<story><title>Surface Pro 2</title><url>http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/10/28/surface-pro-2?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pa-mainsite+%28Penny+Arcade%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>MAGZine</author><text>You compare the battery life, but not the screen to the macbook air? The screen is higher resolution, has a better coating, and is touch. Other than that, it&amp;#x27;s smaller and lighter (around 20%, actually), and comparably priced ($1299 for 256GB&amp;#x2F;8GB surface, $1299 for 256GB&amp;#x2F;8GB Air). It also has a micro SD card slot, to add further provisions.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t a tablet competitor, it&amp;#x27;s an ultraportable competitor.&lt;p&gt;e: made a bit more concrete</text></item><item><author>rayiner</author><text>The Surface Pro 2 hits two of the biggest weak points of the original design: battery life and heat&amp;#x2F;noise. The battery life is underwhelming relative to say the MBA 11&amp;quot; (which has a smaller battery), but the Surface Pro 2 takes that from unusably bad to just bad.&lt;p&gt;That said, I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;good enough.&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s not a cheap machine: 8GB&amp;#x2F;256GB model reviewed by Gabe retails for $1,299. It&amp;#x27;s got a small screen and a keyboard&amp;#x2F;touchpad combo that, on an Ultrabook, would be considered absolute trash. I think you have to &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; love that Wacom pen to justify the Surface Pro 2, and that makes it a pretty niche product. Of course, &amp;quot;niche&amp;quot; can be turned into &amp;quot;market-creating&amp;quot; but with continued mis-steps like underwhelming battery life, it&amp;#x27;s not clear Microsoft can make the &amp;quot;pen tablet PC&amp;quot; market happen.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Pxtl</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s an everything competitor.  It&amp;#x27;s the tablet&amp;#x2F;ultrabook answer to the way smartphones merged PDAs and cellphones.&lt;p&gt;And like those early smartphones, it&amp;#x27;s got some growing to do.  But the market it&amp;#x27;s trying to carve out strikes me as a real one with real demand.  I&amp;#x27;m surprised we&amp;#x27;re not seeing more doctors and other specialists-on-the-go wielding them.</text></comment>
<story><title>Surface Pro 2</title><url>http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/10/28/surface-pro-2?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pa-mainsite+%28Penny+Arcade%29</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>MAGZine</author><text>You compare the battery life, but not the screen to the macbook air? The screen is higher resolution, has a better coating, and is touch. Other than that, it&amp;#x27;s smaller and lighter (around 20%, actually), and comparably priced ($1299 for 256GB&amp;#x2F;8GB surface, $1299 for 256GB&amp;#x2F;8GB Air). It also has a micro SD card slot, to add further provisions.&lt;p&gt;This isn&amp;#x27;t a tablet competitor, it&amp;#x27;s an ultraportable competitor.&lt;p&gt;e: made a bit more concrete</text></item><item><author>rayiner</author><text>The Surface Pro 2 hits two of the biggest weak points of the original design: battery life and heat&amp;#x2F;noise. The battery life is underwhelming relative to say the MBA 11&amp;quot; (which has a smaller battery), but the Surface Pro 2 takes that from unusably bad to just bad.&lt;p&gt;That said, I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;good enough.&amp;quot; It&amp;#x27;s not a cheap machine: 8GB&amp;#x2F;256GB model reviewed by Gabe retails for $1,299. It&amp;#x27;s got a small screen and a keyboard&amp;#x2F;touchpad combo that, on an Ultrabook, would be considered absolute trash. I think you have to &lt;i&gt;really&lt;/i&gt; love that Wacom pen to justify the Surface Pro 2, and that makes it a pretty niche product. Of course, &amp;quot;niche&amp;quot; can be turned into &amp;quot;market-creating&amp;quot; but with continued mis-steps like underwhelming battery life, it&amp;#x27;s not clear Microsoft can make the &amp;quot;pen tablet PC&amp;quot; market happen.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>arrrg</author><text>And has a (certainly decent for a tablet but) awful keyboard and trackpad compared to other ultra-portables. There are clear trade-offs here (there always are and there is nothing wrong with making clear and opinionated trade-offs) and I’m not sure whether the Surface Pro makes the right ones. No doubt Microsoft made all the right trade-offs for &lt;i&gt;some&lt;/i&gt; people, the question is only whether those some people are more than a niche.</text></comment>