"The charts are quite ridiculous in the article - comparing an Ivy Bridge, actively cooled laptop-tablet to a Nexus 7? Why?"
The relevant comparison was the surface pro 2, (a joke of a tablet), has a 42 Wh battery and runs a mere 6.6 hours, but the macbook 11 inch has a smaller 38 Wh battery yet runs longer at 11.1 hours very nearly twice as long.
So are we comparing different hardware or operating systems? Surface 2 Pro and a Macbook Air are completely different:
- different screen resolution
- one of them has touchscreen, other doesn't
- different keyboards (might matter a lot)
.. and so on. The MBA is clearly better, but that does not tell too much about whether Windows is inherently bad at power management or not.
Doesn't it have a fan or two? You know this thing that has to rotate thousands times per minute to blow the heated air, producing whirring noise, and being able to get stuck or result in overheating if you cover the exhausts?
Unless the Surface Pro 2 is significantly improved over the 1, which it doesn't look like it is from reading the reviews, it is a joke to be honest. Everyone keeps saying it's a 'real computer'; so why didn't you buy a laptop then? I worked on the 1 for about 2 weeks; the keyboard drove me insane as did the battery life. I didn't like how it stands up compared to a laptop and for some reason the screen wasn't as responsive to my touches as I would've expected it to be. For the price of these things I don't really see why anyone would buy one unless you have way too much money to spare on toys.
That said, I'll try the 2 as well when I can borrow it for a few weeks. I'm afraid the difference won't make me a convert though.
> the keyboard drove me insane as did the battery life
They've improved a battery life to 7 hours of browsing, it's even more than many other windows laptops out there. Are you talking about type cover? If yes, than what exactly drove you insane? It works find for me.
> I didn't like how it stands up compared to a laptop
They've added a new stand position which will satisfy those who are looking for laptop-like stand
> For the price of these things I don't really see why anyone would buy one unless you have way too much money to spare on toys.
It costs as much as macbook air but has a touch screen and a tablet form factor, it might fit a lot of people who don't want to carry around macbook air + ipad but want a single device.
People spend money to conform for mating rituals or to gain power.
You don't conform for mating rituals by purchasing some weird thing that no one else wants.
(non-engineering defined) Power comes out of what you can do with something, not meaningless specification numbers (however awful they are for the surface pro 2). So to do something powerful on a surface pro 2, you go to itunes app store for that cool new app and ... whoops I mean play.google.com and ... whoops I mean I hope you never leave the tiny walled garden of the shovelware it ships with, because no 3rd parties are going to pay any attention to it and it'll be forgotten about in a year at most. Its got the expandability of a fisher price toy tablet.
So if you're trying to impress/intimidate/mate (all three?), its about as useful as wearing a Darth Vader costume other than on Halloween, if you're trying to collect meaningless specs its one of the worst in class for battery life, if you're trying to actually do something you need a real supported tablet like an apple or google tablet. So other than that, its a great... paperweight?
Huh? It's a regular Windows computer, you use the same Windows software everybody else uses. You don't have to use the goofball metro interface anymore than someone who installs Windows 8 on a desktop does.
I mean, if you're in the market for a big iPhone, you'll be disappointed, but it's not competing with iPad, it's competing with Macbook Airs and Chromebooks.
There was no relevant comparsion, as long as the hardware differs there is no way to compare. It's not just about the processor it's about everything the display the speakers the wireless network adapter, etc.
Don't get me wrong the battery life of the surface is ridiculous but still the comparsion is equally ridiculous.
They pick their hardware though, it's their device. You can't claim it's the drivers.
I still don't really get what they're trying to do with the surface. If I want a tablet, I can buy a nexus 7 for cheap and it's a superior tablet to the surface anyway from things that are important to tablets (battery, apps, ui etc). If I want a laptop, I can go buy a laptop and not pay for all the bells and whistles with a touch screen, odd hardware in the screen, etc.
The charts are quite ridiculous in the article - comparing an Ivy Bridge, actively cooled laptop-tablet to a Nexus 7? Why?
BTW, the biggest difference is maybe CPU core hotplugging, this exists in Android and iOS but does not in Windows RT.