Windows Phone & Ipad

[kevynpm]

For a while, I assumed I would be too limited by an RT tablet, until I got a Surface RT. I could not be happier with it. It is a beautiful device, battery lasts me all day and night, with frequent usage, videos look amazing on the screen and fit great thanks to the 16:9 display. I am seeing more useful apps appearing in the Store all the time. Plus a MicroSD slot, USB port, and the most personal user interface ever. My Start screen is MY design, my layout, and much cooler than a grid of app icons and wasted space. This thing feels like the future, now. Try using one for a bit before you dismiss it. And if you're on the fence and have a question that you think I may be able to answer, feel free to ask! ��

 

[JamesTBurns]

I have a Lumia 920/iPad mini combo and I really like it. Smartglass is actually better on the iPad, Skydrive is there too. I've owned two Nexus 7's and prefer the iPad mini because it has real, tablet optimized apps and not the blown up phone apps of the Nexus 7. The N7 is best to use Jelly Bean without buying a phone, IMO, and thats it. Saying apps are irrelevant is ridiculous...iMovie, Rdio, GTA Vice City, Chrome, Pages, Dropbox, Evernote, Gmail, Google +, Tapatalk, Pinterest, Tweetbot, Tumblr, Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Drafts, Priceline, Xbox Smartglass....all on my iPad mini plus many more. Don't forget Siri, and the Google Search app with voice assistant.

 

[AZBrowncoat]

a lot of what i'm going to say has already been stated, just wanted to share my thoughts as well.

Ipad or surface? It totally depends on what you want to do with your tablet.

To me a windows phone and an ipad is the perfect combination.

^^^ this ^^^

 

[asinrutee]

To me a windows phone and an ipad is the perfect combination

I agree I have a Windows phone and an ipad, wouldn't change the ipad for anything android, in the future I might look at the Surface. I use my ipad a lot for my work, it is much more friendly than it used to be. I have no problems printing either at work or home or sharing excel with number and word with pages. to me my HTC 8X and ipad are the best of both worlds. I realise not everyone will agree with me, but it would be very boring if we all liked the same thing

 

[hary536]

I'm definitely thinking about getting a Surface, but one question. Should I wait for pro or just cop the RT version?

Just wait for Nokia tablet.

 

[hary536]

If my iPad ever stops functioning, I'll take a second look at Windows tablets, they certainly intrigue me!

And, well, if you'd rather have a Surface, I'd wait for the Pro.

You say you like iPad. Then why recommend Surface Pro over Surface? It's like saying wait for MacBookPro touch instead of ipad.

 

[fiveodano]

I'm looking at a compromise between the surface RT and the Pro. The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2. It has the new Atom processor and seems to fit nicely between the two MS offerings in both price and spec. A few different companies are coming out with this same hardware spec like Dell and HP. Rather than running RT they run Windows 8 32 or 32 pro. I'll be using this mostly for running MS Office and a lot of OneNote. I like the idea of having a place to keep the input pen (check out the Lenovo website). These tablets are said to have great battery life as well, without having to run the more limited RT operating system. Oh, it also has Full-sized USB 2.0 ports, Micro SD slot, and Mini HDMI port.
Not your original question but I would go with this over the iPad if your going to stay with Windows Phone

 

[narv]

I'm looking at a compromise between the surface RT and the Pro. The Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2. It has the new Atom processor and seems to fit nicely between the two MS offerings in both price and spec. A few different companies are coming out with this same hardware spec like Dell and HP. Rather than running RT they run Windows 8 32 or 32 pro. I'll be using this mostly for running MS Office and a lot of OneNote. I like the idea of having a place to keep the input pen (check out the Lenovo website). These tablets are said to have great battery life as well, without having to run the more limited RT operating system. Oh, it also has Full-sized USB 2.0 ports, Micro SD slot, and Mini HDMI port.
Not your original question but I would go with this over the iPad if your going to stay with Windows Phone

Ugh..... While im not going to knock the device as I haven't actually used it, you pretty much described a more expensive version of the surface RT tablet.. You said it has USB, micro SD slot, and Mini HDMI.... the surface RT has all of those.. great battery life? surface has that.. You said you use MS office a lot and OneNote.. but you have to pay (according the the Lenovo site) $150 for MS Office 2010.. On top of the $650 price for the base model that doesn't include a keyboard... but it's 64 GB... the 64 GB with a keyboard for surface RT is $699 with office 2013 installed already for no additional cost. Now with the ability (found in another thread) to "hack" the PC (not really... it's pretty simple) and get your apps to install on an SD card, you can get the 32 GB version for $100 less.. Plus the $649 apparently doesn't come with the keyboard which is an additional $50.

You also said limited RT OS.. But if you are just using it for Office and OneNote.. why do you need the "full" win8 version? What would you be missing other than the old software? Not bashing, just asking.

 

[socialcarpet]

You're thinking about spending $529 on an 8 inch tablet? That's insane, unless you've got more money than common sense. If you're not happy with the current Windows offerings, I'd recommend a Nexus 7 to get your by for now. It's MUCH more affordable and has a better display than the iPad mini.

This is the best advice. I followed that course myself. The iPad Mini is pretty limited and it's gimped with a low res screen and saddled with a hefty price tag for last years technology.

The Nexus 7 on the other hand has this years technology, a faster processor, double the RAM, higher resolution and although Android isn't quite as pretty as iOS, the Nexus 7 has the very best Android has to offer, it runs the latest version which is pretty polished and it's pure vanilla Android, free of any bloatware or OEM junk and it can be freely updated to newer versions as they are released. Furthermore, Android is much more capable and flexible than iOS. I can do nearly 80% of what I can on a laptop with my Nexus 7. That is pretty amazing for a $249 device.

The icing on the cake? Google sells the Nexus 7 at cost, or even at a slight loss, so for $199-249, you're getting a tablet which cost them almost that much to make, versus the iPad Mini, which has at least a $150 worth of pork built in to the price.

I don't feel that Windows RT is quite ready for prime time yet. There is still very little available in terms of apps and every review I have read says it's somewhat sluggish on the current hardware.

As soon as they have Win RT tuned up and on hardware that will be as snappy as my Lumia 920 and they have a respectable library of apps, then I will buy an Win RT tablet. Until then, my Nexus 7 is more than enough for me.

 

[socialcarpet]

How is the surface limited compared to the iPad? I always thought it was the other way around.

Not really. Windows RT has about 5 apps available for it right now. That's about as limited as it gets.

It will change, but I can't imagine buying a Win RT tablet right now. All you'll be able to do with it is surf the Internet and make Word documents. Not very exciting.

 

[narv]

Not really. Windows RT has about 5 apps available for it right now. That's about as limited as it gets.

It will change, but I can't imagine buying a Win RT tablet right now. All you'll be able to do with it is surf the Internet and make Word documents. Not very exciting.

What the.... what windows RT tablet are you talking about!?!? I am going to assume the number 5 is a gross exaggeration and you don't actually believe that... but even still that is completely false and it's rumors like that which give products a bad name to people that don't know the difference.. There are about 20,000 apps in the store and the number is growing everyday. Not to mention the OS JUST came out.... and every app has to be approved by MS first..

You wonder why people get the wrong impression of devices and MS is having a hard time pushing into the market.. you have informed statements that aren't even remotely true giving false information to everyone as if it's fact..

 

[jhguth]

I knocked the iPad mini too before I tried it, now I think its the perfect size for an entertainment/consumption tablet. Its too small to create anything on, but its the perfect size to browse and use apps. I'm a big fan of 7" devices now. I'm replacing my iPad with an iPad mini, the iPad mini is the better size.

And anyone seriously saying that an RT tablet has as many useful apps as an iOS tablet is the definition of a ******. It's just not arguable.

 

[fiveodano]

Oh, I use old software as well, just Office and OneNote are what I use most.

 

[eric12341]

This is the best advice. I followed that course myself. The iPad Mini is pretty limited and it's gimped with a low res screen and saddled with a hefty price tag for last years technology.

The Nexus 7 on the other hand has this years technology, a faster processor, double the RAM, higher resolution and although Android isn't quite as pretty as iOS, the Nexus 7 has the very best Android has to offer, it runs the latest version which is pretty polished and it's pure vanilla Android, free of any bloatware or OEM junk and it can be freely updated to newer versions as they are released. Furthermore, Android is much more capable and flexible than iOS. I can do nearly 80% of what I can on a laptop with my Nexus 7. That is pretty amazing for a $249 device.

The icing on the cake? Google sells the Nexus 7 at cost, or even at a slight loss, so for $199-249, you're getting a tablet which cost them almost that much to make, versus the iPad Mini, which has at least a $150 worth of pork built in to the price.

I don't feel that Windows RT is quite ready for prime time yet. There is still very little available in terms of apps and every review I have read says it's somewhat sluggish on the current hardware.

As soon as they have Win RT tuned up and on hardware that will be as snappy as my Lumia 920 and they have a respectable library of apps, then I will buy an Win RT tablet. Until then, my Nexus 7 is more than enough for me.

Windows RT can do everything a windows PC can do except run legacy apps, that's not limited at all. Once the surface pro comes out it will be far more capable than even the nexus 7. Windows RT has more than 5 apps available.

 

[travisel]

Windows RT is "ARMv7" 32-bit software, what going to happen 18 months from now when "ARMv8" 64-bit software?
Windows RT 64-bit version?
Are they going to kill off RT for new 64-bit RT? Or like PC OS run both side by side?
I guess it depends on how many people jump on Windows RT

 

[eric12341]

Windows RT is "ARMv7" 32-bit software, what going to happen 18 months from now when "ARMv8" 64-bit software?
Windows RT 64-bit version?
Are they going to kill off RT for new 64-bit RT? Or like PC OS run both side by side?
I guess it depends on how many people jump on Windows RT ��

They will coexist just like both 32 and 64 bit Windows but 32 bit will be discontinued by 2038 to avoid this:

Year 2038 problem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[erasure25]

Not really. Windows RT has about 5 apps available for it right now. That's about as limited as it gets.

It will change, but I can't imagine buying a Win RT tablet right now. All you'll be able to do with it is surf the Internet and make Word documents. Not very exciting.

Never listen to someone who uses hyperbole as an argument. I have both an iPad3 and Surface (iPad recieved as a gift, then I bought myself a Surface when it came out). The Surface is a work/play tablet. iPad is a play+1 tablet. The iPad cannot effectively be used for business-type work (Office-centric documents, spreadsheets, powerpoints, etc) mostly because it doesn't have Office, but secondarily because multi-tasking on the iPad is very clumsy and it doesn't support any USB peripherals at all. With Surface, I can plug in my Logitech unifying receiver and use both my mouse and number keypad for easy data manipulation on complex spreadsheets. The iPad is very good for connecting with friends for games. For watching movies, Surface wins because it has the widescreen format, kickstand and standard micro-HDMI port.

 

[erasure25]

I knocked the iPad mini too before I tried it, now I think its the perfect size for an entertainment/consumption tablet. Its too small to create anything on, but its the perfect size to browse and use apps. I'm a big fan of 7" devices now. I'm replacing my iPad with an iPad mini, the iPad mini is the better size.

And anyone seriously saying that an RT tablet has as many useful apps as an iOS tablet is the definition of a ******. It's just not arguable.

It is arguable because the definition of useful varies. Sorry, but I can do anything on the Surface as an iPad (I own both), with the exception of play games like Stone Age and Carcassone with my iPhone/iPad friends (obviously I have to use Game Center to connect with them). I don't need my tablet to have nearly as many apps as a phone, so the "it doesn't have 1 bajillion apps" argument is simply a Straw Man. Unlike a phone, I don't always have a tablet with me in use. Thus, I only need certain specific apps when I do pick up a tablet to use. As other have said, for many things you can just go to the website. Boo, there's no app for Eat24hours.com. So I just pin the website as tile to my Start Screen and it serves the same purpose. And yes, Office is a major app that I need on a tablet without question. So don't act like you are the definitive answer to all things tablet.