So Microsoft lost due to Asus pricing? I think I'll wait until Microsoft officially releases their product and pricing before making that call. I actually really want a Surface tablet.
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.
Difference being iPod 1 had a much, much better UX than a Nomad.
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.
Wasn't the first ipod, however huge it seems by modern standards, also substantially smaller than the nomad? My recollection is that the nomad was, well, a brick...
Most consumers neither understand nor care about the spec sheet. Reasons that make sense to an engineer are alien to most of the market.
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.
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.
Microsoft knows what they're doing? That's the funniest thing I've heard in a while. For the record, Microsoft has never had a success in the mobile space (PDAs, tablets, phones, MP3 players). They've come close a time or two but never in the past 15 years have they been the leader in any of these categories.
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.
The Xbox, which is not a general purpose computing device, is an extension of the desktop, while a tablet (which is a general purpose computing device) is not? How does that make any sense?
The tablet is an extension of the desktop. Microsoft has never been successful with them though. Now that the iPad has shown what a tablet can do perhaps Microsoft will be more successful this time around.
Windows isn't a premium product, but Office definitely still is. It costs significantly more than Apple's (or anyone else's) equivalents, and still sells by the bucket load.
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.
>I'd be willing to pay extra to be able to run a full OS, specifically...Windows, on my iPad instead of iOS.
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.
I wasn't planning on running Photoshop or Crysis. I don't even run them on my half-dozen other computers, but I do run hundreds of low-requirement programs.
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.
>Because MS is not a premium product.
>MS has made billions on cheap computing, Apple has made them on expensive, premium products.
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.
We don't know what Microsoft will be charging for their own surface tablets, I'd hold off making any conclusions until then. I'm going to guess that Microsoft will be undercutting their "partners" in the tablet market.
There's no mention of the storage on these Asus tablets.
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.
if windows 8 has even half the success of windows 7 it will automatically become a big player in the tablet market considering all those convertible laptops that are showing up. pricing will matter but getting an i7 processor and SSD in tablet form does cost a lot and if they are to be compared to Apple's products I believe they should be compared to MacBook's rather than iPads. Talking about Windows 8 x86.
Right, that's the "Tablet + Laptop Replacement" market. And I agree, I think MS would be expected to keep that, because it's still not reasonably possible for anyone but the most casual consumer to replace their desktop software with a tablet yet.
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 price points jive fairly well with Steve Ballmer’s comments in an interview with The Seattle Times last week, which suggests that between $300 and $800 is the “sweet spot” for the bulk of the PC market.
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.
Obviously for Microsoft including a $400 copy of their own software doesn't actually cost $400, unless one hundred percent of the people who get the surface would buy Office 2010 if it wasn't included.
Why not give tablets away free with a Software licence or subscription? At this point tablets could be much cheaper than most enterprise software licences. Why not an office tablet, or a Sharepoint tablet? I am sure it would suck, but it would have more benefits to Microsoft than a tablet that no-one will ever buy.
I doubt Microsoft is targeting the consumer market. Most of these tablets will probably be bought by businesses which then force their employees to use them in their already fully integrated Microsoft ecosystem. So...I guess it depends on what Microsoft's priorities are.
One thing I've not seen anyone mention: MSRP for the Windows ecosystem devices tends to not be what the devices are actually sold for. There's a lot of margin built into those prices to allow for sales and other retail actions. Apple doesn't have to add buffer to their MSRP as they tend to not leave much margin for other retails; the reason you can buy an iPad at Best Buy isn't because BB makes much money on the iPad, but because they can make big money on the accessories.
Of course, consumers would not be comparing Microsoft, Android and Apple tablets as Apples to Oranges. There are various factors which influence a 'buy decision' and price is just one of the factors.
For example, if Windows 8 tablet becomes a highly coveted or must-have gadget then the premium pricing might look rational or justified.
Why would it though? Windows RT doesn't even have access to x86 apps, which means it's starting its ecosystem from scratch. And that means it's even further behind than Android in tablet apps.
