New Microsoft ads showcase user scenarios for Windows and Surface

Oh so its not relevant cause Rudy isn't making it...

Its not relevant because this article isn't even about Windows Phone... Its about Windows 8.1... And for the record, I am in the Beta, its not that amazing an app anyway...

I want to get in this beta how do I join the beta?

You can't. There are no more spots available at this time, but if you follow Rudy Huyn on twitter (as many do), he promotes it when spots are open for Den's app. ;)

Thanks so much will do testing so many betas on my phone lol I don't wanna miss out ty!

Why don't you ask Rudy?

Maybe I will

Commercials are good but they should show them using the device like a story not show them talking about it show them work then flip to them at there house doing blablabla seeing awesome usage of the tabs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wG1b0yBJHLM

I still shake my head in disbelief that they EMPHASIZE the Surface having a keyboard available, but then charge you extra for it and don't tell you how much it adds to the $799. Microsoft, if customers are price-sensitive enough to care that it's "only" $449, they are price-sensitive enough to be put off by you withholding that infomation.

It says on the advert, Keyboard and some Apps sold separately.  

Oh, right....17 seconds after they tell you it "has a keyboard", they tell you it's separate in super tiny print at the bottom of the screen for LITERALLY just two seconds. Totally forthcoming.
 

Yeah... That's my one disappointment. I really hope we get a $499 surface starting price with a touch/type cover three. Effectively another $50 price cut.

This complaint isn't MS specfic though, any company would do the same.

It is MS-specific because no one else is making a huge selling point of their phone or tablet something that doesn't COME WITH THE DEVICE.

Haha agreed. It needs to look like a car advert:   Surface 2. From $499.

I dunno what expensive country you're living in but my Surface 2+Type Cover 2 only costed me 568 euros incl. tax. Sure, it may be a tad expensive for WinRT but it 's nowhere near the 799 you paid.

$799 is for Pro, $449 is RT in the US.

Yeah, I still think it's ridiculous how they so heavily advertise the covers, then sell them separately. Hell, I feel that the entire point, what makes Surface a Surface, would be the awesome covers. Don't get me wrong, it's and incredible device in its own right, but it's extremely difficult to get the genuine Surface experience without a cover. I wish MS would swallow their pride and start bundling them already...

Very nice. Microsoft finally seem to be getting their advertising right with 8.1. Then again, I suppose now they have a product that actually fulfills their marketing promises (while I liked 8, it sure as heck wasn't as seemless as the ads tried to make out) so it's time to go show people what they can do. Hopefully we'll see more of these.   The paramedic video was very cool. I think you guys have covered this already but Greys Anatomy use Surfaces. All staff use Surface RTs for pretty much everything at work and the higher ups have Surface Pros, they were even using the pen last week. I'm wondering how widespread usage like this in the medical industry?   Great that they're finally targetting education with understandable ads too. Surface RT is such a great option for school kids and as more get them we'll hopefully see an upswing in education apps too. They really need to do a Surface 2 with digitiser pen if they're going to appeal to college and university students though, the ability to write notes and draw diagrams (and just draw in general) is invaluable once you've got the ability and with the Galaxy Note 10.1 and the new Wacom, Adobe, and Jot pens for the iPad, both major competitors have an advantage over RT right now.   It would make a fascinating set of articles to find schools or businesses or hospitals or whatever that have switched to Surface and/ore Windows Phones and see what went on. I know MS has done a few publicity pieces on it but something with less of an advertorial angle would be interesting.   But yeah, great ads, more please! :)

I would like to have a free Surface RT from my school :/

Same, I've mentioned it before, but all my classmates and teachers are genuinely intrigued by my Surface, they're curious about its use for school.

Getting better!

Eh, they still don't get it. Marketing towards teens isn't what gets them to use devices. Creating a 'buzz' is what does. In fact, most really good ads don't show off much of the product at all, they create an image and an idea that connects with people. 

It does seem like hype makes the world go around these days. People fall for it over and over. My theory is that people's real lives suck so badly that they want to believe that all this shitty tech actually makes things better. Bah freaking humbug. Maybe I shouldn't post anymore on Mondays...

I don't understand - one of the commercials is an old beaded teacher using the device and the other is a 30-something paramedic.  How is that "marketing towards teens"?

So you tell me you haven't seen what class the bearded guy is teaching???

To me, it looks more like they're marketing to schools, so schools will buy them for the classroom. I honestly don't think any teen really cares about buying a device, just to help with school work (well granted, I suppose that's the main reason I bought my Surface Pro 2, but I'm a weird kid). I honestly think MS is intending for the ad to be seen by parents (who would perhaps be interested in getting their child a device to help them with school work), teachers (who would perhaps badger the school for these things), and school board officials (who would perhaps consider the Surface or some other Windows 8 device for their next hardware upgrades). Really, it didn't look like they were trying to appeal much to teens at all, but rather, to adults who might be interested in giving teens tools to help with school work and other academic pursuits.

I still shake my head in disbelief that they EMPHASIZE the Surface having a keyboard available, but then charge you extra for it and don't tell you how much it adds to the $799. Microsoft, if customers are price-sensitive enough to care that it's "only" $449, they are price-sensitive enough to be put off by you withholding that infomation.

Indeed, I'm still baffled as to why Microsoft refuses to bundle a Touch or Type Cover with a Surface purchase...

My Surface RT was bundled with a keyboard. I bought it the day after they were being sold. But you're probably talking about the Surface 2.

I agree with that...at least create a simple bundle like RT + Black Touch cover for $499; since the RT ecosystem still lacks in the app department it would seem like a good move to create a better value for the product line.

The Yoga does indeed come with a keyboard for $799.
But yeah, point taken on the Surface @ $449. It wouldn't be a big deal if it didn't cost so much. But the cost of a keyboard is not just high, it's ridiculously so.

Duplicate comment.  

I really like haswell 8.1 convertibles. I've even convinced myself that I like the surface design... Microsoft can't be beat on it! I just tallied three surface 2's: one for my sisters Christmas present, for my aunt, and for a friend of mine who needs office for school. If Microsoft offers a silverMont successor wih stylus support running 8.2 and at $499, I will definitely be retiring my series 7 chronos.

It's al vary well doing these ads, but it's useless for those of us outside the US - example: The first "Windows Everywhere" that I saw on youtube months ago, I ony saw in the UK within the last month. I haven't seen the "Office" verion of that ad, and don't expect to see the updated 8.1 versions of these ads until next January at the earliest, whereas I'm guessing they are already on US screens (correct me if I'm wrong US people). I doubt we will get our own versions of the ads in this artcile either, although I can't thnk of anything better than being proved wrong (well, at least in this instance, anyway).

I've seen almost no Surface ads, ever, in Australia. I don't watch commercial TV channels, but I still see Apple ads all the time on Foxtel. I only know about the Surface ads because I watch them on YouTube out of interest :P

I remember seeing Surface used by X Factor judges in Australia. This was during a trip November last year.

They can make as many of these videos as they want. The only problem here (Germany/Europe) is that the surfaces are out of stock everywhere and nobody knows when new ones will be available.Not in 2013 I'm afraid. Everything is going to the U.S. as it seems :-/

Yeah, and half the amazing features they promote in their keynotes are US-only too. I had to wait 12-18 months for Bing Vision stuff on WP7, and we're still missing a lot of features unless we change region.

Nice

Really good adds! They are finally getting it! Teachers add was the best in my opinion.

Who's the casting agent that worked on these ads? Yikes!

And there was a Surface in the last episode of Supernatural.

Love it! My Surface 2 is soon to arrive =)

Windows 2 in 1... That will confuse many people .

Looks like Microsoft has finally found a good advertising agency, they've been pushing out nothing but great ads thus far! Granted, I feel in a certain sense these are a little too forced, but that's what advertising is I guess... Anyways, I thought they were good. Maybe not Apple quality or hell, Google now in terms of emotional impact (you can NOT tell me you didn't smile after the glossophobia and sick dog commercials, those were incredible), and emotional impact is always great in advertising. Still, scores a solid 7.5/10 in my book, maybe even 8/10.Very solid commercials, keep it up Microsoft! But hey, maybe try and start working on the emotional impact thing? ;)

Too cheesy

Welcome to WPCentral! :D

The ads are misleading people. It runs "new windows". No it runs Windows RT, a mobile, limited version with low support that dont let you run legacy windows apps. People should know this before they buy it. Its still a great device...they should be honest to people

Except that RT is actually 'full' standard Windows, compiled on ARM and artificially restricted to only run signed software. There are actually no other major differences. If the signed software restriction wasn't there, any Windows software compiled for ARM would run on it fine (as was evident when the early jailbreak worked).

But its not easy to make x86 desktop apps compiled to ARM to work right? I mean even VLC got 50.000 from kickstarter to make it happen and after 6 months it is not out yet

It depends how the software is written. Obviously something as advanced as VLC is going to be a challenge to port because of all the low level API calls and codecs it uses. But simpler open source apps like Synergy, PuTTY, WinSCP and countless others that I didn't get to try in time were almost as simple as pressing a few buttons. However what I mean is that no, RT can't run desktop apps, but not because it's a 'mobile' or watered down version, but simply because of the restriction Microsoft put in place to only run signed apps. This is a good thing from a user point of view as it completely disables any kind of virus. That's also why things like peripheral support is so great, because RT comes with all that full Windows goodness. The VLC project is for a rewrite as a Store app, not to port it to an ARM desktop app. Store apps are actually really easy to build (I speak from experience, I have a couple in the works), but of course a massive and advanced project like VLC is an exception. There's precident though; PowerDVD is a Store app and it works great; albeit not free, but obviously they didn't find it too hard to port their codecs over.

I think the day Microsoft decides to stop this non-sense restriction about desktop applications they will have a hit, but off course they will lose control about the market exactly as it is now in the "open" x86/64 world.

I wonder if nokia will make one to compete the Surface Pro 2 (just like what they did with the RT version). Well I like the new Pro but with Nokia comes this good camera, sim and 4G availability. Im also a loyal Nokia consumer. Should I buy now or should I wait?

Little offtopic but : Get me the pro with GPS and LTE and I'll throw my money at you.

(sorry if this is reposted I had some problems) No one watches a commercial and expects everything in that commercial to be 100% the situation except for children or elderly voters. So lets not pretend to be adolescent or naive. This is classic marketing ploy. You people can't possibly expect Microsoft to give up these types of gimmicks and still compete with the likes of iOS and Android titans. If they've even drawn your attention, the marketing was successful. If they buy the product in spite of the conveniently omitted information, then the product is a success. I would support a steeper price cut for bundle purchases, but I'm realistic and I'm quite satisfied with the product; they are well worth the money. As for the article itself, I like the commercials as part of a bigger marketing campaign.

  And unless you are in the top 1% richest school districts there is not a chance your students would get a Microsoft Windows Tablet! Or unless the school district forces the parents to pay for the $500 per tablet over the course of 4yrs I doubt the students have access to this at school.
Next thing is, most schools would never invest in tablets for their students b/c there is a higher chance of a tablet getting stolen or being used for gaming than other stuff. You can't just take away the App store on the tablets unless you never plan on adjusting anything. There are so many measures to make sure they aren't stolen like spending more money to place a GPS tracker on it and to have no games played you would have to do something the Amazon Kindle does and let the user with only their password dictate how it is used.
I bet I couldn't even go into Oakland County schools here in Michigan (which is one of the wealthiest counties in the nation) and wouldn't find more than two public high schools that have a class tablet