Looking to buy either a Windows Surface or a Google Tablet, Suggestions?

[MalibuStacy]

I am looking into either a Surface or a google tablet and I wanna hear your reviews of you have any.

[WhippWhapp]

Planned usage? Work or play?

[BigBadVlad]

Got to use a Surface Pro for a few days and can't say I like the size/from factor that great. Because it's fairly wide in landscape typing using the on screen keyboard was not as easy as other tablets i've used like iPad, playbook or Asus vivoTab RT.

Surface Pro:
Noticeably warm while playing 3D Pinball after just a couple minutes.
Almost prefer to hold it in portrait but it's kind of thin then and the weight show a little more as it's not as balanced.
Kickstand is actually handy to have at times, but you can often find a case for a tablet that has a kickstand.
The Type cover keyboard is nice to have but in the way kind of when you just want to use it as a tablet.
Screen is nice but using Windows 8 in the desktop mode is kind of frustrating. I feel like I'm using Windows on a monitor that is too small. Metro UI is OK but desktop mode doesn't work for me.

Vivotab RT: (Used it only a little)
Really like how thin and light it is. To me a tablet should be thin and light to maintain it's portability.
The keyboard is nice to have for the added battery power. Means you don't have to be plugging it in every day or two.
Somehow typing using the onscreen KB didn't seem as cumbersome as on the Surface.

Personally, I prefer a tablet a little smaller than 10". I really like the 7" size of the playbook (just wish there were less bezel and more screen). That's where the around 9" is ideal in my book. The only ones I can think of the top of my head are the iPad mini and the Sony Xperia S. Neither of which I want to buy for the money really. I'll wait for the Galaxy Note 8.0 tablet probably. iPad mini would be great, if it had a higher resolution, cost $50-$100 less and weren't iOS.

The other thing you should ask yourself is "What am I going to be using this tablet for?"

[spike98]

Originally posted by WhippWhapp
Planned usage? Work or play?

This is very important an answer. I have had several tablets over the course of the last few years and i have learned that different tablets (and there OS's) are suited for different needs. I will only comment on ones i have owned:

Nexus 7 - Awesome devices with stock android (i am a huge fan of vanilia android). This tablet is a great couch tablet. Browsing websites, watching youtube clips, and playing some music via bluetooth to my home theater. The size makes it easy to handle and take anywhere. That being said, its purely for consumption. The screen size is too small for any sort of business use and does not have an active digitizer. This would be your best bet to watch some netflix in bed or keep the kiddies busy on a road trip. I still had to carry around a laptop to do any business.

Galaxy Note 10.1 - Another good device. Its size was perfect for work for me. The digitizer made short work of any note i had to write. Coupled with a folio case, i hauled it around everywhere and used it daily. The battery would last all day and then some. The problem with it however, is that note taking was all it really excelled at. I found i needed something with better support for office formats. Android applications just dont get there for me. They work, but not excellent. I still had to bust out a laptop for any real work or to RDP back to my office/home computer. And RDP applications are slow and laggy.

Surface Pro (current tab) - This tablet replaced everything. Even the laptop. I have not touched the laptop since i picked it up. I do everything with it. Full windows 8 is a godsend and microsoft office 2013 is familiar and powerful. Its the most used electronic device i have. The tab is fast and handles anything i throw at. The downside is the battery life. I have plug ins at the office and home so any time it isn't being used its on a charge. I CAN last 8 hours on a charge on slow days but the most i get out of it is 4ish hours of solid use.


All three tabs have there use and they all excel at different things. You just need to decide what you want to do with it. That being said, i am planning on buying another 7" android tab for the little guy because daddy doesn't want him playing with his $1200 tablet haha.

[MalibuStacy]

I am looking to use it primarily for school use for note taking an reviewing slides. I would also like something which is not bad for movie watching (for trips if it rains)

I am really leaning towards the Surface RT as I only need a limited office program and I can download adobe for viewing class notes.

Basically the real reason why I considering a tablet is that I have a Sony Vaio 17 in laptop and although it is a great computer for writing papers and for watch movies/ listening for music; its big screen really eats battery life. Right from new out of the box I have only ever managed four hours of solid use on one charge, and thats with wifi, bluetooth and speakers off, and the screen at its lowest brightness in powersaver mode.

Essentially I want the tablet to function as a supplementary device for school so I can still use my laptop for all the real important stuff.

I am really considering the Surface RT with the touch cover, as it is cheapish and it has a basic preview office on it.

[BigBadVlad]

Too bad, I picked up the Asus Vivotab RT for $450 with keyboard at MemX not long ago for the in laws. Pretty good bang for the buck when all they do is email, Internet, and a little photo usage.

Bear in mind with Any RT device you cannot install any software you want. You are limited to the Windows Store.

At least with a Windows 8 Surface (runs Atom processor) you can install stuff like you're used to. Performance isn't great with these, it's all a trade off. This model one of the closest to being right in between full windows laptop workstation and light, portable media consumption tablet.

Edit: Asus Vivotab Smart, recall reading someone's review saying the transleeve keyboard was kind of slick. It acts like a kickstand too.

Heh remembered this, Samsung ativ review and at the end they pretty much say, I'd go with the Asus http://anandtech.com/show/6827/samsung-ativ-smart-pc-revisiting-clover-trail-convertibles/6.

[MalibuStacy]

Originally posted by BigBadVlad
Too bad, I picked up the Asus Vivotab RT for $450 with keyboard at MemX not long ago for the in laws. Pretty good bang for the buck when all they do is email, Internet, and a little photo usage.

Bear in mind with Any RT device you cannot install any software you want. You are limited to the Windows Store.

At least with a Windows 8 Surface (runs Atom processor) you can install stuff like you're used to. Performance isn't great with these, it's all a trade off. This model one of the closest to being right in between full windows laptop workstation and light, portable media consumption tablet.

Yeah I would really only need to get my adobe flash player installed which should be easy.
I don't need it for games, I don't even play them on my phone. All I really need is a good mid line tablet and the Surface RT seems to fit the build for that

[spike98]

Originally posted by BigBadVlad

At least with a Windows 8 Surface (runs Atom processor) you can install stuff like you're used to. Performance isn't great with these, it's all a trade off. This model one of the closest to being right in between full windows laptop workstation and light, portable media consumption tablet.


This is incorrect sir. The Surface RT uses the tegra 3 processesor and the pro model runs the i5. The pro runs the same specs as the ativ you mentioned.



Originally posted by MalibuStacy


Yeah I would really only need to get my adobe flash player installed which should be easy.
I don't need it for games, I don't even play them on my phone. All I really need is a good mid line tablet and the Surface RT seems to fit the build for that

I think the RT would be great for what you need it for. The only downside would be the lack of pen for note taking. That being said, after getting the touch cover, i never use the pen on my pro. Its too easy to just hammer out the notes with the cover.

[MalibuStacy]

Originally posted by spike98


This is incorrect sir. The Surface RT uses the tegra 3 processesor and the pro model runs the i5. The pro runs the same specs as the ativ you mentioned.




I think the RT would be great for what you need it for. The only downside would be the lack of pen for note taking. That being said, after getting the touch cover, i never use the pen on my pro. Its too easy to just hammer out the notes with the cover.

Yeah I only take hand notes occasionally now, more often I use my computer, so I don't think the pen is nessecary

[sabad66]

Originally posted by MalibuStacy


Yeah I only take hand notes occasionally now, more often I use my computer, so I don't think the pen is nessecary
What kind of notes do you take? If its all just words then maybe the pen is useless. But if you're in engineering or something else with a lot of equations, it could be really handy. MS onenote is actually a really good program once you get the hang of it. I would have loved the surface pro when I was in university...would have been able to stay fully electronic

[schocker]

The Nexus 10 is kind of comparable to the Surface RT. It is based on a Note 10.1 but does not have the pen layer in the screen so it can't use the s-pen, but the screen is really high resolution as you said you like to watch stuff on it. You can use google docs or different apps that can work with office documents but there is no native office app yet. It is only dual core though iirc, 16 gb is $409 though which is pretty cheap. You can always use a BT keyboard on this also, I believe logitech has a few available. I had a Nexus 7 which I liked but that is probably too small for what you are looking for.

[Xtrema]

Adobe Flash Player? I don't think most Android device support that any more.

Not sure about Flash support on RT devices. Atom/i5 proc Win8 tabs should be without issues.

[BigBadVlad]

Originally posted by spike98


This is incorrect sir. The Surface RT uses the tegra 3 processesor and the pro model runs the i5. The pro runs the same specs as the ativ you mentioned.




I think the RT would be great for what you need it for. The only downside would be the lack of pen for note taking. That being said, after getting the touch cover, i never use the pen on my pro. Its too easy to just hammer out the notes with the cover.

Windows 8 RT - http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX42424

Windows 8 Surface (32-Bit) - http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX43623

Windows 8 Surface Pro (64-Bit) - http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX44492

There are 3 flavours, RT (Tegra 3), Windows 8 (Atom), Windows 8 Surface Pro (Core i3/i5).

I said Windows Surface, Atom based, is at least Windows 8 32 bit and you can install most apps that you are used to with Windows XP/7.

[spike98]

Originally posted by BigBadVlad


Windows 8 RT - http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX42424

Windows 8 Surface (32-Bit) - http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX43623

Windows 8 Surface Pro (64-Bit) - http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX44492

There are 3 flavours, RT (Tegra 3), Windows 8 (Atom), Windows 8 Surface Pro (Core i3/i5).

I said Windows Surface, Atom based, is at least Windows 8 32 bit and you can install most apps that you are used to with Windows XP/7.

Again sir, incorrect.

There is only 2 Microsoft Surface models. One is the Pro with the i5, and the RT contains the tegra 3. The middle one is not even a microsoft built tab. Its made by asus and is not a surface. Yes it runs windows 8 but it is most definitely not manufactured by microsoft.


http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX44492 - Manufactured by Microsoft and is the Surface Pro

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX42424 - Manufactured by Asus and is a Vivo Tab RT

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX43623 - Manufactured by Asus and is a Vivo Tab Smart

http://www.memoryexpress.com/Products/MX44493 - Manufactured by Microsoft and is a Surface RT

Get the difference?

AND :confused:


Occupation: IT Guy

[BigBadVlad]

oh bloody hell, i just assumed there was a surface model and surface pro model as well and the difference was Windows 8 32-bit to Windows 8 Pro 64-bit. As if they didn't make things confusing enough already!

As if it wasn't confusing enough. So all the Atom based Win 8 tablets do not have a Surface model equivalent.

I'm sure Malibustacy has way more info than they probably cared for. There are still 3 basic flavours of Windows 8 tablets - RT, Win 8 (Non-MS), Surface Pro. Kind of begs the question why didn't Microsoft decide to make a Win 8 Surface (non-pro) of their own?

[Xtrema]

This is why MS marketing fails. Consumers are confused.

There are 2 OSes. Windows 8 and Windows 8 RT

A tablet can be equipped with one or the other base on hardware. Windows 8 on i386 chips (atom, i3, i5) just like PCs, Windows 8 RT on ARM chips (Snapdragon).

There are pros and con of each OS:

Windows 8 Pro will run all your old desktop apps but since it's based on i386 chips, battery life sucks.

Windows 8 RT will only run app from app store (like iOS and Android). So your selection is limited. But generally will run longer per charge.


Then there is Surface. Surface is just a brand of tablet made directly by Microsoft. What OS it run on is based on suffix of product name. Surface RT runs with Windows RT. Surface Pro = Windows 8 Pro.

Then of course there are other makers to muddy the water more with different mix of products offerings and they are only forced to label RT tablets. They can call Windows 8 tablets whatever they want.


To add to the mess, Windows 8.1 is coming this summer. I expect fire sale on Windows 8 branded product soon, once announced in June.

[sabad66]

I don't think it's that confusing really. Windows 8 is like Mac osx, windows 8 RT like iOS.

It's not rocket science.

Yes windows 8.1 is coming out this year, but it doesn't make win8 devices obsolete. They are moving more towards incremental updates for lower prices vs huge updates every 3 yrs for higher price.

[Xtrema]

Originally posted by sabad66
I don't think it's that confusing really. Windows 8 is like Mac osx, windows 8 RT like iOS.


Well, Apple is not stupid enough to call iOS a Mac now did they.

Apple understand general public is stupid. It is why their design has low learning curves and popular.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2013/04/09/windows-rt-needs-to-die.aspx

I can't say it better myself.

[Mar]

I just installed Ubuntu Touch (http://www.ubuntu.com/devices/tablet) on a Nexus 10, it's waaaaaaaay better than Android. You should look into that.

[WhippWhapp]

Finally picked up a Surface Pro with the Type cover, also picked up a Wedge bluetooth k/b.

I am coming from a ASUS EP121 upgraded to Win8, so I already kind of know what to expect.

Feels more premium than the ASUS, screen also has much better contrast and DPI. The smaller size is a con when I'm using it in desktop mode, but definitely a plus when in tablet mode- so the trade off is acceptable.

Having a full i5 PC in this form factor is pretty nifty!