14 DAY TRIAL // Windows RT is one of Microsoft’s products that have caused a lot of confusion lately, especially because it’s the tablet version of Windows 8 that doesn’t support desktop apps.
Surprisingly, more than five months after both Windows 8 and Windows RT saw daylight, some retailers selling the two products still can’t make the difference between the desktop and the tablet versions of the operating system, thus causing more confusion among customers.
A report by PC Pro shows some of the Windows RT devices that are mistakenly listed by retailers as Windows 8-compatible, even though we all know that desktop applications are not supported.
The Samsung Ativ Tab RT and the Dell XPS 10, both sold by Argos, as well as the Asus VivoTab listed on Tesco’s website, all are running Windows RT, but are promoted as Windows 8 devices.
One of the problems, on the other hand, is that these retailers do not offer any clarification to their buyers, so some inexperienced customers might be tricked into believing that Windows RT is actually a full-featured version of Windows 8, but modified to work on tablets.
The Samsung ATIV Tab RT, for example, comes with absolutely no mention regarding the operating system in the product description section, so the wrong title can easily make people believe that they’re actually buying a Windows 8 device.
While some of the retailers have promised to solve the problem by changing the devices’ names or, at least, to publish a clarification on the product description page, others don’t seem to care very much about it, even though it’s pretty clear that such a mistake is clearly affecting Microsoft’s image as well.
The Redmond-based technology is yet to release a statement on the matter, but we’ve contacted the company for a word on this, so we’ll update the article when and if we receive an answer.