Agreed. It couldn't be useful in our office in its current form. It needs to be something like 8 x an average 19" screen in pixels, perhaps somewhat bigger pixels, to be really useful. That's what I'd call a paperless office.
The only problem is that working on a big screen continuously would do away with the relief of reading something of a piece of paper at sometime. You have to really be careful with working times. I think this is how it will be in offices in 10 years or so. Hope they have upgraded the hardware by then :D For now it's not too shabby.
Eyestrain from continuously reading off a monitor is caused by improper room lighting or monitor settings. If the monitor is too bright or dim relative to the ambient lighting, it causes eyestrain.
Paper doesn't suffer from this because being a reflective surface, it automatically adjusts its brightness to match anything from a dim room to direct sunlight. A monitor needs to be adjusted to match the lighting.
Once you do match it, the monitor can be indistinguishable from paper.
And what do you think the even 60" HDTVs run at? No one really complains about that, do they? I've seen typical photos and images at that screen res and screen size. It's not that bad if the panel is of decent quality. I've ran output from my PC to my 40" Sony flat panel (Full HD/1080p) and it looks fine, even close up (about the same distances you would expect to be if it were orients and used the same way as a Surface).
Considering the target market and usage model (plus the asking price), I'm pretty sure neither Microsoft nor Samsung would skimp on the panel quality.
I think your perception is biased a bit due to using PC monitors all the time. Even I need to keep reminding myself of factors like that to help make sure what I'm thinking is based on as much objective logic as possible.
Oh come on, people are watching one image on an HDTV at a time, from a distance. So you see one picture stretched across the whole screen. That's fine.
But this thing is being marketed as a workspace to manipulate many images, such as photos that are only 6" across.
Do you know how many pixels a 4"x6" image will get on that screen? 220 x 330, or 0.07 MP.
LOL... funny thing is that it was a copy/paste of the table from Samsung's press release. I did edit other items in the table but missed that one -- unless there's some strange new 63-bit movement going on?
After testing this gadget for about a week now I have to say its no good. First of all, after unboxing it smelled like a mixture of Surströmming and my good ol' socks after a 20 mile walk through the Serengeti. The tech itself is quite on par with the sanitary installations developed during the 3rd Ming Dynasty. Finally the level of fun I had using this is like eating a half eaten one week old Liquorice Wheel that I found behind my desk. Sorry folks, but last night I even heard my toilet seat saying that my own back surface is more pleasant than this one.
I'm not saying Surface is good, but I'd wager pretty heavily that he hasn't actually done anything with it. The demo videos are a joke of course, but long-term we could certainly see some cool apps made for Surface. Initially, I'd expect very little to make it useful; it's up to the companies that buy this to make that happen.
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magreen - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
They really think 40" with 1920x1080 is going to look good?Photos will look like junk on that. That's about 55 dpi.
cfaalm - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
Agreed. It couldn't be useful in our office in its current form. It needs to be something like 8 x an average 19" screen in pixels, perhaps somewhat bigger pixels, to be really useful. That's what I'd call a paperless office.The only problem is that working on a big screen continuously would do away with the relief of reading something of a piece of paper at sometime. You have to really be careful with working times. I think this is how it will be in offices in 10 years or so. Hope they have upgraded the hardware by then :D For now it's not too shabby.
Solandri - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
Eyestrain from continuously reading off a monitor is caused by improper room lighting or monitor settings. If the monitor is too bright or dim relative to the ambient lighting, it causes eyestrain.Paper doesn't suffer from this because being a reflective surface, it automatically adjusts its brightness to match anything from a dim room to direct sunlight. A monitor needs to be adjusted to match the lighting.
Once you do match it, the monitor can be indistinguishable from paper.
Stahn Aileron - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
And what do you think the even 60" HDTVs run at? No one really complains about that, do they? I've seen typical photos and images at that screen res and screen size. It's not that bad if the panel is of decent quality. I've ran output from my PC to my 40" Sony flat panel (Full HD/1080p) and it looks fine, even close up (about the same distances you would expect to be if it were orients and used the same way as a Surface).Considering the target market and usage model (plus the asking price), I'm pretty sure neither Microsoft nor Samsung would skimp on the panel quality.
I think your perception is biased a bit due to using PC monitors all the time. Even I need to keep reminding myself of factors like that to help make sure what I'm thinking is based on as much objective logic as possible.
magreen - Saturday, November 19, 2011 - link
Oh come on, people are watching one image on an HDTV at a time, from a distance. So you see one picture stretched across the whole screen. That's fine.But this thing is being marketed as a workspace to manipulate many images, such as photos that are only 6" across.
Do you know how many pixels a 4"x6" image will get on that screen? 220 x 330, or 0.07 MP.
What were you saying again about objective logic?
UMADBRO - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
DONT F*CKING BUY IT AND STFU! OR GO MAKE SOMETHING BETTER YOURSELF, IF ITS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOURE MAGICAL EYES. FUCKING WHINY ASS WANKER!davehillier - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
Embedded Windows 7 Professional 63-bit sounds like a point further back than I was anticipating :)JarredWalton - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
LOL... funny thing is that it was a copy/paste of the table from Samsung's press release. I did edit other items in the table but missed that one -- unless there's some strange new 63-bit movement going on?magreen - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
eh, numbers over 127 are overratedBrianTho2010 - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
63 bit... For a split second I thought it might not be a typo, but instead MSFT screwing around with ppl.theknuppu - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
After testing this gadget for about a week now I have to say its no good. First of all, after unboxing it smelled like a mixture of Surströmming and my good ol' socks after a 20 mile walk through the Serengeti. The tech itself is quite on par with the sanitary installations developed during the 3rd Ming Dynasty. Finally the level of fun I had using this is like eating a half eaten one week old Liquorice Wheel that I found behind my desk. Sorry folks, but last night I even heard my toilet seat saying that my own back surface is more pleasant than this one.Urbanmech - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
How about you say what you didn't like about it, not just a bunch of random comparisons to stuff that doesn't make sense.So you dont like the Surface because it smells bad?
JarredWalton - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
I'm not saying Surface is good, but I'd wager pretty heavily that he hasn't actually done anything with it. The demo videos are a joke of course, but long-term we could certainly see some cool apps made for Surface. Initially, I'd expect very little to make it useful; it's up to the companies that buy this to make that happen.juhatus - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
Didnt some university do a warhammer for it already?Would be great with pen&paper rpg's and figure based ones.... D&D ftw :)
Mumrik - Friday, November 18, 2011 - link
40" and 1920x1080 sounds absolutely horrible for computer-like use at an arms reach.Also, with the low end PC inside this thing that touch interface must be really really expensive... Or they're full of it.