“Microsoft’s Surface RT has a better display than does the iPad — that’s the case being made by one of the tech gurus behind the new tablet,” Lance Whitney reports for CNET. “At a Reddit IamA held yesterday, Microsoft engineers who worked on Surface answered questions about the tablet. One question asked how users might consider Surface versus the iPad in light of their different screen resolutions. Surface for Windows RT offers a resolution of 1366×768 while the current iPad delivers a resolution of 2048×1536.”
Whitney reports, “Microsoft’s Steven Bathiche quickly chimed in to address that issue… ‘The amount of light in a room and the reflections off the screen have a huge effect on the contrast of the display,’ Bathiche said. ‘In fact, a small amount of reflection can greatly reduce contrast and thus the perceived resolution of the display. With the ClearType Display technology we took a 3 pronged approach to maximize that perceived resolution and optimize for battery life, weight, and thickness.'”
MacDailyNews Take: Cough*bullshit*cough.
Whitney reports, “However, another person challenged Bathiche, asking why Microsoft opted for a higher resolution in the Windows Pro version of Surface. Here, Bathiche seemed to struggle for an answer, saying that perhaps Microsoft wasn’t as concerned about preserving battery power.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Microsoft’s ability to fsck up their PR by making idiotic claims is exceeded only by their ability to suck.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Bill Gates has lost his mind: calls Apple liars, copiers; slams Mac OS X security vs. Windows – February 02, 2007
It’s like the seamless lines throughout the device. “We incorporates all of these lines in the construction because we wanted it to be seamless.”
Surface will be Apple’s worst nightmare! Apple heads back to the borrow of the pile where it belongs!
HAHAHAHA! Our new ZuneTang® has arrived.
Either that or we have yet another anonymous coward dumbass troll. So which is it ‘DPC’?
Real, actual competition with Apple is always welcome. But when MS pulls boner after boner after boner, it’s time to write them off as inept, to say the least.
They’re using the Bill Gates method of lying is believing.
Hey, it works in politics! When what you have to say is total BS, turn to propaganda methods to overcome public sanity and force your point.
Haven’t you guys vet heard that less is more?
LMAO!!! 😄
Uhh… ever.
I get it. You have to use the surface in a room with no windows and all the lights turned off.
Like a bunker, perhaps.
I really feel sorry for that MSFT engineer.
You are generous also, you called him an engineer.
The Surface’s low-resolution screen puts it about on par with the iPad 1…until you realize that unlike the iPad 1, the Surface doesn’t have any cellular data connectivity at all. So here we are with Microsoft’s flagship tablet for 2013, and it doesn’t even compare favorably to Apple’s 2010 first-gen iPad. Sad. Who would buy one of these when you could get a much better iPad 1 on Craigslist for half the price?
Microsoft copies, but has to do it backwards.
All a Surface is is a “Microsofted” netbook.
A netbook has the electronics under the keyboard, and that’s covered by the thin screen. (that stays up, supported by the keyboard)
Surface has the electronics behind the screen, and since they can not be bothered to optimize Office for a touch only device, it HAS to have physical Keyboard. (and since the screen is now so heavy, it has to have a Kickstand to stay up)
A Microsoft screwed-up Netbook! And we know how well Netbooks are doing…
Microsoft will include a foldable white stick with every Surface they sell, because you have to be legally blind to use it, in order to appreciate its ‘gorgeous screen.’
Lol
why can they NEVER do anything right?
Are you inferring that the Surface is optimized for ADA compliance and has assistive tech for persons with sight issues? I didn’t think so!
As for the Surface’s ridiculous kickstand…I can’t even remember ever using my iPad on a table. I use my iPad on my lap, on the couch, in the car, laying in bed…not seated at a table. The kickstand is going to be completely useless for 98% of the places people want to use tablets.
I think they know that it will end up being used solely as a digital picture frame after a couple of weeks. So they included the kickstand for table top display…
+100500
;)))))))
I can see the value of this in many business and home consumer scenarios. To suggest that a kickstand is ridiculous seems a bit naive to me considering the accessories being produced so that iPad users can prop up their screen as well as the hybrid laptops being created to accomodate these scenarios as well.
No one is buying those hybrid laptop/ultrabook thingies. Sales have been described as “disappointing” in every article I’ve read about them. And the accessories that exist to prop up iPads aren’t exactly flying off the shelves either. Think about it…have you ever seen anyone actually using one?
Well… Apple does make their own, and sells them (and others) In Apple stores… and, BTW, I have one. Use it all the time.
Which is not say that I think MS made a smart move with their Kickstand. It’s just more of their sale old, same old. Trying to be all things to all people approach.
1. I have a Smart Cover and use it all the time as a stand. I use in in school to take notes, cafe to show my friends stuff, even to do my flight plans. I hate when I have it flat on a table. I always use the Smart Cover to give me an angle.
Look at the Microsoft Surface as a laptop in tablet clothing then its design makes sense. The only orientation you ever see in pictures is landscape. When in use it’s on a desk. What is Microsoft calling it “the new PC era”?
The surface reminds me hilariously of a sketch on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In in the 60’s. A hippie chick explained her new invention that conquered the drawback of contact lenses (new and very expensive at the time), namely how easy it was to lose them. Her solution was to put them in a teeny, weeny glasses frame and wear them like glasses!
Now, that seems to defeat the purpose of contacts, right?
So let’s replace our laptops with tablets, but make them laptops at the same time? With smaller screens, less horsepower and less storage capacity?
True genius!!!
Only these are tablets not laptops. To your point, there are several devices coming out from other device manufacturers that are trying to be both. I also don’t think this is a bad thing. These experiments will eventually lead to new innovations and thats a good thing for everyone.
No. The new buzzword is “laplet.”
This is how Microsoft’s own Surface commercial depicts using the Surface. Totally not awkward, at all.
Since they are holding them with two hands, am I to assume they will be pecking their input with their noses?
You usually use a pecker to peck.
I use my 1st gen iPad on the table every morning. As I’m sure a lot of people do.
And if you hold the surface tablet upside down it’s unreadable.
That’s how ridiculous this claim by Microsoft sounds comparing a higher resolution display against there crappy wanna be PC or wanna be tablet which they can’t seem to make up there minds what it is.
You morons that think it has to be one or the other have issues. Seriously it’s a Surface, it can be used as either how hard is that to understand. Did you say the same about laptops that had a hinge to fold the touch screen back over the keyboard to be used like a tablet?
Really Robert. You need to work harder on pretending English is your first language.
Laptops with a hinge are NOT touch devices AND you don’t have to hold up the display in order to do your work. The display just sits in place while you do all your work on the keyboard with trackpad…. Or haven’t you ever used a laptop?
The laptop comment is not really true. There are laptops with hinges that are touch devices. There have also been devices before modern touch input that used stylus as their touch input. There’s even a laptop device out there now with a double sided screen that will take input from both sides. Interesting stuff still coming I’m sure.
I didn’t want to mention the laptops with touch screens. Typically they are for special use niches. I don’t know anyone who actually likes using them. A very solid hinge is required in order for them not to wobble around.
I see. I do agree, at least to date, these laptop hybrids have not turned a lot of heads. Innefficient touch input was a major isse and software wasn’t written to effectively support these devices. But, I no longer believe that is true. Having seen and read up on some of the newer capacitive touch devices coming out now, I’m pretty excited. Lenovo has a very interested solution in Yoga. Asus has some interesting entries as well. Depending on how they do, we may be able to see a similiar Apple entry in a few years. Time will tell.
As niche devices, they’re important. But I have no sense of them catching on with mass public appeal.
Bat Hickey quickly chimed in? Sounds a bit ADHD to me…
jeez.
It does make a better skateboard; they’ve got us there…
Clamp-on wheel accessories. Or use it as a skimboard.
Not having seen the Surface, I can unequivocally say that it is better than the iPad 3 Retina display which has no retina at all. In fact, it has many electrons running through it, BUT NOT ONE DAMN RETINA, human or otherwise.
After all, it’s made by Microsoft. It’s just gotta be good.
Microsoft: the Gifted Storytellers of the IT industry.
This engineer reminds me a bit of Spinal Tap: “But this goes to 11….”
Don’t forget Windows RT takes up around 10GB of disk space.
It’s Micr$oft crying again .. let it be !
I want whatever that “engineer” is smoking.
Just a bit, mind, it’s pretty powerful stuff judging by the shite he’s spewing!
Looking foreward to the sheninagans from Machine Gun Kelly on the surface launch 🙂
We have a phrase in Scotland that translates as “you can’t polish a turd”.
If you buy a surface because you believe this $hit, then you got what you deserve.
But you can roll it in glitter. That’s MS all over.
This guy is an idiot!
What does contrast have to do with the perceived screen resolution? That doesn’t even make any sense. Is this guy totally clueless?
Oh wait, he’s a Microsoft engineer.
The answer is YES.
“…we took a 3 pronged approach to maximize that perceived resolution and optimize for battery life, weight, and thickness.’”
…we found that lowering the resolution, increasing the weight, and increasing the thickness made observers perceive the Surface as having a super clear display and the weight and thickness of a credit card. We did not try to disentangle this effect from those of the massive bolus of LSD we provided each observer.
Woohoo!! Getting ready for the $99 fire sell in a few weeks after launch!
“Microsoft’s Steven Bathiche”
Is that pronounced ‘ba-tee-chi’ or ‘bath-ichy’?
“Bat-shite-cray-zee” from what he’s spouting.
Nah, it’s pronounced ‘bahl-muhr’