Pre Order Surface Pro 64gb and get $100 GC @microsoftstore.com

Quote from deymayor : this will be $499 by end of the year.

Reminder: End of the year is 10 months from now.

Quote from beggerking : Likely they had to do this for the Wacom Digitizer to work...

nah i used to work in the touchscreen industry working on stylus tech. The Cypress IC/ASIC mandates the digitizer detection.


Pretty much the story behind touchscreen tech was this:
The iPad came out and blew everyone away, seeing 100% marketshare companies like Samsung wanted to get in on the money. The unique thing about Apple is that all of their touchscreen firmware/IC were done in-house so no other competitor was able to use their technology. In terms of touchscreen tech the original iPad was that it had a single touchscreen chip driving the entire estate of 10 inches that no one else thought of making at the time (remember when people thought the iPad was a joke?).

Since the tablet market took everyone by surprise no other touchscreen company had anything in their product portfolio to match this (keep in mind everyone was thinking smartphones at the time) meaning their products only worked for 3-4 inch touch screens.
So while touchscreen manufacturers got to work on a single chip solution to compete with Apple; they also wanted a solution that would get them to market faster so they stuck 2 smart phone chips in to power a large screen.

A good example of this is the Samsung Galaxy Tab (multiple chips) and Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (single chip)
This leads me to my earlier thought that the Surface hardware was laid out a long time ago, MSFT was probably waiting for the Windows 8 OS finalization and then they could finalize/validate current hardware like Intel's Ivy Bridge.

Stopped at Staples today to check out the Soul headphones on clearance. They had both the 64 and 128GB models of the Surface out. Played around with both for 10 minutes or so, while the clerk was getting me a few pair of cans (the Office Depot coupons work BTW). First impressions:

Great screen. Nice and bright, and off axis looks good. Maybe not as bright as an iPad, but the store was so well lit, it probably played a factor.

Not as thick as it looks online. And not as heavy. It's heavier than an iPad, but much lighter than most ultrabooks.

It's small. Really small. For me, it would be idea at 11.6". This also makes the keyboards really small.

I hated the flat keyboard. The mechanical (thicker) keyboard was better, but would take getting used to. The tiny touch pads on both were horrible for moving the cursor around. They were the size of two postage stamps. Using the touchscreen was a better experience.

Great size for travel. Accessing different internet sites wasn't as quick as I would have hoped for, but that could be the signal in the store. An i5 at a 3000+ benchmark would normally be super quick.

Overall, I think I was more impressed with the build quality than what I saw online. But let down due to how small the unit was. With the kickstand and keyboard, it looked like a toy sitting there. The keyboard really locks hard into place. It's definitely not a weak magnet.

I wanted to chime in and say that I bought the 64 GB on launch day.
Like Buckeyefan1 and a lot of other Surface "testers" I thought I would not be able to use the flat keyboard (aka Touch Cover). But you know what? I realized that if you're a fairly good typist -- i.e. you don't really have to look at the keys to type and can still have fairly good accuracy -- you'll be able to type on this keyboard perfectly after using it for just 2-5 minutes MAX.

My test was to try to type in passwords for my various accounts using the keyboard and I got in every single time on the first try. And I did this while the keyboard was in my lap. And no, I don't have long legs.

So as long as you don't focus on the fact that there is no feedback and just concentrate on the fact that the letters you're typing on the screen are in fact correct, you will have absolutely no trouble with the Touch Cover.

I wrote all this because I know that there're definitely others like me who really, really, really want a colored keyboard but are afraid of non-feedback on their typing. Just give it a whirl, and you'll find it's actually not as bad as you first thought .

$100 deal dead?

sigh, dead

Quote from krighton : $100 deal dead? sigh, dead

Been dead for awhile now

yeah I know...i'm a slow starter.

Did any one has problem with this coupon. I got the coupon code with my surface purchase but it is not working online. I esclated to microsoft store support about this and its not yet resolved. Taking with them from last 5 days and wasting time with no result ?

Quote from krighton : yeah I know...i'm a slow starter.

think its a slow pony

Quote from satps : Did any one has problem with this coupon. I got the coupon code with my surface purchase but it is not working online. I esclated to microsoft store support about this and its not yet resolved. Taking with them from last 5 days and wasting time with no result ?

Did same 5 days ago and got a call back today saying the coupon is NOT valid for surface products. What a joke!

Im definatley pulling the trigger on a surface pro. just waiting for a SD.