Again, this is being steered away from the point I was after initially in that MS has been down this path before and failed.
I don't understand why you keep defaulting to this. Just because XP based tablets didn't take off (in a time when NO tablet including apple's offering had luck) suddenly microsoft should never try to come back into the tablet market? So the first time Henry Ford failed in the automobile market he should have just been "Nuts to this then, they can just ride horses"
The bottom line is that it's a solid unit (both models, but the pro moreso) for the price. I think there's certainly an opening for a full OS in tablet form factor. It's not for everyone. It's not for me, but there is a market, and it's a solid alternative to what's out today. That's the bottom line.
Do you REALLY want to pay more for a Microsoft product than an Apple product? Really?
I REALLY would rather spend my money on something that has support for pretty much any program made for windows in the last 5+ years, than spend 600 dollars on a tablet that can play angry birds and cut the rope. I'd REALLY like the tablet I buy to have a built-in cardreader and usb port rather than having to buy a 40 dollar adapter for each of those functions.
Truth be told I'd REALLY rather buy a tablet from Microsoft than Apple for a multitude of reasons based solely on my opinion of each company, and the people who are involved with them. I don't know why the Apple brand suddenly implies that the product is better than Microsoft, like it's a sin for a Microsoft product to have better components and be more expensive than an Apple product. If you want my opinon, the only thing that Apple is truly, across the board better at Microsoft, or pretty much any company out now besides possibly insurance companies, is marketing. Apple could sell you a spray painted rock and have you convinced it's worth it's weight in gold, and people would flock around it and say "Oh wow have you seen Dave's iGold? I saw the ads for that, man i'm getting mine next paycheck!"
I'm not saying that Apple makes worthless product, but having used a multitude of tablets including Android based (Transformer, Fire) Windows RT based (Surface) and iOS based (iPad) I don't see any reason why the iPad holds the crown in so many people's eyes. Apple talks constantly about being innovative and different, when they've had the exact same design for the iPhone and iPad since gen 1 (minus the iPhone 5, which is longer lol) When I have to check the serial number to figure out what version of iPad i'm handling, I don't think i'd peg that product as being "innovative"
The iPad, in my opinion, offers worse value than many android tablets while having the same functionality, and there isn't anything it does that the Surface tablets couldn't do, besides the ****ty selection of "apps" (still kills me to call them that) in the windows store for the RT. I see the iPad and iOS as being cloystered, restrictive , and squeeze you for ever single extra functionality that you need because they only thought it necessary (by design or function) to include only one proprietary external port.
There have ALWAYS been solid, if not more innovative, alternatives to Apple's "flagship" products. Back when everybody was raving about iPods, I found a Samsung K5, which had a high quality kick out speaker and more storage space than a comparable iPod. Did that make thousands of religious news articles? No. It's out of production now, and I still wish I could buy another because it was the best damn MP3 player i've ever owned. Meanwhile Apple is making an new innovative iPod with the exact same design, but rounded sides and in different colours. Think different.
Just realized this turned into a huge rant about Apple. I should stop now.
