Microsoft’s 128GB Surface Pro Sells Out At Online Store Just Hours After Launch
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
I don't own one but will buy one eventually. Surface Pro is a significant step forward in the world of tablets for a number of reasons. I won't go into all of them here --and I probably haven't recognized them all yet anyway.
1- it's a design that is far more open than iPad. You can move files in and out of it and have full control of the user directory structure. Want to move a bunch of your spreadsheets, recipes, python scripts and chess games into it. No problem. You don't have an Apple-like overlord prohibiting any of that.
2- Need to install XAMPP, Python and other dev tools? No problem?
3- Want to install VMware and boot Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on a VM for a full command-line dev environment and even virtual host a few sites? No problem.
4- and, after all that work, do you want to create a restricted user account for your 5-year-old to be able to play some games and educational apps? No problem at all.
5- How about accounts for guests and friends so that they don't accidentally mess with your stuff? Yup.
6- Need more hard drive space? How about attaching an external USB hard drive and, perhaps keeping all your dev work there for easy transport to your desktop? Yup.
7- Can you use that really cool RC Flight Simulator that comes with a custom USB interface to your JR9505 transmitter? Of course you can.
8- Or, how about that receipt or business card USB scanner?
9- That neat Logithech keyboard you use on all your PC's? Of course.
10- can you run SolidWorks, AutoCAD, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Dreamweaver, CuteFTP, Komodo, WinForth, Keil, Eclipse, Photoshop, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Fritz and a whole host of other software you might already be using for fun and work? Sure looks that way.
Yeah. Exactly. Just like an iPad.
The real issue is that as an ultra book it compares poorly to other ultra books and as a tablet it compare poorly to other tablets.
It works fine on my lap and it's a great computer (Pro of course even MORE so). The only use case that a normal laptop runs circles around it is when you're laying in bed and need to use the keyboard.
I agree with grandparent, though I do see what you're saying. Yes: there is compromise when getting a Surface. But, I honestly have a great laptop experience and a great tablet experience. I'm perfectly happy with it and wouldn't go back to using two separate devices.
And sure, it's more unsteady than on a table and perhaps I look a little silly - but as far as typing speed is concerned, it's really a non issue.
But because a smartphone can do both, it has become a useful device.
That said, of the convertables, the Surface isn't actually on my shortlist anymore. Lenovo Helix and XPS Duo 12 look superior to the Surface. But I'm not against the concept of a combined device.
Sorry to be so blunt. I own half a dozen laptops and over a dozen desktops. If that's what I need, that's what I'll use. An sPro will actually provide greater capabilities and options rather than reduce them.
So no need to install VMWare anymore.
What kind of Virtualization do you have to use to get that?
Come on, real computers, with real virtualization is an absolute boon to programming productivity. Toy systems like Android and iOS just aren't there yet. I don't think there is any virtualization platform available for ARM either.
In terms of everything else, I don't know specifically, but probably. It's a full Linux kernel with root access, so virtually anything is doable.
In terms of performance, no, I don't think that any mainstream Android device can do virtualization - but that's a hardware problem.
I hope you don't misinterpret me - I love the Surface, and I want one very badly. I was just pointing out that you can get a command-line Linux on a tablet, and have been able to for some time.
EDIT: Look at my other comment in this same thread: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5194554 I'm not arguing that Android is a replacement for a real OS, by any means. But my limited statement, that you can get command-line Linux on a tablet, was correct.
I have an iPad that my parents got for me, and I struggle to force myself to use it because the entire touch interface seems inferior. Every time I lay down in bed with my iPad, I end up regretting it as soon as I have to type anything or use a website that doesn't have a really well-engineered mobile version or iPad app.
The touch interface seems ideal on much smaller devices, like phones, where it's not even remotely feasible to have a keyboard and a trackpad. I personally don't understand the desire to transfer it to larger devices, though.
The one major saving grace of touch-centric devices like the iPad, IMHO, is that it has made computing and the internet more accessible to people who otherwise wouldn't have learned to use traditional interfaces for whatever reason.
I hooked up the Surface to a 21 inch Samsung tv through the microHDMI. It is a great way to watch a movie and surf the web, all from the little guy. I have cranked out serious work through the Surface Type Keyboard as well. The best part is the tablet can live without being a parasite to my main computers.
It would be great if every device had many types of inputs, touch, voice, or gesture.
Again, I could go on.
For corporate use it is an absolute no-brainier.
If the SPro is anything like the SurfaceRT, its not a bed device; its just way too wide to be used in portrait or landscape while laying down. The non-wide screen iPad works much better in bed than a Surface (my wife and I have both, and we are always fighting over who gets the iPad).
EDIT:will we ever see any numbers from Microsoft or will we always be stuck with the amazon style multiplier?
So no, it can't match the performance of a GTX 680. And I doubt it handles complicated models very well. But it's by no means incapable of light CAD work, especially compared to laptops.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/AutoDesk-AutoCAD-2...
It means relying on old desktop paradigms and having a sub-par tablet experience. If you want to run Windows and it's software on something portable (which, by the list you provide, you do) get an ultra-portable. Even a MB Air will do.
But if you want a tablet, get a real tablet, that pushes the envelope forward for how to work on that form factor.
Want a phone? Get a more portable, smaller Razr (the original one). Want a PDA? Get a real PDA, like a Palm Pilot.
Why should we create "PDA-phones" (aka, what smartphones were called back then), when PDAs do PDA things better, and Real Phones do the phone part better?
The fact that I listed these thing doesn't necessarily mean I would personally use it that way. As an example, if I had a meeting where I needed to work with Solidworks files I'd far more inclined to take one of my big laptops with the 17 inch screen. My intent was to simply illustrate the range of possibilities in order to drive a point.
How is the Surface any different than a straight-forward iteration on a Win7 tablet?
A neat keyboard for the slate form-factor? Marginally more touch-friendly software before it dumps you into an interface built for kb/m?
For the last decade or so, some people have been well-served by such devices. This one is no different in that respect.
But it is simply not a step forward. It's a stubborn refusal to step in even the same general direction as more-popular tablets.
You keep using this word "forward". I don't thing it means what you think it means.
For most of people, a subpar experience is worst than no experience at all. Ie. I'd rather not go to a restaurant than have a lousy meal. Or I'd rather not go to the movies, than see Water World.
Especially if paying for having that subpar experience means that I will be delayed a good experience (i.e by buying a tablet that also runs Windows app, companies don't rush on making apps suitable for the tablet form specifically).
You are basically watching "Water World" AND sending a strong message "Hey, Kevin, make more movies like this".
So you are the voice inside my head? Please, help me out dude. Since you can read my thoughts...waffles or frittata for breakfast? :)
>companies don't rush on making apps suitable for the tablet form specifically
My experience is that companies are not shy about investing in better tools if they provide a true strategic, financial or technical advantage. The shape, format or nature of the tools is only of importance if that itself constitutes an advantage. In other words, a tablet will only be favored if it makes sense to do so. Let's see what the free market decides.
12- You can run IIS, apache, nginx, rails, node.js (on windows or linux) and serve content off it (either as a test server or as a production server, if you really want).
> 1- it's a design that is far more open than iPad. You can move files in and out of it and have full control of the user directory structure. Want to move a bunch of your spreadsheets, recipes, python scripts and chess games into it. No problem. You don't have an Apple-like overlord prohibiting any of that.
I don't want to control my tablet's directory structure. As long as I can put my files on it (and I can) I'm good.
> 2- Need to install XAMPP, Python and other dev tools? No problem?
I can do that, better, on my laptop.
> 3- Want to install VMware and boot Ubuntu 12.04 LTS on a VM for a full command-line dev environment and even virtual host a few sites? No problem.
I can do that, better, on my laptop.
> 4- and, after all that work, do you want to create a restricted user account for your 5-year-old to be able to play some games and educational apps? No problem at all.
I'm going to hand my $1000 Surface Pro to my five year old? The five year old is getting a $200 Nexus 7, which is rubberized and cheap enough that I don't care when he puts it in the sink.
> 5- How about accounts for guests and friends so that they don't accidentally mess with your stuff? Yup.
Have you seen how my wife treats electronics? I can't say I didn't have notice--when I met her her computer was a netbook with three keys missing--but there is no way in hell she's touching my Surface Pro. No, she's getting an iPad, which I don't care when she puts it in the sink.
> 6- Need more hard drive space? How about attaching an external USB hard drive and, perhaps keeping all your dev work there for easy transport to your desktop? Yup.
Dropbox + Wifi?
> 7- Can you use that really cool RC Flight Simulator that comes with a custom USB interface to your JR9505 transmitter? Of course you can.
Why would I want to run this on my tablet?
> 8- Or, how about that receipt or business card USB scanner?
They have ones that connect to WiFi now.
> 9- That neat Logithech keyboard you use on all your PC's? Of course.
Bluetooth.
> 10- can you run SolidWorks, AutoCAD, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Dreamweaver, CuteFTP, Komodo, WinForth, Keil, Eclipse, Photoshop, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Fritz and a whole host of other software you might already be using for fun and work? Sure looks that way.
I wouldn't want to run half of those on a tiny 10" screen, and the other half have perfectly good iPad replacements.
Are you married to my wife's sister? Did yours pour a full glass of orange juice into your HP calculator? Nearly had a heart attack. Took the batteries out. Dunked it in clean water and put it out in the sun to dry. Still working like a champ many, many years later.
The ThinkPad Helix also looks very interesting. IMO this is an instance of Microsoft being the ones skating to where the puck is going to be.
After the lukewarm sales of the surface last fall, I bet microsoft would be keen to stock stores with less surface pros on release to provoke articles like this. After glancing at this article title, the first thing I thought was "Maybe there might be something good about the surface that I had overlooked?".
It's a bit of a stretch, but isn't unreasonable for a good sales team.
You're probably correct, re this sell out. Consider:
The article noted that "The Surface RT sold out of the $500 32GB model within one day". Analysts have noted (a good deal after the launch) that the RT did not sell much at all -- so if even that one sold out initially, the initial "sell-out" is probably planned...
http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57566759-75/microsoft-surf...
>Why the high return rates? "It seems to be linked in a lot of cases to a steep learning curve of the [Windows 8] OS -- which is not necessarily intuitive," she said.
As I understand it the full version of Windows 8 is even more complex and less intuitive. Surface pro is in a tricky spot because it's competing both with traditional tablets and laptops, both of which consumers are entirely used to.
>As I understand it the full version of Windows 8 is even more complex and less intuitive.
The only difference in UI for regular customer is that Windows 8 can run third-party desktop applications.
Holding that thought train did anyone else compare this to the Dan Ariely's 'Predictably Irrational' chapter of human choice. Given A, A-, and B, A looks better than B precisely because our minds compare A with A-, over which it's clearly superior and applies that to B as well. Only, here they don't need a B. They've made it work fantastically with just A and A- options.
Difference: Premium cost only $100 more than the Core ($400 vs $300) but came with basically over $200 worth of upgrades incl. HDD, wireless controller, headset, and memory card. You also needed the HDD to play Xbox Live.
It looks like if was a lost cause before even it was lunch.
Never make a hivemind decision the sole reason for buying or avoiding a product. Try them first, be it chromebook, macbook or a windows ultrabook, you will be surprised how reality differs.
It would be nice that these "news" sites refused to publish this kind of information unless Microsoft (in this case) revealed the number of units sold.
I suspect the negativity is the non-news news (which is to say insufficient context to evaluate the story, sadly a common news problem these days). No doubt Microsoft will give out some more durable numbers of units sold at some point. We'll all compare them to the number of units of $favorite_product{$user} sold and then gloat or gnash our teeth. :-)
2. The headline reminds my of book editions: '1st edition sold out!' 'Interesting, how many books were printed for the 1st edition?'
The question remains, however, how well the Surface manages data an SD cards, i.e., can you save everything you like on an SD card including apps?
It would not be surprising if this is engineered to make it sell out quickly and seem more desirable than it really is.
Frankly, the real problem is that Intel / AMD chips are not ready to compete in this form factor. Intel is making bold new moves with Haswell however, and AMD is making big moves with Kabini, Temash and Kaveri.
In this generation, the lowest TDP chips are 17-Watt Ivy Bridges and 10-Watt Atoms / AMD Brazos. For whatever reason, AMD Brazos aren't getting used in tablets (they seem like a nice chip though...), the Clovertrail Atoms are too weak (lacks out-of-order execution, performs mediocre even compared to ARM chips, extremely poor GPU performance), and the 17-Watt Ivy Bridges use too much power compared to the 5-Watt Arm chips competition.
( Part of the reason is that Intel Atom chips are second-class citizens of Intel. They don't get access to the latest process, and were instead seen as a cheap cost-effective chip for netbooks, as opposed to a premium power-efficient but powerful chip that you'd expect in a tablet. )
With a power disadvantage, this generation of convertibles just ain't gonna cut it in terms of battery life / portability / weight. The CPUs require too much power, which require bigger batteries.
Next generation stuff from AMD / Intel however is looking quite exciting, and the potential standardization of widespread adoption of DDR4 for more power savings helps this form factor greatly.
In fact, Intel has introduced new instructions to Clovertrail Atoms and Haswell specific to new low-power states of the CPU. Intel's willing to change their instruction set to get better power savings.
True, Tablets will benefit from DDR4 (and already have the power-saving instructions Intel is only now implementing). But the real benefit of battery life stops being useful past around 8-hours or so. (With exception of e-readers and their 30+ days of battery life. Those things are amazing on vacation).
Furthermore, ARM chips are growing in a different direction in the near future... they're aiming at the server marketplace. The innovations of ARM 64-bit don't really translate to smartphones / tablets. Exciting for the server market, but I don't really see major innovations occurring for Tablet-space ARMs in the near future.
If the convertible concept survives till next year, then we'll see some real competition. In 2014, ARM chips will grow into the server market and attack Xeons / Opterons. And simultaneously, Intel / AMD solutions will have their first real salvo into the ultra-portable market.
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That said, the Surface needs to be made. Microsoft needs to innovate from the software side and figure out how to update Windows 8 to be more palatable for everyone. So even if Intel / AMD chips aren't ready to compete, Microsoft gotta move forward here. They're clearly falling behind in this race and need to put something out there.
Citation needed.
Whenever Apple launches a new iDevice, it sells millions of units within days. When stock is depleted that fast, that means it could've sold more if they had the inventory, and they miss out on sales because of customers choosing something that is in stock at the time.
How many of those are pre-orders? My point being if they sell out but only have a small % more products than they have pre-orders for then it suggests they are indeed using scarcity for marketing purposes.
Like you note there's not real point in speculating on it without firm stats.
I don't think that's the case:
* When Apple allows for pre-ordering, it's rarely more than two weeks in advance.
* On launch day, there are always long lines in front of the Apple Stores, APRs and other retail stores that sell Apple products. The people standing in line haven't pre-ordered, since pre-orders are fulfilled by mail.
* New iDevices are sold in only a few countries at launch. Other countries have to wait weeks (like mainland Europe) or months (like China and India) to get any stock.
It's a perfectly sensible thing to do.
I won't pretend Apple is bad at estimating demand, even though each new model sells way more units than the last. Tim Cook is famous for his inventory management [1].
I think Apple's manufacturing partners simply cannot produce enough of them (partly because Apple keeps making them harder to manufacture, partly because Apple demands the best prices). Of course, Apple could wait longer, stockpiling units for months, before announcing the products but then production units tend to leak and it allows competitors to catch up.
It's a very clever and effective marketing strategy, even when people know they are doing it. We want (and talk about!) what we can't have, even if the reason we can't have it is artificial. Just like a movie or TV show we can't see but which was completed months ago.