Oh, and my daughter's old Focus just crapped out. Paid $50 for insurance deductible and will get a Focus S, which will run 7.8. In all, not bad.

Actually, it depends - visual studio 2012 will let you develop apps that run on 7.8, 8 or both. If you're not using any features exclusively available on the 8.0 kernel, it will run fine.

I did it for -$15 (got the credit from Nokia), but I still feel bad about it. Now I'll need to convince my wife to let me use her upgrade when it's due in february, or I'll have to wait 2 years...

I have a Lumia too, so I feel your pain. However, I understand it's not much of a choice - it's a technical limitation. Now I need to convince my wife that when her contract expires, I'll use it to get myself a new phone...

Glad to hear that. I guess they knew this release would be replaced soon, so they didnt' waste much time on it.

It already supports up to 64 cores. And the ios update for older phones is limited too - even if they call it by the same name.

Things that bing maps did better than Nokia drive (and I hope they fix):

Nicely put. But now I have to go and think of a way to convince my wife that when her plan expires I'll use it to get myself a brand-new phone.

Jesus believes.

Never understood how to make a good physical product? Microsoft mouse and keyboard, for starters. And the zune too, even if they didn't market it well.

One big feature: office for the Surface RT. It's not just an entertainment device anymore, even if it's not a full-desktop PRO version.

I actually welcome advanced notices like this, so I don't waste my money on hardware that will be obsolete.

At least for me, 4G on the pro version is more a 'good to have' feature. I'd be using it as a laptop, just as I've been using laptops without being bothered too much about the few places where wifi isn't available. Especially if the data plan will cost me a lot more on top of it.

But how do you light up the grill underwater?

Go ahead, do some market research and start a line of toys.

Comic sans?

Android/iPads... If it doesn't run Visual Studio, it isn't a computer.

I believe you cannot ignore the environment - all the additional pieces of framework required to get the job done. You cannot be a programmer by knowing a single language anymore. You need to know databases, a few (or not so few) frameworks, etc. The primary language sometimes is a minor piece of the pie, and if the…

Actually, I consider overall app quality to be much higher. And don't forget the most important thing:many times you don't need an app for that - it's built-in. Music search, visual search, mapping, messaging, etc. A windows phone right out of the box is productive right away.

It's funny how people forgot they had to learn what maximize/minimize/restore buttons did, among a bunch of other things.