Thread: New Microsoft Tablet?

Looking worse and worse

Microsoft's new Surface tablet computer - WIFI only!

(Credit: Microsoft)
The news agency reports that people familiar with the tablet's specs say the device will go on sale without any mobile-phone network connection, but will come with a short-range Wi-Fi connection. This could change in later models.

Surface will be running Microsoft's next-generation Windows operating system and marks the company's first foray into the ever-expanding tablet market. Though the software giant has unveiled Surface, it has yet to release all the details on the specifications.

Apparently, the tablet is thought to be a direct competitor to Apple's iPad. Network accessibility could hinder this goal, however. The new iPad, which went on sale in March, comes equipped with LTE and has the option of a mobile-phone chip, according to Bloomberg. Users can also buy the iPad's Wi-Fi-only model if they prefer.
According to Bloomberg, Microsoft plans to start selling the Surface later this year and will be working with Apple's iPhone-maker, Pegatron, to manufacture the tablet.

CNET contacted Microsoft for comment. We'll update the story when we get more information.

ROTFLOL!

Acer Executive on Microsoft Surface: ‘I Don’t Think It Will Be Successful’ ★
Via Michael Swaine:

The first sign that Microsoft’s vaporware tablet might be successful: Acer saying it won’t.

Acer slates Microsoft's hardware push | Reuters

Kudos for keeping a straight face:

Yes, I do believe Daffy sees the potential, hence the string of bleats about a product that hasn't even hit the market yet. Yet when anyone else does it about his beloved Apple shite, they are being "emotional".

What a fucktard.

Hands-Off: Microsoft Surface Tablet Review

Hands-Off: Microsoft Surface Tablet Review

Danny Sullivan:

Nice trick? No, you know what’s a nice trick? Bringing out devices that no one can actually use. I know they work. I could see that one of the Microsoft guys was all logged into his. But why not let us actually use them, especially when you’ve made us wait from 10 to 60 minutes specifically, as we were told, so we’d all have some close-up time with Surface.

No journalist seems to have really used any of these at the launch event. None of the hands-on reviews that I’ve read, having been in that room and toured the stations, have anything that reflects any real hands-on activity to me. There’s plenty of careful photography that can give the impression that hands-on was going on. Some of it doesn’t even illustrate how the last station with the Surface tablets with keyboards in them literally had a rope to keep us away.

The only sane take on Surface at this point is, more or less, “Interesting, but let’s see what it’s actually like to use.”

Because right now, no one outside Microsoft knows.

I will be buying one, because it's not an Apple and has a USB connection.

Fujitsu bigwig: Microsoft's doing us a favour with Surface either way

'I'm not panicking at all', says slablet CTO
By Joe Fay • Get more from this author
Posted in PCs & Chips, 25th June 2012 08:01 GMT
Last week's launch of Microsoft’s Surface product is a good thing for tablet veteran Fujitsu, even if it only shows the battle is actually between Android and iOS.
The Japanese vendor, in its various European incarnations as International Computers Limited and Fujitsu-Siemens, has often been a lonely voice pushing tablet-like form factors. It currently aims its own Windows 7 and Android tablets at business customers, and is considering whether to launch its Android smartphone in the European market.


So Dr Joseph Reger, CTO at Fujitsu Technology Solutions, might be expected to be rather put out that now the technology building blocks for a mass commercial tablet appear to be in place, Microsoft is barging in with its own hardware platforms based around the upcoming Windows 8.

“I’m not panicking at all,” he told The Register in London last week. “Two things can happen. It’s successful, and grabs market share and the market is growing.”
Alternatively, “If it’s not successful, that brings clarity. Then we know the tablet space is a fight between Android and iOS.”
And, he continued, “If both are successful, then we can have a debate about what’s more important.”
For Fujitsu, what’s important – apart from shifting its own branded kit – is being able to sensibly plug mobile devices into the corporation. The vendor was a big fan of BYOD, Reger said, particularly when the D element was Fujitsu's own devices.
However, that endorsement was conditional on employees' devices being “manageable” by the corporation – and enterprise management platforms, tools and services are, unsurprisingly, a major preoccupation of the firm.
“Without that, BYOD is one of the most dangerous things ever,” Reger declared.
He said that while the extremist positions were for companies to supply just one device, or to accept “any device”, the sensible position was for companies to support a reasonable degree of choice among users. ®