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It has a more dynamic interface. It has Office inside. It can run two apps on the same screen. And it has a USB port and a built-in kickstand. The iPad has none of these things, and the Microsoft Surface does. So why does Microsoft’s first tablet already seem to be on the ropes?
According to one estimate, Microsoft is slated to sell only between 500,000 to 600,000 Surfaces running Windows RT during the December quarter, well below expectations. To put this anemic performance in perspective, Apple moved 3 million new iPads and iPad minis in three days.
Hope isn’t lost for the Surface. There are some things Microsoft can do immediately to boost sales, as well as some changes the company should make to ensure that there is a second and third Surface. Given that this tablet is a beacon for Windows 8 adoption, there couldn’t be more at stake. So listen up, Steve Ballmer & friends.
Microsoft’s Surface tablet has potential, but it’s not clicking with customers yet. Laptop Magazine’s Mark Spoonauer gives Microsoft some advice on how to ease the company’s growing pains.
When you think about it, the Surface ads are just a tease. Microsoft showcases its Touch Cover in all of the commercials for its tablet, which attaches magnetically to the slate and offers a surprisingly good typing experience given that there’s no physical travel. And, like the iPad’s Smart Cover, the screen turns on and off like a refrigerator door light when you open and close the cover. There’s just one problem.
Microsoft charges £399 for the Surface if you want the Touch Cover, £79 more than the tablet by itself. Want a colour other than black? You’ll have to pony up even more. If you look at iSuppli’s teardown of the Surface’s components and manufacturing costs, Microsoft is making about £130 on each device, making this tablet more profitable than the iPad. But this margin is meaningless if no one is buying. At least through the holidays, the Touch Cover should be free.
Let’s say you were excited by what the Surface has to offer. You’d want to run out and try one before you buy, right? Well, unless you happen to live within range of a few dozen Microsoft stores, you’re out of luck. The good news is that it looks like the Surface will soon become more widely available. According to Microsoft watch Paul Thurott, the Surface should find a home with major retailers very soon — as in days instead of weeks.
Apparently, Microsoft has decided to accelerate its plans to widen the Surface’s distribution. Potentially peeved partners be damned, this is the right move for Microsoft. You can’t blanket the airwaves with ads and then not make it easy for people to pick a Surface up or at least test drive it. As far as I’m concerned, hitting PC World and other big-box stores will only be good for partners, because at least there’s the potential for shoppers to look past the iPad aisle.
Recently Microsoft caused a bit of a stir when a Facebook live tile was spotted in a Surface banner ad. As it turns out, the tile was just a shortcut to the website. Never mind the fact that this ad is misleading. Where the heck is the Windows 8 Facebook app? Or the Twitter app? Or Spotify. Or Draw Something? You get the picture.
Despite the fact that the Windows Store stocks some compelling apps, such as Angry Birds Star Wars, Netflix and UrbanSpoon, there are lots of holes in the lineup. Microsoft is trying to court developers, hosting app labs for them in 30 technology and design hubs around the world. But the clock is ticking.
Microsoft makes a big deal about the ClearType display on its Surface tablet, arguing that the sub-pixel rendering on this 1366 x 768-pixel screen makes for sharper images than what you’ll find on competing tablets. In reality, the iPad’s Retina display (2048 x 1536) runs circle around the Surface. Although the Surface and iPad have comparable brightness (373 versus 383 lux), the Retina display is way sharper, whether you’re viewing high-resolution photos or text. The iPad also offered warmer and more saturated colours when viewing the same videos.
The good news is that the Surface Pro will bump the resolution up to 1920 x 1080 pixels. But Microsoft should include this resolution on the RT version as well without charging a premium. After all, you can pick up an Android tablet like the ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity with a 1920 x 1200-pixel screen for sub-£400. Microsoft also needs to ensure that icons and other items don’t shrink at full HD to the point they’re nearly impossible to target with a finger. The Acer Iconia Tab A700 is a great example of how high-def can be hard on the eyes.
I’m certainly not the first to suggest this, but perhaps hearing it from more and more critics will drive the message home. Microsoft needs to stick with the Modern (formerly Metro) interface on Windows RT devices like the Surface. That means no desktop. You shouldn’t have two completely different computing environments on the same tablet. In order to unify the user experience, though, Microsoft will need to get Office to work within the Modern environment, as well as create a file manager that works in that mode. Microsoft would also need to beef up the settings menu in the Modern UI to obviate the need for a desktop.
The Surface with Windows RT lasted a decent, but unspectacular 7 hours and 43 minutes in our battery test, which involves continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi on 40 per cent brightness. Sadly, Microsoft says that the upcoming Windows 8 Pro version will have half as much endurance. That would mean less than 5 hours of juice, which is unacceptable for a tablet.
Why does the Surface Pro have such a pitiful rated runtime? Part of the blame goes to the Core i5 processor under the hood, which simply guzzles more power than the ARM chip inside the RT version of this tablet. If I were Microsoft I would switch gears to an Atom CPU. This would allow users to still run desktop apps while offering longer battery life. Sure, you’ll give up some horsepower, but the Surface isn’t really designed to be your primary PC. Besides, an Atom-powered Surface Pro would also likely be cheaper. For example, Samsung charges £450-odd for its Atom-enabled Ativ Smart PC, and £600 with the keyboard dock. The Surface Pro will start at £600 without a keyboard.
Our review probably sums it up best: “If you’re planning to take pictures with your tablet, don’t plan on buying the Surface.” Ouch. The front and rear 1-megapixel cameras on Microsoft’s tablet disappointed in our tests. The rear camera took blurry photos with washed-out colours, while the front camera captured dull and noisy. What’s the point of Microsoft owning Skype if you can take full advantage of the service on its hallmark tablet?
Laptopmag.com brings you in-depth reviews of the hottest mobile products, the latest tech news, helpful how-to advice, and expert analysis of the latest tech trends.
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“If you’re planning to take pictures with your tablet, don’t.” There, fixed that for you.
‘Microsoft is slated to sell only between 500,000 to 600,000 Surfaces’
Slated! Oh Giz, you so punny.
It would really help if you could just walk into a store and pick it up ? And if they bundled the keypad in with it that would also really help.
Nope, none of that matters. There’s only one thing Microsoft needs to do to save Surface and that’s to actually sell it. I’ve been to three High Street and department stores looking for it and nobody had it. Lots of iPads and Samsungs and even Playbooks but no Surface. Not even a sample.
Nobody is going to buy something that doesn’t exist.
Yeap, same here. I wanted to go have a look at it but could not find it.
I want to see it before I give over my cash.
But I do agree that the touch cover should be free.
Give an option to have a start menu perhaps?
Had to do some testing on Windows 8 today, I still naturally move the mouse to the start position, yet now it opens IE instead.
iPad solved problems for people who didn’t want / need a new computer. Surface just causes problems.
Why do you need a start menu on Windows RT? You don’t have any standard windows apps.
I was just a standard Windows 8 test environment, not the Surface. My comment was alluding to how it more complicated, your desktop point proves it. Thats not what people want in a tablet device as Apple has proved somewhat. Its no replacement for a laptop and thats where serious people still look for mobile computing.
so instead of learn a new version of windows you just learnt to use an ipad instead? That makes sense.
“Learnt to use an ipad”? Does such a thing exist? Even 2 year old kids can use an ipad
and 2 year olds can use windows 8, in fact if anything as tiles are bigger than icons it would make it easier for a 2 year old.
heres one way to save it, put another operating system on there!
Personally I wont buy any RT/Atom processor made tablet coz it functions almost the same as any other android or iPad. Especially if you said removing the RT dekstop system. Why do consumer get a RT den??? I might as well get any android or iPad tablet available in the market. The metro UI is not all that I can tell you that. What consumers want is mobility and flexibility and performance. Mobility I can say microsoft has achieved it but improvements are needed for the battery (They should develop a longer lasting battery, it might use a lot of $$ but at least they can achieve longer lasting energy)
Flexibility, the only reason why I want a surface pro is because it can do much more compare to the android and iPad. There are limitations to Android and iPad but for the surface pro it is like a PC at home where I can work on the go.
Performance, when I’m bored and on a road trip or business trip. I still can use it to play games I used to enjoy when I had time. (Be it for releasing stress or just for entertainment.)
Anyway I only disagree with the 5th and 6th points.
There are ways for them to increase the battery power and to ditch the core i5 is a stupid thing to do! I might as well get an android or iPad to get a slow ass atom processor working on a highly flexible platform. (Might as well get ultrabook)
Correction: Rather than getting a slow ass atom processor working on a highly flexible platform.
in term of fun, do u think mobile gaming isnt as fun to desktop?
when you’re tiring, will you still love intense gaming?
Remove DEsktop is a must move for RT, because it takes away the term “good experiences”. Desktop in RT has no use at all. Plus, metro and desktop feels disconnected, if you ever use windows 8
What you done in Desktop environment doesnt carry to metro environment. God, what on earth microsoft is thinking
Believe me if you are someone’s husband/ bf you will like mobile gaming. Plus the SOny Vaio Duo 11 was able to play games like dota, cs, battle field and so …. (Core i5) LoL gaming to some people is releasing stress while people who is afraid to lose is tense. It depends on your personality.
Windows store is still developing like android once was. Just chill for a second and wait for them to grow. If you dislike the current windows just wait. No one is pointing a gun at u that you have to get current windows devices. You can always go back to Apple or Android.
RT is still new and still in developing process … There is a reason why it is made that way. If the dekstop is removed den it has no difference den an android tablet or iPad. Microsoft said before their device are connected to other windows 8 device. they must have planned something for it. If the RT is just made similar to any android tablet or iPad than microsoft is wasting time.
Seems a bit early to be looking to ‘save’ a product designed for this environment?
MS’ audience is corporate. This is the first tablet on the market that’s a tool in that environment. Android is currently a toy and the iPad is simply a joke, at least until a real OS is available. Corporates don’t jump on new tech, it needs to be proven; buying & shipping out 10,000 units of an untested product promptly leads to loss of job.
Buying an unproven product is idiotic, so huge sales on unproven products are only a valid marker for products designed for idiots. The Surface thingy is – or is certainly behaving like – something designed for people who want to work efficiently rather than avoid doing any. That’s totally new for tablets. Yes, it has a lack of time-wasting apps, instead the unit is supplied with the full suite of defacto corporate software. And that is a disadvantage to it’s marketplace because…?
It’s a completely different market – and a vast one – but also a cautious one. Corporations don’t stand outside a store waiting for new toy they’re obsessed with, they wait to confirm that it works first.
What about the fact “32 giga bytes” really means 16gb…. THe iPad OS can manage on around 3gb of storage space for the OS, if RT is a tablet orientated OS, they the heck is it 16gb?!?! Is it just me who sees this as insane????
Its not only you, I’v seen people go back to the store because they think they have been given the wrong model. When they are told it is correct they return the surface, people don’t like being shited on.
I see your excessive use of question marks and exclamation marks as insane.
It’s kinda misleading but also somewhat standard in computing due to the whole 1000 bytes vs 1024 bytes issue.
I agree that MS need to streamline the OS though, having it take up that much room just for the OS is a pretty big dealbreaker (though at least it has expandable storage)
Ban gizmodo from their keynotes? It worked great for Apple.
“Where the heck is the Windows 8 Facebook app? Or the Twitter app?”
Well it seems that someone hasn’t used the people hub…
‘Microsoft is trying to court developers’?. I do not think so. The requirements to use Windows Phone 8 SDK are so high that most of the new developers have to buy a new computer with Windows 8, either Professional or Enterprise and a new Windows Phone 8 device, because Windows Phone 7.5 devices will not be updated. Too much money for a mere 5% of the market. Apple + Android have about 70% of the market. Microsoft should make it more attractive for developer to develop applications.
Also, unlock the boot-loader.