Category Archives: Microsoft
Give Microsoft a Break!!!
Why are people so hell-bent in dissing Microsoft? The company is pushing out New Hardware, a completely redesigned OS and a Phone OS that have been winning awards all over the world. But, for some reason, people don’t seem to accept them. No matter what Microsoft does it seems like nothing is good enough.
The surface RT wasn’t good enough because of its inability to run x86 and lack of Apps. And even though it can run more than one app at the time and connect to removable media thru USB or a Memory card people still can’t see how great the device is.
Once the Surface Pro was release, the issue changed to Battery life an SSD space. The Surface pro is a Laptop in a tablet format but Tech writers would compare it to a tablet in matters of battery life and to full size laptops when it came to SSD space.
On the mobile Phone side of the story Microsoft and Nokia came together and created a brand new Phone with more tech crammed into it that any other phone in the market. It has a fast, responsible, easy to use OS, a high pixel density screen, 32GB of memory, literally the best camera in the market, wireless charging, 1GB of ram, it works all over the World and it has a sturdy body that makes a case almost unnecessary. A phone like that can please everyone right??? Off course not, the phone is too heavy…. Are you kidding me!!!!???
During the same time that Microsoft put out all of that, not to mention a new OS that will pave a road for the future, Apple and Google have been recycling the same hardware and OS over and over again. Seriously, Apple has not developed anything new since the Ipad and the Google’s Android is such a mess it’s just now becoming usable.
I know the Surface RT and pro, as well as the Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 are not perfect, but they represent Microsoft’s willingness to reinvent themselves. To be bold and innovative with a vision for the future that doesn’t only represent the interest of share holders but also a passion for technology and respect for its costumers.
Stop comparing The Surface Pro to the iPad
Surface Pro
The Surface pro (the new Microsoft Tablet hybrid) will be available for purchase in just a few days and it seems like the internet trolls have already found something else to hate about it.
It is well known that the windows 8 OS takes up quite a bit of space, that information have been available since the Surface RT came out and it wasn’t very well received back then either. That “problem” still present on the Surface Pro and is bigger than ever. But, lets start from the beginning. What is the Microsoft Surface Pro? The pro is, in very simple terms, a extremely portable touch screen laptop shaped like a tablet.
Contrary of its RT counterpart the Surface pro uses a nothing left behind, full version of Windows 8. There is virtually no substantial difference between a retail version of Win8 and the one that will come installed on the device. Sadly, people don’t seem to get it or they choose to ignore that fact and keep comparing the Pro to the Ipad or an similar android tablet.
When the Surface RT was launched the comparisons between the it and iPad were inevitably and to be perfectly honest somewhat appropriate. The RT, which I love, is a tablet, It uses a mobile processor, it has very limited flash support and it is restricted to running Microsoft approved apps from the Microsoft store, just like the iPad and the app store. If you don’t take in consideration some major hardware differences (the hdmi and USB ports, and the memory card slot) the they are very close cousins.
The surface pro however, is more like a ultrabook than a tablet, so it stands to reason that when comparing it to anything it should compared to other ultra portables with at least similar specs, and when you do you will see that this storage loss is not limited to the Surface pro but all win8 devices.
The Surface pro is not for everyone, so before buying (or even comparing it to anything else) ask what you want out of your device, do you need a complex file system and expandable memory? Do you need to run native windows software? Do you want a touch screen and a portable frame? If you answer yes to any of those questions you know that the neither the iPad or the Surface RT would be enough.
The bottom line is that the Surface Pro is much more than a Tablet as we know it, it is a re-imagination of the old tablet PCS and comparing it to the Galaxy tab or the iPad would be like comparing a fishing boat to a jet sky, sure, both go in the water, both are fun and I guess you could go fishing out of a jet sky, but if you really want to catch a fish you need a fishing boat!
Microsoft Surface Touch cover review.
When the Microsoft surface was finally announced one of its most unique features was the Touch and type covers. The idea of having a keyboard working as a cover is not new, the IPAD has been doing it for quite some time, the unique part of it comes with it’s physical interface. These covers are magnetically connected to the tablet and they don’t use Bluetooth or any type or wireless connection.
The Touch Cover is about 3mm thin, is available in 5 colors and it costs $119. At 3mm the Touch cover wont change the tablets portability in any meaningful way but having a usable keyboard will really make you more productive.
The Touch Cover uses a type of touch sensitivity technology that, to be perfect honest, is kind of amazing. The keys are responsive, soft and not overly sensitive (you can rest of fingers on top of the keys without having to worry about firing it up). The touch pad on it is a little slow and unresponsive, but taking into consideration how thin, light and portable this thing is that can easily be overlooked. Being that touch cover was designed for the surface and therefore for windows 8, you can find a shortcut for all your charms on the top of it as well as multimedia keys. The touch cover can be bent to almost a 360 degrees, from flat in front of the screen to flat in the back of the tablet, and you don’t have to worry about typing on the keys while holding it up as the keys are automatically disabled when the device is held as a tablet.
The magnetic connection to the Surface is pretty strong, strong enough that you can hold your tablet upside down by the cover and it wont disconnect, not that you should ever do that.
All and all the Touch cover is extremely useful and pretty amazing for what it is, but is not perfect, sometimes the keys don’t register your touch causing some mistyping, and I wish Microsoft would just make them a little cheaper as $119 dollars seems very steep (specially after buying the surface for $499) however it is a far better option than a Bluetooth keyboard.
The touch cover is a usable keyboard, you wont be typing very fast on it but still way faster than using an on-screen one. The $119 price tag is a bit much, being that the surface is being marketed as a productivity device it should have been included with the surface at $499.
Windows 8 RT, My Personal Opinion
The windows 8 RT is the ARM compatible version of Microsoft newest version of windows. If you don’t know what ARM is you can find more information here.
I was really impressed by W8RT when I first started it. It is fast, colorful and extremely touch friendly. There was a bit of a learning curved to get the OS to do what I wanted to, but within a few hours you can become proficient on it.
The share and search charms and the touch screen are great to use and they make using W8 a pleasure. Once you get use to the touch screen interface you will be reaching for the screen of every computer you ever use after that.
The W8RT comes with some free apps a photo, video, music and a people, mail and calendar app, and that’s where the problems start.
When I first got my tablet in early October I was quite impressed by the built quality and looks of it, and even though I was impressed by the W8 RT in general, the OS felt buggy and rushed.
At launch the system was cursed with constant crashes, performance issues and connectivity problems. It was, to say the least, extremely frustrating. Thankfully Microsoft worked quickly, and with the help of the now know as “patch Tuesday” most of those issues were resolved. Most of them but not all of them. Even though Microsoft worked fast and hard to update their apps it is infuriating how much work still has to be done.
Video app:
The surface video app, also know as Xbox video app, is one of the least buggy of the 4 built in apps. The app is extremely slow and clunky. Microsoft insists into signing you in everytime you start the app, and when you finally make your way to your videos sections you will see a list of not only the locally stored files but all the videos you ever bought from the Zune/Xbox video store, slowing the app even further. In the first few weeks after I got the Tablet this app you crash constantly, most of the times it happened it had to do with changing from landscape to portrait mode while playing a movie, the app didn’t know what the video and then just crash the whole thing. Gladly Microsoft fixed that, now you can only watch videos in landscape.
After a video crash, had to reboot the tablet.
Music app:
Like the video app this app is not bad, is just slow. A few things don’t work for me though. I have the original Zune pass membership, so for $14.99 I get unlimited streaming and 10drm free downloads per month. However, for some reason I can use my credits to buy music even though I’m signed in.
Building a playlist on this app is also surprisingly hard.
People, calendar and mail app:
One of the bigger issues with the surface is the lack of Outlook. Instead, Microsoft gave us the “people, calendar and email app”. I personally don’t need outlook, my surface is mainly for personal use so I don’t need a very robust email app but what we got is just atrocious. I am going to break it down to each app because there is quite a bit to be said about each one of them.
Mail:
The email app that comes on the Surface is pretty straight forward, but very limited. It does support multiple accounts and it will sync your folder with the app. However, you cant create any folders in the app and have it sync with the cloud. Besides that, the app really suffers from a performace stand point. It is really slow. Sometimes you will see a new email message in your live tile, click on it and still have to wait a few seconds until you can see it in your inbox. I am not talking about the full email popping with all the pictures attached or anything, I literally mean that not even the email count have changed yet. quite frustrating.
Calendar:
The calendar app is actually pretty good. It is fast, stable and it does support multiple calendars. You cant, however, create a new calendar from the app, that can only be done only as well.
People:
Now, the people hub was practically unusable when I first got the Surface. The many, many updates pushed by Microsoft since then have made this app tolerable, although it still extremely slow and it crashes quite a bit.
If you are not familiar with the people hub ill explain. The people Hub is a centralized hub for all you social networks (well, definitely not ALL, but the bigger ones). It was first introduced by Microsoft on heir WP7 and it can be quite handy (I haven’t even downloaded a Facebook app for my phone). Basically any of your friends updates on Facebook or twitter will show up here next to their picture, you can then click on the status to read it or on the contact name so you can see their pictures or recent updates. It works like a charm on my Lumia 920, but not quite as well on the Surface.
The Photo app:
There is a reason why I left this one for last. The Photos app for Microsoft Surface it is so bad that every time I use it I think about just throwing my Surface out of my window. The app is beautiful, it connects to my Skydrive, Facebook and in theory Flickr and it does support raw (I am not sure it supports all raw files but it support the Nikon D90 .NEF files) but that’s pretty the only good things I can say about this app.
The first thing you will notice about this app is how slow it is, it takes forever to pull a picture up, and even though it is quite stable, meaning that its doesn’t completely crashes much, it never quite works right either.
First of all it doesn’t seem to connect with flickr, I have done all the set up, from beginning to end multiple times, followed every instruction I could find from forums and Microsoft but the app just wont connect to my Flickr acc. It start out, fine it pulls the cover of my albums but when it comes to download the photo I get the “ops, something went wrong” message. I have had my Surface for about 3 months and I am still trying to get that to work (some have said that you need a paid Flicker acc to get it to work but I haven’t tried that yet).
Now the biggest issue I have with this app is the lack of support for the memory card. The W8 RT has a known issue with external memory. Unless you map that drive into the system it will not index any files. It is system wide and mapping the memory card is pretty simple. However, even after you map the drive and get every thing up and running the photos app wont index any files added after the initial set up unless you redo the mapping. It is utterly frustrating to see all your music and videos appear without any issues and on the other apps but not your photos. I first thought it was a problem with windows 8 but after some research I found the issue isolated to the photos app. It is unacceptable of Microsoft to put out an app with this many issues, just unacceptable.
If I had to describe the Windows 8 RT when it first came out with only one word that word would be unfinished. Now, after a few months it would be Improved.
I love my surface and everyday I love it even more, but some of this issues are to big to ignore.
To conclude, Windows 8 RT has a lot of potential, but Microsoft still has a lot of work to do if they want this to compete with the likes of apple and google.
Microsoft Surface RT, The Hardware
I pre order my Microsoft surface, when it was first announced in the middle of October. It was my first tablet, but that was mostly because I never saw a point to the whole trend, I had a smartphone and a very good and portable laptop and that seemed
enough.
My first impression of the Tablet were very positive. The packaging was simple, compact, economical and opening the package was easy and straight forward. The Surface is a beautiful piece of Hardware, it looks sexy and professional, almost grownup when compared to other Tablets.
If you are just looking for the hardware specifications here they are.
The casing:
The vaporMgg casing feels amazingly solid, and clean. It feels like this thing can really take atumble and still survive. I, however, did not try that.
The Microsoft surface has a built in kickstand, The kickstand is a excellent addition to the tablet, one I believe is missing on all others, but I think Microsoft didn’t do this just to give us something unique. The Surface feels a bit heavy, may be a little too heavy for constant one hand use, however, I never used any other tablets so I might not be correct about this, and even though it felt the a bit heavy to me it also felt very well balanced.
Power supply:
The surface uses a proprietary magnetic charger (think macbooks), it connects to the right side of the tablet. On the connector side the power supply has a small, dim LED that lights up when charging. At first I was a bit disappointed that the Surface couldn’t be charge it thru USB, but when I saw how fast the tablet charges I changed my mind. The power supply is light, compact and can easy fit in a small pocket.
The screen:
The 10.6in Screen is Great, not retina display great as Microsoft is trying to pass it, but I find the display resolution good
enough for a portable device. I personally don’t see need for a higher resolution then 720p, in a tablet or smartphone. The colors are strong, the
blacks are deep and even at 40% brightness the screen is bright enough for
comfortable use. I don’t do a whole lotof reading on my Surface, I much prefer my Kindle 2 for that, but when I do the
letters look very, very sharp. The screen seems to be somewhat of thumb printresistant, however, I achieved that conclusion by very unscientific methods.(basically I cleaned the screen and then used the device for a few hours..)
The Microsoft Surface also has a built in Micro HDMI output. Microsoft sells a display adaptor for the surface but that is hardly needed, any micro HDMI to HDMI cable will do just fine. You can find some for as little as $10 on amazon.
Storage:
The Microsoftsurface has 32GB of flash storage, however, only 16GB of those are available. There is a lot to be said about that so I will address this another time.
The surface also has
a built in micro SDXC card slot and its storage can be upgraded to up to 64GB. The is located under the kickstand on the right side of the device. Even though the OS identifies the memory card immediately, the system won’t automatically index the files located there, but here is a fix for that. The
surface also has a full size USB port that can be use with external hard drives.
Battery:
Battery wised the Surface stands strong. It has a built in non user removable battery. I was able to get about 10h with it,average use of course, 5 to 7h of movie playback depending on the quality.
Sound:
Volume control is located on the top left side of the device and I found the sound quality good but low, you won’t be rocking any parties with this unless you use external speakers, and those can be powered by the full size USB port located on the right side.
The cameras:
The surface has 2 built in cameras (front and rear). They are 720p and slightly angled. The reason Microsoft angled the cameras was to make using the tablet for video conference easier when using the kickstand. I found the camera quality to be subpar, but good enough for video chatting.
The real innovation the Surface brings to the tablet market comes with the full USB 2.0 port and the keyboard covers, this 2, pair up with the Windows 8 RT and the Microsoft office (included with the tablet) makes the Surface a productivity master. With the full USB port you can
connect almost any printer, camera or USB device to it (there is a video of the surface printing on to a dot matrix printer). With the type cover you have an almost perfect portable keyboard that is only 5.8mm thick, or if you prefer an even thinner option touchcover, only 3mm. (I’ll be reviewing those separately)
Hardware wise I think the surface is nearly perfect, it has a strong and durable frame, a bright and crisp screen and even though the lack of resolution may be a drawback for some, I think Microsoft made a fine job providing the user with a extremely powerful tablet with an almost infinite amount of compatible peripherals (almost all USB devices compatible with a PC will work on the surface).
The bottom line is that the Microsoft surface is, at least in the hardware front, an amazing tablet. If you are looking for something that look professional, durable, unique and with a good battery life you won’t be disappointed by the Microsoft Surface with Windows 8 RT.
The New Windows Experience 