My Surface for Windows RT Review

theheyes said:
Have you applied all the firmware updates?
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Yeah, firmware updates had been applied.
A colleague took it home and was trying to use it last night. Apparently Office decided to disappear from the device and it was failing/locking up on installing windows updates.

The device has now been reset to factory defaults/reinstalled and appears to be working, though no updates have been applied yet afaik.
 
I've had RT bug out on me occasionally but nothing to that extent. See how it goes and if it still plays up get a replacement unit.
 
Flop Surface Tablets Smashed a £590m Hole in Microsoft’s Accounts

Surface is officially a financial disaster for Microsoft, with the tablet scheme making headlines of the wrong sort in its latest set of accounts. For the last business quarter, MS booked a $900m loss thanks to its latest spectacular hardware flop.

The hole in the accounts was mentioned in the first paragraph of Microsoft’s latest figures, with the tech giant saying the loss was “related to Surface RT inventory adjustments,” which, we suspect, means it has thousands upon thousands of the things sitting unsold in various warehouses around the Western world. Hence the recent price cut that hacked the price of the standard tablet down to £279 in the UK in an attempt to shift a few. Any. Even just one.

Probably best not to buy a Surface just yet, though, as this might go the way of the PlayBook and hit the £99 mark before the summer’s out.
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http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/07/flop-surface-tablets-smashed-a-590m-hole-in-microsofts-accounts/
 
theheyes said:
Good news is that's almost entirely Microsoft's problem. They shouldn't have made so many.
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Wouldn't say the quantity was a problem.
The price/spec was the problem, that's somewhat fixed now..... But we're almost a year on.


There is no reason Surface had to do poorly.
 
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That wasnt the problem either, yea they made to many but still, the point of Surface was to make a marker to other OEMS to get on board with generally making decent Tablet for W8, same for the Pro, they showed what was going to be expected.
This is all reminding me of how willing they are to throw billions at xBox to get it where it is now, they have much longer term goals than about 10 months and ONE product.
 
Martini1991 said:
Wouldn't say the quantity was a problem.
The price/spec was the problem, that's somewhat fixed now..... But we're almost a year on.


There is no reason Surface had to do poorly.
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Price is a factor but the biggest complaint I usually see is it's a cut down version of Windows and that there's not enough apps available, the price of the device won't change that.

Does kind of make me wish Microsoft had just thrown $500 million at developers to get more of the most popular apps the platform lacks.
 
Martini1991 said:
Wouldn't say the quantity was a problem.
The price/spec was the problem.
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I mean literally the logistics and subsequent write down is Microsoft's problem. It hasn't got much to do with the Surface itself if you think about it. If they sold as many as they manufactured that article wouldn't have anything to crow about.
 
DeathStorm said:
Price is a factor but the biggest complaint I usually see is it's a cut down version of Windows and that there's not enough apps available, the price of the device won't change that.

Does kind of make me wish Microsoft had just thrown $500 million at developers to get more of the most popular apps the platform lacks.
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Hindsight is a B***h :D
 
Not surprised in the slightest, underspecced, over priced, in next too no shops, no 3G. Meaning not in phone shops and no data plan contract.
I hope they learn, but Ms still seem to be stuck in the 80s and 90s, producing nice software but pretty clueless about marketing and integration.

At least the surface 2 looks like it will be a top end tablet.
 
DeathStorm said:
Price is a factor but the biggest complaint I usually see is it's a cut down version of Windows and that there's not enough apps available, the price of the device won't change that.

Does kind of make me wish Microsoft had just thrown $500 million at developers to get more of the most popular apps the platform lacks.
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The price of the device could have meant more people buy, more people buy = bigger market share, that makes it a more viable platform for apps to be developed for.

Although you second point would have influenced apps a lot more :p
RT 8.1 has actually killed quite a few apps for me :(
 
Which apps has it killed? Biggest bug for me is that annoying scrolling one. Breaks the twitter app completely. Aside from that though its been pretty plain sailing for me.
 
Full windows 8 on new atom chips coming out later this year is what Microsoft needs, full day of power and not nearly as many compromises on running of things like photoshop. Though I did have a windows 8 atom for a while and it was pretty good even on the older atom, will be brilliant on the new one, very few compromises unlike the RT tablet.
 
theheyes said:
Which apps has it killed? Biggest bug for me is that annoying scrolling one. Breaks the twitter app completely. Aside from that though its been pretty plain sailing for me.
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8.1's killed metro tube.
Angry Birds Star Wars.
And with the last update, Jetpack joyride :(.

That's 3 of 6 app's on my tablet lol.
 
Glaucus said:
You do realise its a beta and update your device.
A scrolling fix was issued a few days ago.
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I update it constantly.
It was actually the last update that killed Jetpack joyride.

And it doesn't matter that it's a beta, it's still killing apps, the last thing RT needs is people having to fix their apps.

MS said that 8.0 apps would work on 8.1, evidently they're not 100%.

Watch this make VLC's RT port stop working, that'd be almost too painful.

I hope in 8.1 they'd remove some technical restrictions so that we can get PS1 emulators, that'd be sweet.
 
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the last update fixed the scrolling bug, so metro now works.

and its beta, so give MS time to iron out the bugs and its likely that 8.0 apps will work.

this is the downside of allowing beta software to the masses.

they've added ~#several thousand(5000) apis, so it is less restricted, what difference it will make, depends on what they are. I know bluetooth has had a lot added.
 
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Metrotube's still broken in RT.
Which is the problem, my apps work fine in X86 (Metro being the exception till the update) but RT's just don't.
Metrotube just crashes, Angry Birds and Jetpack Joyride force close.
 
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