131 replies to this topic 1 votes

[Wyn6]

... Anyway, the lag was too much and was present everywhere. Once you use the Surface you'll notice the lag without question and it isn't any fun...

you mean once YOU use it. I have yet to experience anything resembling lag on the device. It runs every game I've thrown at it nice and smooth. Cut the Rope, Jetpack Joyride, and so on. Local 1080p video? Likewise. Streaming 1080p video... likewise. The only thing I have noticed is that if you have a lotta apps open it will drop frames when flipping between them if you go really fast. So, there may be issues with some multitasking. But, it drops the frames, so instead of sliding in apps just pop into frame instead.

Outside of that, it's been pretty darn king. But, that's my experience and perhaps somehow I got lucky and got a stellar device. But, their evidently are performance issues for quite a few people as MS has stated a fix is coming. Again... my experience isn't the same for everybody just as yours or others aren't the same for everybody else.

[+devHead]

If you're in love with the iPad, enjoy it and shut up. Why is it Apple fans among all others feel the need to constantly bash every other product there is out there? Oh, wait, maybe it's because Apple does the same thing. Any device or technology that might start to impinge on their empire of mediocre garbage is sued and mocked. So, I guess it makes sense. 1/2 a second? Are you for real?

[TheLegendOfMart]

Oh no!! Half-seconds of my life will be wasted!!!

I think he has a point, I'm no Apple fanboy but they have the UI and smoothness down to a 'T', same with Project Butter in Jellybean, everything needs to be smooth, have the same visual polish, needs to load instantly. When you load an app on IOS or Android they load pretty much instantly, menus transition and react instantly.

Microsoft is betting heavily on the Surface and even though in real world terms half a second means nothing, compared to the competition it means everything, they are targeting the surface as a premium device and when it slow to react and lacks visual polish it cheapens the product. When 'joe public' look at it they will wonder why its not as 'good' as the iPad.

[jakem1]

... sarcasm?

I played with one in the store, it's not there yet. Window 8 Metro, in general, isn't there with the apps yet either. I would have also needed the hard keyboard, which jacks up the price, which makes the whole thing a bit overpriced.

I mean, it's a nice concept, but it's not a magical wonder tablet like it could be.

There's absolutely no reason why you need a physical keyboard for the Surface. It's just a nice option to have if you want to do more than just watch a movie or play Angry Birds but the tablet works perfectly well without it.

[+sanke1]

I am holding back on Surface RT simple because it is a First gen product. I have no problem to wait for the platform to mature along with hardware refinements/upgrades next year.

But current assumption on Neowin is that if you say something slightly against any Microsoft product, you automagically become iSheep.

[threetonesun]

There's absolutely no reason why you need a physical keyboard for the Surface. It's just a nice option to have if you want to do more than just watch a movie or play Angry Birds but the tablet works perfectly well without it.

Considering it comes with Office installed, I disagree. They're clearly pitching it as a laptop replacement for the average person, which I think it would be perfect at, assuming it cost slightly less and had more apps.

[jakem1]

Considering it comes with Office installed, I disagree. They're clearly pitching it as a laptop replacement for the average person, which I think it would be perfect at, assuming it cost slightly less and had more apps.

You don't need to use Office though and I'm not sure they're pitching it as a laptop replacement. I'd say it's competing with other tablets but provides additional options which makes the keyboard optional as well. I've been using mine for the last week and haven't needed a keyboard once but it's nice to know that I can add one if I need to do something that's not suited to a touchscreen. In that sense, the keyboard isn't any more essential than the optional keyboard that's available for the iPad - it's just a lot more useful.

[threetonesun]

You don't need to use Office though and I'm not sure they're pitching it as a laptop replacement. I'd say it's competing with other tablets but provides additional options which makes the keyboard optional as well. I've been using mine for the last week and haven't needed a keyboard once but it's nice to know that I can add one if I need to do something that's not suited to a touchscreen. In that sense, the keyboard isn't any more essential than the optional keyboard that's available for the iPad - it's just a lot more useful.

Well, I don't see the point in buying it if you're not going to use the keyboard. If I'm limited to poking things with my finger, my phone does fine. This is true of the iPad as well, but considering the Surface actually built the keyboard in, to some extent, I have hopes for it being a semi-useful computing device in the future.

[jakem1]

Well, I don't see the point in buying it if you're not going to use the keyboard. If I'm limited to poking things with my finger, my phone does fine. This is true of the iPad as well, but considering the Surface actually built the keyboard in, to some extent, I have hopes for it being a semi-useful computing device in the future.

Oh, no worries, that's a bit different then. If you mean that you feel that you need it for specific cases then I understand why you feel it's necessary. There's a lot that can be done with just your fingers though and it's certainly easier than doing the equivalent on a phone for long periods of time.

I bought the touch cover separately and it arrived a couple of days ago. I have to say that it works surprisingly well considering what it is although I haven't really had a reason to use it in anger yet.

[psreloaded]

A look through his articles gave me the impression too that he is a little opinionated towards Apple and I am trying to be modest by saying a little.

[migo]

The Surface RT is a pretty terrible device. At $500 it has WXGA resolution against the iPad's QXGA, and the Nexus 10 comes in at $400 with WQXGA. It has the smallest software selection of any tablet out there. The only reason to buy one is because you like having the newest toys and you don't care about whether something is particularly useful or worth what you're paying for it (much like the first iPad).

Any Windows RT tablet is going to be useless at least until 2014. The Surface Pro on the other hand looks pretty good. Full HD resolution and a massive back catalog of software to take advantage of, and pen input to better make use of that back catalog with the touch screen.

[Sionic Ion]

The only major noticeable time I notice lag is when I use the Music app. Everything tends to slow down to a crawl when I use it. Heck I can't even get it to a play a song in a decent amount of time, I have to tap it a couple times, and then the action bar or whatever it's called pops up at the bottom and you see the name and the album art just begin to change, it might even switch the play button to a pause button, but it takes like over 10 seconds to begin playing a song, and sometimes it forgets if I quickly try to play a song and go to another app. If I try snapping the Music app with IE, IE has trouble drawing the webpages as I scroll and browse webpages. I've refreshed my Surface, updated my Surface, installed the Music app updates, but it still is a bitch of an app to use...

[Sionic Ion]

The Surface RT is a pretty terrible device. At $500 it has WXGA resolution against the iPad's QXGA, and the Nexus 10 comes in at $400 with WQXGA. It has the smallest software selection of any tablet out there. The only reason to buy one is because you like having the newest toys and you don't care about whether something is particularly useful or worth what you're paying for it (much like the first iPad).

Any Windows RT tablet is going to be useless at least until 2014. The Surface Pro on the other hand looks pretty good. Full HD resolution and a massive back catalog of software to take advantage of, and pen input to better make use of that back catalog with the touch screen.

You contradicted yourself... The Surface Pro is as much a novelty device as the Surface RT, if not a hell of a lot more. The Surface Pro weighs 2lbs, it's clunkier, less battery life, etc. Sure it may be as fast as my home PC and will have no lag with the Music app or any app for that matter...but lets not forget that comes with a very special signature price tag of $1000.00. It might be cheaper or more expensive, but there is no way it will be anywhere near the price of $500.00. Which is why I find it hard to compare it to the iPad, this is no second generation Surface that succeeds the Surface RT, it sells alongside the Surface RT, but with much more at a much higher price, it's not going to be better at the same price...

I like my Surface RT, I am just awaiting software updates to improve Windows RT's performance. It's hard to place Windows RT in the market, considering it is trying to be something it is clearly not, but it will get there, slowly but surely it will.

[brianshapiro]

I'll put it this way: Surface is a blatant, unbearable betrayal of the general purpose, open computing platform the "Wintel" standard has been for me during the latest couple of decades. The ARM-based Microsoft uber-**** is unforgivable, for me.

And regarding the ARM-based "desktop computers": I have x86 software archives, I play x86 games, I need x86 software, programs and applications, I won't even consider a "general purpose" ARM device a proper computer because until now, ARM chips have been implemented in castrated machines (a machine that depends on "app store" on-line remote services is a castrated machine, imo) and never in computers.

If the big corporations want a "cloud war" over digital data ownership, I'm pretty much armed already and I won't spare a single bullet against this "mobile cloud on-line tablet smartphone app store" crap.

Its not really unprecedented, there was a version of Windows NT released for ARM, also MIPS, PowerPC, etc... Microsoft wanted Windows NT to be processor independent.

[stockwiz]

my netbook is definitely faster with windows 8, but it's still far from what i could call 'lightning fast' ... tablets are expected to be fast I suppose, everyone has the bar held up to the nexus 7.