Microsoft’s “Surface is a fantastic promise, and holds fantastic potential. But while potential is worth your attention, it’s not worth your paycheck,” Sam Biddle writes for Gizmodo. “It is undercooked. For all Microsoft’s claims to hardware perfection and software revolution, Surface RT is undone by too many little annoyances, cracks, and flaws. After the initial delight of an evolved tablet wears off, you’ll groan—because Surface brings the appearance of unity, but it’s really just the worst of both worlds. Instead of trading in your laptop and tablet for Surface, a cocktail of compromises that fracture the whole endeavor, you’ll miss them both urgently.”
“It’s Windows on Surface RT that’s the greatest letdown of all, the lethal letdown, because it’s not Windows 8, but Windows RT. You can’t tell the difference by looking at them, but you certainly will once you use it. Windows RT is underpowered (everything opens and syncs slightly too slowly), under-functional (you cannot install a single app that’s not available through the Windows RT app store, which offers a paltry selection), and under-planned (the built-in apps can’t feel like Lite versions of something better),” Biddle writes. “In the end… this is nothing more than Microsoft’s tablet. And a buggy, at times broken one, at that, whose ‘ecosystem’ feels more like a tundra… The app selection, overall, is worse than the already pathetic Windows Phone app fare, looking like the software equivalent to a barren Soviet grocery store.”
Biddle writes, “Should you buy it? No. The Surface, with an obligatory Touch Cover, is $600. That’s a lot of money. Especially given that it’s no laptop replacement, no matter how it looks or what Microsoft says. It’s a tablet-plus, priced right alongside the iPad and in most ways inferior… That could change. Maybe there will be a new Touch Cover that retains the original’s terrific physical qualities while actually allowing good typing… Maybe the app store will look different in a month, or a year, and have anything to offer. Maybe. But remember that Windows Phone — which has swelled from mere hundreds, to tens of thousands, to over a hundred thousand app offerings over the past two years — is still a wasteland compared to iOS and Android. Poor precedent. Maybe Windows RT will be different. Maybe. But those maybes aren’t worth putting money on.”
Much more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yet another stellar review for Medicocresoft’s latest ill-conceived, me-too mess.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Brawndo Drinker” for the heads up.]
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