By: windsorr

windsorr — Thu, 31 Oct 2013 05:45:09 +0000

Salut Jaques great comments and feedback…many thanks….when comparing it to an iPad its going to be OK except for the app support which it sounds like you are not a big user of. Comparing it to a laptop its not going to be great. One of things that stops me from buying one is the inability to install codecs so I can watch my movies without having to transcode. I can do that on the iPad with an app and I cam do it on Windows 8 but not RT, . For your usage it sounds great…I suspect however that you represent the minority like me!.

By: Jacques-Etienne Grandjean

Jacques-Etienne Grandjean — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 23:36:29 +0000

Firts of all – many thx for your blog – really good thinking here.
Here are a few thoughts on W8 RT: I also was very skeptical on RT tablets. I had told myself I wanted a W8 Pro tablet, with a real Intel Proc, the good old x86 architecture, and legacy app support. I had passed the Surface 1 Pro, but recently I got quite attracted by the new Surface 2 Pro. As I was in the US last week, on my way to the Airport before flying back to Europe, I stopped at a Best Buy store. Ahh! the USD/EUR Fx rate… great pretext to buy one. I took the time to compare the Surface 2 Pro and the Surface 2 RT. And guess what… I quite unexpectedly decided for a Surface 2 RT. The very light weight. The cool design. The Office 2013 suite, with Outlook 2013 included. The price. I took the risk on spending the $549,99 on the 64Gb model, saying to myself I would most probably regret it later.
But since then… it’s been a delight. Out-of-the box experience was great. French language configuration at first startup was a breeze (I was fearing it would not be supported in this US machine). At Home, the Surface 2 RT recognized immediately the wifi Canon inkjet printer on the home network. I did not even have to install a printer driver. I was really fearing a lack of printer driver support for ARM / RT, so that was a nice suprise. Wow – I can print from a tablet! My wife’s iPad could never do this as our printer does not support airprint.
Yesterday I purchased (in France) a (french AZERTY) TypeCover keyboard, the new backlit version. It was instantly recognized. The typing experience is really good.
Today I configured Outlook 2013 on my Surface 2 RT to connect to my corporate Exchange server. I screwed up on my initial configuration, entered wrong parameters, and Outlook would not start properly. After searching the web for a solution to my problem I found out that I had to execute a command to start Outlook in safe mode (run: outlook.exe /safe) and had to tweak Outlook email profiles from the configuration panel. Here’s the good news: it is a real PC. All the good old PC parameters are still there. After deleting the email profile and creating a new one, everything finally got into order. All emails, contacts, folders perfectly synchonized. Powerpoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets attached to emails open perfectly. I now have a super lightweight replica of the laptop I use at work, with a much cooler experience. And I can detach the keyboard. And I can use this device for hours and hours on a plane without recharge.
I can also do everything I was doing on the iPad before going to bed : fast websurfing, Facebook, and reading RadioFreeMobile – all with touch U/I.
Indeed, I can’t install the legacy WinTel Apps I have on my other W7 PCs. But do I really need this? I cannot do this on the iPad either… and never really suffered from this. I’m now realizing that what I really mostly wanted, was to install my pre-owned Office 2010… which is not needed since the Surface 2 RT comes with Office 2013 pre-installed.
Net net… I’m revisiting my position. I love Surface 2 RT with W8 RT.
And that was totally unexpected.

Comments on: Nokia World – Good News. Bad News

By: windsorr

By: Jacques-Etienne Grandjean