Leaked Windows 8 tablet pricing suggests Microsoft may have already lost the war
extremetech.com
extremetech.com
I'm not a big supporter of Windows 8, but writing them off based merely on price and specs seems a bit shortsighted.
Beyond the price and capabilities, what else should the consumer consider?
But as an example, why not consider easy of use?
They typical consumer asks for more gigahertz either as a status symbol or because something is slowing down their existing machine to the point that routine interactions are painful.
The author chides them for not using a more powerful processor (that would kill the battery life), when Microsoft worked directly with Intel and had them build a processor designed specifically for the Windows 8 kernel that would offer the longest possible battery life.
Shortsighted indeed.
Anything with less than 200DPI is not going to deliver that in 2012. Even at $300 it would be barely competitive, and at $600 it'll join the Xoom in forgotten tabletland.
EDIT: I do know about the old Slashdot meme. I just think the situation is drastically different here, hence "A curious analogy".
When the iPod was announced CmdrTaco said that, it stands as a classic example of tech geeks' tendency to focus on the details (specs, price, etc.) while missing the bigger picture. In that case superior design beats out a spec check sheet.
http://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-ip...
1.) The article title and contents say it SUGGESTS Microsoft has/will lose the war. It doesn't declare anything.
2.) Historically speaking, pricing commodity gear isn't rocket science. History shows that competitors in the space almost always are on price parity.
Microsoft dominates the desktop. The XBox is an extension of the desktop. They're hoping to leverage their desktop dominance into a laptop-lite tablet.
I'm betting they could care less about the user experience of Win 8 on the desktop. After all where else are their customers going to go? Apple? Linux? A few might. Most won't. This way they can focus all their energies into the tablet and then use their desktop dominance to move people to their tablets instead of Apple's. After all how many iPad owners have a Windows desktop?
It's probably the best strategy they have. We'll have to wait and see how well it pans out for them.
And no, I have no intention of buying one of these things.
There's been a hundred low price and low quality tablets pumped out of asia that we never hear about after launch.
Why is that the strategy that should be followed?
MS has made billions on cheap computing, Apple has made them on expensive, premium products.
The problem is that now MS is trying to sell budget devices, at the most expensive price. That won't work.
True but quite misleading because you're comparing software with hardware. A lot of OEMs especially Sony have had laptops costing north of $2000 that sell quite well. MS probably makes the same amount on them, but Sony gets a premium on models like the SZ series and Z series. One of my friends dropped $2400 on this laptop a year ago.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HN07CVHIrfM/TmibCh6iDyI/AAAAAAAAAP...
MS was OS of choice for the cost leaders in the market. Apple was the quality leader.
The fact that surface (and other win8 tablets) can run Office gives it a huge market that the iPad currently can't get to.
It's been well known for months that Office for iPad exists and works, but MS aren't releasing it. The reason for that delay is fairly obvious.
If the answer the above questions are "no", then why get a Surface?
In your opinion...
I'd be willing to pay extra to be able to run a full OS, specifically...Windows, on my iPad instead of iOS.
Being able to do what I want easily: that's premium to me.
Locked down hardware, locked down OS, locked down everything: that's not premium, that's Apple.
That version is going to cost 800 dollars according to the article, and thats without a keyboard/dock.
Also, the "full OS" experience, may not be as full as you would think. They make a logical (IMHO) trade-off between performance, battery life, weight and price. This thing wont run Photoshop, Crysis, etc in a useable way.
So, you're essentially paying 200+ dollars extra for the ability/freedom to side-load. The target audience of this is limited to corporate use (classic desktop as backwards compatibility) and developpers.
And this is the strategy of both MS and Apple now. They are moving the low-end and mid-range to walled-gardens, while charging premium to professionals, who can afford it. The cheapest win8 device with the ability to side-load? 800$ .. The cheapest OSX device? 999$ dollars.
It will get even more expensive as the transition closes. The current price point of a laptop didnt aim at us: it aimed at the casual market. They are now turning the freedom to sideload (and to pirate, btw) into an expensive niche. They are going to milk us for the fat cows we are.
This is in no way limited to Apple, unfortunately. Our best bet for an open platform, is Android, because of its opensource nature, but be wary of the bootlocks.
The "full OS" experience, to me, is not simply side-loading either. I want an OS that was built for general purpose computing from the get-go.
The target audience for this does not seem to be limited to corporate use and developers. It seems to be for anyone who just wants general purpose computing in a highly portable format. That's me. Furthermore, corporate users is not a small market - so I wouldn't say "limited", even if that were the case.
> The cheapest win8 device with the ability to side-load? 800$ .. The cheapest OSX device? 999$ dollars.
Right, but it's a bad comparison because one of them is Windows and the other is OS X. One of them is a touch enabled transformer, the other a laptop.
> Our best bet for an open platform, is Android...
Maybe what you want is an open platform. That's fine, but I don't care about how open the platform is. I just want Microsoft's new premium device with their premium OS because it seems to do exactly what I want it to. We'll see though, maybe I'll be disappointed.
The article compares to the 16 GB "new iPad" but if it has 32 GB or 64 GB, it's actually priced in line with the respective model on the former and $100 cheaper on the latter.
But the notable price in the linked article is the $600 for the Tegra 3 box, which obviously won't run much of the desktop software. Asus is already selling a 7" Tegra 3 laptop (the Nexus 7) at 1/3 that price. Is a 10" partially-desktop-incompatible (!) tablet really worth three times the price of a broadly equivalent Android device already in the market?
These prices are for a Tegra 3 and an Atom. One assumes that if you want an i7 it'll be a little more :)
Instead of starting as a status symbol and accessory and growing into a full-use device, Surface seems to be coming in as straight PC replacements, and it's being priced appropriately. The keyboard dock is shown as an accessory, but as a necessary accessory - ads seem to show Surface docked as often as solo, and it's the best bridge to people who believe they'll never give up their laptop. When viewed this way, it's like shrinking the laptop to remove the keyboard, leaving just screen and processing guts. (I work with someone who likes to complain about how he believes tablets are useless)
The $600 model says it comes with Office 2013 preloaded -- is that full office or just the demo? Remember that Office 2010 retailed for more than $400.
Besides, Windows 8 is just plain gross to look at and nothing ever fits on the screen.
For example, if Windows 8 tablet becomes a highly coveted or must-have gadget then the premium pricing might look rational or justified.