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  • SeleniumGlow - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I'm also interested in knowing more about the 1092 sensors on the cover keypad... just what implications and use cases does it have?
  • skiboysteve - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    in the live blog it appeared you could do gestures on the entire surface of the keyboard instead of just the trackpad
  • runner50783 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I'm in love with this device, for those that value a docking station like me, it is a rocker!
  • skiboysteve - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    agreed. docking station for this is a killer accessory
  • drainplugofideas - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Any idea if it's possible to change or replace the internal SSD or memory? I'm guessing no, but that would incredible if it was possible.
  • airmantharp - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    That's going to be the killer for me. I'll gladly get the version with the smallest SSD and then upgrade it to something large and fast- I want to pair this thing with my Canon 6D for on the go tethered recording and wireless shooting.
  • jhoff80 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    How exactly does the docking station work? Do you have to slide in the side 'arms' manually to connect and disconnect? If so, doesn't seem much more efficient than a USB hub and DisplayPort cable.

    No word on the Wifi on the Pro 2, but I'd assume it's not 802.11ac? At the very least, I hope they've moved away from the horrible Marvell radio on the original Pro and to something more reliable.

    I'd have liked to see Wacom incorporated into the Surface 2 as well, because I feel like a pen can be a major differentiator when it's integrated system-wide in Windows like it is. Still, I know that's a niche use.
  • Impulses - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    An Intel wifi solution that enables WiDi would be nice.
  • jhoff80 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    8.1 has Miracast support anyway, assuming that the drivers support it, so I don't think that'll be an issue, no matter which wifi solution they go with.

    Like I said, I'm more concerned with the reliability front. My Surfaces (both RT and Pro) were horrible with Wifi for a long time, constantly giving me Limited Connectivity. I'd love to say they solved it, but it's now worse than ever in 8.1.
  • hrrmph - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Let me make sure I understand this, it's a high-end portable product with poor wireless:

    - No WiFi-AC?

    - No 4G or 3G voice or data telephony? Not even 3G Data?!

    <sigh>
  • erikiksaz - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    We'll see about wifi-ac when reviews are out.

    But as for 3G/4G, do any laptops even come with that? This has a USB drive that can accept any USB hotspot device. This thing is a full computer, not a tablet that requires the 3G/4G functions to be built in.
  • new-paradigm - Sunday, October 6, 2013 - link

    The first surface pro had a wacom pen input, I see no reason why this would have been removed for the pro 2, especially as the promo shots on ms website show it with a pen that looks just like the first pro's pen.
  • dr.mahmoodloveyou - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Bash talk MS as much as you want ,but the company is really innovative ,new and better type cover , Power cover ,the music kit ,a great stand with improved angle ,and all this in a price that is less than the unsusidized iPhone 5s ,with a really powerfull CPU and decent GPU ,I just want to know ,why people buy an apple at a premium priceand less productivity over a better priced more productivity MS device?the answer is simple though ,alot of people have inferiority complex which they try to fill buy buying logo products!!!
  • steven75 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Or it could simply be the iPad has hundreds of thousands more quality apps designed from scratch for touch.
  • bountygiver - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    hundreds of thousands? Don't kid yourself, hundreds is the accurate number.
  • Daniel Egger - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    You clearly have no clue. I currently have around 400 quality iOS apps in my library, not counting the ones that I've already removed due to better alternatives or predecessors available. On my Surface RT I have found a full 20(!) usable apps, most of which from MS and even ad-supported (in iOS those'd be gone immediately). I still can't use my chat accounts, phone or SSH into my machines (although the latter can be addressed by temporarily jailbreaking the device and running a specially compiled version of Putty).

    At the moment still Win RT will turn every device it runs on into a blessed webterminal and Flashplayer.
  • OoklaTheMok - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    The sad fact is that a Surface is usable out of the box. An iPad needs to have apps in order to do just about anything. Apps are much less important in Windows 8 compared to iOS.
  • Nagorak - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    The number you posted still suggests the number is hundreds and not "hundreds of thousands". It could even be thousands, but it's pretty doubtful that there are "hundreds of thousands" of *quality* iPad apps.
  • Da W - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Windows 8 has a hundred thousand + desktop internet explorer for things like... facebook. (Oh my god there's no facebook app. Who cares?)
  • ImSpartacus - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I care. Why get a tablet if you spend all of your time using desktop interfaces?

    I can understand a convertible, but not a tablet.
  • jasonelmore - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    windows has way more apps and quality apps than ios, much less ios for ipad. ios may have more "touch" apps, but this is a full fledge laptop with the keyboard accessory.
  • bplewis24 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I hate Apple just as much as anybody (and they haven't innovated much, if at all, over the past 4 years), but calling something like a new cover and an improved stand "innovative" is a big silly.
  • bplewis24 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    A "bit" silly.
  • name99 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Let's put aside the crazy rant and ask the only question that matters:
    Is there anything different about either of these two products that justifies a claim that they will be more popular than their two predecessors?

    I'm sorry but my answer to that is no. I don't see a single compelling thing here that makes a Surface 2 or Surface Pro 2 more desirable than their predecessors were yesterday.
    That's the HW side. One the SW side, we likewise haven't seen any compelling new feature in Win 8.1.

    To me it looks like one more lost year for MS. We can basically tune out and see if anything changes in September 2014 when they give us their third attempt.

    Meanwhile end of October we'll be seeing the new iPads. I think it goes without saying there'll be a retina mini and the iPad5 will get an A7X and TouchID. I'd guess (but can't be sure) that the iPad5 will also get 2GB and the A7X will have a triple CPU core on it --- we're getting close to the point where that makes sense, but maybe the extra GPU on the chip will mean the third core has to wait for a die shrink.

    Finally the interesting question there (from a business/fashion PoV) is how the iPhone 5C aesthetic affects the line. My guess would be that iPad5 continues the high end metal look, while the mini adopts the 5C plastic and multi-color look; but I could see it going many different ways --- for example the iPad5 is called the iPad S and comes in metal, A7X etc, while the existing iPad4 gets recased in plastic as the iPad C and loses $50 in price.
  • crypticsaga - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    ^This. Thanks Microsoft for a thinner lighter more power efficient version of a product nobody wants. Here comes another billion dollar write down.
  • Ikefu - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    How do you say Microsoft did nothing when it added all day battery life to an ultra book class tablet that has access to full windows software library. By those standards the Apple iPhone 5s and 5c are beyond irrelevant. Adding color to the case and a fingerprint reader lots of laptops have, that's exactly zero innovation.

    The point I make here is that Microsoft addressed the big complaint most had with the Surface Pro 2 in battery life and kick stand and should be applauded. Don't bash them for iterating a good design just because it's not your device of choice. Apple also iterated and you're excited. Device choice and competition is good for all. I'm glad we have Apple, Google, and MS since they all learn from each other and keep getting better.
  • Nagorak - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Well, it's kind of debatable whether "Microsoft" did that, or whether Intel did that. Regardless, the Surface Pro 2 is not unreasonable, it's the crappy WinRT version that is highly suspect, when it costs as much as full Win 8.1 tablets that will be coming out.
  • Ikefu - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    Agreed, Windows RT needs to die. The difference between Surface and Surface Pro should be Bay Trail versus Haswell. Full Windows 8.1 all around with Office included.
  • andrewaggb - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    Well my issue with surface RT was it was too expensive, used a year old processor, couldn't join a domain, had no outlook, and a low res display. And they didn't allow porting third part desktop apps.

    All of those things were fixed (afaik)... except for the deskop apps. But with bay trail giving essentially the same package with desktop apps I think surface 2 is a disappointment.

    Surface Pro was heavy, had poor battery life, no dock, and 128gb of storage isn't enough. They addressed battery life, dock, and storage. So it's pretty decent actually.

    I'm not sure if it's enough as neither device addresses all of my issues. But I find both tempting. That's more than I could say a year ago. I might still be temped to get a T100 and a nice laptop with a dock, but we'll see how the reviews turn out.
  • jxb767 - Friday, September 27, 2013 - link

    Ok, we get it, your excited about the new iPad.
  • Drumsticks - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Decent point of note: a 64GB iPad comes in at $100 less than the surface pro 2. If Microsoft had launched at $50 less or had at least dropped the price of the covers I'd be beyond happy, and I am still pretty exciting.
  • erikiksaz - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    Apples to oranges, still. The 64Gb ipad is a *very* expensive media-consumption tablet. The surface pro 2 is a slightly higher than average priced ultrabook/tablet. And even though they both have 64Gb, I have absolutely no issues with a 64Gb microSD card set up as a media drive inside my surface pro.
  • thunng8 - Wednesday, September 25, 2013 - link

    64gb ipad is $699. It is $200 less.
  • BMNify - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I will be getting a surface Pro 2, now just have to decide between type cover and the power cover, waiting for Anand to review both.
  • Da W - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Too bad i got the original surface pro, i could do with haswell.
  • BMNify - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    you can get the power cover and extend battery life of your original surface pro.
  • kyuu - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I'm not sure that's correct. I thought I read something about the connector on the new Surface Pro having extra contacts for power that aren't on the original. I could be mistaken, though.
  • BMNify - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    You are wrong, Original Surface Pro has all the extra contact points and is compatible with all the new covers, dock and even power cover.
  • kyuu - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Well, if that's true, then that's definitely awesome for owners of the original Surface Pro.
  • kyuu - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Are you guys going to be able to get a hold of the Surface 2 and/or Surface Pro 2 for review before they ship?
  • steven75 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I think the macbook air would be interesting added to the Surface Pro table, since that's more of a competitor than the iPad when you're talking about a heavy tablet with a keyboard.

    Also interesting that the more you pay Microsoft, the less you get (they take away Office if you pay the most) vs Apple that gives you a touch-based office suite for free, no "classic" desktop required, even if you buy the cheap iPhone and likely all future iPads.
  • bountygiver - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    If you want to compare that kind of office app. I'd rather use google docs or skydrive....
  • BMNify - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Don't compare MS Office with crappy iwork!!
  • eanazag - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Does the SSD meet eDrive specs? I was expecting to see a Micron drive that supported this in the Pro 2.
  • eanazag - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Also, is the dock and new keyboard covers compatible with previous Surface pro?
  • BMNify - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Yes, the dock, new keyboard covers and even the power cover is compatible with the original surface pro.
  • LordSegan - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I actually think the Surface Pro 2 price is pretty reasonable. It comes with a Wacom digitizer, and those are not cheap. It is basically comparable to the MacBook Air in most other respects. It not cheap, but it is designed for business users who are (usually) not counting pennies and just need their devices to WORK. If you want a stylus, and a tablet form factor, there are not many other Haswell based devices that exist in that category. This looks like it will be the first to ship as well.
  • Impulses - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    It's totally reasonable, unlike Surface 2 which is still high, particularly once you add a keyboard... It's still a bit of a niche device tho. I think a large majority of people would rather have a bigger laptop or a smaller/lighter/cheaper tablet. Surface Pro at least seems to be serving it's niche very well tho, regular Surface should've gone x86 & Bay Trail already... RT's just treading water.
  • eanazag - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Does the Pro 2 WiFi now go Intel? I'm guessing "No" after seeing the SSD choice.
  • jhoff80 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Something I completely forgot - any word from MS on whether Connected Standby will be available for the Pro 2 in 8.1?
  • jhoff80 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    To answer my own question, they confirmed that it's not a feature for the Pro 2 in their AMA.
  • jacure - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Now, that's a real tablet n not a toy like the fruit, lol.
  • ssiu - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    There should be a 8GB RAM, 128GB SSD configuration for ~$1049. The 256GB model could be too expensive for many, whereas 4GB RAM should be cheap. You can add external storage, but you cannot add RAM (I assume -- would be glad if I am wrong).
  • drainplugofideas - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    I want to know this as well... If you could swap the memory or hard drive this would be an instant buy for me, and I've been holding off on a purchase for over 2 years.
  • perrydoell - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    The circuit board being that large would be great for stiffening the device overall.
  • ArthurG - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    "Although I completely understand why Microsoft is interested in going with an ARM partner for Surface 2, I do wonder if it might've been a better idea from a power efficiency standpoint to use Intel's Bay Trail instead. Note that with Surface 2 Microsoft drops the RT from the device's name. We'll see what happens with Cherry Trail next year."
    Typical anand behavior towards Intel... PR machine at its best... This kind of comment is very disgusting ^_^
    Sorry but no Bay Trail for me and its pathetic GPU performance and rubbish drivers. Even if the SoC is not perfect, Tegra4 is a good choice.
  • Nagorak - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Baytrail can run the entire legacy x86 library. That's well worth slightly lower GPU performance, especially considering CPU performance is much better.
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    Also it might be worth keeping in mind these are Windows tablets. That's why x86 compatibility is so important. If it were Android, fine maybe your argument holds water, but with Windows that compatibility is extremely important. You can criticize Anand all you want, but the fact is Surface RT 2 is not going to sell again. No one wants it but you and maybe a handful of others.
  • andrewaggb - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    MS should have allowed desktop apps to be purchased and installed through their store and allowed for ARM versions of desktop apps.... They're running RT into the ground when I think having a second cpu arch for windows is a good move. With AMD sucking they are so too dependent on intel.
  • Hector2 - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    These are all too expensive. Intel has had a dismal record, since at least when Netbooks first came out, accurately predicting what OEMs would be selling their Intel-based devices for. OEMs continue to markup anything quite a lot. Atom-based Netbooks first came out at prices close to full size, full featured laptops. Ultrabooks kept getting market hype from Intel about their "expected" <$800 prices. That was a couple years ago and it hasn't happened yet. Last year, I went ahead and bought a new 15.4" 2.4GHz Pentium dual core Win 8 full-feature Lenovo laptop from Frys Electronics for just $280. It's been great. I'll never go above $300 for anything again.
  • vishal_ec - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    microsoft is the one with the markup here. there is a price difference of 100% between surface 2 and surface pro 2, while almost all components are same except for slightly larger battery and intel processor. i can't imagine (haswell + slightly larger battery, memory) costing MS 450$ more. i understand intel charging premium for haswell, the processor being leader in its class, but i can hardly say that for surface!
    Microsoft could have priced surface pro2 at 200-250 above surface 2, because that's what i think is the cost difference in BOM and they could have sold tons more than what they'll now sell.
    A device with Y series haswell could've also brought desktop performance in tablet formfactor and tablet weight, and would have been a hit, but would definitely have cannibalized surface 2's sales.
    the dock is definitely a welcome feature and makes surface pro 2 even more appealing to enterprise now.
  • vishal_ec - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Also, what i believe, MS needs at the moment is market share first and the profits would follow
  • Borkmier - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    The i5-4200U, sells for $287.00 from Intel, and the chipset is probably around $15-20.00. The additional RAM given it's LPDDR3 is probably somewhere from $15-25.00. The increased size of the battery is good for $5-10.00. Moving from 64GB of eMMC storage to a full blown SSD is gonna increase the price by at least $10.00. An active compact heatpiped cooling system is easily another $15.00. Lastly there's all the other small differences under the hood caused by moving from an ARM based system to an x86 one probably somewhere from $25-45.00. A $450.00 price difference is totally justified.
  • Dentons - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Microsoft is not paying anything near retail for the Intel CPU. Intel wants this product to work. They want to kill RT. It would be surprising if Microsoft isn't receiving a massive discount on both the CPU and chipset.

    Regarding the other components, certainly they add cost, but in many cases Microsoft's costs will be just a small fraction of the prices you've estimated. Yes, the Pro has additional costs. It is very unlikley to cost double the price of the RT.

    The reason it's so expensive is very likely because of the Microsoft tax. They want to have a competitive mobile tablet but are reluctant to give up their full Windows 8 OS margins.

    They are also very aware that their existing Windows 8 licensees aren't the least bit happy to be competing with them. Microsoft is treading carefully so as to not release a product at a price that their licensees would be incapable of hitting.
  • rituraj - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Don't forget the digitizer.
  • rituraj - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Also history is witness, the bigger a company is... more is the price they charge for each single component. You certainly have noticed upgrading in any company website is far more costlier than buying the same form the market..
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    I don't know, I'd be pretty happy to be competing with MS on tablets. Their stuff is so overpriced that it's pretty damn easy to undercut them on price.
  • vishal_ec - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    287(haswell) +45to65 (ram,chipset,battery,ssd) +(15)cooling+(35) x86overhead - (35) tegra4 - office 2013 cost.
    The cooling overhead could have been removed with Y series haswell.
    Please detail what is the x86 overhead you mentione over arm, seems highly unlikely to me that that overhead is as much as the price of Tegra 4!!!
    Above math comes out to way below 450.
    That said, i see how i hadn't counted the cooling costs and the x86 overhead you mentioned.
    also i didnt know that in today's SOC world there's an additional cost for chipset that arm counterparts dont see! I can see the 450 reduce to 350 at the very least!
  • Borkmier - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    Just to clear up things from multiple posts, $287.00 for the CPU is the OEM cost for the part you have to buy at least 1000 CPU's to get that. Also, a consumer cannot but this CPU outside of a product as it is a BGA component that is soldered to the board so there is generally no lower price for it, Microsoft may get a slight discount on it over the OEM price, but it is probably less than 1%.

    Next, Haswell is not a complete SoC so it still has need of an external chipset to support a system, even bundled most Intel chipsets are about $15.00 for the cheapest compatible version. In fact, in the past the chipset for the original Atom Processor was more expensive than the CPU, if memory serves me.

    Now while there would be less need for active cooling with a Y series part, those CPU's are even more expensive, the OEM price per thousand is $304.00. The difference between the prices is about what the cooling for the less efficient part costs. While it is a lower power part and generates less heat, the downside is that you lose GPU and CPU speed out of it, which may have been a deal breaker for Microsoft.

    Now, because Haswell is not a complete SoC, it doesn't bundle in WiFi Radios, Bluetooth, and/or wireless Modems, so all of these things are extra and not included in the costs I estimated before. Tegra on the other hand does have at least some of these things, I'm not sure how much of it is integrated in the Tegra 4 SoC but it's all available from nVidia as a package for far less than the price of Intel's CPU. Also, I do not believe Intel provides for Sound either, so some kind of sound DSP is probably needed.

    Part of the overhead costs in any x86 based system are the complexity of the Mother Board. Most if not all modern x86 PCB's need to be multi-layered at least near the CPU and chipset, due to the large number of power and data connections needed for those parts. Now these things may be drastically reduced, depending on what features the tablet can do without, but Microsoft views Tablets as PC's without a keyboard, they always have. Given Microsoft's view, there is only so much they can afford to cut out before the tablet cannot provide PC-like functionality. Thus it is likely that the PCB is at least a bit more complex and expensive to manufacture than the competition.

    Also, to my knowledge, Haswell uses at least two different power planes, possibly three. While I believe Tegra uses only one, this means that the power circuitry on the Surface 2 Pro is going to need to be more robust to properly power everything, and thus more expensive.

    The last major issue between the two, is that with the exception of Atom, all Intel architectures, regardless of how low the TDP, are designed for performance over efficiency. While Intel may optimize to reduce power consumption, and may even devote more transistors in a given generation to make the chip more power efficient, they are really just underclocking a high performance design to make it fit into a lower power envelope. As a result of this, Haswell has some high performing features that a tablet doesn't need, like high speed buses, DDR3 support, Dual Channel Memory, 64 bit Memory Addressing and Registers, PCI Express, SATA3, USB3, and I'm sure there's more. Just having these features drives up costs, whether the product uses them or not, and Surface 2 Pro in it's best configuration, uses almost all these, but even in the lowest configuration it uses the same amount. However ARM systems don't use any of these things, maybe USB3, but it woudn't make sense with eMMC.

    Anyhow, I would guess that Microsoft is making maybe $100-150.00 per unit, which isn't out of line with what other manufacturer's make on their premium tablets and that's the ultimate point. The Surface 2 Pro is a premium product for a premium price. It was never meant to be a cheap product for the masses, it is a product whose purpose is to promote Microsoft's idea about what they believe a tablet should be at it's best, not it's cheapest. Whether or not it will cause a shift in the thinking of the market is unknown, but at least they are trying.
  • Nagorak - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    They could have also made a version with a Baytrail Atom processor and the cost would not have to be much higher, if at all, then they are already charging for their gimped Surface (RT) 2.
  • Borkmier - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    Yeah, an Atom based system would be far cheaper, at least $300.00 cheaper, to produce than the Surface Pro 2. Then again, even the best Atom is not a processor I would ever want to use. Given the choice between an Atom based machine I can buy, but don't want to use, and a Surface 2 Pro that I want to use, but can't afford to buy, I'll just stick with my laptop, which already does everything I need.
  • Doominated - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    You've been able to find brand new Ultrabooks for ~500 pretty much all year this year. What do you mean it "hasn't happened yet"? It's happened exactly like Intel said it would.
  • James5mith - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Isn't that CPU the same as in the new Haswell NUC?
  • rituraj - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Why the hell is there so much maxiPad talk. It's Anandtech. Readers are supposed to make sense. I am a bit disappointed that even Anand and Brian puts this in the same comparison table with an ipad. I would like to see comparison with a samsung ativ pro or thinkpad helix along with a MB Air.

    The surface pro is by no means In the league of ipad and the likes. It's an ultrabook that has a digitizer input, tablet form factor, x86, windows 8.1 with full office (you know it's pricey), a keyboard etc.. etc....
    This is not your average media consumption device. Its is nearly a mobile workstation (well not exactly) for digital artists, photographers, engineers, school and college teachers, students and so many other professionals. The arm based products are no where near it when it comes to serving those professions.
  • Impulses - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Digital arts, photographers, and teachers aren't gonna drive sales in a significant way tho, they 're borderline niche... Students and mobile pros are where I see the Surface Pro's biggest market but even amongst them some may prefer a larger laptop or a smaller tablet. At least Pro has a viable and untapped market tho, anything RT is just doomed IMO.
  • Impulses - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Bay Trail convertibles running x86 Windows OTOH can tap an even larger market, dunno why MS elected to push another overpriced RT hybrid atop an existing one that isn't selling.
  • Nagorak - Monday, September 23, 2013 - link

    Microsoft really dropped the ball in regards to the Surface 2. Not only is Baytrail a competitive processor, it means that the tablet can be full Win 8.1 instead of RT. Microsoft keeps pushing RT and the fact is no one wants it. A few diehard fanboys will go on about how it's fine, but the public at large has shown they are not interested.

    Even if they had to increase the cost by $50 or $100, going with Baytrail and full Win 8.1 would be more than worthwhile. Bottom line: Surface 2 should be called Surface RT2, the price should be $100 lower, and the real Surface 2 should use a Baytrail Atom processor and be full Win 8.1. If they can't make a Tegra 4 Surface RT for $350 then they should just can the whole thing. Hardly anyone is going to be interested in paying for a WinRT tablet when there will be competing Win 8.1 tablets that cost less, and probably offer better performance with Baytrail anyway.
  • Qwertilot - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    Slightly doubt that. Processor performance roughly equivalent but surely RT is a substantially lighter weight operating system than full Win 8.1 so you end up faster in practice. Or did they mess that up too?
  • Dayv1d - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link

    MS clearly did not WANT full win for the surface 2. Especially not as limited in performance as it would be with an atom. The Device is meant to be a tablet in the sense of an ipad, just more eficient if it comes to getting things DONE so its the first (!) all in one device for people who just uses computer for standard tasks like consume media, surf, use social nets, mail, skype, take notes etc who would so far have to take an ipad AND a netbook / cheep laptop (or maybe just an ipad, but would sometimes have a damn hard time with it writing and multitasking).

    And than there is the pro, which is the all in one for everyone else, who really needs a full pc with all that software.

    I think the main difference between ms and Apple right now is, that apple wants you to buy many different products (and sync them over their cloud), while ms thinks one computer should suffice one person (+ maybe a phone, because calling / making pictures with a 5"+ device is just ridiculous!).

    I mean, somewhere in time arm based ipads really have fulfilled its temporary purpose of filling the gap of a portable desktop, because desktops really HAVE BECOME portable. And guess what, the pro is right that. Its just a little fat, though. :P

    And i also think, that the not-so-good selling numbers are neither a sign of an unfunctional system including the "win rt has too few apps" prob (reviews really prove that it allready already does well in most tasks) nor shows that people does not want / need that whole product family at all. Its just a LOT harder to hit a saturated marked with already two working platforms in it, than one that is still in phase of early development. Its even harder than ms thought it would be...
  • jasonelmore - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    looking at the pics it looks like it has two 31.1 whr batteries
  • Laxaa - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    Only 2GB of RAM in the RT model is dissapointing.
  • OneOfTheseDays - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    What people don't understand is that Microsoft is really not interested in becoming Apple. That's not what gave them dominance in the computing market. They've succeeded in large part because of the open ecosystem they built and helped cultivate. Apple's closed wall garden has led them to sub 10% marketshare in terms of desktops, but that is fine for them. They have always been and will always be a niche player there.

    These products coming out are meant to get the ball rolling for their new mobile platforms. I honestly doubt they care about competing with Apple head on here. They want the OEMs to pick up the slack, which they are not likely to do until we see a critical mass of users.
  • kojenku - Tuesday, September 24, 2013 - link

    The hardware is fine to me. Pricing is fine to me. Software is so so as I don't count those apps in the Windows online store as software. They are crapware and less than 2% worth looking (not buying or downloading).
    I do have an idea how to reboot the software side of Surface. Add a little scripting language to Windows 8.1 and let users to write script programs inside Surface. Do not ask people to download the Visual Studio SDK or Express. The SDK is for professionals. Most of us are not professional developers. We are users or hobbysts.
  • mhaager2 - Wednesday, September 25, 2013 - link

    I really liked what MS was trying to do with Surface and I bought the Surface RT. It was far from perfect, but I knew that going in. Unfortunately I have had a bunch of problems with mine from the touch cover coming apart at the seams to the device suddenly discharging from 30% battery to being dead, weird video artifacts watching Netflix, and sound cutting in and out. Luckily (or so I thought) I had purchased the "No hassle" MS complete coverage. I have now sent the device back twice and each time they have sent it back with no documentation to explain why. I have spent valuable time on the phone with customer "care" only to be told they can't find fault with the device. For a company struggling to gain a foothold in the tablet market and sitting on a stockpile of unsold RTs you'd think they'd be trying to bring over backward to make me happy. So while I really like the look of the new Surfaces on paper I am very hesitant to buy another MS product based on the very poor customer service I have experienced. Sad too because I don't really see an alternative I like in the market.
  • augustofretes - Wednesday, September 25, 2013 - link

    Oh Microsoft you had me until I read "Intel HD 4400", was using Intel HD 5000 too hard? Your product isn't cheap at all, at least match the competition.
  • beggerking@yahoo.com - Thursday, September 26, 2013 - link

    2 position kickstand is nice
  • timbodoc - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link

    Is it only the surface 2 that comes with a fully installed office or does the pro 2 also have that
  • asking11220 - Thursday, October 3, 2013 - link

    2013-10-03
    4:03 PM

    In my opinion I can be wrong Microsoft Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 are good products. However, in my opinion I can be wrong, Microsoft failed to see the value of Display high resolution.

    Apple saw the marketability of Retina Display resolution and pushed the tablet's Display resolution as one of the selling point to buy Apple iPad 5.

    Such marketing insight gave Apple the advantage.

    It is like Nokia selling a smartphone with a 40 or so MegaPixel camera, but with a 720p or 1080p display resolution. Why sell an ultra high resolution camera with a 720 or 1080 display resolution. This undervalue the ultra high resolution camera. Hopefully, Microsoft buying Nokia infers the smartphone with a 40 or so MP camera is going to get an upgrade to Retina Display in the future.

    In my opinion I can be wrong Apple can afford to buy Retina Display because Apple bought millions of Retina Display at wholesale price. Buying less cause the price of the Retina Display to be closer to retail than wholesale price. Only companies with confidence would buy millions of Retina Display.

    I hope Microsoft gain their confidence in time to sell Nokia Lumina 1020 smartphone with 40 or so MP camera next year, so the smartphone comes with Retina Display.
  • Dayv1d - Wednesday, October 9, 2013 - link

    putting something higher as 1080p in a 11" display does NOT give any benefit to the user (simple math on the optical resolution of the human eye...). Its just something some try to sell when innovation has come to an end.

    So this counts even more on a device as small as a phone like the Lumia.

    On the other side, high resolution in a camera is somewhat beneficial:

    - you can make big pictures that are surely not thought to be viewed on the phone itself, even if you might have some fun zooooooooooooooming in them

    - the pixels can be combined for higher light sensitivity and this is the option of choice for most lumia users imho

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