Surface Pro pricing and availability revealed!

[ChazUK]

Sadly battery life is more of an Intel architectural issue than a surface issue. I don't understand all the negative commentary being slung at it on battery life.

A wait until Intel's next gen hardware comes will be invaluable for the surface pro 2.

 

[lordofthereef]

Sadly battery life is more of an Intel architectural issue than a surface issue. I don't understand all the negative commentary being slung at it on battery life.

A wait until Intel's next gen hardware comes will be invaluable for the surface pro 2.

At the end of the day, no matter what the reason, four hours of battery life is incredibly low. Intel's fault? Microsoft's fault? Consumer: "Who cares? It sucks and I don't want it!"

Plus, if we are sitting here before it is released and saying "we need to wait until v2.0, that's a problem in and of itself IMO.

 

[spinedoc77]

At the end of the day, no matter what the reason, four hours of battery life is incredibly low. Intel's fault? Microsoft's fault? Consumer: "Who cares? It sucks and I don't want it!"

Plus, if we are sitting here before it is released and saying "we need to wait until v2.0, that's a problem in and of itself IMO.

It's consistent with ultrabooks battery life, that's what people will buy to replace and ultrabook sales seem to be very good. It still pops off to become a tablet, providing much more functionality than any ultrabook. It is more of an enthusiast or enterprise computer though, but you have the cloverfield units which are going to infiltrate the consumer market more IMO.

 

[ChazUK]

At the end of the day, no matter what the reason, four hours of battery life is incredibly low. Intel's fault? Microsoft's fault? Consumer: "Who cares? It sucks and I don't want it!"

Plus, if we are sitting here before it is released and saying "we need to wait until v2.0, that's a problem in and of itself IMO.

It is a really crappy situation for MS.

Release now and be hampered by current tech, wait for the next gen and get further behind when it comes to tablets.

You are dead right about battery life putting people off but isn't it comparable to current Ultrabooks and the like? I'm not dismissing the damage it could do though.

 

[Dr McKay]

I think thats a very good price, I hope to pick one up at some point.

 

[Liquorpuki]

Good to know they broke the $1000 psychological pricepoint. A 4 hour battery life sucks but I'd wait for testing to verify

For comparison, the ASUS Transformer Book uses an i7, has a smaller 38 WHr battery, a larger screen with the same resolution, but is rated for 5 hours.

 

[akuma13]

I've never owned a Microsoft product and I'm seriously thinking of selling my galaxy note 10.1 for this. The active digitizer, pen and full OS are a huge selling point for me. I'll be finally able to run full software applications(Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver)on a tablet for a reasonable price. Any students or designers in the same boat?

 

[rhinosrcool]

4 hours sucks! With intensive programs, who knows what it will be? For professionals and students, it makes a potentially productive device much less so. If you have to be tied to an outlet or they offer extended batteries, where's the mobility?

For $899, you get paltry storage. Add in the cost of the keyboard, and the price is over a $1000.

Are those who bought a Surface RT supposed to buy this, as well? Either they should have waited to release the RT or not released it at all. At present, it confuses things.

On a positive note, the pen addition is nice. If it works well, it would interest me; I am a big pen/stylus fan (for work, I have an iPhone 4; for myself, I have a Galaxy Note-Love the S-pen!). However, how many others are pen fans?

Hopefully, in real world settings, these things work better and don't just glut ebay.

 

[SomeDudeAsking]

This thing is dead on arrival. A 4 hour battery life is unacceptable. And it has a fan too, which makes me cringe.

 

[GroundLoop]

Would be too much to ask for Apple to design the 11" MBA into a tablet form factor so that I can just bootcamp into Windows 8?

GL

 

[ReanimationN]

http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsof...amily-surface-with-windows-8-pro-pricing.aspx

January 2013 availability and the pricing is as follows...

64GB - $899
128GB - $999

Both sans touch/type covers of course but they do include a stylus.

So it's effectively going to be around $1000 for the base model here in Australia, without the touch/type cover and with a 4-4.5 hour battery life... I was really looking forward to this MS, but I'm not going to pay that much for a device with such little in the way of battery life. I might start looking at Clover Trail Windows 8 tablets instead.

 

[Pjstock42]

4 hour battery life??? WTF is Microsoft thinking? This thing will fail worse than the Surface RT already has.

 

[gotzero]

I am going to take a serious look at this when it comes out. I am comparing it to the 11" MBA and 11" ultrabooks.

I think the RT and Pro surfaces are both neat products, and I will probably end up with one or the other but I am waiting for everything to actually come out and waiting for Office to stop being a preview on RT.

So far, my Windows Phone 8 experience is making me much more willing to give the surface a shot.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

As I and so many others had already predicted, the Surface RT was DOA and the Surface Pro from MS will likely fare even worse.

I expect hybrid devices like the Yoga to do far, far better than the Surface Pro from MS will ever do. MS has no acumen left as a product company outside their gaming division. And even the venerable Xbox is starting to show its age.

 

[Jibbajabba]

Wlst I don't think the Pro is quite suitable for most "consumer" - I think this is the killer for professionals, especially in IT - datacenter staff comes to mind.

The money we spend on laptops, tablets (Lenovo even) and "crashcarts" (monitor / keyboard / mouse stand on wheels) and KVMs is unreal.

One Pro could handle it all with full USB support for our precious 3D Barcode Scanner.

So yea - I think the majority of buyer will be IT departments as this device WILL BE cheaper than anything in comparison ..

But as a home device - too expensive for what it is really.

 

[TheHateMachine]

You guys should note that the battery tests done by websites like the Verge and Engadget cycle a webpage load over and over with full brightness. It is just to determine charge length with 100% load for multiple hours. These battery gauntlet tests are not indicative of actual use. It will more likely be around 6 hours.... much like existing ultrabook offerings. You aren't going to be hammering your wifi, display and processor at full load for 4 hours straight. You will be using it but these tests stress these devices as hard as possible for the battery.

 

[spinedoc77]

As I and so many others had already predicted, the Surface RT was DOA and the Surface Pro from MS will likely fare even worse.

I expect hybrid devices like the Yoga to do far, far better than the Surface Pro from MS will ever do. MS has no acumen left as a product company outside their gaming division. And even the venerable Xbox is starting to show its age.

RT is dead, I certainly agree with that. I don't think surface Pro is going to die though, I think it will have very healthy sales in the business sector, but it will never reach ipad like numbers, not even close, it will be an enthusiast tablet.

Where MS mis stepped, besides the idiocy of RT even existing, was they should have put all their eggs into the Cloverfield tablets. Windows 8 really really runs well on these, and next year we will have MUCH stronger Atom processors. They could have made the ivy bridge units as enthusiast models and made the cloverfield surface units for the general consumer, pricing it near the ipad in price. Instead they let their hardware partners take over cloverfield and they are not doing a good job, only samsung has released a cloverfield tablet at $649 which is respectable IMO. The other hardware vendors still have 3-4 weeks at least before they release, if not more with more delays, that's just a huge kick in the face for MS from them.

I'm so disappointed in the hardware OEMs I wish MS would just cut them loose and make all the hardware themselves like Apple does, but that would entail a huge risk and I don't think Windows 8 in it's current form is good enough at this point.

----------

You guys should note that the battery tests done by websites like the Verge and Engadget cycle a webpage load over and over with full brightness. It is just to determine charge length with 100% load for multiple hours. These battery gauntlet tests are not indicative of actual use. It will more likely be around 6 hours.... much like existing ultrabook offerings. You aren't going to be hammering your wifi, display and processor at full load for 4 hours straight. You will be using it but these tests stress these devices as hard as possible for the battery.

That's the other thing, do that many people really fully hammer their tablet for 6 hours in a row? I know I peck at mine during the day, take intake notes on it for 10 minutes, then it gets turned off for half an hour, etc throughout the day. Lunch I will read books or stream video, maybe read the news in the morning, then maybe browse the internet in bed when I get home. That's why my ipad and my windows 8 cloverfield tablet usually have around 40% when I fall asleep, it's rare that it's less than that and I consider myself a heavy user.

 

[noteple]

The original quote from Ballmer I believe said they would price the Surface Pro as an Ultrabook.

Thats good.
If its priced like an Ultrabook it will sell like an Ultrabook.
Maybe even less.

 

[ReallyBigFeet]

I'm so disappointed in the hardware OEMs I wish MS would just cut them loose and make all the hardware themselves like Apple does, but that would entail a huge risk and I don't think Windows 8 in it's current form is good enough at this point.

This is an important point. Critically important. The strength of Microsoft is that they have remained mostly out of the hardware business when it comes to personal computing. OEM OS and Application licenses are their bread and butter P&L items.

Unfortunately, this is the well-detailed "Innovator's Dilemma" as espoused by Christensen. They are victim to their own business model. They really should get into the hardware business, use their clout (and considerable cash reserves) to create a captive supply chain for HW device tooling, maybe even go out and recruit some of Apple's key component providers to switch sides and join them as their partner. But in doing so, they risk some degree of alienation with their bread-and-butter OEM licensing deals with everyone else.

The problem is that Microsoft erroneously views tablet computing as a device-agnostic affair for consumers and businesses. As Apple has clearly demonstrated with the success of the iPad, it most certainly is not. The shape and ergonomics of the hardware, when integrated with the screen resolution and power consumption, screams for an integration model. But since so many traditional laptop/PC makers are finding their market share losing to the tablet onslaught, they are trying to be "all things to all people" and have ended up with a totally watered down, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none product strategy. Its about as exciting as watered down white rice.

 

[spinedoc77]

This is an important point. Critically important. The strength of Microsoft is that they have remained mostly out of the hardware business when it comes to personal computing. OEM OS and Application licenses are their bread and butter P&L items.

Unfortunately, this is the well-detailed "Innovator's Dilemma" as espoused by Christensen. They are victim to their own business model. They really should get into the hardware business, use their clout (and considerable cash reserves) to create a captive supply chain for HW device tooling, maybe even go out and recruit some of Apple's key component providers to switch sides and join them as their partner. But in doing so, they risk some degree of alienation with their bread-and-butter OEM licensing deals with everyone else.

The problem is that Microsoft erroneously views tablet computing as a device-agnostic affair for consumers and businesses. As Apple has clearly demonstrated with the success of the iPad, it most certainly is not. The shape and ergonomics of the hardware, when integrated with the screen resolution and power consumption, screams for an integration model. But since so many traditional laptop/PC makers are finding their market share losing to the tablet onslaught, they are trying to be "all things to all people" and have ended up with a totally watered down, jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none product strategy. Its about as exciting as watered down white rice.

I would love for MS to embrace the hardware side. They would still have a lucrative OS business by licensing windows to oems who could in turn make cheaper devices, or they could just completely go the way of Apple. They would still have Office and such software to also give them income.

I do differ in opinion on the strategy of MS versus Apple. MS is attempting to provide a real computer tablet to the masses, although they have been trying for the last 20 years. The problem is that windows 8 doesn't mesh well between the 2 worlds of touch tablet and legacy desktop, until they solve that they may scare away less technically inclined folks to the ipad.

THIS is where MS future lies IMO, if they can fix windows 8 to mesh and if they push there low powered long battery full windows 8 tablets I think they would be a powerhouse no one could stop. But the reality is that the dual personality of Windows 8 is due to internal management turf wars and what's the chance of that going away? And MS chose to release the Surface pro with a 4-6 hour ivy bridge processor instead of a 10-12 hour cloverfield. It's a shame because all the components are there for a huge victory, but MS is squandering them badly at this point.

 

[jmgregory1]

I would love for MS to embrace the hardware side. They would still have a lucrative OS business by licensing windows to oems who could in turn make cheaper devices, or they could just completely go the way of Apple. They would still have Office and such software to also give them income.

I do differ in opinion on the strategy of MS versus Apple. MS is attempting to provide a real computer tablet to the masses, although they have been trying for the last 20 years. The problem is that windows 8 doesn't mesh well between the 2 worlds of touch tablet and legacy desktop, until they solve that they may scare away less technically inclined folks to the ipad.

THIS is where MS future lies IMO, if they can fix windows 8 to mesh and if they push there low powered long battery full windows 8 tablets I think they would be a powerhouse no one could stop. But the reality is that the dual personality of Windows 8 is due to internal management turf wars and what's the chance of that going away? And MS chose to release the Surface pro with a 4-6 hour ivy bridge processor instead of a 10-12 hour cloverfield. It's a shame because all the components are there for a huge victory, but MS is squandering them badly at this point.

What do they say about someone who keeps doing the same things expecting a different result? Perhaps the issue isn't the hardware but in fact is the idea of making a dual purpose OS? MS and their hardware partners are in for a really tough 2013.

 

[spinedoc77]

What do they say about someone who keeps doing the same things expecting a different result? Perhaps the issue isn't the hardware but in fact is the idea of making a dual purpose OS? MS and their hardware partners are in for a really tough 2013.

Well, we are in a different era. Microsoft finally has the technology to make a true windows computer that is as thin as an ipad, costs the same, and has the same battery life. The fact that a huge amount of consumers have accepted tablets also helps. The issue does lie in part with the hardware, the surface pro has that "old" tablet feel to it, it has fans, it is thicker, and has a short battery life, no they won't sell lots of them but they don't need to and that's not their intention. It's a tech demo. If MS truly wanted to enter the market and ditch their OEMs they would have concentrated on the cloverfield tablets, but they left these to their OEMs preferring to make money selling the licenses.

In terms of the software, they had to do it sometime and I applaud them for attempting to marry touch and desktop, something Apple has been afraid to do, saddling their consumers with a watered down toy OS where every minute is a compromise. Are they doing it perfectly? No, far from it, they have not meshed touch and desktop very well. But I really fail to see what the issue is, given we have to give MS a little faith here that they will continue to mesh these 2 worlds. They are the ONLY ones who have done this with an OS, this is new territory for everyone. Additionally I will happily weather the storm with MS to have a real OS in my hands and NOT have to compromise, but honestly Windows 8 is NOT any more difficult than iOS. We have all become accustomed to big huge buttons and stupidly simple interfaces with iOS and dumb tablets, yeah my 9 month old can use iOS but I fail to see why that's a plus and not a minus.

 

[jmgregory1]

Well, we are in a different era. Microsoft finally has the technology to make a true windows computer that is as thin as an ipad, costs the same, and has the same battery life. The fact that a huge amount of consumers have accepted tablets also helps. The issue does lie in part with the hardware, the surface pro has that "old" tablet feel to it, it has fans, it is thicker, and has a short battery life, no they won't sell lots of them but they don't need to and that's not their intention. It's a tech demo. If MS truly wanted to enter the market and ditch their OEMs they would have concentrated on the cloverfield tablets, but they left these to their OEMs preferring to make money selling the licenses.

In terms of the software, they had to do it sometime and I applaud them for attempting to marry touch and desktop, something Apple has been afraid to do, saddling their consumers with a watered down toy OS where every minute is a compromise. Are they doing it perfectly? No, far from it, they have not meshed touch and desktop very well. But I really fail to see what the issue is, given we have to give MS a little faith here that they will continue to mesh these 2 worlds. They are the ONLY ones who have done this with an OS, this is new territory for everyone. Additionally I will happily weather the storm with MS to have a real OS in my hands and NOT have to compromise, but honestly Windows 8 is NOT any more difficult than iOS. We have all become accustomed to big huge buttons and stupidly simple interfaces with iOS and dumb tablets, yeah my 9 month old can use iOS but I fail to see why that's a plus and not a minus.

The issue that keeps coming up is the suggestion that for an OS to be "real", it needs to run desktop programs that were designed to run using keyboard and mouse input methods. Why? Why is that the right thing to do? Especially when the the differences between tablet use and desktop or laptop use vary so widely. As I type this on my laptop, I just cannot see using touch input, given my fingers aren't 10" long where I could seamlessly move between keyboard and screen. And there is no reason to do that given I can simply move around the screen using the trackpad, doing most of the gestures the tablet OS uses.

And when on a tablet, I don't want the OS to try to act like a laptop OS, because the input and use method are not those of a laptop. I understand that is what you, Spinedoc, want and I've said this time and again, you're simply trying to use the tablet as a thin and light laptop most of the time. You share very little on the tablet use of your tablet - much like MS shows very little tablet use in their ads of the Surface, other than watching videos.

I disagree that MS's intention isn't to sell lots of Surfaces. There is no way in heck that they weren't hoping and planning on huge sales. You are giving MS WAY too much credit if you use their history as a guide.

The idea that things will change when the next better chip comes out is complete bunk. If that were true, they would be waiting forever. Apple has been able to do what they've done over the years using what's on the market, improving as technology improves. Why do you think MS should get a pass on the crap they're doing now suggesting that "the next one will be better and the real game changer"? That's the kind of talk we've heard over the past decade when comparing lots of companies and products to what Apple, for example, has. Remember Zune? It was the foretold as the end of the iPod's domination. Windows phones - the death of the iPhone. The ultra book (an Intel copy in this case, but still a valid comparison given the software driving it) was going to destroy Apple's MBA growth, but issues with MS trackpad software and battery management just makes the differences between Apple and MS stand out that much more.

And to suggest that winning on this tablet/laptop abomination is having a bunch of OEM manufacturers who only know how to race to the bottom of the barrel, just like they have done with traditional computers over the past decades, is going to end in anything but a bunch of crappy cheap tablet/laptops is foolish at best.

If you're a doctor, would you want to use tools that don't do exactly what you need and that are made by a company that has cut corners just to make said tool cheap?

 

[hyteckit]

Wow. I already smell a massive failure.

Price, Size, and battery life. Ouch.

 

[spinedoc77]

The issue that keeps coming up is the suggestion that for an OS to be "real", it needs to run desktop programs that were designed to run using keyboard and mouse input methods. Why? Why is that the right thing to do? Especially when the the differences between tablet use and desktop or laptop use vary so widely. As I type this on my laptop, I just cannot see using touch input, given my fingers aren't 10" long where I could seamlessly move between keyboard and screen. And there is no reason to do that given I can simply move around the screen using the trackpad, doing most of the gestures the tablet OS uses.

And when on a tablet, I don't want the OS to try to act like a laptop OS, because the input and use method are not those of a laptop. I understand that is what you, Spinedoc, want and I've said this time and again, you're simply trying to use the tablet as a thin and light laptop most of the time. You share very little on the tablet use of your tablet - much like MS shows very little tablet use in their ads of the Surface, other than watching videos.

I disagree that MS's intention isn't to sell lots of Surfaces. There is no way in heck that they weren't hoping and planning on huge sales. You are giving MS WAY too much credit if you use their history as a guide.

The idea that things will change when the next better chip comes out is complete bunk. If that were true, they would be waiting forever. Apple has been able to do what they've done over the years using what's on the market, improving as technology improves. Why do you think MS should get a pass on the crap they're doing now suggesting that "the next one will be better and the real game changer"? That's the kind of talk we've heard over the past decade when comparing lots of companies and products to what Apple, for example, has. Remember Zune? It was the foretold as the end of the iPod's domination. Windows phones - the death of the iPhone. The ultra book (an Intel copy in this case, but still a valid comparison given the software driving it) was going to destroy Apple's MBA growth, but issues with MS trackpad software and battery management just makes the differences between Apple and MS stand out that much more.

And to suggest that winning on this tablet/laptop abomination is having a bunch of OEM manufacturers who only know how to race to the bottom of the barrel, just like they have done with traditional computers over the past decades, is going to end in anything but a bunch of crappy cheap tablet/laptops is foolish at best.

If you're a doctor, would you want to use tools that don't do exactly what you need and that are made by a company that has cut corners just to make said tool cheap?

You keep missing the point. Right now you have to choose between your laptop and your tablet, with windows tablets that does not exist anymore. If there is a legacy program I need to run I can run it on the desktop, I can add a keyboard and mouse and run it, I can run it in tablet mode, these are CHOICES I don't have with the ipad. You keep going back to the same thing which boils down to if you need a laptop go buy a laptop, but that's because you are stuck in iOS land where you truly do have to buy a laptop to go with your ipad. I'm very confused, if you have your tablet set up as a laptop why would you touch the screen? You are trying to mix functionality that not even microsoft is trying to make you mix.

I'm also not giving MS a pass until the next chip comes out. That chip is here TODAY, it's called the cloverfield cpu. Certainly we are talking specifically about the surface pro with ivy bridge and I have never denied that it will not sell well and be relegated to an enthusiast purchase. But for MS to strategize to sell a lot of hardware they would have to totally alienate the OEMs, this is a risk I'll bet they are just not willing to make yet. The surface tablets are there way of testing the market, will it be viable for them to ostracize their oems and be the only hardware market similar to Apple? If not they are also hedging their bets by giving the OEMs the middle market and keeping their core business of selling licenses alive. It's very risky either way and maybe straddling the line is a big mistake for MS, only the future will tell.

You are right though that the OEMs suck badly and to rely on them is very risky, MS was already let down in a big way when no OEMs had a single tablet available at windows launch.

As for "a company that has cut corners just to make said tool cheap" I don't see this in Microsoft in the least. I'm actually quite impressed that they are releasing the surface pro at the same price point as a comparable ultrabook. If you look at the keynotes you would see the incredible quality in the surface tablets, the incredible technology, etc that went into them, I don't see a hint of cheapness there at all, in the sense of hardware Microsoft has out-ipadded the ipad. But once again it's a niche device, possibly meant as a tech demo, possibly meant as a way to set the bar for OEMs, possibly meant as a way to test the market of being an Apple like hardware vendor, or some combination of the above.

edit: a bit off topic, but since you mentioned it not everyone thinks touchscreens on laptops are bad including myself. I don't think it's the next big thing though, but once again it is another CHOICE you have. I'm not sure why you want to limit yourself so much, why not have the choice to detach and use as a tablet? Why not have the choice to touch the screen while in laptop mode? Why not have the choice to use the desktop and legacy programs? There are all choices you don't have to take, I don't understand why someone would want to paint themselves in a corner so much. Anyhow one reviewers take on laptop touchscreens: http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/30/3710900/gorilla-arm-touchscreen-laptop-windows-8-apple