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And you're entirely free to post as much of this advertising as you wish

Chuckle!
Just did a erach on iPhone and iPad at FR going back...a heck of a lot of posts(or advertsiong as you call it. Just a cursey look so far, but I am yet t see you call any of the countless iPad/iPhone boosting posts at Fr as advertsisng...Just saying.

Meanwhile, you know of course that you are free to read or not read whatever you like at FR don't you?
Last time I looked, no one has out a gun to your head and ordered you to read posts on Microsoft surface.

“A product that does not exist cannot have “cool features”. “

True. Like a car that travels at 10,000 miles per hour does not exist. However, the Surface tablet DOES exist. Some of the top tech journalists(including those from Wired) have actually had hands on with it.

In order to exist as a real product, a device must a) have a price, and b) be available for purchase.”

Ummm no. Plenty of items exist that you can't buy if you wanted to buy it/one. For example, the Mona Lisa certainly exists, but then you still couldn't buy it if you had all the money in the world.
In the video games console industry, Nintendo first showed the Wii to the press, demoing plenty of upcoming Wii games, etc, but never mentioned specs, price or release date. The Wii then went on to become one of the most successful video game consoles ever.
Same thing with the PS2 and PS3 announcements from Sony. They fisrt announce/demo it(usually at the huge E3 exposition or the Tokyo Game show), with no price or release date, then announce the ice and release date much closer to launch. Nothing wrong with any of that. The PS2 went on to become the top selling video game console of all time despite that preannouncement.

Just this month, Nintendo announced(and demoed) their new gee whiz new console, the Wii U, which will go on sale this coming holidays. was there any mention of price/shipping date or specs? Nope. Does it mean the Wii U is vaporware that Nintendo will not ship? Nope. Everyone expects the Wii U to be available in the shops this coming holidays, as usual. .
Back to your little rant, if you don't like a subject/thread/company, DON'T READ IT.
There are plenty of threads on FR that I don't read. Time is too limited.

Thanks for the reply. I respectfully submit that you seem to have misinterpreted my point. I don't think anybody is forcing me to read threads about Surface. I have actually been seeking FR threads and tech articles elsewhere about Surface, in the hope of learning more facts about its design. But new information does not seem to be forthcoming -- at this point it's all just fevered and bubbly, but desperately rehashed, repetition of the same few facts announced initially by Microsoft. And at that, I'm somewhat disappointed and concerned.

You see, I LIKE what I've heard about Surface. I'm frankly very interested in its proposed characteristics, especially since as the Director of System Admin at my company which makes its living writing software for Windows-based (and other) devices, the likelihood that I'll get to work with a bunch of the MS tablets is pretty much 100%, and probably as soon as anybody not actually working directly for Microsoft. It's very much in my interest to get ahead of this particular juggernaut before it hits.

Personally, I'm very pleased that Microsoft is finally taking the bull by the horns and making a product whose hardware design isn't driven by the bottom-feeder PC hardware market where lowest-price is all that matters. I have been a computer hardware system design engineer for nearly 40 years, including some aerospace flight and industrial gear, and I like to see good hardware design appear on the consumer market. Apple has held the design high ground for a long time, and it's good for all, that they get challenged by more than their own occasional missteps.

But I'm burning out already on the deluge of substance-challenged Surface hype. In the absence of new information, the same few proposed characteristics are being beaten to smithereens. It's almost (note: almost) as bad as the barrage of silly speculation that always precedes a product announcement, usually from Apple, but in this case Microsoft as well. (The only thing sillier than hyping a device which you've seen but can't purchase, is wild-ass guessing about a device you haven't even been told about yet.)

BTW, when I call something "vaporware" I don't mean it doesn't exist as a prototype or engineering model. I've designed devices intended for commercial markets, where the prototype run was also the final run, because somebody in marketing changed their mind or thought better of it later. Those devices, promised to customers and then canceled, were "vaporware" as products even though some hardware existed for a time.

Anyway, the only real point of my little rant was that I hope the excitement about Surface doesn't burn itself out in the 3-6 months before devices are actually available for purchase and customers can find out whether they like them or not. I'd like this product to succeed, and compete well against the iPad. That competition will do all parties -- and especially the consumers -- a lot of good.

So post whatever you like, and I'll probably give it a look, and a solid read-through if it looks like it's got some substance. And I'll hold a hope that the buying public retains some interest for when Surface appears in reality later this year.