A short encounter with the Microsoft Surface RT

I had a chance over the last two days to spend some real life time with the Microsoft Surface RT. I got a good feel for the product and pairing that with what I know about Windows 8 I feel confident enough to write up some impressions.

The Surface is a PC, which is impressive considering what is inside. It’s definitely not any normal PC, but a Windows PC nonetheless. On top of that I must say it is the best notebook I have ever used. It’s light, it has a touch screen, it makes no noise and it runs for about 10 hours, what more can you ask for. Oh, and it runs the latest version of Windows.

Playing around with the Surface I find myself seeing Windows 8 in a new light. I have been using Windows 8 primary with a mouse and no touch screen. I had an idea of what Windows 8 would feel like on a touch screen, since I have had short encounters with other Windows 8 touch units. The Surface makes it all come together, and on it Windows 8 just makes perfect sense.

The Surface I had access to came with the TouchCover. The TouchCover is the perfect accessory for the Surface. I found myself using it just as much for typing as flipped to the back, using the Surface in stable mode. Coming from the iPad with the Ultra-thin Logitech keyboard, that is a new feeling. I almost never unhook the iPad from the keyboard, but leave it connected and docked. Using the Surface, the fact that the TouchCover is connected in the way it is, turning from PC mode to tablet mode is so easy that I find myself doing it constantly with no effort.

Talking about the TouchCover, it is surprisingly good to type on. I had feared that it would be too close to typing on a screen and that I would just hate it. It’s not. It’s no way as good as a real keyboard, but so much better than typing on the screen. I have not tried the TypeCover, but I’m sure I would like that a lot better. I’m not sure that I would welcome the added weight and thickness. The Surface is no lightweight. It feels heavier than the iPad, because the unit is long and not square as the iPad. This does change when adding the TouchCover because the Ultra-thin keyboard is heavy compared to the TouchCover.

I have used Windows 8 on Atom and Core2 Duo platforms and the ‘Metro’ apps an equally slow on Windows RT as well. It seems somehow that apps built for Windows 8 UI are just slow. Slow to start, slow to refresh, slow to draw information from the net, slow to reload when left for some other app, and so on. The processor running the show seems to make no difference. Tegra3, Atom, Core none of them does the job very well. The only processor type I have not tried for a longer time period I the Core iX series, but it seems excessive that basic apps like the Windows 8 apps should need that much power to run well.

All in all I came away very impressed by the Surface. I truly love the form factor, the screen, the TouchCover and Windows RT is impressive. I would, if I had more time with the Surface, find the current lack of apps annoying, but I know that it’s just a question of time. There is lots of new apps in the Windows Store every day, and more and more big apps are getting Windows 8 versions. The Surface has a lot to offer, and it does many of the things that the iPad does not, but for me it does offer up one major problem.

I would feel just weird dragging along both a work notebook and a Surface. They are just too similar that it would seems pointless. Carrying an iPad along with a work PC seems okay, since they solve very different tasks. If I ever got myself a Surface I would want to use as my only PC. It’s powerful enough to do the tasks, it’s flexible enough to play the role, and it has Office to back it all up. I truly want the Microsoft Surface RT.


P.S. This post in typed out on the TouchCover and the experience is really okay.

Windows 8 in a tablet world - The love of the IT department

Windows 8 running Excel and a Twitter app

Since Windows 8 was shown at D9 about a month ago I have been wondering where it could take Microsoft and the Windows platform after its release. The way Microsoft have gone about designing Windows 8 there is no dought that they have mobility in mind. That is not surprising since they don't really have a stake in the still growing tablet marked. Tablets are hot right now and tablets are creeping in on one of Microsoft's main markets, the business market.



There are four major operating systems driving today's tablets. iOS is by far the biggest followed by a distant second, Android. The two others are QNX - RIM PlayBook, and WebOS - HP TouchPad. Mabye with the exception of QNX the available tablet OS’s do not have the security build in to let them become an integrated part of almost any larger corporate network. This is a constant annoyance for both the employee and the IT department. The employee sees the advantages of the tablet in a corporate setting and often brings their own iPad’s to work. That puts pressure on the IT department to open up the corporate network to allow the iPad to be used beyond the standard mail and calender sync. This in turn forces the IT department to either open up the network to an insecure and non manageable tablet OS or disappoint a large part of the work force. Neither is very good for any company in the long run
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Windows 8 is build on the Windows 7 platform and have an added layer that is inspired by the Metro interface from Windows Phone. If you were to put Windows 8 on hardware, like say the Asus Transformer with a quad core ARM processor, you would have a perfectly fine tablet, that could easily be used as a notebook on your corporate network. Due to the Metro interface on top it will give you the ease of use that you expect from a tablet, but with the deep integration that is known from Windows.



But are Apple, Google, RIM or HP really going to let Microsoft get in the tablet game that easy? Well Apple does not seem to want to address the needs of the corporate market. They seem to be content with making a great product, mainly for the retail market. Google is all about the cloud, and while this might be the future, there is still a lot of companies that do not want to move their data to cloud just yet. RIM have a good hold on the corporate market, but their phones are starting to look outdated and compared to the latest iPhone or Android phone it just looks like RIM is at the end of their rope. The PlayBook is build on a different OS than the phones and it does not have the securities and deep integration that the BlackBerry OS have. WebOS might be a fine OS, but with the lack of products and apps out there I do not see how is can ever become a real thread to Windows.



So that brings us back to Windows 8. The more I look at it, and the more I look at what type of hardware will be available when Windows 8 hits the markets, the more I see the logic in what Windows 8 is going to be. With Windows 8 Microsoft is not going for the retail market, but they are betting that with the promise of a Windows 7 compatible platform, with a Windows Phone like user interface, the IT departments around the world will embrace Windows 8, and start supplying the corporate work force with Windows 8 based hardware.



With Windows Phone getting the full support from Nokia, and other of the top hardware builders in the market today, and companies like Asus and Acer already promising to build tablets, and everybody else building notebooks, with Windows 8, Microsoft is about to have an ecosystem that is going to be very strong an look very appealing to the corporate players. They will have the mail, calendar and collaboration platform of choice. They will have the apps to make the Metro interface, both on Windows Phone an Windows 8, look interesting enough to bring the average user in. They will, like they have done in the past, make sure that they offer just enough to grab the focus of the IT departments, while still putting enough focus on fun and games to keep the retail market happy. I believe that with Windows 8, Microsoft might just have done it again.