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Tablet Line-up.

pallentx

New Member
Looking at these 8" tablets makes me wish they would put a phone in them and drop to a 5" or 6" size. I think a Windows RT phone could be pretty slick.
 

dellaster

Member
He missed a few, including the Sony VAIO Tap 11 and ASUS Transformer T300. Looks like a good year for 8" Windows tablets.
 

oion

Well-Known Member
Looking at these 8" tablets makes me wish they would put a phone in them and drop to a 5" or 6" size. I think a Windows RT phone could be pretty slick.

I commented about the phablet thing in off-topic: Specifically, Windows RT by definition right now includes MS Office, which is useless in that form factor. The only OS that would make sense in phablet for MS, IMO, unless they messed with Windows RT licensing terms and confused things even more, is Windows Phone 8.
 

CrippsCorner

Well-Known Member
It seems insane that Microsoft won't be releasing the Surface Mini next month. Chuck it up beating Apple at every specification for £50 less and it'll be a Billy Bargain for Christmas punters.
 

oion

Well-Known Member
It seems insane that Microsoft won't be releasing the Surface Mini next month. Chuck it up beating Apple at every specification for £50 less and it'll be a Billy Bargain for Christmas punters.

Hardly; if the product isn't ready, it's not ready. There are many reasons why it's not ready, from engineering challenges to manufacturing issues to software bugs.

Even implying that MS is making a mistake for not rushing a timed release is insane. That's a big part of how MS shot itself in the foot with Surface RT v1. The software side wasn't ready, from firmware fixes to buggy Office preview; if it's laggy, users would often fault the hardware. One can even argue that since full Office wasn't released until January, RT should've been released then.

The business decision-making side of things was a lot more pressured with RT v1, though, because it was entering a "crowded vacuum." MS had no products competing in the populated space yet. I'm sure it was much easier to hold off on a mini now because there will be 2 releases anyway. Polish is critical in salvaging reputation.
 
OP
machistmo

machistmo

Active Member
I honestly don't think they should release a Mini at all. They should either erase RT totally or just have the mini. But having an RT2 (Surface 2) and a mini also running RT when the original did SO BADLY seems insane to me. As a stockholder this company worries me.
 

souldier

Active Member
I would love to see a Surface running on the atom with the same form factor, battery life, etc. as the RT but with the ability to run any desktop apps
 

jnjroach

Administrator
Staff member
I know this won't be popular, but the top two x86 apps for consumers are iTunes and Chrome, both designed to take customers away from Microsoft. RT is more important to the future of MS than x86 as it allows for much more control of the experience. I think once Office Gemini ships the desktop's days are numbered. I'm sure that there will be some Cloud Based IDE for developers (Visual Studio Azure) or it will be delivered for enterprises through a VM running Server.
 
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machistmo

machistmo

Active Member
You may be right JNJ, but not tomorrow or even next year.... Things are headed towards an app based, resettable device world, but even then there is a place for powerful computing out there, a gap that tablets cannot step in and fill. SAS is one place in our environment I see the current crop of laptops failing on over and over and even larger Excel Spreadsheets sometimes cause overheating and shut downs. Should that be offloaded to the servers somewhere? Absolutely. Is that a reality in a lot of situations, no. So while I agree everyone is paying more for less on these tablets I don't see the desktop gone completely, yet. Besides all that, the current crop of MS based has proved to be a disaster for us in our environment. We have 15 in service and they are a disaster. My VP has had two TPT2's so far and one has failed and the other has had to be reset 2x.. Something he points out would be a disaster for us if we had 3500 in service. I see where things are going, I just don't think we are all going there anytime soon, that's all.

If our experience so far influences our choices going forward, I will have to pick up a sword and shield and go into battle to get them in our space.... As Spartan Mothers said to their sons: 'Son, either with this or on this.' I think I would be carried back on my shield from that meeting right now. This might change but time will tell.
 
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OP
machistmo

machistmo

Active Member

CrippsCorner

Well-Known Member
Hardly; if the product isn't ready, it's not ready. There are many reasons why it's not ready, from engineering challenges to manufacturing issues to software bugs.

Even implying that MS is making a mistake for not rushing a timed release is insane. That's a big part of how MS shot itself in the foot with Surface RT v1. The software side wasn't ready, from firmware fixes to buggy Office preview; if it's laggy, users would often fault the hardware. One can even argue that since full Office wasn't released until January, RT should've been released then.

The business decision-making side of things was a lot more pressured with RT v1, though, because it was entering a "crowded vacuum." MS had no products competing in the populated space yet. I'm sure it was much easier to hold off on a mini now because there will be 2 releases anyway. Polish is critical in salvaging reputation.

Well, the point is it should be ready... it shouldn't be a rush.

They should get their act together and get it out there as soon as possible. Late to the big tablet market, late to the phone market, and it looks like they will be late to the small tablet market. I wanna see something new and innovative from Microsoft, but I just don't see that happening :(
 
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