There are two sides to every story. This Microsoft retail experience wasn’t so bad.
The moral of the story is that you should go to a store and try out a Surface if it is something that interests you. Don’t listen to other people’s views and opinions. You might hate it. You might like it. Everyone’s needs and expectations are different. I came away impressed and pleased with the experience and the Surface.
I do agree with this completely. You should try out everything and use what is best for you.
Microsoft’s retail experience isn’t bad at all… it’s just the products they sell that are so god-forsaken shitty!
I am a very critical technology buyer, with a fairly small technology budget to match, so I wasn’t expecting to buy anything when I visited my local Apple and Microsoft stores to check out their newest releases this weekend.
I went into the Microsoft store skeptical that anyone should buy the Surface RT, what I found after using it was that was even more true than I thought.
I think the Surface with Windows RT is the wrong product for Microsoft at the wrong time.
People dismissed the iPad as just a big iPhone, but even so, that wasn’t a bad thing. The iPhone was without any question the best phone available at the time, and many of us knew that a bigger iPhone would actually be better in some important ways.
The Surface RT is a Windows product from Microsoft. I think people will expect it to be like an iPad that runs Windows applications, and they are going to be disappointed to find that it really isn’t.
I may or may not be right about that, but I assumed that the product itself was going to be well done. I was surprised then, when I actually used a Surface RT, is that even the Metro/Modern UI experience was sub par. The hardware was very nice. Many things were smooth and speedy with the UI, but many things weren’t. Lots of the built-in apps took a lonnng time to launch. In the 10 minutes I was using it, I had apps exit unexpectedly more than once. Rotating the screen involved a considerable delay, made more apparent by jerky animation. The keyboard cover was harder to type on than a screen, I constantly had to check to make sure my fingers were over the right keys. I tried to rely on the autocorrect, as I do with the iPad’s on-screen keyboard, but it was not up to the job.
Other annoyances, Microsoft seemed to be filtering websites, so I couldn’t check my own blog in the browser, also, their Internet connection seemed a lot slower than the one at the Apple store across the parking-lot — another missed opportunity to show their product in the best light.
I agree, people should see for themselves if they have the chance. I did, and learned that Microsoft’s execution was worse than I expected.