OEMs can't compete with the Surface and that may be bad.

[Mockingbird]

Exactly! 

 

I am a firm believer in tablet computers, but not extra large phones.

[bankajac]

I am a firm believer in tablet computers, but not extra large phones.

What exactly makes a tablet preferable over and ultabook in your opinion?

[DConnell Member]

What exactly makes a tablet preferable over and ultabook in your opinion?

 

Flexibility. You can add a mouse & keyboard to a Windows tablet - the Surface is designed to connect to one. On the other hand, you can't remove the keyboard from an Ultrabook on those occasions when the laptop form factor isn't ideal. If all other specs and price were comparable and either would serve my particular needs, I'd choose the one that's more adaptable.

[Mockingbird]

The only one that's putting a legitimate effort into competing with the Surface is Asus with its Transformer Book.

 

Everyone else seems to be in an also ran status.

 

Dell's Venue N Pro looks like an effort to undercut the Surface on price and that's about it. I don't see much effort to making it better then the Surface.

 

Yes, Lenovo is trying with its Yoga, but those are not really tablets.

[Mockingbird]

In general, the OEMs lack the political courage to investing in developing and marketing something new.  

 

Instead, all that is done is to imitate the leader.

 

An old saying: "Without risk, there is no reward."

[HawkMan]

Both Windows tablets and Ultra Books can run the same stuff.  I was not comparing to Apple or Android.

 

 

Ultrabooks are terribly awkward to use when you're in a position where you can just sit and hold the tablet and navigate with the other hand.  Bus, back/passenger seat, sofa, bed,  on table in meeting room without looking like an idiot with a laptop screen up covering half of you, when walking around offices/work spaces, when mobile troubleshooting as a tech. 

 

or when you just don't need a "big" laptop with a keyboard, like reading on screen comics or books or watching movies. 

 

you know a million situations where a tablet is better, more suited, more practical, or more comfortable.  There is on the other hand very few if any situations where you'd need/want a ultrabook over a SP3 for example. Especially where that situation isn't better solved by a secondary cheap larger laptop. 

What exactly makes a tablet preferable over and ultabook in your opinion?

question is backwards. 

[Showan]

You mean 66% of the entire tablet market isn't enough to justify investment? What are you smoking, because I'd like some.

 

I think u missed the point..

[Showan]

OEMs brought this on themselves, before Surface they all had a chance to do something special.  Yet they all fell back to the their let's just use a generic design spec and concentrate more on bloat installs. 

 

.

[Mockingbird]

OEMs brought this on themselves, before Surface they all had a chance to do something special.  Yet they all fell back to the their let's just use a generic design spec and concentrate more on bloat installs. 

 

 

The OEMs can't blame Windows any longer for their products not selling.

[link6155]

The Surface is no doubt a great piece of hardware, I just wish other OEMs would take note of this. Instead of building cheap plastic tablets or bulky heavy bricks, they should copy what the Surface has done and create a balance between hardware and Software. The only OEM that has really taken some steps is HP with their Envy X2 13.3/15" tablets. No other Windows tablets have the same innovation that Microsoft has.

[Anibal P]

OEMs brought this on themselves, before Surface they all had a chance to do something special.  Yet they all fell back to the their let's just use a generic design spec and concentrate more on bloat installs. 

 

.

 

Pretty much this, with the exception of 2-3 companies actually trying, most are selling the same crappy or overpriced laptops they have been selling poorly for the last decade, MS showed them "different" could sell well, and most pushed out one bad attempt and went back to the samne old crap no one wanted in the first place 

[Osiris]

It will happen in time, you have to remember OEMS invested in the tablet pc (or windows tablet) space long before Microsoft did and they got burned.  I would also argue that some oems have produced nice products already however they have either been targeted to businesses or niche areas that aren't going to propel them to capture large % of the market but doesn't mean there isn't a market there for them.

 

Balance is also tricky in terms of specs, materials, design, price, MS has excelled in this area and if you get it wrong it stings, look at the Sony's SP2 era tablet competitor; beautiful design, prices on par with SP2, some nice features, light weight...so light in fact that the battery life made it near useless.

 

Windows tablets are a growth space I really don't see us at risk of being exploited from a MS dominated market, others will join back in especially as MS seems to be keeping its distance from accessories and areas of design they aren't interested in.  I dare say over the next 3 years we will look back and say this is a good example of a high tide raises all boats.

[Mockingbird]

The Surface is no doubt a great piece of hardware, I just wish other OEMs would take note of this. Instead of building cheap plastic tablets or bulky heavy bricks, they should copy what the Surface has done and create a balance between hardware and Software. The only OEM that has really taken some steps is HP with their Envy X2 13.3/15" tablets. No other Windows tablets have the same innovation that Microsoft has.

 

Have you seen the 2nd generation Lenovo ThinkPad 10?

 

It has mostly the same hardware as the Surface 3. There's also optional keyboard, active pen, and docking station.

 

The problem is that it's more expensive than the Surface 3 and only businesses would buy it.

[George P Global Moderator]

I think Asus and Lenovo are going all in, the Windows tablet and 2-1 space is the only one growing at this point, while other tablet platforms look to be in freefall, specially if you ask Samsung and Apple.

 

It'd also help if they had some better, what I'd call, mid-range devices.  Right now you have the high-end Surface Pro, and even the Surface 3 starting at $499 is a bit high-end to, and a bunch of $200 and less mech devices.   A very nice spec'd, you know, full HD screen for starters, not this 1280x800 stuff, for $299 would sell very well IMO.  It should be possible for someone like HP or Dell or Lenovo to release a Surface 3 device, hardware wise, but for $399 or less, under MS's higher prices, and do well. 

[seta-san]

best buy was selling a $50 win 8.1 tablet from an off brand with in intel atom processor and 1gig ram. I picked it up for my dad who used it and promptly threw away his android

[Gabe84]

I am very happy that Microsoft has entered the hardware business and I hope they'd do even more, that is laptops, desktops and all-in-one computers.

 

First Microsoft has such a huge reputation and they cannot afford to sell terrible products, they have to keep certain quality standards, you get a clean install of their OS, that's already a big plus, and you know their OS will work in the future, I mean, if they sell you a Surface or a phone and they say that those devices will be supported for X years you can count on them to make future versions of their OS work with that kind of hardware, and even if you buy low specced devices there's a good chance you won't be stuck with a brick but you'll still have a working device.

[George P Global Moderator]

I agree they should do more, but how much more can they do and will the OEMs still feel good about it?  I mean the Surface is in part priced high not only because it's a premium product but to give OEMs room to price their own stuff better, MS doesn't care if it's OEM partners take away sales from it as long as it's a Windows device being sold.

 

This might be why we still don't have a mini Surface, also it's pretty hard to make one and be different enough, or so they said.  A Surface ultrabook might kill off sales of the Pro though, hard to tell.

[Quikboy]

A lot of it is brand power. Microsoft's brand power is much stronger than most OEMs making Windows tablets. Consumers may even place more faith in the Microsoft brand than some of the OEMs they've had experience (cough*HP*cough).

 

A pretty rock solid product combined with heavy marketing (TV ads, product placement, web ads, MS stores, etc.) would definitely have an impact on sales.

 

Microsoft has actually managed to kind of make an "it" product. Even some of the wealthy that traditionally buy-in only to the Apple brand products are giving the Surface a serious look. It's not hard to come across people that have some form of the Surface, who are actually satisfied.

 

Other OEMs need to try harder to differentiate themselves and make compelling product lines that consumers want. Better designs, precision trackpads, exclusive apps (that people actually want), unique features, better hardware and more can compete with the Surface. IMHO, Lenovo, Dell, Sony have done a great job in this area. Asus and Acer have done OK, and HP is the same as usual.

[Mockingbird]

I think Asus and Lenovo are going all in, the Windows tablet and 2-1 space is the only one growing at this point, while other tablet platforms look to be in freefall, specially if you ask Samsung and Apple.

 

It'd also help if they had some better, what I'd call, mid-range devices.  Right now you have the high-end Surface Pro, and even the Surface 3 starting at $499 is a bit high-end to, and a bunch of $200 and less mech devices.   A very nice spec'd, you know, full HD screen for starters, not this 1280x800 stuff, for $299 would sell very well IMO.  It should be possible for someone like HP or Dell or Lenovo to release a Surface 3 device, hardware wise, but for $399 or less, under MS's higher prices, and do well. 

 

The optimal price for a 2-in-1 is ~$500. That means that the tablet is ~$400 and the keyboard is another ~$100.

 

The race to the bottom has been a disaster.

[George P Global Moderator]

The optimal price for a 2-in-1 is ~$500. That means that the tablet is ~$400 and the keyboard is another ~$100.

 

The race to the bottom has been a disaster.

 

Cheap tablets, sub $200, do have a place but I don't agree that they should be the majority of devices out there, that's just silly.  Good hardware, spec wise, for tablets should be easy to have at the $250-$300 range while $300 and up would be the territory of "premium" hardware.  Again, for tablets, IMO.  I think of the Surface Pro 3, at least, as more highend than what you'd normally go for with a pure tablet, even though it's in a tablet design.  That is, i5 and 4GB or 8GB memory up to i7s and so on, that's more ultrabook/laptop spec, so the prices reflect that aspect.

 

x86 tablets would be at the most the new Core-Ms and new high end Atoms, like the Surface 3.

[Mockingbird]

Cheap tablets, sub $200, do have a place but I don't agree that they should be the majority of devices out there, that's just silly.  Good hardware, spec wise, for tablets should be easy to have at the $250-$300 range while $300 and up would be the territory of "premium" hardware.  Again, for tablets, IMO.  I think of the Surface Pro 3, at least, as more highend than what you'd normally go for with a pure tablet, even though it's in a tablet design.  That is, i5 and 4GB or 8GB memory up to i7s and so on, that's more ultrabook/laptop spec, so the prices reflect that aspect.

 

x86 tablets would be at the most the new Core-Ms and new high end Atoms, like the Surface 3.

 

I don't know what you define as "good specs", but in my opinion, that should be a tablet with 64GB Storage, 2GB RAM, Intel Atom, 1080p screen (or something in 3:2 aspect ratio) for $399 and then another $100 for a keyboard.

[simplezz]

The Surface is no doubt a great piece of hardware, I just wish other OEMs would take note of this. Instead of building cheap plastic tablets or bulky heavy bricks, they should copy what the Surface has done and create a balance between hardware and Software.

The problem with that is the Surface is probably a loss maker for Microsoft. I say probably because Microsoft won't release figures which is usually a sign that it's not making much if any profit. A billion dollar business, as Microsoft likes to call it, can still make a loss when costs exceed revenues.

 

If Surface were merely a way to show OEM's how it was done a la Google's Nexus, it wouldn't be an issue, however Microsoft is positioning Surface as a direct competitor to OEM's and trying to be like Apple. It hasn't and won't work. It's not a sustainable business model for OEM's who can't afford to throw away billions.

I think u missed the point..

Please elucidate said point.

[Anibal P]

The problem with that is the Surface is probably a loss maker for Microsoft. I say probably because Microsoft won't release figures which is usually a sign that it's not making much if any profit. A billion dollar business, as Microsoft likes to call it, can still make a loss when costs exceed revenues.

 

If Surface were merely a way to show OEM's how it was done a la Google's Nexus, it wouldn't be an issue, however Microsoft is positioning Surface as a direct competitor to OEM's and trying to be like Apple. It hasn't and won't work. It's not a sustainable business model for OEM's who can't afford to throw away billions.

Please elucidate said point.

 

Apple wasn't profitable for quite a while, that's where MS is now, you have to give them time, and unlike Apple they won't need MS to bail them out when it gets rough 

[Showan]

The problem with that is the Surface is probably a loss maker for Microsoft. I say probably because Microsoft won't release figures which is usually a sign that it's not making much if any profit. A billion dollar business, as Microsoft likes to call it, can still make a loss when costs exceed revenues.

 

If Surface were merely a way to show OEM's how it was done a la Google's Nexus, it wouldn't be an issue, however Microsoft is positioning Surface as a direct competitor to OEM's and trying to be like Apple. It hasn't and won't work. It's not a sustainable business model for OEM's who can't afford to throw away billions.

Please elucidate said point.

 

 

Android is like Justin Bieber ... Sure there is some talent there (Justin is actually a musician when it comes to instruments, if he pursued it more)...

 

You have Nexus products, and then u have a bunch of crap that's just on store shelves.  people look at the sticker price, and just say "a tablet is a tablet"... and buy it.

 

Sad thing is OEMs are heading down same path with Windows tablets

[PGHammer]

I still don't get Windows on tablets.  If you can get an ultra book that is the same size, what is the point?

Usability where the keyboard is a non-starter due to lack of space.

 

Look at what hotspot users do when they unpack - that is actually pretty darn typical of mobile users in general (except smartphone users).  It's like building a nest (not just birds do that - it's true of pilots, both civil and military).  The less you have to unpack to get busy, the less you have to repack later.  It's why battery life is so large - and why trackpad/touchpad support is even larger.  The higher-end tablets are, in fact, based on Ultrabooks (or were designed as 2-in-1s from the get-go) - Lenovo, Dell, and, of course, Surface, are solid examples.  A keyboard may be preferred - however, for SPACE reasons, one is not always practical.