New Surface 3 Tablet Abandons Windows RT, Rocks Intel Cherry Trail Chip

[littleleo]

Well... let's see what Win10 would bring us shallwe?

I got my fingers crossed I'm praying it's a good one.

 

[Darkie On]

need 7 or 8"

 

[RedJaron]

need 7 or 8"

That'd be a tough sale. You've already got a lot of good 7" and 8" tablets like the HP Stream, Dell Venue, Acer Iconia, and Asus VivoTab. The Surface's calling card has been the al-mag chassis, kickstand, and type cover. I don't see the kickstand very useful on a 7" screen and a 7" keyboard is too small to use well. The metal chassis would be nice, but how much extra would that cost? Many people are willing to pay a little extra for a premium 10" tablet, or a laptop/2-in-1, but I don't think anyone wants to pay for a "premium" 7" tablet.

 

[Darkie On]

need 7 or 8"

That'd be a tough sale. You've already got a lot of good 7" and 8" tablets like the HP Stream, Dell Venue, Acer Iconia, and Asus VivoTab. The Surface's calling card has been the al-mag chassis, kickstand, and type cover. I don't see the kickstand very useful on a 7" screen and a 7" keyboard is too small to use well. The metal chassis would be nice, but how much extra would that cost? Many people are willing to pay a little extra for a premium 10" tablet, or a laptop/2-in-1, but I don't think anyone wants to pay for a "premium" 7" tablet.

 

[Darkie On]

I've used HP stream 8, toooo slow. Can't install 64 bit windows pro. Need a cherry trail 4 gig w/ windows 64 bit for business use. 7-8" w/ broad band is needed for ultra portable and get work done anywhere.
And when you home or at work, plug it into your dual monitors and blue tooth keyboard. I do that now w/ my surface pro. but just toooooo heavy and large to fit in my pocket.

 

[RedJaron]

I've used HP stream 8, toooo slow. Can't install 64 bit windows pro. Need a cherry trail 4 gig w/ windows 64 bit for business use. 7-8" w/ broad band is needed for ultra portable and get work done anywhere.
And when you home or at work, plug it into your dual monitors and blue tooth keyboard. I do that now w/ my surface pro. but just toooooo heavy and large to fit in my pocket.

Soooo, you're complaining that a $100 7" tablet isn't as fast or strong as an $800 Surface Pro? Riiiiight. I'm curious how you plan to fit that much RAM, CPU, and storage into a 7" device while still leaving enough space for a battery large enough to do anything meaningful with it. Even if they did manage to pack all that in, how much are you willing to pay for it?

 

[Darkie On]

I've used HP stream 8, toooo slow. Can't install 64 bit windows pro. Need a cherry trail 4 gig w/ windows 64 bit for business use. 7-8" w/ broad band is needed for ultra portable and get work done anywhere.
And when you home or at work, plug it into your dual monitors and blue tooth keyboard. I do that now w/ my surface pro. but just toooooo heavy and large to fit in my pocket.

Soooo, you're complaining that a $100 7" tablet isn't as fast or strong as an $800 Surface Pro? Riiiiight. I'm curious how you plan to fit that much RAM, CPU, and storage into a 7" device while still leaving enough space for a battery large enough to do anything meaningful with it. Even if they did manage to pack all that in, how much are you willing to pay for it?

 

[Darkie On]

Don't expect it to be as powerful as i5. But a cherry trail is double if not triple bay trail. and w/ broad band, I can get rid of my cellphone as well. willing to pay $900 for it.
I need 64 bit to be able to run my business software and remote in. and hopefully, it is would be good enough that I don't need a laptop or desktop computer.

 

[RedJaron]

Don't expect it to be as powerful as i5. But a cherry trail is double if not triple bay trail.

I don't know where you're getting that. It's an improvement, sure, but no CPU gets double or triple the performance gain in only a single generation. Anything over 15% from one generation to the next is usually considered dang good.

The device you're looking for simply doesn't exist, nor will it for at least a few years. You want a CPU that can fit in a 7" chassis with passive cooling that's able to drive three displays? ( unless you want one of the video outs to share with the native display. ) Yes, some current ones can currently drive two 1080 screens, but it taxes them fairly heavily. Not to mention two video out ports? Hell, it's rare enough that full on laptops even have two video out jacks anymore.

If you've got $900 for the smallest, lightest laptop replacement, your best bet is a Surface Pro 3.

 

[littleleo]

I went with 2 friends when they bought their new tablets. 1st we checked out the MS Surface, they heated the windows 8.x O/S. We checked of few other models and they both settled on Apple iPads one got the Air with 32GB, the other got the Air2 with 64GB. It was interesting to see them try the different models and see them decide which model they liked the best. Looks like the Surface biggest issue is still their O/S.

 

[RedJaron]

If someone prefers iOS over full Windows 8.1, I can only conclude they're either not terribly tech savvy, or they have very low computing needs/expectations from a tablet.

 

[littleleo]

They are also in the majority of tablet owners.

 

[RedJaron]

They are also in the majority of tablet owners.

Which is not mutually exclusive from either of my two observations. However, you're making a gross assumption. Just because the majority of tablet users may have an iPad does not mean that's the OS they prefer. It simply means that at the time of their purchase, that device was the one that met enough of their wants/needs that it was the overall preferred device. It's very possible, perhaps even probable, that some very much prefer Windows, Linux, or even MacOS, but in the tablet space the iPad simply has the applications they need most. I know many gamers that prefer Linux, but still have a Windows box or dual-boot because gaming is just so much more accessible on that OS.

And none of that in anyway disproves what I said before.

 

[littleleo]

They are also in the majority of tablet owners.

Which is not mutually exclusive from either of my two observations. However, you're making a gross assumption. Just because the majority of tablet users may have an iPad does not mean that's the OS they prefer. It simply means that at the time of their purchase, that device was the one that met enough of their wants/needs that it was the overall preferred device. It's very possible, perhaps even probable, that some very much prefer Windows, Linux, or even MacOS, but in the tablet space the iPad simply has the applications they need most. I know many gamers that prefer Linux, but still have a Windows box or dual-boot because gaming is just so much more accessible on that OS.

And none of that in anyway disproves what I said before.

Well I was standing right there and YES they preferred the iOS over the Windows 8.x and android. It wasn't even close. And they are not expecting to game on their tablets much. The iPads do everything they want them to do and they are very intuitive and easy to setup and use. I spoke to them a couple weeks after their purchases and they are still very happy with their purchases.

Personally I have an iPad and an Android tablets at home, and if I want to game I use my desktop with my modest 24" monitor. I don't sell iPADs or the Surfaces, so I don't have a horse in this race but of course this isn't a race at all. MS isn't even try to compete against the iPads they have given up on that niche they are going after notebooks now.

I still sell 20-30 copies of Windows 7 per week and Windows 8.x about 1-3pcs per month. So yes I think the Surfaces being saddled with windows 8.x is slowing its acceptance. It would be very interesting to see if they ran any other O/S how that would affect their sales. Perhaps Windows 10 will make them a top seller, time will tell.