Is Audio Supported Over HDMI?

My apologies, that comment must have been posted as I was typing. Think of it this way: computers take a lot longer to design than accessories. The surface was probably in the works for many years before it was announced (watch the videos where the show the amount of detail behind every aspect of every detail). The power cover was released a year after the RT. Even if there was a little overlap between the development of the two, it isn't that easy to just switch out components of a tablet you've been designing and engineering for years; not to mention finding the right manufacturers and allowing them to allocate all materials for production. Thats like saying apple should have built a lightning connector like port into the dock connector (IMO). Don't you think you're being a little unfair about this one? I did agree with you on the miracast, but I still think there had to be a reason for its omission (like raw power). BTW, surface was made to be a premium product to specifically target the iPad; this was made apparent by some MS execs, hence why it was priced similar to the iPad. Please don't compare it to the $99 android tabs, as the premium android tabs were also around $500 for 16GB storage. They have OEMs to race to the bottom on tabs, same as google.

I misunderstood your skydrive point, but I have never, nor have I ever heard of anyone, had the need for this (are you sure this was possible prior to the 8.1 update?). Not saying it can't useful, but useless to me. See how anecdotes work? The surface RT is last gen, get over it. Everything gets renewed with new benefits that the old gen doesn't get, this is nothing new in the business world and EVERY company does it. Why would they incentive a product that is no longer in production? It makes zero financial sense. You got what you paid for, they didn't hide anything during the time of purchase. You can't blame them for new developments in a newer gen of product; phones do this every few months. And again, the 200GB is for 2 years, not permanent. Its like saying, buy our latest product and get our services for free for a little bit. And again, all companies do this. BTW $100 is a firesale like the HP touchpad a few months after release, $150 price cut after the new gen is out a year later is called sensible pricing and is done by, you guessed it, every company.

Honestly, I've read through this entire thread and even just looked at your comments on this page and on page 5, you did not mention anything about the 100GB coming with chromebook. I work in healthcare and graduate education, and two of our most important tools are office and outlook. Skydrive has recently also come to be important due to using these services, but I have no reason to sync my personal skydrive to my work one. If I need access to my work files, there are tons of more secure ways to access them. If I have them an my email or skydrive, I can edit them with office web apps or just click edit in desktop office and it instantly opens in the desktop and autosaves when I close it. I don't know why you make it sound like a process, it isn't even any extra clicks. Syncing a dropbox to another cloud drive? Sorry, this would never get past IT where I work. But again, anecdotal examples are anecdotal; both yours and mine.

I have no experience with chromecast (all I've read were reviews which were quite a bit less than favorable), so I can give you the benefit of the doubt there. But we are all here because we are looking for a solution to this problem and even in my previous post I agreed with you on this point. But again, you knew when buying the surface that it didn't support miracast; why would you buy a product you think might gain some functionality you need in the future? I still hold that my surface is more productive for me, but then we go back to how anecdotal evidence works. No product can be designed for everyone, which is why we have choices. Sounds to me like a surface RT isn't for you based on those very specific needs. If you want something windows based though, might I suggest a comparably priced bay trail tablet or maybe a surface pro (depending on budget) to give you the flexibility you need.

Lol, again I said I too was frustrated with the issue at hand, which is why I am posting here. I feel like we're going in circles here. While I agree that I dislike some changes with 8.1, overall it is a large improvement over 8 IMO. I actually really appreciate having outlook, but that wasn't anywhere near the only change. But since my friend's lumia 2520 and another's dell RT tab works with audio on 8.1 via hdmi, I'm still inclined to believe this is a surface issue; but I guess it could all be a fluke. I hope they're reading our banter and finally get this fixed =D

Try reading my reply to that gentleman before about the power cover. Premium product, priced double of android competition. No way power cover was in the works to be designed. A little forward thinking when designing the original instead of planned obsolescence. You can throw in Miracast support as well when tegra 3 and 8.1 support it. ...enough said.

SkyDrive. you missed the whole point with how they are locking down skydrive so you can't even sync across multiple cloud storages. It was the ability to have folders inside folders so multiple clouds would sync. So considering no companies I know or work with use SkyDrive. No person I know or work with uses SkyDrive. Paying for cloud storage I already pay for elsewhere makes zero sense because a company restricts how the skydrive folder is used and they can't convince major companies to support windows 8.x. 7gb doesn't scratch the surface and to give 200gb to Surface 2 owners and nothing to Surface RT owners who paid a premium for a device that had fire sales all over the net is just wrong. Original Surface owners deserve it more. They were the guinea pigs for it all.

And did you miss the my chroembook comments about coming with 100gb? I mentioned I can sync my drobpox with Drive so my dropbox syncs to my chromebook. So more useful than RT? for business? yes. I take a hit on the Office apps, but I gain having synced access to my entire work folder. Which tradeoff do you think is more productive? Real Office but you have to download, save and upload any time you have to work with work files? You must have some warped sense of productivity.

I can also take my Chromecast along and plug it into any flat screen and toss work videos and guides  in the chromebrowser and cast them to the screen with audio. My SRT is useless for this purpose since I can't use miracast, and I don't have any sound when connected to hdmi. So which is more productive again?

Taking out frustrations? Yes, of course. It's one little thing after the other. And things that did or could work don't work after the 8.1 update. But I have outlook now. Great, something I don't use anyway.