More hardware? They'll need DEVELOPERS to get behind the damn thing to have any chance at succeeding and that means a lot more than a paltry $100 cash back.

More hardware? They'll need DEVELOPERS to get behind the damn thing to have any chance at succeeding and that means a lot more than a paltry $100 cash back.

They have to get sales before they'll get the developers onboard.... Most developers aren't willing to produce for a platform that's new or has limited market share.

They have to get sales before they'll get the developers onboard.... Most developers aren't willing to produce for a platform that's new or has limited market share.

Then subsidize development if they can't get market traction.

http://komlomedia.hu/kepek/1731_1.jpg

The latest Haswell chips vastly outperform that latest ARM SOC's in both battery life and performance (iPad 4 has 43Wh in comparison and a smaller screen): http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph7180/56650.png There is no reason for RT to exist at this point. It is not going to go as far down as needed to play with the ultra budget market (~$200) and it is not competitive against full fledged Windows 8/8.1 tablets at ~$400-$500. Microsoft really needs to let this die, they already lost $2 billion on it. Sure that's a minor blow when you make $5 billion a quarter, but this is just competing with yourself at this point.

i need the option to run x86 programms, if its slower doesnt matter, if its emulated i dont care or i want the option to run Linux. otherwise i dont need this ****

Reduce the price of the Surface pro to what the iPad costs, I bet it doesn't cost more than £400 for Microsoft to make. Just do a Google, sell it at a very low price to compete, get people purchasing through your store to where you make your money. It's what they do for their consoles, so I don't see why they need to make much of a profit on their hardware for tablets.

i need the option to run x86 programms, if its slower doesnt matter, if its emulated i dont care or i want the option to run Linux. otherwise i dont need this ****

Microsoft crippling linux support on RT/Surface devices is, while annoying for linux advocates like me, a good idea in their perspective. Linux is lightyears ahead of MS in ARM support - it supports more peripherals (such as USB devices), it works on just about every ARM device that ever existed, it performs so much better that the performance is comparable to Intel's mobile products*, and you get to use at least 85% of all modern open source linux-compatible software (so, the average linux x86 desktop can be replicated on ARM). Interestingly, Linux's main downside on ARM is the same as Windows' - the fact that very little proprietary software works due to being compiled for x86. What Microsoft should've done was create a compatibility layer so you can run x86 programs on ARM. That could have been a HUGE advantage, but the problem is ARM is RISC, so generally speaking, most programs would run slower on ARM regardless of emulation; emulation would just make things worse. Microsoft at the very least could have just prevented programs that use Direct X 9 and up (DX8 software should work fine on ARM). *When comparing to Cortex-A15 to Atom

*When comparing to Cortex-A15 to Atom

The A15 is far, far slower than even the current Atoms (Clover Trail+). Just compare the dual core Atom with the dual core A15: Samsung Exynos 5250 vs. Atom Z2560 Quadrant (v2)----------------- 4,551 = 6,564 Vellamo (v2.0 HTML5)---------- 1,605 = 1,694 AnTuTu----------------------- 8,731 = 22,042 Battery life (rundown test)----- 7:26 = 6:55 Bay Trail, which is expected next quarter, is expected to showcase massive gains.

The A15 is far, far slower than even the current Atoms (Clover Trail+). Just compare the dual core Atom with the dual core A15: Samsung Exynos 5250 vs. Atom Z2560 Quadrant (v2)----------------- 4,551 = 6,564 Vellamo (v2.0 HTML5)---------- 1,605 = 1,694 AnTuTu----------------------- 8,731 = 22,042 Battery life (rundown test)----- 7:26 = 6:55 Bay Trail, which is expected next quarter, is expected to showcase massive gains.

There's some ignorance in your post. First of all, I said in linux, not android. Linux has had some significant performance improvements in kernel 3.4 and newer. As far as I'm aware, android is still using 3.0. Secondly, you're comparing a dual-threaded CPU to a quad-threaded. That's a disproportionate comparison, and considering that, the ARM fared pretty well. Anyways, I was mostly referring to the CPUs that Cortex A15 was intended to compete against; you're comparing a 2012 RISC CPU to a Q2 2013 CISC. Considering that, I'd say the A15 still did pretty good.