Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus, review from zdnet.com
Poor Microsoft and their vendors, still living in the past when PC’s and notebooks could sell for thousands. In today’s economic market, a $1400 computer is ridiculous, when people are looking for prices around $500. While the specs may be jaw-dropping, who really needs all the whistles and bells these days? With ultra smartphones, phablets, ereaders and so forth, who is this for? Did Microsoft and Samsung do any consumer testing or marketing?
Microsoft has just been pumping out failure after failure, with, what, four or five failures under their belts by now? Historically (ironic, as tablets have only been made for 15 years or so), microsoft tablets have been overpriced, underpowered with OS’s no one likes. It’s as if they sit around the Redmond campus in closed doors, creating these monstrosities, nodding at each other like bobble headed dolls, gladhanding and backslapping each other over what creative geniuses they are.
I’m still using an old TC1100 made by HP/Compaq, i’ve treated it well and it’s lasted me since 2006, thankfully. Microsoft has been an abysmal failure at marketing their tablets, which other tablet makers jumped on and bested microsoft. Microsoft has horse blinders on when it comes to marketing, reaching out to new markets, venues and so forth.
Take their new tablets, the Surface RT and Pro. The pre-marekting rumors were out of this world! Lots of specs and a rumored starting price around $250 for the RT and $350 for the Pro. Computer users were foaming at the mouth! Then, months and months later, after the hype and interest died down, the prices, specs and pics were released. Nearly a grand for the RT, with a useless, base OS-that only used MS software and no other apps, and the Pro, at learly $2K! Battery life, was as usual, pathetic for a MS tablet. Jaws dropped and not for a good reason.
Their previous tablet, the name escapes me, was handled exactly the same. Great initial buzz, then died down, tablet released to stunned audiences. Priced too high, terrible OS and battery life, no apps. Then MS wondered why they weren’t selling. Only after a year or so on the market, they slashed the price (to what it SHOULD have been, to begin with). Those tablets FLEW off the shelves. Microsoft, in all their wisdom, gladhanded and backslapped each other, woefully misunderstanding consumers, yet again, raised prices exponentially again.
Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll keep getting the results you’ve been getting.
Brick ONeil 