I've been saying this for months. RT will work with all USB peripherals just like any Windows OS does. Some things that requirre specific drivers wont work, but Windows has drivers built-in for literally hundreds of thousands of USB devices. It's a massive advantage over other tablets and gives Surface and any other Win 8/RT tablets more accessories/peripherals than Android and iPad by miles.
Microsoft Surface RT Priced
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I've been saying this for months. RT will work with all USB peripherals just like any Windows OS does. Some things that requirre specific drivers wont work, but Windows has drivers built-in for literally hundreds of thousands of USB devices. It's a massive advantage over other tablets and gives Surface and any other Win 8/RT tablets more accessories/peripherals than Android and iPad by miles.
Win RT has a desktop. It's exactly the same as the Win 8 desktop in every single way. The only difference is that it does not run Windows x86/64 software (obviously, as RT runs on ARM CPU's that are not compatible). No 3rd party is allowed to make desktop software for it either, only MS can do that. But 3rd parties are allowed to make device drivers for it.
One of the biggest selling points for Windows RT is that it comes with Office 2013 pre-installed. And Office is desktop software. Don't know how you could have missed this...
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I'm not sure having the desktop in RT is going to be a good thing. Getting the message across that you cannot run existing Windows applications was already going to prove challenging. I recently saw a thread on another forum where someone wanted to know why he can't get applications from the Google Play website to install on his Lumia 610. It's not an unheard of problem, and if people struggle to get their heads around that then I can imagine they're going to really struggle with the "RT is not normal Windows" concept.
I'm thinking someone might unlock the compiler before long, Microsoft must have made Office RT in Visual Studio.
Will be interesting to see if there is any signing on the desktop style apps on the RT.
Not sure it would bring much to the system, might be good to make a few extra utilities / do things not sanctioned via the store.
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its awsome
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QUALITY BRUV
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Ouch the Verge review was a bit harsh.
Such a pity they didn't use a better processor, otherwise I'd be ordering one but on the bright side it's pretty much exactly what I was expecting otherwise (which is a good thing!).
Such a pity they didn't use a better processor, otherwise I'd be ordering one but on the bright side it's pretty much exactly what I was expecting otherwise (which is a good thing!).
Yep that lag is very concerning (even though I'm not getting one) why didn't they go for s4
Other than that, the same exactly as expected and very cool.
One thing though I've been very set on an 11.6" screen. But I keep forgetting ipad is stupid ratio where most win8 tablets are 16:9 so you actually get full video screen, so wondering if I actually need that extra inch over the surface.
And who the hell uses a tablet in portrait.
Roll on the i5/i7 reviews and release.
Although very interested how the atoms compare.
Other than that, the same exactly as expected and very cool.
One thing though I've been very set on an 11.6" screen. But I keep forgetting ipad is stupid ratio where most win8 tablets are 16:9 so you actually get full video screen, so wondering if I actually need that extra inch over the surface.
And who the hell uses a tablet in portrait.
Roll on the i5/i7 reviews and release.
Although very interested how the atoms compare.
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Quite a lot of people :/
I use mine mostly for comics so that's all portrait.
Anyone reading will most likely be using it in portrait, web browsing it depends what you're doing.
When you have a different aspect ratio to the iPad you tend to do a lot of reading / browsing in portrait.
My Nexus 7 is only in landscape for watching things.
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Why do I read in portrait? Same reason books are portrait and ereaders are portrait. It is much more comfortable reading down than across. How many blogs can you find that have articles that stretch across the screen?
Nearly all blogs are better in portrait. Look at Gizmodo for example, it's just a column of entries, far more comfortable to browse it in portrait.
Nearly all blogs are better in portrait. Look at Gizmodo for example, it's just a column of entries, far more comfortable to browse it in portrait.
Sounds like Surface with Windows RT is a bit 'meh' really. It's a real shame there isn't an Atom or Krait version of the Surface - the hardware sounds great, just let down by a bad pairing of OS and SoC.
Battery life isn't as good as I expected to be honest. It's good, but mid-table for an ARM machine and not far off the figures Intel is boasting for Clovertrail tablets.
Battery life isn't as good as I expected to be honest. It's good, but mid-table for an ARM machine and not far off the figures Intel is boasting for Clovertrail tablets.
I would say its more convention, that its easier.
Books it makes sense to have taht ratio. Bigger pages, means bigger spine, floppies paper etc. it makes no sense to have a landscape book. Hence convention.
A I said each to their own, I don't find it any easier to read in portrait and everything including blog websites fit much nicer in landscape as well as far nicer to hold (but that's probably personal preference as well)
I wouldn't take any notice of The Verge review. They're always bias towards anything that isn't made by Apple (especially Joshua Topolsky who reviewed it).
I'd definitely trust Anandtech over them, and Anand said this about performance and lag:
I've always agreed with what he has to say on these matters. When Android was a laggy mess it was brought up and what he had to say was spot on, so if the Surface pretty much matches the iPad even though it has a slower GPU then i'll trust Anand. The fact MS have managed to get a far more capable OS running smoother than a cut-down phone OS on the same hardware is extremely impressive.
Like i said earlier though, MS really should have just made a Intel Clover Trail Surface. Full Win 8 + same size form factor, battery life about the same as ARM, and better SoC performance.
I'd definitely trust Anandtech over them, and Anand said this about performance and lag:
I've always agreed with what he has to say on these matters. When Android was a laggy mess it was brought up and what he had to say was spot on, so if the Surface pretty much matches the iPad even though it has a slower GPU then i'll trust Anand. The fact MS have managed to get a far more capable OS running smoother than a cut-down phone OS on the same hardware is extremely impressive.
Like i said earlier though, MS really should have just made a Intel Clover Trail Surface. Full Win 8 + same size form factor, battery life about the same as ARM, and better SoC performance.
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It's not so much that they're in portrait that's the important bit, when you read text it's more comfortable if it's not too wide. For the same reason most newspapers use fairly short width columns regardless of how wide the page is.
Using Gizmodo as an example they've got 2 columns of text on the homepage and only use a portion of the center column in articles for this same reason.