If it’s wrong to pick low-hanging fruit, then why did the Gods make it taste so sweet?
Chances are you’d never heard of this site, Trusted Reviews, before—the Macalope hadn’t—but when someone purports to be able to review a product they haven’t seen yet, well, you’d be foolish not to be reading a site with magical powers, wouldn’t you?
Yes, fiction lovers of all kinds will enjoy Ardjuna Seghers’s “iPad 3 VS Microsoft Surface Tablet” (tip o’ the antlers to Jim Miles).
From a niche sector that no-one was very interested in, tablets have evolved to become a hotter property than even the average laptop.
Where by “tablets,” you mean “iPads.”
They’re arguably the new smartphone in terms of momentum, with the most powerful X86 models able to completely replace a laptop.
Oh, totally. All those… X86-based… tablets people are using… to… replace their laptops…
Does anyone else have a splitting headache right between the antlers?
They come with Android, iOS and even Windows 7. There are 10in, 7in and 5in models. Some have keyboard docks, others pressure-sensitive styli. In short, there’s a lot of variety, but a few stand out.
Yes! Very few!
Actually, just one of them. It’s called the iPad.
Being a 10-inch tablet, the Surface’s most obvious competitor is the iPad. But which one should you get if you’re considering a premium tab?
Uhhh, the one that’s actually shipping right now and you can go out an buy today? Would it be that one?
However many third-party keyboard accessories are available for Apple’s tablet, the company itself does not sell one in any kind, shape or form.
Right! Except for this one, which is the one the Macalope uses with his iPad. But other than that, none at all. Not a single one.
Though Microsoft hasn’t gone all-out and given its Surface tablet a true keyboard dock like the Asus Transformer Pad 300, it will offer no fewer than two different keyboard covers…
Which is like a whole other one than Apple offers! One is like practically none! But two, well, now you’re talking keyboards.
Keyboards that, to date, no one outside of Microsoft has been allowed to use and could be complete failures. But, still, two.
This, along with decent connectivity, make it a far more flexible and productivity-oriented solution than the iPad.
Unless, of course, you want to be productive today.
From the front both these tablets look very similar—but then the same can be said for 10in tablets in general. What does stand out sharply is the white Windows logo on the front of the Surface, which we feel is a nice touch.
Suggested improvement: a sticker detailing which kind of processor is inside the Surface. People love those.
On specs, Seghers does say:
This is a tough one as the Surface RT’s specifications haven’t all been confirmed.
Tough. Impossible. Those are almost synonyms, right?
This piece is so laugh-out-loud ridiculous enough that the Macalope is genuinely happy you did it, even if it does speak volumes about the absurd state of tech writing. Or, perhaps, because it does.
While giving the overall advantage to the iPad on software, Seghers dials in some bias from 1996.
The RT has Office, ’nuff said. Seriously though, considering the severe lack of comprehensive Office suites to rival Microsoft’s offering on both iOS and Android, we can’t see anything touching Surface with Windows RT and Office 15 Apps for those interested in productivity.
Productivity = MS Office. QED.
Sadly, Seghers doesn’t deliver an ultimate verdict.
It might be too early to call a winner…
Might be? 1400 words and two “pages” into a comparison of fact and fiction—one that stunningly neglects to mention we don’t even know how much the Surface is going to cost yet—Seghers suddenly gets cold feet. That’s just your sense of propriety, talking, Ardjuna. You gotta just write through that.
[Editor’s Note: In addition to being a mythical beast, the Macalope is not an employee of Macworld. As a result, the Macalope is always free to criticize any media organization. Even ours.]