Microsoft Surface: Fizzle or Flash?

Unless you were out having a life or something, you know that Microsoft yesterday unveiled their new tablet, the Microsoft Surface. You can watch the presentation video below:

There are two models, called Surface and Surface Pro. I’ll go into the differences in a little bit.

There are some impressive features. The integrated kick stand, and their keyboard cover are wonderful. In fact, I’ll admit it. I’m drooling over the keyboard cover. This is without a doubt the best keyboard for a tablet that’s available, anywhere. It is one of the best keyboards, period, available anywhere. Their claims about the dual wifi antenna are impressive. They’ve angled the cameras so that they’re automatically pointed in the right direction when using the kickstand. That’s also impressive. As is the camera integration with Microsoft Office. I’m thrilled about the stylus and digital ink. My iPad still sucks when it comes to writing anything.

And, this device shows off the biggest strength of Windows 8, Microsoft’s ace in the hole. What is that? Enterprise support, and the ability to run essentially the same OS across the desktop, tablet, and phone spaces. That’s a huge deal for business consumers. Tell me that I can run Microsoft Office on my tablet, and interact with my Word and Excel docs in the same way as I do sitting at my desk, and you’ve just made my day. Apple can’t compete with that. Google can’t compete with that. iOS and Android may be nice, but they’re different. I have to relearn how to use Pages. It’s not the same as Word. It doesn’t display quite the same way. Make no mistake about it. This will be a very big selling point for the boys in Redmond.

So, is the Surface an iPad killer? (I’ll discuss Surface Pro in a minute)

In a word, no.

It’s an iPad competitor. It’s got some features that the iPad doesn’t have, that’s for certain. It has ports for one thing. But the Surface is not head and shoulders better than the iPad. And it runs Windows 8, rather than iOS. Windows 8 definitely has some issues. I think it’s a reasonable first attempt at a tablet oriented OS (and make no mistake, that’s what Windows 8 is), but it’s going to need an iteration or two to work out the kinks.

As an iPad competitor, it’s not much competition. Not because it’s not impressive. It is. But because, let’s face it, Apple owns this market. Unless it’s much better (it isn’t), or much less expensive (it won’t be), it’s going to have a hard time competing with the iPad, in terms of sales. At least initially.

So, the folks in Cupertino aren’t worried about the Surface, but what about the folks in Mountain View?

They should be terrified this morning. It’s no secret that outside of the Kindle Fire, that Android tablets have not exactly been flying off the shelves. If the Microsoft Surface can be cost competitive, or even close to it, to Android tablets, Google is in trouble. There’s no way I’d even consider an Android tablet over this device. I wouldn’t even look at one. Game over.

Now, I have been talking about Surface, not Surface Pro. What’s the difference? Well, the Surface runs on an ARM chip and runs Windows 8 RT. That means you live in the Metro UI all the time. That’s where Microsoft wants you to live regardless, but they know they have to care about backwards compatibility. That’s where Surface Pro and Window 8 (non-RT) come into play. In addition to the Metro UI, there’s a traditional Windows desktop, and you can run all your old Windows apps. As time goes by, you’re not going to run many old apps on your Windows 8 devices. But initially, these Metro apps will be limited. You’re going to want/need that backwards compatibility.

So, the Surface Pro is just Surface with backwards compatibility? No. It’s a more powerful environment. This will be something not just on the same plane as the iPad, but clearly superior. It's a desktop computer disguised as a tablet.

So, the Surface Pro is an iPad killer??

In a word, no.

It’s a MacBook Air killer.

The Surface Pro will be more expensive than an iPad, thus out of the price range to be an iPad killer. But it makes the MacBook Air look big, clunky, and twentieth century. Again, unless I really had a need for MacOS, there’s no way I’d consider a MacBook Air over the Surface Pro. I’ve been looking at the Asus Zenbook, and the Dell XPS Ultrabooks. They’re without a doubt the best Ultrabooks available on the market. I’ve been holding off buying one because I wanted to see a real Windows 8 Ultrabook. I knew they’d be a lot better. The Surface Pro is that Ultrabook, and looks like it should blow the doors off the Zenbook and XPS.

So, fizzle or flash? Flash. Definitely flash. But the cost, and the apps will decide everything. Without great Metro apps, it’ll be an uphill climb for Microsoft. Still, they showed yesterday why they’re still the elephant in the room, or the sleeping giant, whichever metaphor you prefer.

Here’s a short summary on specifics on the Surface and Surface Pro from Engadget. Read.

My Mobile World

In addition to my political blogging, you might see a bit more of my tech-y stuff this year as well, such as my recent tepid review of “the new iPad”.

I’m a longtime smartphone user. I’m currently on my 4th smartphone, and this summer or fall I will likely buy my 5th. I’m not quite so much on the bleeding edge with tablets, as my iPad 2 is the first tablet I’ve owned.

Both my 3rd and 4th smartphones were Android devices, and obviously my iPad is an Apple one. These were easy decisions on both counts. My HTC EVO 4G still makes the iPhone 4S look like a tinker toy, and I replaced that phone almost 9 months ago with an HTC EVO 3D. On the tablet front, it’s the same. The iPad is a better form factor (very few Android tablets are more than 7”), and with a few exceptions is a much more pleasing UI than available on Android tablets.

But the next round will be much harder. The sleeping giant, or elephant in the room, if you prefer, is awake and active. With Windows 8, Microsoft will be running essentially the same OS across three different form factors, desktop, tablet, and phone. From an enterprise customer’s perspective, that’s an extremely difficult combination to overlook. Run real Office on my tablet with Outlook and not iWorks and the mind-numbingly awful mail application that Apple delivers with iOS? Sign me up! Twice! Of course, MS isn’t going to be able to charge $500 for an office suite on a tablet or a phone, so I’m very curious as to how they’re going to manage pricing.

The other problem is application compatibility. Not only is Windows 8’s Metro UI a big change, where non-Metro apps stick out like a sore thumb, but there’s also the Intel vs. ARM factor. Most desktop computers run Intel chips (or Intel clones from AMD, etc.). Most phones run ARM ones, and it sounds like the Windows 8 tablets will be a mix. Well, obviously, you’re only going to get full application compatibility on Intel-based devices, and it will take a while for ARM-based apps, or apps that can run on both, to be prevalent. So, if you buy an ARM-based tablet, you’re going to most likely be running mostly phone apps to begin with. This was true early on with the iPad too, until developers started making stuff for that form factor. But it remains to be seen how quickly the Microsoft Market will mature, and if it will grow nearly as quickly as Apple’s App Store (I imagine not). Of course, you could just get a tablet with an Intel chip, but since the ARM devices are growing up from a phone rather thank shrinking down from a desktop, they typically have much better power management. So, your Intel tablet might not last all day on a charge. That’s going to be extremely frustrating.

So, what will I do? Well, I’m eligible to upgrade my EVO 3D on July 1. By that time, it sounds like the next generation EVO will be available, based on the recently announce HTC One line. Windows 8 phones will be available later this year, but probably not until 4th quarter. I don’t know what I’m going to do there. Sprint has stopped allowing me to upgrade my phone every year, so whatever I get this year, I’ll be stuck with it for two years. I suspect I’ll end up getting an Android phone again, but it’s no slam dunk decision. Not this time. I’ll definitely be watching the rumor mills this summer to see what kinds of Windows 8 Phones are expected and when.

And a Windows 8 tablet with an ARM chip that has the kinds of apps you see on the iPad, and has comparable hardware? Not this year. It’ll take at least 6-9 months before you’re going to see acceptable app volume in the marketplace, I think. So, that’s mid next year. At best. And it could easily be twice that long. Which puts us into 2014. By that time there will be another new iPad as well. And by that time, I suspect Apple will have caught up to Microsoft in terms of offering a single user experience across all platforms. However, if their business applications are still crapware, MS may be in the driver’s seat by then for enterprise customers. So, these are all reasons I might actually end up with “the new iPad”, as I think in the tablet world, the key dates are going to be late 2013/early 2014. By then we’ll know if MS can make a serious challenge, and hopefully Apple will have released another iPad that’s more appealing as well.

The New iPad

Apple launched the new iPad with their usual fanfare yesterday. That’s what they’re calling it. Not iPad 3. Not iPad HD. Just “the new iPad”. I’ve almost been turning into an Apple fanboy lately, having bought an iPad 2 for myself, for my wife, and an Apple TV in the last year.

So, I tuned in yesterday for the big announcement to see what all the hubbub was about. I must say I’m underwhelmed. I guess I’m going to have to give back my fanboy card.

What’s new?

• A retina display, featuring 2048x1536 resolution. Well, I’m sure that’s nice and it’ll be pretty, but not once have I ever looked at my iPad 2 and thought to myself, “what I really need is four times the pixels”. I’m quite happy with the resolution of the model I have. I do take a lot of notes on my iPad, and that might make note taking easier. Certainly the drawing app they showed from Autodesk was impressive.
• 4G LTE. Well, that had been one of the big rumors, and I must say I’m surprised to see Apple adding mobile phone technology to the iPad that’s not yet available in the iPhone. However, it costs more, and you pay a nice hefty monthly fee for the service. Sorry, but I’m not interested in that kind of price model, and unless this is something you have an active business need for, you shouldn’t be either. Amazon charges a little more for their Kindle with 3G, but no monthly service fees. That’s reasonable. Even the other way might be reasonable, with a discounted price, but modest service fees. What Apple and the mobile phone companies are trying to push on you isn’t remotely reasonable.
• A better camera. Well, thank God for that. The camera on the iPad 2 is crap. I never use it. But I’m not sure that the reason I never use it is because it’s crap, or because a mobile phone is just a much better form factor for taking snapshots. I suspect it’s more the latter than the former.
• Faster processor, better graphics processor. Yawn. Moore’s law.
• iOS upgrades, upgrades to iWorks and iPhoto. Hmm. Looks like I can download all of these for my current iPad.

What isn’t new?

• There’s still no USB port, or SD card slot.
• Still painful to hook to a projector, or video screen unless it’s AirPlay enabled. If I’m a business traveler, I still need to take the laptop with me. Which begs the question of why I would even bother to bring the iPad.
• Like everything else from Apple, it’s exorbitantly priced.
• The two apps that I use the most on my iPad are probably Mail and Calendar. Mail is one step above crap, and the UI for it doesn’t even make that step. Probably the best thing you can say about Mail is that it doesn’t crash as often as Calendar and has most of the required functionality, unlike Calendar.
• They still have that awful virtual keyboard. Well, it’s better than the one on the iPhone, but that’s not saying much.
• The charging port is still non-standard USB and expects twice the current that the USB standard calls for. So, whenever I plug it into my computer I get “Not charging” (it is, actually, just slooooooooooooowly).
• Despite the zillions of apps available, there’s just no good blogging tool. If I had to choose between getting a root canal and writing a long blog post on my iPad, I’d take the root canal. It’d be far less painful.
• iWorks is nice, but I’m sure that I’m far from the only business user who has noticed that Pages and Numbers are not Word and Excel.

In short, there’s absolutely nothing about the new iPad that makes me want to rush out and upgrade. Worse for Apple, there’s nothing about the new iPad that would make me want to rush out and buy one if I hadn’t bought an iPad before now. If I was buying a new iPad today, I’d save $100 and just get a discounted iPad 2.

This is an incremental upgrade, nothing more. Worse, given their current release cycle, we’re looking at Q4 2013 before Apple releases anything better. The tablet space is too volatile for that pace of growth to be acceptable. Apple just opened the door for Google and Microsoft. It remains to be seen whether they’re capable of going through it.

Oh. One more thing.

Apple TV upgraded to 1080p? That’s it? Yes, there’s a new UI, but I downloaded that for my current Apple TV last night. I have both a Roku and an Apple TV, and other than AirPlay, the Roku is head and shoulders above Apple TV. And has a better UI. Apple closed the gap some with the new UI and 1080p, but they’re still behind here, not setting the pace.

Top 5 Tech Purchases For 2010—#1

Amazon Kindle.

Ok, this was a birthday present, not a purchase.

Best birthday present ever.

I have the 3G+WiFi model, but I almost never use the WiFi. Unfortunately, they don’t make a 3G only model anymore, just a WiFi only model.

I wasn’t sure I wanted one of these for the longest time. It irked me (and still does) that it’s black and white. The original one irked me with its limited support for other formats, like PDF.

What doesn’t irk me is how well it works, and how easy it is to use and to read. I also got the Lighted Leather Cover. It’s very nice, much nicer than typical book lights. Whether you get the lighted one or not, I do recommend a cover of some kind, just for protection.

Readers like me whose eyes aren’t as good as they used to be will love the crisp clean display and love the fact that you can resize the fonts as big as you like.

Pros:

• Size. Fits comfortably in your hands. It’s about the size of a paperback book.
• Display. Unlike a tablet computer such as an iPad, the digital ink display is easily readable in bright sunlight. In fact, it looks like reading a book in bright sunlight.
• Cost. Yes, you spend the $150-$200 up front to get the thing, but if you read much at all it pays for itself quickly. Kindle books are much cheaper than regular books.
• Convenience. There are Kindle readers now for just about every device you can imagine, from phones to personal computers. You can download the book you’re reading to any Kindle reader on any device you own, and it knows where you stopped reading. Then if you go back to the Kindle, it will again know where you stopped reading.
• Weight. I don’t travel as much as I used to, but I used to get on a lot of planes. And I always carried books to read with me. Often this would be two or three or more books, depending on the length of the trip. And I’d guess about half of them or more were hardback books. That adds a lot of weight to your carry on luggage. The Kindle weighs about the same as one paperback book and yet can hold thousands of books.

Cons:

• Black & White. Amazon wants you to be able to read magazines, RSS feeds, and technical books on your Kindle. Quite a few of these have color pictures and charts. Those don’t come over very well. If you’re just using it to read books by the pool for enjoyment, you’ll never notice this.
• Proprietary format. Actually, I don’t know if this is a con for me or not, but I am sure it would be for some people. Barnes & Noble has pretty much lost me as a customer. I can’t go to B&N and buy a book for my Kindle. Amazon has me locked into their service. If it wasn’t so cheap, that might bother me, but it doesn’t.
  
  Actually, the format is well known and other publishers could publish to it, but I don’t believe anyone does. Eventually, this is something that’s going to have to get ironed out in the e-reader market. There will be one standard format, and all e-readers will be able to handle it. We’ll get there eventually, but don’t hold your breath. Look at all the different music formats we have out there.

Anyway, this is my favorite gadget of 2010, ahead even of the laptop and the phone. Worth every penny. Frankly, it’d be worth every penny at twice the price.

Top 5 Tech Purchases For 2010—#2

Dell Precision Mobile Workstation M4500.

I haven’t used a desktop computer in 10 years. We have three personal computers at my house and all three are laptops. We have a couple servers too, which aren’t. I recently had to change the DVD drive on my wife’s HP laptop and I was reminded once again why I’ll never buy anything but a Dell again.

Yes, Dell has had some issues in recent years. They started cutting corners on cost, which made their computers less reliable. They also shipped all their phone support off shore at the same time. So, they had bad phone support at a time when they needed it most. Not a good combination to say the least.

They seem to have learned from their mistakes. Support is back on shore and the quality is back up. And they understand that even laptops need parts changes occasionally, and that needs to be as simple as possible. That’s something that has always been a feature of Dell computers.

The Dell Precision M4500 is almost their top of the line laptop. Many laptops bill themselves as desktop replacements. This one really is. It has two quad core Intel i7 processors and a nice big 15.6” screen, and a much better than average video card. My dock has two HDMI outs, and I have been able to run anything I desire. Video card can keep up with all the current games, and my 500 GB hard drive is big enough to store whatever I need. My system rating is a 5.9. The slowest part is the disk drive or I’d be up near 7.

This is a wonderful machine.

Pros:

• Dual Quad i7’s
• nVidia Quadro FX 1800M video card
• Dual HDMI outs
• 500 GB HD

Cons:

• 8 GB RAM. That’s the max that can go in this beast. The 6500M can handle 16 GB and actually has an even better video card as well as a 17” screen upgrade. However, the 6500 costs about $1000 more than the 4500 once you load it up, and the 4500 ain’t cheap. In fact…
• Cost. While you get a good bang for your buck with Dell, to get this many bangs, you’re still spending quite a few bucks.
• No WiFi support for 802.11n. Limited to 802.11g.
• No USB 3 support.
• SSD’s are still too small and too expensive. I had a Crucial 250 GB SSD in the machine for a while, but it was unreliable for my usage style.

Top 5 Tech Purchases For 2010—#3

HTC EVO 4G.

I admit it. I’m a huge fan of HTC smartphones. The EVO is my 3rd, and first Android phone. I won’t say I’ll never switch from HTC, but it would have to be a very impressive phone for me to even consider it.

The EVO is THE world class smartphone. Nothing is as good. Very few are even good enough to be considered competitors, and all fall short in some way or another. The iPhone4? Slow, small, 3G only, and currently only available on AT&T, the worst of the cell phone providers. The Droid X? Awkward shape, and 3G only, but if you’re stuck with Verizon, this is the best you can do until the HTC Thunderbolt becomes available. Samsung Epic? Closest you can get to an EVO, and has the advantage of a slide out keyboard (although that does make it bulkier), but it’s a Samsung, and thus doesn’t have the HTC Sense UI.

Windows Phone 7 has recently been released, and does have some interesting devices. I’m a longtime Windows Mobile user, but WP7 seems a little too late for me. We’ll see. Right now the app market is too small, and WP7 hasn’t really been put to the test. And for me, they don’t have any Sprint offerings, so I’m not interested just yet. I’m a Sprint Premier customer, so I can upgrade my phone every year. Check in this time next year, I may have more to say about WP7 phones.

Pros:

• 4G
• Size – bigger than an iPhone, but small enough to fit in a pocket
• HTC Sense UI
• Android

Cons:

• HTC Sense UI. I love HTC Sense, but many prefer a “clean” Android experience, and it’s likely that having that makes upgrades easier.
• Video calls don’t work quite as well as I’d like. That’s the only thing that I’d like to see significant improvement. Still, it’s far superior to the iPhone in that it works in 3G, 4G and WiFi. iPhone video calls are WiFi only. There’s no doubt that this is the next major feature revolution in cell phones. Give it another year or two and all the smartphones will have it and the software will be significantly better and easier to use.
• Battery life. This is the bugaboo of all smartphones. Still, I do ok with my EVO. I have to charge it every night, but that was the case with my previous two smartphones as well. It lasts me through the day with normal use, so I’m happy.

Top 5 Tech Purchases For 2010—#4

Acronis True Image Home.

Yes, I know #5 was also a backup solution. What can I say? Backup is important.

Unlike Crashplan, Acronis True Image does full system backups. Once set up the system runs in complete “set it and forget it” mode. You can tell it how long to keep backups around, how often to run them, etc. It does a mix of full, incremental, and differential backups to minimize space requirements and maximize reliability. Like Crashplan and Carbonite, Acronis does have an Online Backup offering. It’s pricey, though, at $50/yr. for a mere 250 GB of storage. Need more than that and you’ll probably want to do some combination of Acronis and Crashplan. And now you see why they’re both on the list.

True Image has a continuous method too, that seems to be incredibly quick and doesn’t chew up your disk space.

I did have some problems with it not pruning old backups automatically for me, but I recently got an updated version (updates come down automatically), and the problem seems to have been resolved. The real problem for me is that I have so much data that needs to be backed up, and my external backup drive is only 2 TB. That doesn’t allow for many backup versions to be stored. I think I’d be ok with a 4 or 5 TB drive, but those just aren’t available. If you’re not a disk hog like me, you should be fine.

Acronis also offers a family pack which contains three licenses for Acronis True Image. The current pricing for this is $60 which is a great deal. Deal expires today, though.

Pros:

• Set it and forget it
• System backup
• Continuous option
• Automatic updates
• Automatic pruning of backup sets

Cons:

• Offsite storage is pricey and limited in size.

Top 5 Tech Purchases for 2010–#5

CrashPlan.

If you watch FNC or other cable programming, you’ve likely seen ads for Carbonite. I think they advertise on Rush, too.

Well, no offense to El Rushbo, but Crashplan is better and cheaper than Carbonite. They offer a similar service, an online backup mechanism.

One advantage Crashplan offers over Carbonite is that you don’t have to use Crashplan’s servers. You can back up to any machine that has Crashplan installed. So, if you have several computers at home, you can have them all back up to each other. This gives you some reliability, but you’re still in trouble if your house burns down. But Crashplan allows keycodes to be exchanged between its users, and you can backup to anywhere if you have the appropriate keycodes. Thus, if your friend or relative has Crashplan, you can exchange backups there, as well, thus giving you the offsite security necessary for a true backup system.

The cost of all this? $0. Crashplan is completely free as long as you don’t use their servers. But even if you do, it’s cheaper than Carbonite. Carbonite costs $55/yr. per computer. Crashplan’s per computer price is $50/yr., and $120/yr. gets you every computer in your house. Multi-year discounts are available cutting the price even more. This cost is for unlimited data. That’s important when comparing Crashplan and Carbonite with other online storage. Many companies charge you based upon data size. Also, the non-free version of the app has a few more features, such as continuous backups, which can be nice.

In a nutshell:

Pros:

• Price. It’s hard to beat free, and even their $$ offerings are cheaper than the competition.
• Offsite storage
• Version archives. Crashplan allows you to keep as many versions of a file as you want. You also can recover deleted files, and set a time frame for how long deleted files are kept in the archive.
• Paid version can be set to run continuously or to exclude certain times of the day
• CPU/Bandwidth throttles

Cons:

• Crashplan is a file backup, not a system backup. You can’t use it to backup your applications and system settings.
• Crashplan works by doing an initial seed of everything in your backup folders, and then looking for differences. If your initial seed is large (mine was several hundred GB), this may take a while. And by a while, I mean weeks. It ain’t incredibly speedy on restores, either. Plan on spending at least a day or two restoring your data, longer if the data is offsite or very large.