Microsoft launches Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2

We had a bit of early interest in the Surface here [webmasterworld.com...] but the pricing really quashed a lot of it. I agree that some Nexus 7-type pricing would have made a lot of difference. Even when MS significantly dropped its RT prices they saw a decent uptake.

I don't think the hardware was problematic, nor the pricing. The software was the deal breaker and apparently there's little changed there.

Windows RT was certainly an issue, but the Pro version simply runs a full version of Windows 8. It's no different from any other ultrabook in that sense. So then it comes back to price for those models.

Do you *really* think a full windows 8 still has no problems to be used as a tablet ...

Windows 8 is a failure simply because it tries to be both a desktop (mouse ui paradigm) and a tablet (touch ui paradigm) at the same time: it can never do both good enough.

IMHO everybody but the MSFT fanboys get that from the start. And to the rest of us it's a mystery why MSFT itself doesn't realize/fix their mistake. And no 8.1 will not fix it.

That sounds like Apple fanboy rhetoric to me. Is this coming from any actual experience with a Surface, or are you just repeating platitudes you've read online?

I don't have extensive experience with the Surface Pro, but it works as an ultrabook with a keyboard, or it can work as a tablet. I've used Windows 8 desktop for over a year and it's a great OS. The pure tablet side might need some work to catch up with iOS or Android, but it's moving in the right direction.

Is this coming from any actual experience with a Surface

Tried to use them a few times in stores. Pesky salesmen each time assumed I was one of the rare ones who actually wanted one so it's from limited hands-on experience.
Even independent apple dealers out here leave you alone for as long as you want.

FWIW: while we have a few iPad I don't use any except to do an occasional usability check on. I don't consume content, I try to produce content and for that a real computer is far superior to any tablet.
But that said the experience of using either an old windows machine, an iPad, andriod device or a mac is all far simpler and requires less non-intuitive stuff than any modern version of windows (RT, 8 or - the worst of them all I guess Server 2012) [That latter I've used a bit more - for pay - I don't do windows unless I get paid a lot, so there the experience is more complete (but bad and frustrating at how bad it is made)]

What I honestly don't get is why people put up with having to learn AND re-learn to use the stuff.

First off: why have to learn to use it?
A toddler can use an iPhone from merely seeing a grown up use one, they get how to do things long before their motor skills are accurate enough to actually do it [and before you come back with smart ass remarks: yes I've seen my niece learn to use my phone]

And next: why have to relearn user interfaces?
Back in 1916 Cadillac came out with the first user interface for a car like we all know. Today, virtually every car produced (and I'm saying that only to leave room for some extremely specialist cases), still uses that same user interface: clutch (if any), break, throttle, are all still in the same place. Sure there's been tweaks, but try to drive an older car (For example a Ford Model T) and any of us would be at a loss how to operate it unless somebody explains you how to use it. However get a Cadillac Type 53 and you know how to operate it (provided you can drive a manual gear of course).
1916: That's 8 years after said model T made cars popular. In 8 years they managed to standardize a user interface for the next century (I'm taking a leap here that the current arrangement will last 3 more years... safe bet it seems) ...
Now that doesn't mean one is to make the user experience between a bicycle and a car the same (nor between a phone and a laptop): but they can't even manage it between versions of the same brand of desktop OSes...

But if you insist on drinking the Microsoft cool-aid: enjoy your gorilla-arm!

There's underpinnings to everything... Surface has strong legs, just got off to rocky start. That said, I --- and most of us rambling here on WebmasterWorld --- tend to be old pharts living in the stone age of computing, so yes, this fondle stuff is not so "new" as the tech mags proclaim ... and yet, like the touch devices from near three decades ago, is not quite prime time show time.

But Surface really is a bit better. Just a different way of doing the same old stuff.

Computers are nothing new or unique. Computers are part of the two things the human race managed to accomplish which make us unique which are not hunting and gathering, procreation, or war... those two things unique are writing (thus history) and communication (talking).

What Surface provides is both of those... and a strong OS underneath which can be turned to "biz" and "profit" which iPad and all those iOS phones are not quite ready to do.

MS came late to the party... perhaps TOO late. My Surface does what I want... with my MS applications of old for the most part ... and the other touchy feelie feel good fondle slabs are a bit light in that department.

And therein lays (sic, actually said "lies" which is completely inaccurate as to lay of the land) the rub, as the Bard once said. We have worker bees and we have all the drones... and these days the drones want what they want.

Oh. Sorry. This is truly a report that Surface 2 actually does a decent job... at a few ( double dozen dollars ) more than it is worth, but does it dang neat, concise, and with extension possibilities the other fondle slabs don't have.

Is the price difference worth it? Only if "work" is part of your fondling.