Next Wave of Surfaces ? What do you want to see?

[Daniel Ratcliffe]

It's been said already but I'll say it again... I want Pro-like Stylus support. I'm not overly keen on the Samsung Galaxy Note series and as such I am holding on to my what must be 3 years old now HTC Flyer. Hopefully HTC do an RT tab with stylus support similar to the HTC Flyer.

 

[zkSharks]

It's been said already but I'll say it again... I want Pro-like Stylus support. I'm not overly keen on the Samsung Galaxy Note series and as such I am holding on to my what must be 3 years old now HTC Flyer. Hopefully HTC do an RT tab with stylus support similar to the HTC Flyer.

I could see myself using that, for sure.

 

[jlynnm350z]

I would love and expect to see a surface with the number 2 beside it.

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

really, for the pro, all they would need to change is to put in haswell into it and it would be more or less perfect, really the only major downside to the surface pro was the battery life. The pro is an extremely well made product thats gorgeous. The screen is great, the size is great (especially for it having a fan in it), the wacom stylus is great, so it the kickstand and the touch covers. My only real complaints with the pro is the batter life, which was a deal-breaker for me because I think that the point of a tablet is to get a good battery life and that a 5-hour battery life kinda defeats the point of a tablet imho. Also, I don't really like the type cover, I actually like the touch cover better because even though there's no tactile feedback, its very slim. The problem I have with the type cover is that I felt it was wobbly, even on a flat surface. The key spacing was fine, I just felt that the casing for it was kinda weak feeling, I felt that it was cheap feeling and too bulky for how just mediocre it was imho, I still don't mean its bad for typing, it works just fine, its just I feel they could have done better. Maybe make the base of it magnesium? I would trade the slightly extra weight for a more stable keyboard...also, I don't like the felt -like covering on the front of the covers, I feel it should be smooth like the smart covers that apple makes.

Obviously they will come out with a 7-8 inch surface, I feel they need to make an xbox surface tablet. If MS did the same thing with the vita where you could stream games from your xbox one to your tablet, that would be bad***. The problem with son'y implementation is I don't see it being that good with what I know about sony software, I'm sure MS would do a great job with it however. I know they are rumoring to make an xbox tablet, but they really should come out with one...I would buy it in a heartbeat and wouldn't really care what the price is lol...


For their next surface RT, they either need to bump up the specs, like using a snapdragon or tegra 4 is an obvious thing they will do, but I think either the screen resolution needs to be higher than 1366x768 or they need to lower the price to 399$ starting. My gripe with the current Surface RT is that, even though I love the hardware, I feel like coughing up 499$ minimum and then 120-130$ on top of that for the cover is asking a little much when the screens are only 1366x768 when all the competition from apple and google have higher resolutions for the same price or less....

 

[hbhb1316]

The damn hinge. Processor upgrade will come automatically. I have one but is a pain to use as a laptop. Since I travel, I need to use it on flight/cabs and can't use it without the kickstand.

 

[hbhb1316]

The damn hinge. I have one and I can't use it as my laptop since I travel. It needs a kick stand for flights or cabs.

 

[omgitsnick]

Hardware
RT:
- Qualcomm / NVIDIA chipset
- Optional 3G / 4G LTE radio
- A slightly better camera (maybe around 2MP front, 5MP back 1080p support)
- Current display is ok, could be better by adding digitizer functionality
- Capacitive lit Windows home key (with options to turn it on or off or auto)
- USB 3.0 may be a bonus, otherwise 2 is ok

Pro:
- Intel Haswell chipset
- Probably much of what is listed on RT as well.
- Nothing much here, but more or less it could have Ultrabook specifications like the current one.

Accessories
- Dock, probably with additional ports and whatnot
- Keyboard with internal battery pack

Software
- Support for running WP8 apps and a unified XBL achievements system (where is this? where's the shared-core experience? I have to buy the same game on different devices, and show achievements on my Xbox Live profile twice, of the same game, because they run on different platforms. I want to have a single achievements card that is accessed by the same game, so you wouldn't have to play the same game on different platforms and have two achievements card which contains the same achievements. Does Skulls of the Shogan do this? I know Jetpack Joyride does, and I have two separate achievement cards for it on my XBL account)
- Remote Play via Smartglass
- RT: Integrate desktop elements on top of Modern UI (if you like a demo, go to desktop, hide taskbar, and run an office application and maximize it) -- this could eliminate the confusion between Desktop mode (as it is rather useless, considering there's only file explorer, IE desktop, and office suite, and a handful of admin apps that are barely run and unfamiliar to most consumers) and Modern UI.
- Music Videos (where are they?!)
- Support for "Where's my Windows Phone" feature such as geo-tracking, remote wipe, alert, etc. etc.

 

[dstrauss]

Surface Pro II

• Haswell 1.3MHz ULV
• 8GB RAM (option)
• 256GB SSD (option)
• 4g LTE
• S-Pen like stowed stylus
• Thunderbolt (replace USB 3 and mini-displayport)
• Backlit keyboard (option)
• Keyboard dock (option)

 

[jasqid]

Cheaper price.

 

[MoggSquad]

Any new rumors before the build conference starts tomorrow?

 

[Zulfigar]

My biggest thing I'd like to see in the Surface RT or Pro would be front facing speakers, or a cover that faces the speakers output outward towards you. Either one would make the Surface's current speakers 3x better, if not more.

 

[tiziano27]

I would like to see:

-Surface RT 7, without desktop, Office RT, aspect ratio 1.6, price $200.
-Surface RT 9, without desktop, Office RT, aspect ratio 1.6, price $300.
-Surface 8, Atom, S-Pen, aspect ratio 1.6, price $400.
-Surface 10, Atom, aspect ratio 1.7, price $500
-Surface Pro 10, Haswell, price $900
-Surface Book 13, price $1300

 

[Ridemyscooter86]

I was really thinking about buying the surface for 350$ as its very tempting, but I think I'll wait because if they're doing a firesale now, it means they are trying to clear out inventory because a new surface is coming soon, just how soon is the question...

 

[Zulfigar]

Even though people probably don't use the Desktop on RT as they do on Pro, I doubt it'll be going away anytime soon as there's still applications that use it (Control Panel, Device Manager, ect.). Let it stay, leave it alone, better to add more features than take them away, besides, I like pulling it up to show people that it is, in-fact, a PC (Personal Computer) even if you can't run legacy apps (yet? I'm betting one of these days, either Microsoft or a hacker will unlock it's full potential).

 

[tiziano27]

Even though people probably don't use the Desktop on RT as they do on Pro, I doubt it'll be going away anytime soon as there's still applications that use it (Control Panel, Device Manager, ect.). Let it stay, leave it alone, better to add more features than take them away, besides, I like pulling it up to show people that it is, in-fact, a PC (Personal Computer) even if you can't run legacy apps (yet? I'm betting one of these days, either Microsoft or a hacker will unlock it's full potential).

Windows 8.1 added a lot of configuration options in the Modern UI interface, I think Control Panel is not longer needed. Windows 8.1 also added a Modern UI file manager.

Intel did a great job with the Atom CPU which is better tan the ARM CPUs in battery life and performance, so the original objective of Surface RT is obsolete, Microsoft has to reorient Windows RT with a new strategy.

Removing the Desktop and replacing Office with Office RT they can build tablets with 8-16gb of storage and 1gb of ram. They can use the limitations of RT to segment the market and price these tablets aggressively.

 

[inteller]

Even though people probably don't use the Desktop on RT as they do on Pro, I doubt it'll be going away anytime soon as there's still applications that use it (Control Panel, Device Manager, ect.). Let it stay, leave it alone, better to add more features than take them away, besides, I like pulling it up to show people that it is, in-fact, a PC (Personal Computer) even if you can't run legacy apps (yet? I'm betting one of these days, either Microsoft or a hacker will unlock it's full potential).

you can't run apps that aren't complied for ARM! Office was painstakingly ported over and compiled for ARM. Microsoft is not going to create that developer morass because that is not the point of RT. Office will eventually end up as Metro apps and the necessary parts of Desktop, like file explorer, CP, cmd prompt, will be ported over and Desktop access will be removed.

If this is done by Windows 9 I predict Microsoft will rename RT to something like Windows Essentials or Windows Pure, and Desktop support will continue in Pro.

 

[anon(27512)]

Does anyone have an idea when we might see the new surface? The current surface at 350 is so tempting.

 

[MDak280]

Here is what I want from the next Surface Pro:

• Great battery life without sacrificing performance
• Thinner and lighter
• Keep the kickstand and the Wacom digitizer
• Include a spot in the tablet for storing the stylus
• Higher resolution display (possibly 2560x1440?)
• Include a touch/type cover with the tablet FOR FREE (or, at least make it seem like it's free)
• Keep the price down... :smile:

Here is what I need from the next Surface Pro:

• Great battery life without sacrificing performance

The only thing keeping me from buying a Surface Pro now is the battery life. But with the next Surface Pro being an upgrade to the current one, I think my first list is something that we should expect from Microsoft (except maybe the last two wishes).

Edit @deadp1xel: I'm going to predict that we'll see the new Surfaces this fall.

 

[garak0410]

Here is what I want from the next Surface Pro:

• Great battery life without sacrificing performance
• Thinner and lighter
• Keep the kickstand and the Wacom digitizer
• Include a spot in the tablet for storing the stylus
• Higher resolution display (possibly 2560x1440?)
• Include a touch/type cover with the tablet FOR FREE (or, at least make it seem like it's free)
• Keep the price down... :smile:

Here is what I need from the next Surface Pro:

• Great battery life without sacrificing performance

The only thing keeping me from buying a Surface Pro now is the battery life. But with the next Surface Pro being an upgrade to the current one, I think my first list is something that we should expect from Microsoft (except maybe the last two wishes).

Edit @deadp1xel: I'm going to predict that we'll see the new Surfaces this fall.

I'm with you there. I have a Surface Pro purchased by my workplace. It is an absolutely beautiful and fast device but batter life suffers, big time. I get 2 maybe 3 hours of use of it before charging. Mind you, it is expected because it is a full PC with core i5. But just when you settle down to use it in tablet mode, DING!, you have 10% left on your battery. I am very close to picking up an RT just for battery life. I need a second tablet for consumption. Tried the Nexus 7 but I really can't handle Android anymore...

 

[garak0410]

Windows 8.1 added a lot of configuration options in the Modern UI interface, I think Control Panel is not longer needed. Windows 8.1 also added a Modern UI file manager.

Intel did a great job with the Atom CPU which is better tan the ARM CPUs in battery life and performance, so the original objective of Surface RT is obsolete, Microsoft has to reorient Windows RT with a new strategy.

Removing the Desktop and replacing Office with Office RT they can build tablets with 8-16gb of storage and 1gb of ram. They can use the limitations of RT to segment the market and price these tablets aggressively.

How does an Atom Tablet compare in performance? I've been looking at the Lenovo Lynx and I heard that even Modern Apps are getting "out of memory" errors.