Why Surface Pro (2) *should* catch-on with Professionals

[bilzkh]

It seems that lawyers/law students are digging the Surface Pro, I wonder if "clicking in" becomes a law thing soon.

 

[jhoff80]

The docking station is coming shortly. Don't see how that's an issue for enterprises in the long run.and just use USB on the docking station as dedicated ReadyBoost.

ReadyBoost doesn't do anything close to what more RAM does. Moreover, ReadyBoost is used more to boost slow disk access times, and therefore is near-useless on an SSD. I can't remember, but Windows might not even let you enable it with an SSD as your main drive.

 

[WanderingTraveler]

I've got two problems with Surface Pro 2 from an enterprise perspective.

1)No docking station on day 1
2)No 8GG 128GB model

1. It's an accessory. What do you expect?
My guess is that they'll show the tablet side first before the desktop side of the equation.
...The problem with that is the fact that I'm going to use it as a pseudo-desktop.
2. 8GB RAM is overkill for a 128GB device. I get it, you have a microSD card slot and you can always plug in an SSD anyway, but the latter doesn't make sense when on the go, the OS (and disk formatting) takes up at least 30GB of internal storage, the fact that a lot of microSD cards out there are slow and that the storage of iOS and Android cannot be compared to that of full Windows.
Desktop applications take far more space than their mobile counterparts. You also have to install drivers for an external monitor if you want to do serious work.

As a final nail in the coffin, torrents are actually very popular. Every person who I know has a PC has uTorrent installed. Imagine what you'll do if you run out of space while trying to download the final episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
That's painful.

 

[spaulagain]

ReadyBoost doesn't do anything close to what more RAM does. Moreover, ReadyBoost is used more to boost slow disk access times, and therefore is near-useless on an SSD. I can't remember, but Windows might not even let you enable it with an SSD as your main drive.

At my work most people in the office would never need more than 4GB of RAM. And the people that do would certainly be worth spending an extra $300-400 so they can have it. Most of those people already have machines far more expensive than the Surface Pro 2 with 8GB.

I think with the docking station, the Surface Pro 2 is a pretty powerful option for Enterprises. And even better now that it comes with several spec variations.

Everyone with a laptop at my work just docks it into docking station anyways.

 

[chezm]

4gb of ram at my work is well more than enough

 

[bpmurr]

1. It's an accessory. What do you expect?
My guess is that they'll show the tablet side first before the desktop side of the equation.
...The problem with that is the fact that I'm going to use it as a pseudo-desktop.
2. 8GB RAM is overkill for a 128GB device. I get it, you have a microSD card slot and you can always plug in an SSD anyway, but the latter doesn't make sense when on the go, the OS (and disk formatting) takes up at least 30GB of internal storage, the fact that a lot of microSD cards out there are slow and that the storage of iOS and Android cannot be compared to that of full Windows.
Desktop applications take far more space than their mobile counterparts. You also have to install drivers for an external monitor if you want to do serious work.

As a final nail in the coffin, torrents are actually very popular. Every person who I know has a PC has uTorrent installed. Imagine what you'll do if you run out of space while trying to download the final episode of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood.
That's painful.

I'm looking at the Surface Pro 2 as a possible notebook replacement in my organization. Being able to dock is a huge deal. Without the docking feature ready day one I'll have to wait longer for full testing and possible deployment.

 

[Fishhouse]

Surface Pro Gen 1 can be docked with third party docking station across multiple monitors. I get there is no first party docking station, but any Surface can be docked and extended across multiple monitors now.

 

[Jas00555]

I agree with the 128gb with 8gb ram as a little overkill. To me, if I had to do something that required 8gb of ram, it would eat up the 128gb very fast. I'm sure it would sell a little bit, but more as a niche product.

I say give Microsoft time to get their product chain in line. They pretty much doubled the amount of Pros over last year. Maybe soon you could make it like Apple where you could choose the CPU, RAM, storage, and even the battery (something Apple doesn't have afaik)