Microsoft's Intel-powered Surface Pro to launch in February Microsoft has announced the next major push in its Surface consumer hardware campaign, including the launch date of Surface Windows 8 Pro, the Intel-powered big brother to the ARM-based Surface Windows RT fondleslab that debuted in October. In a press release on Tuesday, the software giant said its latest tablet will arrive in …
It's not hard.
1. This device needs 8GB of RAM, 4GB is fine most of the time but sometimes it isn't, RAM is cheap but you can't put any more in this device so the manufacturer should include it.
2. The keyboard should be bundled, it's a major selling point of the device without it it's just a very expensive tablet with a limited supply of apps. If you're not bundling it then it should be $50 tops.
3. The SSD should be 128GB or 256GB, 64GB is going to disappear very quickly when you've got a full install of Windows. My laptop has a clean windows install and it's using 20GB, the surface pro will have a recovery partition using a similar amount. By the time you've installed Office and you're only starting at the formatted capacity of the SSD you're going to have about 10GB left for files.
My laptop is old and clunky and I'd definitely replace it with a surface if this stuff was solved, but the main problem with my current laptop is that it is maxed out at 2GB of RAM so I'm not going for anything that can't be upgrade to or comes with 8GB to start.
4Gb is fine. Mainstream desktops are still shipping with 4GB as standard, W8 is supposedly more efficient, the SSD will make swapping WAAAY faster, and ultimately the kind of apps which need 8GB are not the kind of thing you should be running on a tablet.
Kind of with you on the SSD except that for regular users, 64 probably is fine... meaning non techy types. With you on the keyboard.
Note though that this is really a reference device, anyone can make their own competing device since all this is is an ultra-slim touch PC. You'll have to wait for someone to make a beefier version.
> the kind of apps which need 8GB are not the kind of thing you should be running on a tablet.
>But then why bother with an Intel processor?
The quantity of software that requires Windows on an x86 processor but is very happy on 4GB or less:
Shitloads.
I've rarely come close to that limit, with multi-layered high res Photoshop documents, CAD, a rendering package and far more Chrome tabs open than I need.
>>But then why bother with an Intel processor?
Well my main PC has 4Gb. I run Visual Studio, Word, Excel, Paint.net, a bunch of games, etc. MOST software doesn't need more than 4Gb, other than games and art tools. You could even run Photoshop or 3DS-Max on 4Gb (for limited complexity projects).
"RAM is cheap". True, but the margins on something like this are thin - even $50 on another 4GB of RAM could be more than half the profit.
"a recovery partition using a similar amount [20GB]". Why? An ISO for Windows 8 is 3.5GB, and you can, of course, do a full OS recovery from that. Any additional applications won't need a further 16.5GB.
I'd agree with most of this, but I reckon that the derisory 64Gb is a conscious decision and deemed really only for "local" storage. Micro$oft will "encourage" you to use MS Skydrive to hold the family jewels. After all, we know how reliable and nationally pervasive mobile broadband is, right?
I read the same sentence and had the same thought, surely we don't need both? but if the Pro is a "general purpose PC" then maybe we do, we just dont know it yet, have to wait for MS marketing dept. to tell us we need them. I also kind of want one, most people at work have either an iPad or Android device for home use and I always ask what they use it for, "ohh everything, its so much easier than using the laptop.." etc etc, I have my Xbox account, my hotmail account and SkyDrive so going down the Windows route would tie them all up quite nicely and I would not need to get another login for Apple or the Google Play store, but...what do I do with it??
@JDX: "I actually kind of want one, though damned if I know exactly why."
Because you, like many of us on here (myself included) are like Dug the dog from Up! when he sees a squirrel, only for us, the squirrel is new-to-market tech. In some ways it kind of doesn't matter if we actually have a use for it or if it's actually very good or better than other solutions. It's new, and shiny...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrAIGLkSMls
Boss just gave the go-ahead to order as soon as it is available. I've been enjoying the RT, but the inability to run Win32 apps was a bit constraining at times so the Pro looks to be interesting to evaluate. Although, I suspect as soon as I start using the Pro I'll largely stop using the RT so I'm dubious about "the perfect complement to the Surface Windows RT" thing.
I have a question... As its running Windows 8, which under all that finery is STILL using a system registry, it's presumably going to suffer the same system slow downs that all versions of windows have Ben affected with since the dawn of time (well win95 anyway)
What happens when the system becomes so cripplingly slow that you have to nuke and pave? Will it reinstall all your apps or is it going to be a PITA?
>What happens when the system becomes so cripplingly slow that you have to nuke and pave? Will it reinstall all >your apps or is it going to be a PITA?
You make a disk image (clone) to an external disk (or network resource) once you have your system as you like it- settings, software installed, nice wallpaper etc. In the event of registry clog, theft, a nasty virus or an act of dog, you recover your system from that image.
What do you currently use?
What happens when the system becomes so cripplingly slow that you have to nuke and pave?
Since switching to a SSD 4 years ago I haven't noticed Windows slowing down over time, so I wouldn't imagine that the Surface will, either. Plus, Windows 8 has some nice improvements in system backup & restore.
As a PC without a keyboard, it's an expensive tablet.
As a tablet *with* a keyboard, it would become a very attractive proposition.
I want to replace my now relatively big, a little slow and low res netbook with a tablet but want something that runs specific Windows apps I use (with no viable "linuxy" or droid alternative that I like) *and* absolute must have is a keyboard, but also could be used as a tablet, ideally nice and thin. Surface Pro fits the bill, but stupidly expensive.
"it's presumably going to suffer the same system slow downs that all versions of windows have Ben affected with since the dawn of time"
It's ok it starts off slow and stays that way, well Metro apps (or whatever they are called this week) anyway. On the Win 8 desktop even Libra Office (oft criticised for being bloated) loads in an instant, but the Metro apps such as Weather and Calendar sit there spinning the hourglass for eons - I know they are cloudy, but it's connected to a fast ADSL and no google services take more than a blink of an eye.
They should have called this something else. Surface hasn't gripped people, so now Surface Pro somehow will? I've got a Transformer at home and for briefly writing emails it's far better than an On Screen Keyboard using device. I don't even use the trackpad, the screen is actually better for a device that size though smeary screens is an annoying occurrence.
I just don't really get Microsoft's thought process with this all though. It's all such mixed messaging.
Phone 8 = A phone
Surface = A tablet
Surface Pro = A tablet which has the main selling point of actually being really a desktop, and it's as expensive as a laptop
Windows 8 = A desktop OS that's trying to make you forget really hard that it's actually not a tablet OS, by hiding you in the interface of one.
So the tablets trying to be a desktop, and the desktop is trying to be a tablet. Jebus. If we could have the desktop trying to be a desktop that'd be a start. Under the hood Windows 8 is alright, an improvement on Windows 7... in terms of the Task Manager, SSD improvements etc. It's silly text sized interface, even in desktop mode with heavy tablet focus on my desktop PC that has absolutely not capability for touch, and never will as I actually quite like my arms as they are is a bit of a square peg in a round hole.
Microsoft can't move away from its dependency on the registry because of all of the 3rd party apps that use it. However, the win 8 registry now automatically defrags the hives as they're loaded and keys are organised according to usage frequency. These factors reduce the disk and memory footprint of the registry and will improve its performance.
All registry access is via APIs, so Microsoft could easily move away if they wanted. However the registry is a pretty optimal, fast and effective solution and way ahead of legacy alternative solutions like zillions of flat text files, so I can't see why they would want to.
A bird? A plane? A ship? A rocket? Superman?..
Any chance of sparing us the grammatical ECT? Please?...
Microsoft's Intel-powered Surface Pro for launch in February?
Microsoft's Intel-powered Surface Pro to be launched in February?
...but wait!.. there's more!... the new grammwow™ can even jiggle those original nine words into a grammatically competent statement! ...and save two whole keystrokes in the process!..
Microsoft to launch Intel-powered Surface Pro in February
...but wait!... Order now and you could qualify for our special limited-time offer to convert those two saved keystrokes into unique and appropriate accessories... Yes, that's right!... If you call within the next thirty seconds, we'll convert those two keystrokes into a matching set of custom hand-crafted inverted commas!...
Microsoft to launch Intel-powered "Surface Pro" in February
Order now! This once-in-a-lifetime offer is too good to last! Quotation marks limited to the first five hundred callers.
Grammwow™ is not recommended by physicians. Side-effects include insertion of tongue into cheek, anal leakage and sudden account termination syndrome. Always enjoy grammwow™ responsibly.
>That kind of ignorance, and grammatical error, is just as irritating as the examples quoted.
Knowledge != ignorance
Knowledge != "grammatical error"
Poor consideration, sometimes, but ECT is an extremely widely understood acronym. Why not test that? Highlight ECT then right-click on it and search... see what you get! If you're too ignorant to read common acronyms, too illiterate to realise that etcetera doesn't follow an adjective and too indolent to use a search engine, then you probably shouldn't be tangling with a grammar pedant. Consider yourself schooled young Turk.
You're being a prick, I didn't suggest it was anything to do with etcetera, I was well aware it was an acronym. However my point was that using an acronym, which isn't well known, and then being a grammar nazi about it is just you acting like an arsehole. Your comment that I should use a search engine to prove your point, that it is well known, does not stand up too scrutiny. That would only prove that ECT has a standard meaning, not a well recognised one.
You don't understand!
There are many people, and especially technical people, who continue to reject the notion that the disciplines concerned with social and cultural re-engineering, like marketing and political easing, can have anything to contribute, except perhaps peripherally, to the development of a new hermeutics of language. Still less are they receptive to the idea that the very foundations of their worldview must be revised or rebuilt in the light of such re-engineering. Rather, they cling to the dogma imposed by the long post-Enlightenment hegemony over the Western intellectual outlook, which can be summarized briefly as follows: that there exists an external world, whose properties are independent of any individual human being and indeed of humanity as a whole; that these properties can be described by ``meaningful'' grammatical laws; and that human beings can obtain reliable, albeit imperfect and tentative, knowledge of the inherent meaning of a phrase by hewing to the ``objective'' procedures and epistemological strictures prescribed by the (so-called) textual (and contextual) analysis.
But deep conceptual shifts within twentieth-century science have undermined this Cartesian-Newtonian metaphysics; revisionist studies in the history and philosophy of science have cast further doubt on its credibility; and, most recently, feminist and poststructuralist critiques have demystified the substantive content of mainstream Western communicative practice, revealing the ideology of domination concealed behind the façade of ``grammatics'' and ``morphology''. It has thus become increasingly apparent that grammatical ``knowledge", far from being objective, reflects and encodes the dominant ideologies and power relations of the culture that produced it; that the truth claims of sentence structure are inherently theory-laden and self-referential; and consequently, that the discourse of the community of linguistic "enforcement", for all its undeniable value, cannot assert a privileged epistemological status with respect to counter-hegemonic narratives emanating from dissident or marginalized communities. These themes can be traced, despite some differences of emphasis, in Aronowitz's analysis of the cultural fabric that produced, inter alia, quantum mechanics; in Ross' discussion of oppositional discourses in post-quantum science; in Irigaray's and Hayles' exegeses of gender encoding in subliminal televised messages; and in Harding's comprehensive critique of the gender ideology underlying the sciences of communication in general and marketing in particular.
This post has been deleted by its author
>It'll be interesting to see if their vision becomes a reality; merging the fondle tablet and keyboad/mouse desktop genres. Time will tell weather it flops or flies.
Throw in the wildcard of touchless human input- MS have researched this, LeapMotion are gathering interest (and have just signed a deal with Asus to incorporate it into laptops).
I say wildcard, cos it might be that people don't want to wave their hands in the air. Time will tell, as you say.
So we've already got people who look like twonks talking to themselves thanks to bluetooth hands-free headsets for phones, and now we're gonna have gesture recognition perhaps with people twitching and pulling odd gestures like Marcel Marceau on ice.
In days gone past people got locked in the loony bin for less...
as far as I can see, but Microsoft lost momentum. It will take a while to see which of the candidates eventually will get the professional business market share with tablets. At the moment, Android is still upcoming and Apple has a good footing in business. If Microsoft can catchup on this one, Android could easily become a marginal player with tablets for business use.
I'd like to see some success in business with this.
At present iPad is dominant, but that usually comes down to a sales persons or managers individually choosing them. Most don't have the "IT Department" stamp of approval as they don't have the integration, security or access control.
Still can't help but feel one of the other posters is correct, M$ has lost a lot of momentum on this. It didn't help that they decided to screw other a lot of users and push it as Desktop OS whilst removing the "Desktop" features such as Start Menu etc.
@K, re: "removing the "Desktop" features such as Start Menu"... since starting to use Win8 as my home desktop OS a couple of months ago, I've started to take note of how often I use the Start menu when using my Vista/7 work desktops. The answer is - not very much at all, actually. The only time I go into the Start menu most days is (ironically) when I'm shutting down. Once the machine is set up with Desktop shortcuts, the Quick Launch bit of the toolbar, etc, what do you (or 'the average user', if you're not average) really need the Start menu for?
Like a lot of people have said already, the lack of a Start menu was a bit disconcerting to start(!) with, but I soon got used to it. One has to suppose that a Microsoft spent at least an afternoon or two on usability testing, so perhaps they came to the same conclusion.
@Chris Long
Personally I agree, also if I need a Start Menu, I'll just download Start8..
But we are tech savvy - Your average 20-60 year old employee is far from that, give them Windows 8 and they will click round and eventually get frustrated as everything has changed and they can't find anything. (Also the argument that younger employees can work it out is crap, I work for a company were 90% employees are between 20-25, and most of them can barely switch a computer on (Not saying they are morons, just 99% of their lives revolve around a browser and little else!).
Now imagine if you had 200 similar employees. Are you really going to roll out Windows 8? It would anger employees, put a training burdon on IT staff and more importantly reduce the productivity of staff.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
