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Microsoft Surface: $199 (?) (1 Viewer)

ManW_TheUncool

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Thanks, Hanson. Just weird that you can't navigate to it on Amazon's own site (nor via their widget).
_Man_
 

ManW_TheUncool

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Ok, first snafu w/ this mobile site leading to double-post -- and almost triple-post...
Love that I no longer need to scroll all the way to top or bottom to get back to subscription feed/page though...
_Man_
 

Sam Posten

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I'm curious about the CNET award. Why didn't the Note 2 take that honor over the S3? Isn't that what you guys are most excited about?
The S3 is going to be replaced within a month too if the predictions behind the CES video are true...
 

Hanson

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Originally Posted by ManW_TheUncool /t/322997/microsoft-surface-199/60#post_4013232
Thanks, Hanson. Just weird that you can't navigate to it on Amazon's own site (nor via their widget).
_Man_
It's probably a Google thing where they won't direct you to a forked market. Even if those apps all run fine on Google Android phones. So the Amazon Market app has to be side-loaded just like the apps themselves.
 

Hanson

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http://www.theverge.com/2012/12/13/3762754/samsung-2013-galaxy-note-iii-galaxy-s-iv

I would vote for the Note 2 as the device of the year, but there are a lot of people who don't consider it a phone even though you can make calls on it and slip it into your pocket. I think it was easier for CNet to put the S3 up against the iPhone 5 and declare it the winner than the Note 2 because they would be so divergent.

Actually, Time had the Note 2 in their top gadget list.
 

Hanson

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The $199 was for RT tablets, never for Surface Pro. But Lenovo was talking about $600-$700 for Windows 8 tablets. $900 plus $129 for a keyboard is for early adopters with money to burn. Looks like MS priced it high as a concession to the OEMs.
 

Sam Posten

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Hanson said:
The $199 was for RT tablets, never for Surface Pro
Of course, I'm just reminiscing about when we were all deluded enough to think this could ever have shipped as a mass market item with a price to match. I still think they should have gone with Courier.
 

Hanson

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The Surface RT numbers are in, and they are absolutely brutal. We’re talking Blackberry Playbook numbers. HP Touchpad numbers. We’re talking Kin part 2 numbers. This is the Edsel of tablets.

Initial reports from Microsoft indicated that they were planning on a shipment of 3-5 million Surface RT tablets over the holiday season (depending, presumably, on sales). Sometime in December, it was reported that Microsoft had slashed their order in half. Then Microsoft proclaimed that they upped their order in preparation for a frenzied retail store launch.

That frenzy never materialized. IDC reports that under 900K units have shipped so far. Mind you, that’s shipped to retail — the actual amount sold has been estimated by some to be as low as 250K. That makes sense — if they shipped 900K and sold them all, they would ship more. If they even sold 500K they would still order more. The fact that they’ve shipped 900K and stopped shipping or making any more units indicates that the lion’s share of inventory remains unsold. 250K? I believe it. And that number probably includes all of the Surface RT tablets Microsoft gave away to every single full time MS employee over the holidays.

But here’s the brutal part — Microsoft spent $400 million marketing Surface RT. That was spent on TV commercials, magazine ads, events, and multiple temporary Microsoft stores set up to show off Surface RT. Let’s say the 250K sold is low. Let’s say it’s more like 400K. That means Microsoft spent $1,000 in marketing per Surface RT sold. That’s not including R&D, manufacturing costs, and any other overhead. Just for marketing. $1,000 for each tablet, or twice the MSRP of $499. If it is indeed just 250K sold, that’s $1,600 spent for each Surface RT. Just for marketing.

You would think at some point Microsoft will cut their losses like they did with the ill-fated Kin. But they’ve poured so many resources into this failed platform, and without a plan B, it looks like they’ll keep up this charade for another year. Another long, brutal year.
 

mattCR

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The ad campaign, though, was also for advertising Windows8, the ads served dual purposes, so it's hard to assume it that way. One of MS's biggest problems is that the only way to get the surface was through them, or a Windows Store.. and guess what? Not a lot of people were near a Windows store. Now, news is that in the next two weeks they will be at Costco.. Hanson, think they will get a discount? You're right on the other part also.. in the last three weeks I've played with convertable Windows8 slates .. full, I3/I5 slates that are less then $700 that are pretty nice. Which makes their pricing of Surface Pro at $900 kind of ridiculous.
 

ManW_TheUncool

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I actually have a friend who's been staying away from iOS, Android, et al and bought a Surface RT tablet (w/ the keyboard) back in early November before he even got his electricity back up and running in his NJ home post-Sandy. I wonder how he's liking it now... I suppose one can always just treat it like a glorified netbook, if the platform/ecosystem never grows beyond this phase... _Man_
 

Hanson

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I assume if he was avoiding Android and iOS, he's going to love his Surface RT since he won't be able to compare it against anything. Surface RT isn't even a glorified Chromebook at this point.
 

Hanson

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Surface Pro reviews are in, and they're about the same as the Surface RT:
http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/02/06/microsoft-surface-pro-review-roundup/
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2027242/microsoft-surface-pro-reviews-device-is-good-not-great-critics-say.html
Almost all of them take the time to bash the Surface RT as being awful in comparison and recommend buying the Surface Pro for $400 more instead (which makes me wonder what bad things they will be saying about Surface Pro when the next slightly improved Windows 8 tablet/laptop compromise comes out). Frankly, they shouldn't be advising anyone to spend over $1000 on this junk. And yes, it's over $1000. $899 is sans keyboard, at which point all you have is a heavy ass tablet with shitty battery life an no apps. Yes, you can install legacy apps, but good luck using them without a mouse and keyboard.
The only way to make this work is for the tablet part to weigh in at under 1.5lbs and have a 9 hour battery. Anything outside of that (and the Surface Pro is far outside of that) is a failure.
In my mind, I would spend my $1029 on a Transformer Infinity and keyboard dock for less than $600 and spend the rest on a desktop I can remote into. Surface Pro only works in a single use case, an alternate reality where the government has made it illegal to own more than one computing device and you can't decide between a laptop and a tablet.
 

Hanson

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Originally Posted by mattCR
The ad campaign, though, was also for advertising Windows8, the ads served dual purposes, so it's hard to assume it that way.
Do you mean that's it indirectly promotes Windows 8? Because I'm reading that the $400 million was for Surface alone:
"Thurrott also tweeted that he's been told that Microsoft is spending $400 million on its Surface ad campaign -- plus whatever it's spending on its Windows 8 ad campaign. "
http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-tv-campaign-for-surface-devices-expected-to-commence-monday-night-7000005790/
Quote:
Originally Posted by mattCR
One of MS's biggest problems is that the only way to get the surface was through them, or a Windows Store.. and guess what? Not a lot of people were near a Windows store. Now, news is that in the next two weeks they will be at Costco.. Hanson, think they will get a discount?
The distribution channel was terrible (online or MS Store only). But they really thought they could push 3 million units that way. They have been selling at Best Buy and other outlets for the past month with zero success. Price slashing (or more likely keyboard bundling) is their only option at Costco, one would think. But even if they threw in the keyboard, I'd spend my $500 on an iPad or the Nexus 10 (with the caveat that it's not easy to find one just anywhere). Which reminds me, the Nexus 7 had similarly constrained distribution channels at launch but it was sold out online for months. So that's not really much of an excuse for Surface RT.
 

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