Most of the early reviews of the SP3 are about what I expected. Everyone praises the innovation and design, but these reviews so far are all by the tech bloggers who attended the SP3 event with their Mac Book Air laptops on the laps. Asking these guys to acknowledge this new device is better than what they purchased, or anything made by Apple, was asking a lot. So the reviews not-surprisingly all conclude that the SP3 just doesn?t work as a laptop because it isn?t a laptop.
These folks all have weird use cases. My Surface 2 has the same lap size as the Surface Pro 2 and actually takes up more lap space than the SP3 with the connection to the tablet bezel in place. The Surface works perfectly well on my lap. It doesn?t work well if you cross your legs while using it, but is that now a criteria to determine usability? A posture you might shift your legs into for a few minutes is how we judge usability?
If a crossed-leg scenario is a legitimate point to judge on, why not using the device while walking then? In that case, the SP3 will be a far better device to use than a Mac Book Air because I can fold the Type Cover back or remove it and use the on-screen keyboard, which on the SP3 (unlike the SP and SP2) leaves plenty of screen space to allow productive work. Sure, you might not type for long while carrying a laptop, but I?ve seen people do it. By that criteria it is as legitimate a measure for usability as the crossing your legs scenario that is being used by some reviewers to demonstrate a flaw in the SP3. When I use my Surface 2 on my lap, I have both feet on the floor and the device sits comfortably on my legs and not ?digging in? in any way as some reviewers claim, although I?ve never used my Surface on my lap while wearing shorts, or in my underwear which may be the case for some of these guys. To change position, I might put both feet up on an adjacent chair. I?ve not found the Surface 2 to wobble or be difficult to use in that position either. Face it, your legs will never be as stable as a table or desktop surface, but the existing Surface 2 can work just fine in the lap and I suspect the SP3 to be even more stable on the legs and even more comfortable on a solid surface because of the slight pitch in the keyboard when using the second magnetic connector.
I will freely admit that my Surface 2 and the SP3 will not work as a laptop in every possible sitting configuration a human being can achieve, but it works fine in the normal use case of a table or desk and works acceptably in common lap positions as well. That it doesn?t sit as stable as a clamshell laptop like the Mac Book Air with your legs crossed is not any more reason to dismiss the SP3 as a laptop than would be to trash the Mac Book Air for being difficult to use while walking around.
Reviewers who dis the SP3 on this ground need to be called out for it. Just as they do for the second common bit of nonsense I?ve read in the early reviews: shifting standards of comparison.
Microsoft compared the SP3 to the Mac Book Air, not the iPad. The only reference to the iPad was to note that tablets hadn?t eliminated notebooks as many tech bloggers predicted and that in fact 96 percent of iPad owners also owned a laptop. Yet many early reviews shift back and forth in their comparisons of the SP3 to both Apple devices, usually whenever it makes the SP3 look second best.
One of my favorite bits of this nonsense is the comparison of the weight of the devices. The SP3 is usually praised for its amazingly light weight compared to the Mac Book Air. This is routinely followed by a comparison to the iPad Air, which of course is much lighter than the SP3 (and much less capable, but that always goes unsaid). The reviewers then always claim this is a problem for the SP3 because, when used as a tablet, it is just so much heavier than the iPad Air that you won?t be able to carry it around for long. I?ll set aside my skepticism that any device under 2 pounds is ?difficult? to carry around, and instead note that the vast majority of iPads in the wild weigh more than the iPad Air and are closer in weight to the SP3. We know the SP3 weighs in (without keyboard) at 800g. From Apple?s website, here is the weight of four models: iPad 1: 712g iPad2: 600g Retina: 652g Air: 469g.
We can add the weight of the Type Cover 3 to the SP3 as well, but then to be fair we?d need to add the weight of a case to the iPad too because I?ve never seen an iPad in use without a case except in an Apple Store.
My question to the reviewers is this: why is carrying around an 800g device for a while going to be difficult and wearying when carrying around the original iPad or the Retina iPad is a wonderful, magical thing to do? Just check out the reviews from these same bloggers of the original iPad or the Retina iPad and you have to wonder why those few grams are such a big deal now.
I don?t pretend for a minute that there has ever been a totally objective review of a product or a movie or a play or anything for that matter. Humans have a very difficult time setting aside our pre-conceptions and our biases whether we acknowledge them or not. Reviews in the tech world however are a particularly serious problem in this regard. I don?t have an answer for this because I don?t support stifling the free expression of opinions, but I do think at a minimum that bloggers doing reviews like some of the ones I?ve read for the SP3 already should always be called out loudly for blatant fact errors, shifting standards, bogus comparisons and other common tech review shenanigans. Things will only get better if nonsense and laziness becomes more painful.
These folks all have weird use cases. My Surface 2 has the same lap size as the Surface Pro 2 and actually takes up more lap space than the SP3 with the connection to the tablet bezel in place. The Surface works perfectly well on my lap. It doesn?t work well if you cross your legs while using it, but is that now a criteria to determine usability? A posture you might shift your legs into for a few minutes is how we judge usability?
If a crossed-leg scenario is a legitimate point to judge on, why not using the device while walking then? In that case, the SP3 will be a far better device to use than a Mac Book Air because I can fold the Type Cover back or remove it and use the on-screen keyboard, which on the SP3 (unlike the SP and SP2) leaves plenty of screen space to allow productive work. Sure, you might not type for long while carrying a laptop, but I?ve seen people do it. By that criteria it is as legitimate a measure for usability as the crossing your legs scenario that is being used by some reviewers to demonstrate a flaw in the SP3. When I use my Surface 2 on my lap, I have both feet on the floor and the device sits comfortably on my legs and not ?digging in? in any way as some reviewers claim, although I?ve never used my Surface on my lap while wearing shorts, or in my underwear which may be the case for some of these guys. To change position, I might put both feet up on an adjacent chair. I?ve not found the Surface 2 to wobble or be difficult to use in that position either. Face it, your legs will never be as stable as a table or desktop surface, but the existing Surface 2 can work just fine in the lap and I suspect the SP3 to be even more stable on the legs and even more comfortable on a solid surface because of the slight pitch in the keyboard when using the second magnetic connector.
I will freely admit that my Surface 2 and the SP3 will not work as a laptop in every possible sitting configuration a human being can achieve, but it works fine in the normal use case of a table or desk and works acceptably in common lap positions as well. That it doesn?t sit as stable as a clamshell laptop like the Mac Book Air with your legs crossed is not any more reason to dismiss the SP3 as a laptop than would be to trash the Mac Book Air for being difficult to use while walking around.
Reviewers who dis the SP3 on this ground need to be called out for it. Just as they do for the second common bit of nonsense I?ve read in the early reviews: shifting standards of comparison.
Microsoft compared the SP3 to the Mac Book Air, not the iPad. The only reference to the iPad was to note that tablets hadn?t eliminated notebooks as many tech bloggers predicted and that in fact 96 percent of iPad owners also owned a laptop. Yet many early reviews shift back and forth in their comparisons of the SP3 to both Apple devices, usually whenever it makes the SP3 look second best.
One of my favorite bits of this nonsense is the comparison of the weight of the devices. The SP3 is usually praised for its amazingly light weight compared to the Mac Book Air. This is routinely followed by a comparison to the iPad Air, which of course is much lighter than the SP3 (and much less capable, but that always goes unsaid). The reviewers then always claim this is a problem for the SP3 because, when used as a tablet, it is just so much heavier than the iPad Air that you won?t be able to carry it around for long. I?ll set aside my skepticism that any device under 2 pounds is ?difficult? to carry around, and instead note that the vast majority of iPads in the wild weigh more than the iPad Air and are closer in weight to the SP3. We know the SP3 weighs in (without keyboard) at 800g. From Apple?s website, here is the weight of four models: iPad 1: 712g iPad2: 600g Retina: 652g Air: 469g.
We can add the weight of the Type Cover 3 to the SP3 as well, but then to be fair we?d need to add the weight of a case to the iPad too because I?ve never seen an iPad in use without a case except in an Apple Store.
My question to the reviewers is this: why is carrying around an 800g device for a while going to be difficult and wearying when carrying around the original iPad or the Retina iPad is a wonderful, magical thing to do? Just check out the reviews from these same bloggers of the original iPad or the Retina iPad and you have to wonder why those few grams are such a big deal now.
I don?t pretend for a minute that there has ever been a totally objective review of a product or a movie or a play or anything for that matter. Humans have a very difficult time setting aside our pre-conceptions and our biases whether we acknowledge them or not. Reviews in the tech world however are a particularly serious problem in this regard. I don?t have an answer for this because I don?t support stifling the free expression of opinions, but I do think at a minimum that bloggers doing reviews like some of the ones I?ve read for the SP3 already should always be called out loudly for blatant fact errors, shifting standards, bogus comparisons and other common tech review shenanigans. Things will only get better if nonsense and laziness becomes more painful.
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