The MBA is about 1/3 of a pound heavier, with better battery life. Can you handle all 5 ounces?
When the MBA was released, it was 1/3 pound lighter than some laptops. This was its selling point. When I bought my original Surface Pro, it was lighter than my laptop AND allowed me to ditch my iPad. Surface 3 promises the same for an even wider audience.
You see if you can actually notice a difference in resolution from a standard use position.
Funny, this was a standard argument when Apple started releasing retina iPhone and iPads and then MacBook Pros. I can certainly tell the difference between a standard MacBook Pro and a Retina version. I can see pixels on my Surface Pro. Maybe my eyes are just better than yours. And all those pixels are using more battery, yet they still managed to increase the battery life over the previous version.
You take your touch screen & digitizer. Which doesn't work for Office or the classic desktop.
They don't work with Office or the classic desktop? Mind explaining to me how I use both daily on my Surface Pro?
That said, i think the biggest bugbear is going to be Windows 8. It doesn't work very well with touch either. Yes, as I said above I've run a surface 2 for a week and did not like.
How does it not work well with touch? You've used for a week, but I've got 2 years of experience using it on touch and it works fine. Care to cite any examples you encountered?
Seriously you're grasping at straws. You can use voice commands to do what you can do with a controller?
Voice commands are awesome. Have you never used them? They work flawlessly (for me at least, I know how to annunciate. In my experience, people who claim voice recognition sucks are people who typically mumble and slur words) and are more convenient than a controller. What if the controller is out of reach? What if you are in another room? What if someone other than the remote holder wants to pause the show? What if the cat is sitting in front of the IR receiver? What if you can't find your controller? What if you are sick and laid up on the couch? What if you have a cat sitting on your lap and the controller is just out of reach? Voice also lets you enter text faster than spelling one letter at a time, like I have to do with my Roku. Also with the XB1 voice controls the volume as well, so it's sort of like a universal remote.
You also ignored some of my other points, like how the app can be snapped side by side with others, such as skype. This let me watch a movie with my wife while she was away. My Roku doesn't do that. As I was thinking about it, I came up with another reason as well: the Xbox netflix app stays up to date with current Netflix features. My roku still doesn't support different user profiles, which has been a feature forever. My Roku also has terrible browsing capabilities. It has a maximum of 10 - 15 rows of movies, which are categories like "because you watched...." There is no ability to browse "Sci-Fi" or "Drama" categories.
All these things together cause me to use my Xbox instead of every other device I own that supports Netflix, and I didn't mind for single second that it was behind a paywall.
I think this is perspective you don't understand. Some people don't care about the gaming network at all. Some people do not want to play networked games.
No I understand. I just don't think it was as big of a deal as you make it out to be. I don't play many networked games either. But Gold gives me at least 2 (and now it seems like 4) free games per month, most of which are not networked. I've gotten a total of 23 free games this year via Gold, which together are worth well more than the $35 I spent for my sub. Gold is a service in which even single player gamers should find value.
You had to pay XBL AND a Netflix fee AND the cost of an Xbox to access Netflix on the Xbox.
So I paid $500 + $35/year + $7.99/month. But how much of that is really *for* netflix. I spent $500 for the Xbox to play *games*, and spend most of my time with it doing just that. So is it fair to say the entire cost of the Xbox goes into watching netflix? I spent $100 on a Roku and all I do is watch netflix with it, so in that case I spent $100 to watch netflix on my TV. With my Xbox, not so much. And that $35/year for a Gold sub, most of that goes toward accessing the Gold network and downloading Games for Gold. So how much of that do we slice out for watching Netflix? I dunno.
You buy TV and get a Netflix subscription. That's it. You don't have to pay Sony, Samsung, whoever, to use Netflix.
But that smart TV with netflix access costs more than a TV without netflix access. You bought a TV and then you paid extra for Netflix access included. Of course they "don't charge you again" because they already charged you when you bought the thing. The only difference with Netflix on the Xbox is the cost wasn't built into the device, it was built into the network subscription. Now all they're doing is associating the cost of Netflix with the Xbox itself.
Second, you buy an electronic device which had newer models that were more advanced. You chose to replace it. That's your problem.
It wasn't my problem, it was my choice. That's not the point. The point was I had no problem spending $100 to watch netflix on my TV, and I had no problem spending $100 again to watch higher res Netflix on my TV. That's kind of the point... people don't mind spending money to gain access to netflix on their TV.
No, it doesn't. Even if it wasn't $60/year. XBL was more than $0. There fore it was not free.
I didn't say "was", I mean now. As in the point is moot. They're both free *now*.
What? $100 onetime fee vs $60/yr ($35/yr as you claim) + cost of Xbox ($199 min for Xbox 360 slim). I don't see how this math works.
Reading comprehension. I said back when Netflix players were scarce, if you already had an Xbox, then a Gold sub was a better deal than a Roku. In 2009 there were already millions of people with an Xbox.sitting under their TVs. For these people, it was a choice of a $100 Roku or a $60/$35 Gold sub. Which is the better deal? For many of them, then already had a Gold sub, so it was no choice at all.
Look, after this back and forth I think it's clear what are difference of opinion is. I have an Xbox for games, I have a Gold subscription for games, and the fact that Netflix was behind a paywal didn't bother me because I was already paying for the Gold sub anyway. I think Gold is cheap, and adds value to my console. So I don't attribute the $35 I pay for Gold to the Netflix app. You, on the other hand, don't seem to value a Gold sub (do you even own an Xbox?) and seem to attribute every penny of the Gold sub to the Netflix app ("Please explain what "value" to a Netflix or Hulu customer that would justify $60/year on top of their fees."). For me, those fees are justified before I even consider the Netflix app. For you, they are not.
The bottom line though, as I've already stated, is that this whole discussion doesn't matter! The point is moot. The app is out from behin
Systems programmers are the high priests of a low cult. -- R.S. Barton
