typing speed as the Surface with a keyboard, and at a cheaper price.

Mordor• 14 years ago

Maybe this underlies the Samsung Note's success - moving the pointer to the screen (via the stylus). The keyboard is a real problem: how to precisely compose text? Not sure what the answer is to this one, but I don't think anyone's truly cracked it. Any ideas?

bruceboughton2• 14 years ago

The supposed differentiator for Surface is Office. Why then is there not a single screenshot of Office on their product website? [1]

I eventually found an URL in a footnote (not even linked): http://office.com/officeRT which is incredibly sparse on information.

[1] http://www.microsoft.com/Surface/en-GB

Why Is the Surface So Bad?

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