Bought a Surface RT... Good / Wise Choice?


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So I just purchased a Surface.

 

I know the Surface 2 is coming out soon but it was either let the store take a crappy netbook in for repair (which we'd get back at some point) or get a Surface.  The Surface 2 will be a bit out of our price range for what we wanted to spend.

 

I originally purchased an Asus v5 (Aspire?) Netbook for my GF to use at Uni, watching YouTube videos and browsing the web.  We soon realised watching videos through the netbook provided us with a stuttery unpleasant experience.  I put this down to it being a netbook rather than a fully fledged laptop.  After a few weeks the touch pad lost its multi-touch function too, so I took it back to the store where I bought it.

Unfortunately their money back offer lasts for just 21 days (of which I am 6 days out) so the guy said they would have to send it off for repair.  I wasn't exactly happy but thought it was better than nothing.  Then I asked if I could upgrade it to a Surface, to which he said yes.

 

So here I am with a Surface in my hand wondering if it was the best thing to do or not.

I would have to buy a type cover so it can be used easier and better but I don't know if a tablet was a good choice.  The problem lies in the fact the lady friend doesn't want a 14"-15" inch screen, hence we looked at net books.

 

The receipt may allow me to return the Surface and get the whole amount back but I haven't checked it yet.  If so this might be the option anyway, especially if she doesn't like it.  She doesn't like Windows 8 so far and even I struggle with it.

 

Will the Surface be any good for watching videos, browsing the web and Uni work?

I see it comes with Office which is great.

 

Thanks

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It will do what you want.  I personally would never buy a surface, there are much better options available (iPad, and various android tablets).  There are even some high powered netbooks.  I also do not like 8, and to be forced to use metro.. is a huge turn off.

So.. when all is said and done:

Can you watch youtube: Yes
Can you browse the web: Yes
Can you watch porn on the web: Yes

Can you write ###### down: Yes

 

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I think it's great for those purposes. Uni, college stuff should be sufficient as long as it's not a technical class that might require additional software installed on the students PC. For regular classes that requires writing papers and such, as long as the (screen) size is good enough then it should do great.

 

My wife being a teacher i'd recommend it to her. She does a little research every now and then so a mouse and touch type keyboard would be needed but with her laptop dead, I gave her my old Dell Latitude XT and put Windows 7 on there. That's good but it's just older and storage options are limited and it's bulkier than she'd prolly like (watch lots of TV online). Having Word on there will help her when she needs to write up stuff for school and create posters and all that but that's once in a while. She only needs that maybe once in 6 months or something.

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Well, after a night of playing around, the lady friend and I are impressed.

 

It is better than the Acer we bought as it's quiet, fast, does what we want.  Only bought the 32Gb one but that should be okay for what we need it for.  Gonna buy a type cover for it, maybe a cheapy cover for the whole thing.  If it works out nice then I'll keep it, skip the Surface 2 generation and look at replacing it with the 3rd.

 

As she has an Android phone, it might have been better for her to get an Android tablet, but she likes Windows.  PLus, it gives us a chance to play hands on with W8 before I look at upgrading my Win 7 machine (which isn't likely).

 

The only thing I don't like is when moving tiles.  I can't get the knack of how t do it.  On my Windows phone I push and hold, then drag it or change the size.  Win 8 seems if you push and hold, you can't drag it wherever you want as the others will auto-arrange around it, and if you don't start dragging at the right point then it's just deselected as fast as you selected it, if that makes sense?

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It will do what you want.  I personally would never buy a surface, there are much better options available (iPad, and various android tablets).  There are even some high powered netbooks.  I also do not like 8, and to be forced to use metro.. is a huge turn off.

So.. when all is said and done:

Can you watch youtube: Yes

Can you browse the web: Yes

Can you watch porn on the web: Yes

Can you write **** down: Yes

 

 

uh, what? Surface does everything any iOS or Android tablet does, PLUS more, PLUS it has full MS Office. There's no comparison, Surface is clearly superior in functionality, and has excellent build quality to back it up. It might not be great for everyone and you can talk about like/dislike Metro or pricing all you like, but simply objectively it certainly does everything you'd expect a tablet to do and then some.

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Well, after a night of playing around, the lady friend and I are impressed.

 

It is better than the Acer we bought as it's quiet, fast, does what we want.  Only bought the 32Gb one but that should be okay for what we need it for.  Gonna buy a type cover for it, maybe a cheapy cover for the whole thing.  If it works out nice then I'll keep it, skip the Surface 2 generation and look at replacing it with the 3rd.

 

As she has an Android phone, it might have been better for her to get an Android tablet, but she likes Windows.  PLus, it gives us a chance to play hands on with W8 before I look at upgrading my Win 7 machine (which isn't likely).

 

The only thing I don't like is when moving tiles.  I can't get the knack of how t do it.  On my Windows phone I push and hold, then drag it or change the size.  Win 8 seems if you push and hold, you can't drag it wherever you want as the others will auto-arrange around it, and if you don't start dragging at the right point then it's just deselected as fast as you selected it, if that makes sense?

Flick the tile upwards about a half centimetre (quarter inch). It will select the tile (like holding down on WP) and allow you to move it or resize it. It's a bit of a weird choice, I'd have preferred holding it down tbh..

 

The Surface kicks the snot out of the vivotab, which has had a pretty high return rate and a ton of known issues.

 

I'd hold off on the keyboard for about a month until the second gen keyboards hit. Then you can pick up a backlit one or one of the older ones cheaper.

 

The battery pack keyboard won't work for your surface RT >.<

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I'm a laptop guy so I wouldn't have started with a netbook, let alone "upgrading" from a netbook to a tablet. But for what you've listed as your needs, the Surface should work fine. At the end of the day if you like it and it does what you need then that's all that matters. (Y)

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It will do what you want.  I personally would never buy a surface, there are much better options available (iPad, and various android tablets).  There are even some high powered netbooks.  I also do not like 8, and to be forced to use metro.. is a huge turn off.

So.. when all is said and done:

Can you watch youtube: Yes

Can you browse the web: Yes

Can you watch porn on the web: Yes

Can you write **** down: Yes

 

In the Australian market, Surface RT costs less than a Galaxy Tab 3, is faster, has better battery life and more functionality.

 

The only time I don't recommend the surface is when the person wants LTE/Cellular support. The surface has 64/100 of the top100 list in the iOS store. It's getting there very fast in terms of app support, and will only get better.

 

I can't say I agree with your assessment, but at least you didn't come out and call it crap (kudos).

 

I would say that Metro isn't bad when you aren't jumping in and out of it. While I don't have a problem with jumping in and out, I know a lot of people do. Integrated multi-tasking and the way the metro apps work is just better imo. Just needs more app support :)

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I would have waited for the Surface 2, but if somebody handed me a Surface RT right now I would be very happy.  I wish I could afford one, even at the recently reduced price.  I chuckled when I read the comment about the iPad being superior.

 

Hopefully the 8.1 update will address the tile moving problem.  My desktop at home has 8.1, but no touch screen.  My work tablet is running 8, not 8.1, so I am familiar with how troublesome it is (I pretty much have to use the stylus that came with it--it has a button on the side that essentially right-clicks).

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I have a Surface RT, I also have a Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1", my wife got the Note to play her games on, the RT kicks the but of the Note, the iPad, I've never used one, I have two iPods a Touch and a Nano, I recently updated iTunes, I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get the Touch to work with iTunes, the Nano, no way, I had to use my wife's desktop to use it with iTunes, did I have to that with the Surface, nope, or the Note, nope, can I connect my wireless mouse and keyboard to the Surface, if I want to, yes, can I connect to my wireless printer without jumping through hoops, yes, no problem, can I put some movies on my USB stick and watch movies on my Surface, yes, no problem, could I do that with iPad, out of the box, no. Enough said.

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It will do what you want.  I personally would never buy a surface, there are much better options available (iPad, and various android tablets).  There are even some high powered netbooks.  I also do not like 8, and to be forced to use metro.. is a huge turn off.

So.. when all is said and done:

Can you watch youtube: Yes

Can you browse the web: Yes

Can you watch porn on the web: Yes

Can you write **** down: Yes

 

metro on a tablet makes total sense. metro on a desktop... not so much.

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I would have thought the new keyboards wouldn't work with older Surfaces?

I will hold off, unless I can get a type keyboard for ?90.99 new - a current "best offer" on ebay (down from ?99).

 

Good points raised though.

I would have waited for the Surface 2 and even got a 64Gb one but the size limitations will help us use it for what we bought it for, not a replacement for the newly build desktop :P

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metro on a tablet makes total sense. metro on a desktop... not so much.

 

Modern UI you mean? And noting forces you to use the Modern UI, you can pin stuff to taskbar, put icons on your desktop etc. And Windows 8.1 even lets you skip booting to the Metro Start Screen. So this "metro on a desktop" doesn't work thing, never really was an issue, just a way for people to complain.

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the new keyboard covers will work with the surface rt. the only ones that wont work are the power cover,and the music cover.

 

the great thing about surface rt is that ie has full flash support,so theres a bunch of stuff you can still do even though there isn't an app for it. just pin the site to the start screen.

 

if your gf is using it for uni, theres an app called Kno, which can be used to download all the textbooks.

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Hopefully the 8.1 update will address the tile moving problem.  My desktop at home has 8.1, but no touch screen.  My work tablet is running 8, not 8.1, so I am familiar with how troublesome it is (I pretty much have to use the stylus that came with it--it has a button on the side that essentially right-clicks).

 

You tap and hold tiles on the 8.1 Preview on the RT to move them, so the experience is just like Windows Phone.

 

I'm sure the RTM is the same, but we won't find out (at least on RT) until October.

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I'm expecting that the 8.1 update will give the Surface RT a nice little performance boost.   Honestly the one big thing people notice is that it's performance can be slow so any boost to that is welcome.   The other thing is the v1 apps are lacking but again the 8.1 update brings very good updates to the apps as well, like mail, which makes the overall experience better.   Really the only thing is the price because MS doesn't want to be too aggressive and step on it's OEM partners at this point so it's not going to be a loss leader like Amazon with the kindle fires and Google with the Nexus.   Still these are good devices and if what you want is covered then what more can you ask for?   I also expect the future to be interesting on the Windows side, specially with the news that RT and Phone will become one and we could see Phone apps running on RT tablets, probably in a snapped 1/3 view but hey, I'll take that hands down.

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