I got one from the US for my Mother off as she bought an iPad thinking it was a Laptop replacement, ended up never using it and went back to her Laptop. It's basically a fully featured Laptop but also a tablet, which finally makes sense of Windows 8 and switching between the UIs. It has everything you'd want for a Laptop replacement and battery life is great, I mean the Laptop my Mother had even as new only ever got 3 hours and towards the end she had to keep it plugged it or it died in 20 mins. So for her being able to use it for 6+ hours without charge is amazing, though she doesn't ever do anything intensive. The keyboard Microsoft made for it is great, the mouse pad on it is great, the device is light weight, thin and has every feature you'd want from both Laptop and Tablet. The screen is great, the speakers are great and everything about it is really top notch! I'm really impressed by it and I'm obviously comparing it to Laptops in the price range and I think it's better since it can be both Tablet or Laptop, has every feature and there are no compromises. If Microsoft can make these at a lower price point, I think they're what people actually want from a Tablet because people like Windows, they're used to it and IOS is useless and has no functionality what so ever. I always see people using their Laptops over their iPads as a result of IOS being so restrictive. So this device if cheaper would cut out the iPad and give people what they wanted from Tablets in the first place. Just wish I bought it for myself now lol.
I can see how people who want to run windows programs would love it but for a tablet/laptop combo i would love to see a decent android device come out with more power than a tegra 3. also i can't stand 8 personally. The surface pro looks like a solid bit of hardware if you want windows 8 x86 in a tablet but its price is stupid.
Yeh I got it for £650, 64GB because I'm guessing you can just swap out the SSD of which I have many. Compared to other Laptops and tablets around that price range, I think it's worthwhile. I wouldn't pay any more for it though, Microsoft need to make a 4G version to contract it to reduce the one off price.
I don't see the Surface Pro as being worthwhile at all. I can get a tablet PC for much less with a replaceable harddrive, upgradeable memory, optical drive, and larger screen.....that still functions properly as a laptop and tablet. Personally, given the limited functionality of most tablets, I don't see any model over $200USD being "worthwhile"....
Thing is you can get a cheap PoS but it wont be anywhere near as good or as complete. It's have bad cameras or not at all, a poor screen, poor touch recognition and just feel so cheap. The Intel in it is great and the 4000 is a really capable GPU, I can play any modern game on it, though you wont be maxing anything out. If I got it for me, I'd gladly throw my Laptop away and it feels expensive, that is mega important. If you have what feels like a cheap PoS like Android's efforts so far, you just have no pride in it. It runs Windows 8 though which I think is mega important for a tablet, Metro works so well... like it's the only instance of Windows 8 I would use as you finally realize, this is what it was designed for.
For what i do on portable devices android is great (limited internet browsing, tons of hd youtube, hd video playback and music on a <$200 device). Instead of claiming android is a PoS it's nicer to simply state that android doesn't provide what you want and in your opinion it isn't good.
The price is too high for a device like this, I rather use my ASUS Transformer Pad Prime instead. Does 90% of what I need for college. I only use my laptop for the hacking tools I need for class, other than that, my tablet is really all I need. deltatux
I don't find Android's or Apple's efforts worthwhile, they're just larger iPods, not as useful as a phone or a Laptop. Android tablets I've used have all been horrible, they're just cheap tat not good for anything.
It runs Android......... like Android is a crap unbaptized mess in itself and Google like giving the impression of it being open, yet it's not, why we wont ever see if being universal, why we wont ever see OEMs using stock Android. Android just doesn't have the functionality of Windows.. I just think for the price and the market it's aimed at which isn't the IOS tablet market, the Pro is aimed well at replacing ultrabooks and tablets, it's a multi purpose device in that. I mean when you can play Skyrim on it, then the next second play stuff made for Metro, it's the perfect all in one device. Just my opinion like you have yours, however it is the first device my Mother has had that has replaced her Laptop and her Tablet, because it's both. The good thing is, anything Metro doesn't have yet, Windows does as everything is developed for Windows. Lets be honest everything is better on Windows, I've never used an ARM based OS and thought it does something better than Windows. Nope I choose flash based Desktop mode over apps any day.
I just lost the battle with my patience and ordered a surface pro from the US (in in the UK)... I hope that it now doesn't get released for a few weeks to make it seem like it was worth the extra price Anyone know a good resource for surface pro tips etc? ....or as its basically windows 8 is it just a case of looking at win 8 stuff? Cheers!
i thought the Surface Pro got slated because of it's small storage (even on the 128Gb model) which isn't upgradeable by the way, horrific battery life and heavy form. And then there is the price.... A Haswell revamp may make it decent.
If you buy cheap, you get cheap. I've got a cheap (price and quality) Android 2.2 tablet. I've also had an Android 2.3 phone. Neither were really shining examples of what Android could do. Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean) is actually quite functional though....and a major improvement over prior releases. If you buy an Android "Jelly Bean" based tablet, they can do pretty well everything a Surface or Surface Pro can do.... I paid $100USD for my Blackberry Playbook and it does everything I need it to do. I can even print from it.