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| Microsoft fresh out of pre-orders for Surface |
| By Thom Holwerda, submitted by lucas_maximus on 2012-10-18 11:58:12 |
| "This may be a good sign for Microsoft: a little over a day after putting its new Surface RT tablet up for pre-order, the entry-level $499 version of the tablet has sold out. Its estimated shipping time has slipped from October 26, Windows 8's release date, to a more nebulous 'within three weeks'." We'll see. Wouldn't be the first time a company artificially keeps supply short to generate 'sold-out' hype. |
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| RE[5]: Comment by Radio |
| By Nelson on 2012-10-19 00:40:14 |
|
> They run Android applications just fine. They can run Android-proper just fine. How are they incompatible? They don't run any app using any kind of recent Android SDK. IIRC, the Android version that Amazon forked at is Gingerbread which is prior to Android tablet apps. What exactly does this mean? It means that the #1 selling "Android" tablet, does nothing to further the Android ecosystem as a whole. > Windows 8 is a clusterfcuk. Nobody is going to want to fcuk about with the desktop on a tablet. Speaking of clusterfuck. How anyone puts up with the absolute BULLSHIT that is an Android tablet is BEYOND me. That thing is such an inconsistent, slow, piece of garbage that I can't even fathom how anyone is not as irritated as I was with the poor experience. Windows 8 is an infinitely smoother experience. |
 - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Comment by lucas_maximus |
| By ilovebeer on 2012-10-19 07:11:19 |
|
> If the surface does well ... then everyone will be claiming that Microsoft abused their monopoly position. Not everyone. I really have no interest in seeing it fail any more than I have in seeing it succeed. I find it somewhat silly how so many people choose one extreme or the other I'll go a step further and say I find it absolutely silly (to put it nicely) that people emotionally attach themselves, much like a parasite does, to these companies. People act as if they actually have a physical relationship or rivalry. It's beyond me why people choose to be such thin-skinned cheerleaders one way or the other. All of these companies have both good and bad qualities so to pledge allegiance to one while decrying another is nothing short of hypocritical. |
| - Score: 4 |
| RE[6]: Comment by Radio |
| By WereCatf on 2012-10-19 08:30:05 |
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> Speaking of clusterfuck. How anyone puts up with the absolute BULLSHIT that is an Android tablet is BEYOND me. That thing is such an inconsistent, slow, piece of garbage that I can't even fathom how anyone is not as irritated as I was with the poor experience. Well, I wanted a tablet because I wanted to be able to easily and comfortably read books and comics on-the-go, watch movies and do web-browsing. Also, I wanted the ability to run any apps of my choosing on the device so an iPad was not suitable for my needs. In my use my tablet hasn't been anything like you describe, but then again, I don't have an axe to grind or the need to try and bash other peoples' tastes unlike certain others here. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[6]: Comment by Radio |
| By Neolander on 2012-10-19 09:04:35 |
|
> Speaking of clusterf--k. How anyone puts up with the absolute BULLSHIT that is an Android tablet is BEYOND me. That thing is such an inconsistent, slow, piece of garbage that I can't even fathom how anyone is not as irritated as I was with the poor experience. Windows 8 is an infinitely smoother experience. Just wondering : did you compare both OSs running on similar hardware ? I'm asking because AFAIK there's only a handful of ARM Windows 8 tablets and x86 Android tablets around right now, so finding one Android tablet and one Windows 8 tablet that share a single SoC for comparison purposes sounds difficult. Edited 2012-10-19 09:05 UTC |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE: Comment by lucas_maximus |
| By Soulbender on 2012-10-19 10:07:30 |
| Naturally but either way, saying "We sold out all our stock but, eh, we're not telling how much that actually was" is rather suspicious. It's all rather incredibly obvious and stupid so maybe it's just an oversight. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[2]: Maybe not this time. |
| By EvilMonkeySlayer on 2012-10-19 15:33:02 |
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Intel should be able to get some market share with their mobile processors, but they've got a snowballs chance in hell of becoming the dominant processor architecture for mobiles. In order for them to win they'd have to convince the manufacturers of phones/tablets to limit themselves to a single manufacturer (since Intel own the x86 arch, to my knowledge the only others allowed to make x86 arch processors are AMD and VIA). So, they'd limit themselves to giving a monopoly to Intel where they can price gouge them versus the very competitive ARM market where you've got various fabs and manufacturers competing against each other making ARM processors. |
| - Score: 3 |
| RE[7]: Comment by Radio |
| By Nelson on 2012-10-19 15:47:14 |
|
> Well, I wanted a tablet because I wanted to be able to easily and comfortably read books and comics on-the-go, watch movies and do web-browsing. Also, I wanted the ability to run any apps of my choosing on the device so an iPad was not suitable for my needs. In my use my tablet hasn't been anything like you describe, but then again, I don't have an axe to grind or the need to try and bash other peoples' tastes unlike certain others here. After dropping $400 on a slow, buggy, unusable piece of GARBAGE, I think I have the right to complain about my experience. It is appalling that they let tablets like this into the market. Makes me wonder if execs at Google just use iPads, because surely they can't tolerate this shit. Even tried putting CM on it, only to find even buggier ROMS with broken GPS, WiFi, or what have you. So go ahead, enjoy the fact that you can run SSH or your HTTP server or whatever on your tablet, but I can't deal with such a shitty experience. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[7]: Comment by Radio |
| By Nelson on 2012-10-19 15:50:17 |
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No, I didn't compare them on the same hardware. However, it is easy to get the gist for the dramatic differences. Android isn't just slightly laggy, or a little sluggish, it is PITIFULLY slow. This just shouldn't happen. Period. The Windows 8 tablet I use is the Acer W500. (W7 tab upgraded to W8). You can look up the specs and draw your own conclusions, but it is incredibly smooth. Also most impressions I've seen online from Windows RT tablets show that the smoothness has carried over to their ARM SoC designs as well. However, a comparison I can make is my Lumia 800 and my brothers Galaxy Nexus. There is just no comparison. The lower specced Lumia blows the Nexus out of the water in smoothness. Even with a CM'd JellyBean ROM. Again, highly unscientific but make of it what you wish. |
| - Score: 2 |
| RE[8]: Comment by Radio |
| By Neolander on 2012-10-19 18:34:39 |
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> No, I didn't compare them on the same hardware. However, it is easy to get the gist for the dramatic differences. Sure, but I have heard that there is such a dramatic difference in performance and battery life between Intel and ARM chips. This is why I don't know if such data can be relied on yet. > Android isn't just slightly laggy, or a little sluggish, it is PITIFULLY slow. This just shouldn't happen. Period. But again, is Android itself to blame, or is it the crap hardware and software which many OEM have the bad habit of bundling with it ? I ask this because I have this cheap Sony Xperia Mini Pro phone, whose hardware is quite dated by modern standards (1 GHz single-core Snapdragon, 512 MB RAM). With both the original Sony GB rom and the current CM9 ROM, it does display a bit of lag here and there, but nothing which I would consider pitiful or painful, except in apps that have just been started and are likely still loading in the background. (In fact, most of the lag which I have encountered on Android so far seems to be caused by a NAND I/O bottleneck during various parts of processes' lifecycle, something which Google's recent obsession with graphics performance is unlikely to fix... But I digress.) Since we obviously do not have the same experience of Android, I am wondering why, and my bet was that either you have dealt with a newer version of Android that ran on inappropriately old hardware or you have met some awful OEM/carrier customization. And it may also be that I hold my phones to lower standards than you. > The Windows 8 tablet I use is the Acer W500. (W7 tab upgraded to W8). You can look up the specs and draw your own conclusions, but it is incredibly smooth. Again, I don't feel comfortable comparing x86 specs with ARM specs. But 2 GB of RAM would be a lot for an ARM device, and it's only been a bit more than a year since popular Android tablets have had dual-core 1 GHz processors : I don't know if your evaluation of Android's performance is this fresh. > Also most impressions I've seen online from Windows RT tablets show that the smoothness has carried over to their ARM SoC designs as well. Most Windows RT tablets which I have heard about are quite powerful by ARM standards. But while looking this up, I've found something interesting : the Surface RT and Asus' Transformer Prime have very similar hardware, so it should be possible to draw valid comparisons between both once the former is out ! > However, a comparison I can make is my Lumia 800 and my brothers Galaxy Nexus. There is just no comparison. The lower specced Lumia blows the Nexus out of the water in smoothness. Even with a CM'd JellyBean ROM. AFAIK, Lumia 800 still run Windows Phone 7, which is itself based on Windows CE. I will probably teach you nothing by mentioning that CE is not based on modern Windows, and is a somewhat more crude OS targeted towards embedded stuff where things like modern hardware abstractions and security features have been rejected in favor so as to get some extra performance on slow hardware. Windows Phone 8, on its side, is based on Windows NT, like desktop Windows, so it should be a full-featured modern OS on the inside, and as a drawback require more horsepower. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft's team will still manage to make Windows Phone work faster than Android with this heavier core, congratulations to them if they do. > Again, highly unscientific but make of it what you wish. Well, I have nothing against unscientific opinions, my problem is when they are used to state adamant things about OSs as fact. If I said "Windows 7 sucks balls, look how slow it is on this Acer laptop with shitty hardware and a boatload of bundled crapware", you would be right to tell me that it is not necessarily Windows that is to blame. Every other OS should probably be held to the same standards. Edited 2012-10-19 18:37 UTC |
| - Score: 1 |
| RE[9]: Comment by Radio |
| By Nelson on 2012-10-19 20:00:20 |
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> Sure, but I have heard that there is such a dramatic difference in performance and battery life between Intel and ARM chips. This is why I don't know if such data can be relied on yet. Maybe against the high end Core i7s, but I think Intel's Atom SoC isn't that much faster. Again, not sure. > But again, is Android itself to blame, or is it the crap hardware and software which many OEM have the bad habit of bundling with it ? I ask this because I have this cheap Sony Xperia Mini Pro phone, whose hardware is quite dated by modern standards (1 GHz single-core Snapdragon, 512 MB RAM). With both the original Sony GB rom and the current CM9 ROM, it does display a bit of lag here and there, but nothing which I would consider pitiful or painful, except in apps that have just been started and are likely still loading in the background. My experiences were as follows: - Force closes in the browser. Or just moments on non responsiveness which cause the App Not Responding dialog to pop up. Highly annoying - 1-2 second delay when switching between apps. It makes the experience really jarring. - Lag while scrolling through home screens and widgets absolutely killed performance (Which erases a lot of Android's real potential imo) Don't get me wrong. When it was zippy (usually after fresh restart) it was actually pretty cool. Plenty of widgets all pulling data from all my favorite sources. But when it was slow, it was very frustrating. I flashed JB using CM10 on it and touch responsiveness got better..if just a little flaky and then my WiFi started acting up so I had to revert back to stock. I did test Stock AOSP Android though vs ASUS OEM customization and there was little perceptible difference in performance (From a responsiveness POV). It still lagged in the key areas above. I would agree with the "OEMs not Android" bit, but every phone/tablet I've used (save for the absolutely beautiful Galaxy S III, but thats a powerhouse) has been unpleasant. > (In fact, most of the lag which I have encountered on Android so far seems to be caused by a NAND I/O bottleneck during various parts of processes' lifecycle, something which Google's recent obsession with graphics performance is unlikely to fix... But I digress.) That's interesting, and speaks to the fact that performance is multifaceted. > Since we obviously do not have the same experience of Android, I am wondering why, and my bet was that either you have dealt with a newer version of Android that ran on inappropriately old hardware or you have met some awful OEM/carrier customization. And it may also be that I hold my phones to lower standards than you. Well my Tablet came with Honeycomb on it. That was terrible. Borderline unusable. The ASUS ICS ROM always had random reboots so I flashed CM9 with ICS and it worked well for a little while..but still had nagging perf issues (Though not nearly as bad as HC) I put JB on it using CM10 but had the aforementioned WiFi issues and flaky touch response (Multiple touch points registering erratically) > Again, I don't feel comfortable comparing x86 specs with ARM specs. But 2 GB of RAM would be a lot for an ARM , device, and it's only been a bit more than a year since popular Android tablets have had dual-core 1 GHz processors : I don't know if your evaluation of Android's performance is this fresh. Well my tablet had a Tegra 2 I believe. IIRC that had multiple cores. > Most Windows RT tablets which I have heard about are quite powerful by ARM standards. But while looking this up, I've found something interesting : the Surface RT and Asus' Transformer Prime have very similar hardware, so it should be possible to draw valid comparisons between both once the former is out ! Definitely will be interested in seeing Windows RT vs Windows 8 performance, and vs Android in general. > AFAIK, Lumia 800 still run Windows Phone 7, which is itself based on Windows CE. I will probably teach you nothing by mentioning that CE is not based on modern Windows, and is a somewhat more crude OS targeted towards embedded stuff where things like modern hardware abstractions and security features have been rejected in favor so as to get some extra performance on slow hardware. I'll accept that, though I question to what extent does CE mitigate the performance impact? I also wonder how Android's multitasking comes into play, since it is a conscious design decision. > Windows Phone 8, on its side, is based on Windows NT, like desktop Windows, so it should be a full-featured modern OS on the inside, and as a drawback require more horsepower. It remains to be seen whether Microsoft's team will still manage to make Windows Phone work faster than Android with this heavier core, congratulations to them if they do. I had limited eyes on time with the Lumia 920 (and they only showed us limited features) but it seemed smooth. Even faster than my Lumia 800. Remains to be seem if its at a battery life cost, or anything like that. I would think since they share a core with Windows 8, that Microsoft heavily optimized the NT Kernel to make it run well on mobile phones. I guess we'll find out in a few weeks. > Well, I have nothing against unscientific opinions, my problem is when they are used to state adamant things about OSs as fact. If I said "Windows 7 sucks balls, look how slow it is on this Acer laptop with shitty hardware and a boatload of bundled crapware", you would be right to tell me that it is not necessarily Windows that is to blame. Every other OS should probably be held to the same standards. I mean, this was my experience YMMV, and if I made it seem to be true in every instance, then that was not my intention. In fact I will say that the Galaxy S III is a pretty smooth experience save for a few minor things. I am in love with the screen though. |
| - Score: 2 |
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