Is your Surface Pro a bit full? Slot in an SD card, it's not from Apple
There's massive internet coverage today of a major "issue" with the forthcoming Microsoft Surface Pro slab, the latest attempt by Redmond to unseat Apple's iPad line from its global tablet throne. It's being widely reported that the Surface Pro arrives with a lot of its onboard storage already full up: but this is a foolish …
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The story exists to counteract the large number of tech articles which have appeared over the last 24 hours praising apples bold move and saying that the android tablet manufacturers will be shitting themselves:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2013/01/29/apples-128gb-ipad-just-gave-every-android-tablet-manufacturer-a-headache/
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/510506/with-a-128gb-model-ipad-throws-down-to-surface/
El Reg *exists* to bash Apple
Satirically true, but it's a ballsy move to criticise the iPad by praising the Surface Pro! ;-)
It's sadly a symptom of the public's perception that the iPad *is* the tablet form, and have set expectations against it. TBH, I'd assumed that android tablets suffered the same storage conundrum, my HTC Desire did anyway.
No-one bats an eye at your PC coming with 20GB of storage taken up by the OS and apps. Hell, no-one bats at your 500GB hard drive actually being ~475GiB.
Or for $200
You can buy a wireless 1TB HD. Been testing one of these, and despite the HD manufacturers attempt to torpedo it with really horrible apps and software (HD manufacturers really need to employ some decent GUI writers), the hardware is very good. For the time being, i.e. until it dies, I'll stick with my W8 128GB SSD and 8GB DDR3 laptop, and still be quids/bucks better off.
Re: Or for $200
Were talking about a Windows 8 Pro computer with intel X86 CPU. Try loading Office 2013 from a portable wireless HD, not much fun!
I'm really frustrated with my decision to buy an Ultrabook with only 128GB. Even with Win7 Pro and Office 2010, admittedly the full version, VMware Workstation and VMWare Server tools there is not much space left.
Re: Or for $200
Never mind msoffice on an x86 tablet. I don't even like using wireless for media transfers on an ARM phone or tablet. Wired interfaces are dramatically faster. Transferring anything "into the cloud" is even worse.
Re: Or for $200 @Volker
Not much speed difference from an SD card though. Unless you spend cash on a high spec card you're going to top out at 20-30Mbyte/sec on your SD card. Bad news for apps like Office.
Raison d'être
Do people really need telling that apple mobile products are just wallet raping hobbled devices?
Far far to limited to be called a 'smart' device in my eyes, its only smart is taking the 30% cut so the marketing team can keep the cool cannon firing.
iTwats gotta love em.
There are these things called...
USB adapters for the ipad. You can us an sd card with ipad too.
Re: There are these things called...
Not exactly the most elegant or robust solution though.
16k ram packs spring to mind.
Re: There are these things called...
Well, you can - but only for a limited subset of strorage
Re: There are these things called...
But only if you want to look a fool, wandering around with your iThing with a USB adapter and an SD card reader hanging from it.
Re: There are these things called...
"USB adapters for the ipad. You can us an sd card with ipad too."
My last laptop didn't have a built in webcam, according to your logic I could just carry around a webcam taped to the lid.
Oh and for sake of calrity, I have an iPad and use the SD card adapter - it s PITA at best
Re: There are these things called...
Whereas you'll look a real genius trying to do "proper work" on a TIKFAM abortion!
Re: There are these things called...
It's a simple camera adapter people, have you never heard of them? It's not even a dongle, and I can use what ever sd card I want with it. Jeeze...
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-iPad-Camera-Connection-MC531ZM/dp/B003K1EYM6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1359570991&sr=8-1&keywords=camera+adapter+for+ipad
Re: There are these things called...
Of course! Whenever i run out of memory on a device i look on amazon for a camera adaptor! C'mon people, that's gotta be better than using an "sd card" in a "slot"!
Re: There are these things called...
All these anti-apple comments from people who have no idea how it actually works - the USB adapter lets you COPY the data onto the iPad - you do not leave it hanging off the bottom - well you could but there is no point. You copy the data then you unplug it.
Re: There are these things called...
And if it's more gb of data than the Ipad has? Hmmm...
Most of your stored data shouldn't be on your devices, it should be in the cloud already.
This is especially true of 'always connected' mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones.
"Most of your stored data shouldn't be on your devices, it should be in the cloud already."
When raw image formats are supported then maybe, right now I would have to bring every raw file down to the device to render it as it cant be viewed on any cloud platform i know of
Rubbish. Science Fiction. The wireless infrastructure simply isn't there yet. Connectivity is sporadic, and when it is connected, there isn't enough bandwidth for full cloud use to be practical, and if you somehow manage to get enough bandwidth, its too expensive to make full use of. And that's before we even get started on the reliability of the cloud services, privacy issues, copyright issues, and so on.
In 10 years, this may all change. In 20 years, I'm sure most of it will. But right now? Nah. Its just a toy.
Plus
some of us don't want to be connected ALL to some network all the frigging time.
some of us have better things to do.
Headline News,
New Software releases drive up rates of Internet Addiction.
Pah. Bah Humbug. Where the Grumpy od git Icon when you need it eh?
Even wifi is not 100% reliable, I can't 100% reliably stream to my TV, let alone rely on mobile connections!
I like my data in my hand/wallet
Limited capacity
causes limited uses - particularly in the Corporate arena.
HDDs can be encrypted and locked down. Great, so there is potential for use in Public Sector.
Tablets? Well to some extent yes. But you cannot lock down SD cards securely - and they are more likely to be lost than USB flash drives. And use of WiFi.....unless fed through a VPN I'd rather have it disabled.....which is damn near impossible on the iPad (yup 3G is ok if using the fruity provider).
So although there are clammerings from the masses for new shiney toys, for anything that is being used out of an office I'll stick to a laptop thanks.
Until matters improve.
Re: Limited capacity
I'm not sure of the exact mechanics of it, but the S in SD stands for Secure and if memory serves, a card can be quite securely locked down.
Re: Limited capacity
"And use of WiFi..... I'd rather have it disabled.....which is damn near impossible on the iPad"
I believe the latest iOS update may resolve that for you...
Ipad WiFi
Airplane Mode possibly?
It works fine on my old Ipod Touch.
Re: Limited capacity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Digital#Card_security
Re: Limited capacity
Um... Blackberries have the option to encrypt stuff stored on the SD card. The problem could be that not all OSen support this, and that when they do, it isn't interchangeable with other devices or PCs.
Surface - if you buy one and then jump through hoops to work around its failings
"Card full up too? Buy the next biggest card and copy all your existing stuff onto it"
In other words, we have to do memory management.
Here was me thinking computers are supposed to make our lives simpler and do things for us? But with Microsoft's Surface, we have to manually organise our data by shuffling cards and somehow keeping those cards in sync.
For some kit that is as astronomically expensive as the Surface, this is not forgivable. As owning such kit means you have to perform chores to work around its limitations.
And there's nothing more horrific than having to use metro to mess about micromanaging the memory!
EPIC SURFACE FAIL!!
Re: Surface - if you buy one and then jump through hoops to work around its failings
My 64GB iPad is full, excuse me whilst I go and copy its entire contents to a brand new 128GB iPad
Re: Surface - if you buy one and then jump through hoops to work around its failings
"For some kit that is as astronomically expensive as the Surface, this is not forgivable. As owning such kit means you have to perform chores to work around its limitations."
did you mean surafce or iPad in that statement? 'Cos it applies more to Apple products that anything else...e.g. no SD card slot or USB so I have to perform chores to work around the limitation of simple file transfers from other devices/drives - somethin unforgiveable for the cost of the product, don't you think.
Lol
Re: Surface - if you buy one and then jump through hoops to work around its failings
@AceRimmer et al - I'm not the one to defend the iPad. For mobile I'm into Android systems myself - they are the least closed.
Re: Surface - if you buy one and then jump through hoops to work around its failings
Like the Nexus, which doesn't have an SD card slot either?
The problem is
The way it's advertised. If you're told. "Hey buy this tablet, it's got 64gb of space" joe blow is going to expect 64gb of space, not 40 (or however much it is)
It isn't as noticable o the iPad and android so people didn't cry about it back then, but with the microsoft attempt stealing half your storage it just stands out too much. Perhaps if they advertised it as "40gb free storage" rather than 64gb people wouldn't whine as much.
Personally I'm avoiding it just because I dislike the metro interface.
must cough a minimum £639, maybe £739.
Unless you, like, sell the old one.
Re: must cough a minimum £639, maybe £739.
Sell the old one, buy a new one, copy all your stuff over. Easy! Or is there a tiny flaw in this plan...
Re: must cough a minimum £639, maybe £739.
>>Sell the old one, buy a new one, copy all your stuff over. Easy! Or is there a tiny flaw in this plan...
Yes, you just sold the old one with all your data on it!
Re: must cough a minimum £639, maybe £739.
And you're too stupid to back the old one up and erase it before you sell it?
Moving from one Apple device to another is about as pain free as you can get. Restore the last backup and you're done.
Re: must cough a minimum £639, maybe £739.
@Mystic Megabyte: It's called a rhetorical question.
@Steve: it's not easier to back up a device, sell it, buy a new one and restore than it is to slot in a bigger SD card. This discussion isn't really about what's possible, it's about what's convenient. Isn't convenience supposed to be the great thing about Apple devices?
Just buy a new one!
"It's not so simple if you're an Apple lover. If your iOS device ever fills up, you will have no remedy but to buy a new one. "
Actually you could determine which device better fits you needs, and get the one with best cost/benefit (Apple, MS, whatever solves YOUR problem). You could plan which apps and data you need on the device. If it gets filled you could erase some stuff you don't really need on the device, send it to a HD, cloud, whatever. If this persists then, and only then, you may consider buying a new one.
But I digress, we're bashing Apple, no need to make sense.
Re: Just buy a new one!
Or, if you've got an sd card slot just get a bigger card. But we're defending Apple here, no need to contemplate the possibility that a feature missing from iDevices could be useful.
Re: Just buy a new one!
My first iPad was a 64gb but actually with all the cloud stuff and a bit of organisation I found it was not being used so next time I bought a 32gb version - still have stacks of photos, music, apps and everything else.
I actually have a wifi hard drive now (although rarely actually need it) - it's more to share data with multiple users with different devices - but with it I have 500Gb of 'data' plus the internal storage.
Re: Just buy a new one!
64GB is your limi, they don't make bigger microSD cards, and it has to be microSD. 64 + 38GB (the amount you have free if you delete the recovery partition) = 102GB, and that's still a fiddle as you'll have to shunt stuff between card & SSD to get them to fit. Last time I checked 102GB was less than 128GB.
But the thing is.....
They stil sell more than any other single manufacturer by a wide margin. I mean Android slaes are made up of like what 40 companies plus, Apple one, so they must be doing something right!
Optional
It's all well and good being able to add to the capacity by means of an SD card or similar, but I'd imagine that this type of storage is significantly slower than the onboard storage.
I remember when I had an HTC phone which had a microSD slot that apps would load a lot quicker from the onboard flash memory. I know there are faster generations of SD cards, but can they compete with the onboard memory?
Re: but can they compete with the onboard memory?
do they need to?
SD cards are used as expansion to mainly store video, music, photos (and of course meeting notes). SD cards are more than fast enough to handle realitime HD video write and read so why would you need something faster? Why do they need to complete with onboard memory? It's not like you want to play video at 1000x speed is it?
Re: Optional
Depends mostly on the card. A Class 4 SDHC Micro is probably not going to be as speedy as onboard Flash. A Class 10, OTOH, should get you pretty close, and all SDXC Micro cards are at least Class 10 (as UHS-1, the minimum speed of SDXC, surpasses SDHC Class 10--it was specced for 1080p recording).
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