Well, the Surface RT is intriguing, but I'm not sure I can keep the thing. First- a problem that I hope someone else can comment on, then I'll mention the things that might make it a return.
Problem: Laggy
Not in everything. But I find more than a few apps responding rather slowly to things like the swipe up to open the settings bar, and the music app. For example, in the music app, swiping up from the bottom and not seeing the actual bar for a good 1.5-2 seconds. Anyone else getting this?
Things that might make this a return:
First things first- this is an interesting product- compared to an iPad or Android tablet, this is the first OS on ARM that makes me feel like I could get some actual work done. The OS design is very, very good (mostly), but there are some glaring issues that make me question whether or not I'm keeping it.
1) Music app is just rubbish. I am going to assume that no one at MS actually listens to music and therefore no one ever used this app during testing. It's sluggish, browsing through your music is almost impossible, and the sound occasionally gets distorted. The Xbox Music service is now unparalleled: fantastic song selection, ability to download or stream, cloud integration coming soon, music matching... but the interface to do any of this is almost impossible to use. There's not even a way to get back to the "home" of the app easily. Ugh.
2) Laggy. As stated above, there are just some basic problems that I shouldn't expect from a single chip, ARM platform. ADERA (Xbox game, ironically) is slow. You click and there's a 4 second delay before anything happens. Same with music. ARMED suffers from the same issues. Settings bar in other apps tends to occasionally have issues.
3) Sometimes it's there, sometimes not. Some things are a bit too inconsistent. Example: in video, you can swipe to pull up "devices" and push to your xbox. Sometimes. Sometimes that's inexplicably missing for no reason.
4) Instability. Too many apps crashing that shouldn't be. I get that this is a new device, and that's common at first (ala iPhone 1, 3G, my Captivate, definitely my Tab, etc etc) but Music and Video apps are first party and I see them having issues. This is a problem.
Don't get me wrong, this is the 1st tablet device that I could see myself actually using. There are just some major glaring holes that need work... having come from a Windows Phone 7 device, I was expecting the same level of fluidity that MS has accomplished on a similar closed device, and I'm just not seeing it.
Problem: Laggy
Not in everything. But I find more than a few apps responding rather slowly to things like the swipe up to open the settings bar, and the music app. For example, in the music app, swiping up from the bottom and not seeing the actual bar for a good 1.5-2 seconds. Anyone else getting this?
Things that might make this a return:
First things first- this is an interesting product- compared to an iPad or Android tablet, this is the first OS on ARM that makes me feel like I could get some actual work done. The OS design is very, very good (mostly), but there are some glaring issues that make me question whether or not I'm keeping it.
1) Music app is just rubbish. I am going to assume that no one at MS actually listens to music and therefore no one ever used this app during testing. It's sluggish, browsing through your music is almost impossible, and the sound occasionally gets distorted. The Xbox Music service is now unparalleled: fantastic song selection, ability to download or stream, cloud integration coming soon, music matching... but the interface to do any of this is almost impossible to use. There's not even a way to get back to the "home" of the app easily. Ugh.
2) Laggy. As stated above, there are just some basic problems that I shouldn't expect from a single chip, ARM platform. ADERA (Xbox game, ironically) is slow. You click and there's a 4 second delay before anything happens. Same with music. ARMED suffers from the same issues. Settings bar in other apps tends to occasionally have issues.
3) Sometimes it's there, sometimes not. Some things are a bit too inconsistent. Example: in video, you can swipe to pull up "devices" and push to your xbox. Sometimes. Sometimes that's inexplicably missing for no reason.
4) Instability. Too many apps crashing that shouldn't be. I get that this is a new device, and that's common at first (ala iPhone 1, 3G, my Captivate, definitely my Tab, etc etc) but Music and Video apps are first party and I see them having issues. This is a problem.
Don't get me wrong, this is the 1st tablet device that I could see myself actually using. There are just some major glaring holes that need work... having come from a Windows Phone 7 device, I was expecting the same level of fluidity that MS has accomplished on a similar closed device, and I'm just not seeing it.