The long awaited successor to the Surface RT has finally arrived. After months of waiting, users can now finally experience what the RT *should’ve* been like. It is a responsive, multi-purpose tablet that functions in the awkward area between a tablet and an ultrabook. There has been some very interesting pre-release and post-release news that surrounds this fledgling in the hybrid space of a tablet and ultrabook.
Before the release, there have been major gripes about the memory that this device has. This is because the Surface Pro has a full desktop version of Windows 8 running on it. The 64GB model has 23 GB of free space out of the box, and the 128 GB model has 84 GB free. Many reviewers were freaking potential customers out with this point- you’re getting roughly 50-60% of the advertised storage for the device out of the box! I mean, what’s up with that? In fact, Andrew Sokolowski, a lawyer in LA had made a point of filing a sue against Microsoft for this problem – only with the Surface RT. He had bought a 32 GB model Surface RT but it only had 16 GB of free storage to use. Despite many reviewers highlighting this point, they have failed to make a comparison to another popular device that (with a stretch in definition) is similar to the Surface Pro in its hybridized nature as an ultrabook in an ultra-portable form factor – the Macbook Air. That’s right, the Apple Macbook Air has 128 gigs but it has a higher reported usable storage space due to the fact that it uses a base 10 system to calculate its free space, as opposed to Microsoft who uses a base 2 system. As a result, Microsoft products will generally have a lower reported free space. What’s more, the models being shipped out to retailers use a slightly different Windows 8 disk image than the image used for the pre-release reviews. This means that the 83 gigs of free storage may actually be “boosted” up to 89-90 gigs at the models provided at the retail launch. Taking this into account, if the Macbook Air and Surface Pro both use the base 2 system calculation the Macbook Air would have 92.2GB of free space, and 89.7GB for the Pro (both on 128GB models).
All this aside, the launch day for the Surface Pro was certainly interesting. Within hours, the 128 GB model had sold out in online Microsoft stores. Also, in an even shorter time period, the 128 GB models had sold out in all the big box retailers and brick-and-mortar Microsoft store locations. For a product to sell out on its launch day is definitely a great thing, but what if a large portion of the people who went to the stores had reportedly only found one to 5 units in stock – and even none for some? Understandably, this may have been a move by Microsoft to pull back on its sales in some sort of fear that it will not perform as well as expected after underwhelming amount of units sold for the Surface RT (they had sold less than half of their expected amount in the first month of sales). Another possibility could be that Microsoft was trying to get under the banner of accomplishment of selling out on the opening day, resorting to tactics such as under-stocking the stores. No matter how you look at it, it is unacceptable for a company to keep so many customers waiting on a day as important as its launch date.
The reviews for the Surface Pro have largely been asking the same question: Is the Surface Pro a tablet, or an ultrabook? Microsoft has said that they had designed the Surface Pro with the idea in mind of combining the Macbook Air and the iPad. It’s the first of its kind. Even though there are other tablet/notebook hybrids out there like the Lenovo Yoga 13, there has definitely not been the same level of thought and attention paid to detail as in the Surface Pro. This is exactly the problem that people may find in this product – despite the stellar effort put into creating this product, it does not entirely encompass either a tablet or an ultrabook. It is a device full of compromise, a few points to illustrate this would be that it’s a tad too heavy to be a tablet, but the screen size is a bit too cramped to be an ultrabook. But if we look at all of these reviews a level higher – we realize that we cannot compare it to any single tablet or any single ultrabook because the Surface Pro is exactly neither of these. It is a hybrid, a product in its own class. It is the first in its class of hybrids. A property of the Surface Pro that illustrates this point perfectly would be another gripe that the general public has with this product: its battery life. Compared to the popular Nexus 7 tablet which has upwards of 9 hours of operation, the Surface Pro only has at most 4 hours. But the Surface Pro as an ultrabook with 4 hours of operation is actually decent given its form factor. If the Macbook Air were to be shrunk down to this size, it would definitely be performing equally if not less in terms of battery life.
The Surface Pro may serve as a decent laptop replacement (I mean, if you’re going to spend nearly 1 grand on this device, it would be best to not make it a secondary device right?) given its ultra-portability and for some, its’ stylus is a major bonus too. But the Battery life and storage (which can be expanded thanks to the Micro SDXC card slot to 64 GB currently) can be a hindrance to some who cannot find an outlet on the move. Currently, this device is definitely part of a niche market. But this may all change when the next generation of mobile processors by Intel is ready for integration – the Haswell Chipset.
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