A note on returns

[mase123987]

I just returned my Surface I bought on opening day. I really liked it, just not quite $660 like it. Anyways, the back of the receipt talks about a 10% restocking fee. I just wanted to say they gave me every penny back.

 

[eimoaotl]

I returned my 32gb for a 64gb instead. I forgot to bring the charger so they told me to keep it as an extra instead of making me give the new I w in my box. Pretty classy.

 

[shn'g]

I returned my 32gb for a 64gb instead. I forgot to bring the charger so they told me to keep it as an extra instead of making me give the new I w in my box. Pretty classy.

wow yeah that's pretty crazy! good to know that they are giving good customer service! maybe microsoft has told them to be a little bit lenient for a little while to gain the customers!

 

[Tomerunlocks]

wow yeah that's pretty crazy! good to know that they are giving good customer service! maybe microsoft has told them to be a little bit lenient for a little while to gain the customers!

Or maybe they're actually just really nice in general, and hope to provide great customer service from now on, not just to gain customers.

 

[ken800]

I returned mine they took it back promptly and courteously. Overall I liked the device, but performance was lagging and buggy. This is pretty much typical of Microsoft over their history -- new generation software/device with a ton of potential -- then release it before it's ready for prime time. As soon as performance issues are resolved and there is a higher res screen, I'm back on the sidelines. A beefed up CPU and at least 1080p screen and I'm back in...

 

[mparker]

Fingers crossed here. The store agent told me that I would get a full refund, so I'm hopeful.

I actually cancelled my order due to the reviews, but I received it anyway; I'm guessing that the cancellation hit after it was on the plane. I tried it for a week before deciding that my initial concerns were sufficiently validated and serious that it wasn't worth keeping it. For me the issues were the form factor, lack of apps, and performance problems.

It's too wide in landscape but too narrow in portrait for comfortable reading. I really think that Apple has it about right with the 4:3 layout. It's also unfortunate that the keyboard cannot be used in your lap, but if you are mostly using this as a tablet then that's not much of a problem.

Both iPad and and android tablets are selling well. iPad runs iPhone apps, Android tablets run Android phone apps. Whatever genius at Microsoft decided not to make their windows tablet OS run windows phone apps should be fired. And finally the performance of the Surface RT was simply atrocious. Browsing was so slow as to be painful. Why the heck does it have to re-fetch the page when you go back? And why does it delete your history and fetch a blank page if you swipe back too fast? ClearType was effective once it kicked in; the problem is that there's a second or two between the page loading and the font smoothing that's pretty painful to look at.

Fortunately I've got a Lenovo X220T convertible tablet that I switched to Windows 8 early this year, and it seems to meet my needs better than the Surface RT, though its weight is a bit of a downer in tablet mode.

 

[inteller]

what Microsoft is doing is just good business. The wording on the back of the receipt is just the a-hole clause that applies to returns abusers.

 

[eimoaotl]

Fingers crossed here. The store agent told me that I would get a full refund, so I'm hopeful.

I actually cancelled my order due to the reviews, but I received it anyway; I'm guessing that the cancellation hit after it was on the plane. I tried it for a week before deciding that my initial concerns were sufficiently validated and serious that it wasn't worth keeping it. For me the issues were the form factor, lack of apps, and performance problems.

It's too wide in landscape but too narrow in portrait for comfortable reading. I really think that Apple has it about right with the 4:3 layout. It's also unfortunate that the keyboard cannot be used in your lap, but if you are mostly using this as a tablet then that's not much of a problem.

Both iPad and and android tablets are selling well. iPad runs iPhone apps, Android tablets run Android phone apps. Whatever genius at Microsoft decided not to make their windows tablet OS run windows phone apps should be fired. And finally the performance of the Surface RT was simply atrocious. Browsing was so slow as to be painful. Why the heck does it have to re-fetch the page when you go back? And why does it delete your history and fetch a blank page if you swipe back too fast? ClearType was effective once it kicked in; the problem is that there's a second or two between the page loading and the font smoothing that's pretty painful to look at.

Fortunately I've got a Lenovo X220T convertible tablet that I switched to Windows 8 early this year, and it seems to meet my needs better than the Surface RT, though its weight is a bit of a downer in tablet mode.

It is a good thing that there are so many options out there so we can all find what works best for each of us. I actually have had the opposite experience from you. The surface
works much better for me. Unlike the ipad, I can actually set the surface on my lap without having to hold it up. And the built in kickstand is much more stable than my ipad cover was at holding it up on a table - my ipad always feel over. I also really like having arrows again on my screen keyboard. My ipad browser crashed to the start screen on average 2-3 times a night on me and wouldn't format many sites well. Those same sites are formatted perfectly by the surface. Plus, unlike many others, I actually really like having a built in mouse - it is great for sites that use drop down menus that my ipad was terrible at. I do agree with you that it would be nice if ie10 didn't reload the page when you go back.

As for performance problems, my surface is WAY zippier than my ipad 2 was. I guess if you had the newer ipads it might be a different story. And I love being able to have two windows open at once, and the ability to tweak power settings on the desktop. And Microsoft word, and on and on. But if you are a person that uses lots of apps the ipad would be better. I actually only used a few apps on my ipad and the surface is better with those apps than the ipad. I use mail, the browser, word processing, a cooking app (pepperplate on surface is awesome for this), Netflix, messenging (Skype is much better than facetime and imessage), and lastly, I use FOLDERS to organize my files. That drove me crazy with ipad. Everything was so constrained.

Hopefully the surface pro will work for you.

 

[NickA]

For me the issues were the form factor, lack of apps, and performance problems.

Both iPad and and android tablets are selling well. iPad runs iPhone apps, Android tablets run Android phone apps. Whatever genius at Microsoft decided not to make their windows tablet OS run windows phone apps should be fired. And finally the performance of the Surface RT was simply atrocious. Browsing was so slow as to be painful. Why the heck does it have to re-fetch the page when you go back? And why does it delete your history and fetch a blank page if you swipe back too fast? ClearType was effective once it kicked in; the problem is that there's a second or two between the page loading and the font smoothing that's pretty painful to look at.

While I don't have any of the performance issue you speak of, I agree with you on the Surface RT only running RT apps. I don't like Apple's solution for running iPhone only apps, but at least it's available. And Android apps scale for any size screen (if developed properly). I did preorder the Nokia 920, and it would be nice if I could buy an app once and run it on the phone and tablet.

And yeah, not sure what's up with reloading the page when going back. It's not like it even goes out to the server and gets a fresh page.

All things you live with being an early adopter.

 

[fc000]

Returned mine as well. The only question asked, was if I was waiting for the Surface Pro, as that had been a common comment on returns. Other than that, it was processed in seconds, very smooth and classy.

 

[chuks22]

before you return your surface, remember that android emulators will be ported and will enable the use of thousands of android apps.

 

[toekramp]

Returned mine as well. The only question asked, was if I was waiting for the Surface Pro, as that had been a common comment on returns. Other than that, it was processed in seconds, very smooth and classy.

Did you buy yours online and return to a store?

 

[NickA]

before you return your surface, remember that android emulators will be ported and will enable the use of thousands of android apps.

Not going to happen, or be possible. It's not like the BB PlayBook.

 

[Gken]

lots of apps aren't optimized per the mountain of evidence, but good to know sometimes you get charged a restocking fee. Or maybe they just hate you.

 

[inteller]

Not going to happen, or be possible. It's not like the BB PlayBook.

Windows 8 apps and the importance of BlueStacks | ITProPortal.com

"a bluestacks player for Windows RT is in the works"

 

[NickA]

Windows 8 apps and the importance of BlueStacks | ITProPortal.com

"a bluestacks player for Windows RT is in the works"

That would be quiet a feat if they get this approved and running on RT.

 

[inteller]

not sure why, it just boostraps a small app launcher that the apps run in.

 

[stephen_az]

Fingers crossed here. The store agent told me that I would get a full refund, so I'm hopeful.

I actually cancelled my order due to the reviews, but I received it anyway; I'm guessing that the cancellation hit after it was on the plane. I tried it for a week before deciding that my initial concerns were sufficiently validated and serious that it wasn't worth keeping it. For me the issues were the form factor, lack of apps, and performance problems.

It's too wide in landscape but too narrow in portrait for comfortable reading. I really think that Apple has it about right with the 4:3 layout. It's also unfortunate that the keyboard cannot be used in your lap, but if you are mostly using this as a tablet then that's not much of a problem.

Both iPad and and android tablets are selling well. iPad runs iPhone apps, Android tablets run Android phone apps. Whatever genius at Microsoft decided not to make their windows tablet OS run windows phone apps should be fired. And finally the performance of the Surface RT was simply atrocious. Browsing was so slow as to be painful. Why the heck does it have to re-fetch the page when you go back? And why does it delete your history and fetch a blank page if you swipe back too fast? ClearType was effective once it kicked in; the problem is that there's a second or two between the page loading and the font smoothing that's pretty painful to look at.

Fortunately I've got a Lenovo X220T convertible tablet that I switched to Windows 8 early this year, and it seems to meet my needs better than the Surface RT, though its weight is a bit of a downer in tablet mode.

As a point of clarification, the only Android tablets that sell well are the cheap products whose performance would best be characterized as a bad joke and Google's Nexus line which they sell at a loss are still not known for blazing anything. You only really push Android numbers up if you consider the Kindle Fire to be Android, which the Android crowd only does when they want to make the market numbers look better. Otherwise, people insist that it is buried so deeply under Amazon's layering as to be irrelevant. As far as performance goes, the Surface is faster at everything than the Transformer Prime I sold. Finally, anyone who assumed that there would be lots of apps out of the gate was and is being unrealistic. The number grows every day but it will take time. As far as Android phone apps go, I have yet to meet a person who has considered the user experience of a phone app on an Android tablet to be particularly satisfactory. In fact, among the Android users I know, the biggest complaint about Android tablets is the lack of quality apps, unless you consider 499,000 garbage phone apps to be quality.

 

[mparker]

In fact, among the Android users I know, the biggest complaint about Android tablets is the lack of quality apps, unless you consider 499,000 garbage phone apps to be quality.

That is true, but means much less than you impute. Have you taken a good hard look at the Windows Store? Most of those apps are crap too, of the "my first Win8 app" level. The iron fist of Sturgeon's Law is hard to avoid, despite Microsoft's attempt to craft an API that only allowed a developer to write good programs (see also Newspeak).

 

[mase123987]

Another note on returns: because I bought it day one early in the day, I got the one free year of Zune music. So basically I got Zune Pass for free! If only Zune Music worked on other devices...