Why are the surface reviews so cheesy?


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Why is it that business rags of all publications are the only ones that review the surface as a surface and not an iPad?

Even the review here fails to show:

* Dual Monitor through HDMI out

* Office 2013 Functionality / Performance

* Xbox Music Streaming (free even if you don't have xbox pass)

* Windows HomeGroup Integration

* Deep Integration through Share - post to whatever service you have an app/interface for

* USB Peripheral Support - My keyboard. mouse, USB headset, USB Mic and even flight stick work!

* Printer Support - All of my HP printers work, and my Wireless Printer was found and HP even released a HP Scan and Capture that allows me to use the scanner over wifi

* Great PDF support. PDF reading looks beautiful in both portrait/landscape and is smooth

* Skydrive, Lynx, Skyp, smartglass, Remote Desktop, One note - a lot of "MS first tier" apps should get mentioned.. sure a lot of the typical "ipad" ecosystem apps aren't here but hardly any of the reviewers bother to show how the "other" ecosystem has some great apps & services to choose from.

I could go on and on, but its sort of depressing how most reviewers seem to miss the boat on what the Surface is on its own..

Yes.. i know reviews are opinions..

Yes.. i know the iPad **IS** what it will be "compared" against in many ways but man, it just seems so many reviwers fail to show what the Surface is and compare the iPad against it.

/rant

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This remind me of review from The Verge where they complained on the lack of FB app. I'm curious if I have IE10 metro with Flash player built-in, would I need an app for this?

TheVerge review was a total failure.. They gave it a lower score than the Chrome Book or the HP Touchpad and they definitely biased the review entirely as if MS was trying to create an iPad.. (while completely ignoring the vast ecosystem and functionality one gets by using the surface in a Microsoft ecosystem.. vs as an i*.* device)

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TheVerge and Gizmodo are a bunch of... I don't know what.

For me, AnandTech reviews are always the best in the class. Everything about the device, absolutely unbiased, is presented infront of the reader. I trust no one but Anandtech, when it comes to smartphones and similar gadgets

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TheVerge and Gizmodo are a bunch of... I don't know what.

For me, AnandTech reviews are always the best in the class. Everything about the device, absolutely unbiased, is presented infront of the reader. I trust no one but Anandtech, when it comes to smartphones and similar gadgets

Anandtech was very pro for sure!

I'll admit, the Neowin review gives me sad face because it completely ignored testing the surface in a deep windows environment and then seeing the new Samsung Note review follow up with a higher score was a WTF moment for me.. but like everyone says "they're all opinions.." guess i just don't like theirs ;)

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What I find funny are the reviewers complaining about things like the lack of adjustability in the kickstand or the fact that they have to use the touchcover on a flat surface as if these are dreadful failings. No other tablet offers a kickstand or a 3mm thick keyboard cover and I've never seen a reviewer bemoan the lack of these features in other reviews but now that Microsoft have included them they become negatives for the Surface. Similarly, assuming that the Surface is more like a laptop than a tablet simply because it has a keyboard accessory is a stupid mistake that I've seen a number of reviewers make.

Why is it that business rags of all publications are the only ones that review the surface as a surface and not an iPad?

Even the review here fails to show:

* Dual Monitor through HDMI out

* Office 2013 Functionality / Performance

* Xbox Music Streaming (free even if you don't have xbox pass)

* Windows HomeGroup Integration

* Deep Integration through Share - post to whatever service you have an app/interface for

* USB Peripheral Support - My keyboard. mouse, USB headset, USB Mic and even flight stick work!

* Printer Support - All of my HP printers work, and my Wireless Printer was found and HP even released a HP Scan and Capture that allows me to use the scanner over wifi

* Great PDF support. PDF reading looks beautiful in both portrait/landscape and is smooth

* Skydrive, Lynx, Skyp, smartglass, Remote Desktop, One note - a lot of "MS first tier" apps should get mentioned.. sure a lot of the typical "ipad" ecosystem apps aren't here but hardly any of the reviewers bother to show how the "other" ecosystem has some great apps & services to choose from.

I could go on and on, but its sort of depressing how most reviewers seem to miss the boat on what the Surface is on its own..

Yes.. i know reviews are opinions..

Yes.. i know the iPad **IS** what it will be "compared" against in many ways but man, it just seems so many reviwers fail to show what the Surface is and compare the iPad against it.

/rant

These are all very good points and it is a shame that they at least some of them haven't been covered in the reviews. Perhaps Microsoft needs to advertise these differences better.

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I think the problem is that the demographic is just too confusing. Few of those items matter to the normal consumer. As you cite, its those that would also like to use them for business or less common uses that it really starts to shine.

If most n00bs are fine with the less than stellar features of an iPad, it is a much harder sell in the new mobility segment that they are trying to break into.

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Yeah, they're not really reviews.

They're simply taking an iPad's features and comparing them to how things work on the Surface. There's no attempt to go beyond and treat the device as something in a different class of devices.

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I think the problem is that the demographic is just too confusing. Few of those items matter to the normal consumer. As you cite, its those that would also like to use them for business or less common uses that it really starts to shine.

If most n00bs are fine with the less than stellar features of an iPad, it is a much harder sell in the new mobility segment that they are trying to break into.

I disagree. I think the normal consumer will be very interested in things like USB and printer support, the familiarity of Office, etc as these are things they just expect to work on a computing device. Also, the fact that Windows RT also allows for multiple users is perfect for a tablet that is connected to so many cloud services but will spend all its time being used by different family members around the house.

Yeah, they're not really reviews.

They're simply taking an iPad's features and comparing them to how things work on the Surface. There's no attempt to go beyond and treat the device as something in a different class of devices.

I don't think the Surface has to be a different class of device. If you want it can just be a simple tablet like an iPad. However, it's real strength is that it is also capable of doing a number of things that would typically require a more powerful device.

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This remind me of review from The Verge where they complained on the lack of FB app. I'm curious if I have IE10 metro with Flash player built-in, would I need an app for this?

I think apps provide a much better experience than viewing a website in a browser, for many reasons, and they can of course integrate better with the WinRT APIs (contracts, charms, notifications etc). I'd much prefer a Facebook app to merely browsing Facebook using IE10, especially as the Facebook app would likely follow the Windows 8 design style.

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I think apps provide a much better experience than viewing a website in a browser, for many reasons, and they can of course integrate better with the WinRT APIs (contracts, charms, notifications etc). I'd much prefer a Facebook app to merely browsing Facebook using IE10, especially as the Facebook app would likely follow the Windows 8 design style.

No denying that a facbook app would be nice, but we're not losing or missing anything right now. You can already share to facebook through people hub - the facebook charm integration is there. (Same with twitter). People hub doesn't have active notificaitons, but it has a simpler notificiation feed.. maybe they will enable the notificatoin popup here soon to satisfy that request.

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No denying that a facbook app would be nice, but we're not losing or missing anything right now. You can already share to facebook through people hub - the facebook charm integration is there. (Same with twitter). People hub doesn't have active notificaitons, but it has a simpler notificiation feed.. maybe they will enable the notificatoin popup here soon to satisfy that request.

I agree with that. The lack of an official Facebook application certainly isn't going to influence me not to opt for Windows 8 :yes:

The lack of toast notifications from the People app is something that has irritated me since that app was released, and I'm not sure why Microsoft didn't include that feature, especially considering OS X now includes toast notifications for Facebook. That means Apple have once again beaten Microsoft in this regard even though the People app was released months before that OS X update. Having said that, FlipToast apparently includes toast notifications for Facebook, but I'm not sure how well that works because I haven't given it a good go.

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the biggest thing i see with the Surface RT tablet is that there is not enough documentation/advertisement that the RT version can only have apps installed from the microsoft store and not via EXE, MSI installs. They do not talk about this enough. They keep saying that the tablet is fully functional Windows without mentioning that. This. and specs is the reason i am waiting for the PRO tablet.

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Yea, I can't wait to hear sales monkeys completely screw the pooch on RT vs Pro capability.

The beat this like a dead horse at the Microsoft Store.. They were very imperative in describing what it can and can't do. I'm not sure why people think there is confusion.. most people will simply click on the app store and see what is installed from there..

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I can't see the Xbox Music app on my Enterprise Trial install. Is this app region limited or something? Sorry for being a bit off-topic here, but I want to try this thing out and can't ;)

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...at the MS Store. Didn't realize that's the only place selling them.

How exactly does clicking the app store tell them anything about the differences?

The app store only shows apps for the particular device they're on. If its not RT, they don't see it.. and yes, right now Surface is only sold online and MSFT stores / kiosks.

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