Surface 2 still sold out?

[etphoto]

Lucked out and was able to get my new Surface 2 and the purple type cover on Saturday at a nearby Best Buy. Seriously, they had just unloaded the truck that morning and by the time I got there (around 11 am) there were only 3 purple type covers left. YAY!

What part of the world / country?

 

[thatdennis]

Were exactly did you buy the surface 2 in hong kong . Are they readily available ? And can one play around with one , I mean do they have demo units ? And lastly any special offer going on the surface ? Thanx in advance .

At the Fortress electronic stores, available everywhere in Hong Kong (if a store doesn't have it, check with another one, it's easy to travel through train). They are all ready, in stock and have the type covers with accessories.

The Fortress stores have demo units which I played around for 10 minutes until deciding to buy one. Not so sure about other stores though.

When I bought that it was fairly new in Hong Kong, 6 days after the launch of the Surface 2. So there are no special offers for me. Check the Fortress website if they have any special offers.

 

[hagjohn]

Microsoft Store online should have RT's available... unless they sold out already.

 

[LoriInWA]

My purchase was in Lynnwood WA

 

[vraev]

I think they are still available online. Grab them while U can. Its an amazing tablet. So much more than a iPad or Android tablet.

 

[Cruncher04]

Where my crystal ball is fuzzy is in what is going to happen beyond Surface 2. It is possible that there will not be an ARM-based Surface 3...that the 2 will be the last ARM-based entry-level Surface. That would depend upon the real-world experience of the Bay Trail devices. If reality lives up to the hype, I can see Microsoft producing a BayTrail-based Surface 3 and removing WinRT from Surface tablets.

That is highly unlikely except Microsoft is stupid for various reasons:

1) From performance perspective Tegra 4 already outpace Baytrail particulary in GPU performance. If you are running games side-by-side on Surface 2 and Dell Venue 11 Pro (Baytrail version) the Surface 2 is generally smoother. Now keep in mind that Nvidia is making the shift from ARMv7 to ARMv8 this year, which promises a good performance jump. Add to this the announced Kepler GPU architecture introduced in Tegra K1.
2) Going from ARM to x86 would make the Surface (3) more of a me-too device, seeing of how the OEMs flooding the market with Baytrails. You also loose the resistancy of an ARM based Windows against agains attacks from viruses and trojans, for some people certainly an important feature. So limiting the Windows tablet market to a single CPU architecture and thus reducing choice is not beneficial to the Windows eco-system. Anyone looking for a high performance ARM SoC in the future would be restricted to Android and iOS.
3) Microsofts strategic direction should always offer the option to compile Windows for ARM (thats exactly what RT is, it is not a separate development branch). If the ARM based server taking off there is a huge market Microsoft may miss. AMD and even Google investing heavily into ARM based Servers. With other words RT for Microsoft is a good test-bed as well as a strategic showcase to show potential customers "we are able to deliver Windows on ARM".

In any case, even if Microsoft decides to go x86 for Surface 3 (i would be a mistake imo, see above), it would take nothing away from Surface 2, in contrary. It would be more like:"Damn, again catched malware on my Surface 3, never happended to my Surface 2".

 

[WillysJeepMan]

That is highly unlikely except Microsoft is stupid for various reasons.

Never underestimate the depths that Microsoft's stupidity can reach. :smile: And I say that as someone who isn't antagonistic towards them.