Windows Surface Pro

Last year I had the opportunity to view and play around with the Windows Surface RT as I said its an awesome device, definitely a major threat to other tablet devices in the market. Whilst it was pretty good, the RT wasn't the range topper in the for the Surface. This is where the Pro comes in, a few weeks back I attended a presentation which showcased what the Surface Pro was capable of.

Firstly its size, the dimensions are pretty much the same as the RT apart from the thickness. It is a little less than double the thickness of the RT which isn't really that bad. Obviously with it being thicker the weight would increase but again, I've used tablets or slates that were heavier. The build quality like the RT is pretty good, the magnetic snap on keyboard works well and because its so thin one hardly notices it. 

One might get put off with the Pro by it being ticker and heavier but it is with good reason. The Pro is powered with an Intel CPU and is basically a fully functional ultrabook. If one has to compare it to any of the ultrabooks in its range, the Surface Pro would probably be better. Portability for many is a key factor and many with ultrabooks like myself often find the need to have a tablet when moving around, yet if one had a tablet, because its limited in many aspects they would find them self wanting a notebook/ ultrabook. 

The Windows Surface Pro provides the user with the best of both. It can be a hand held tablet when need be and if the occasion arises where you need to do work that requires a keyboard, within a matter of seconds you can setup the keyboard which doubles as a cover and open the stand at the back and you're good to go!

Now the Microsoft Surface isn't yet available in South Africa but as I learnt during my time at TechEd 2013, there are plans of it being introduced to the market in both the RT and Pro versions in the second quarter of the year. It will be interesting to see how the consumers react to this device, seeing that Apple has dominated the market especially with FNB's promotion of the iPad. Personally I would love to own one, Windows 8 does take some time to get used to but with the touch interface it works brilliantly.

MS Surface: first impressions

Last week Wednesday I was was invited to an open night hosted by immedia to showcase the latest tablet PC to hit the market, the much anticipated Microsoft Surface. Little was known about the device prior to its global launch on the 26th of October 2012, rumour has it that even the guys themself who worked on the Surface were split into different teams to work on different aspects of it. The overall product looks more than adequate to compete with the Apple iPad.

I'm not going to go in depth with this as I haven't had a chance to play with one long enough so this is going to be a very brief review on my first impressions of it. Firstly when one looks at it, the cover will catch you, the magnetic snap on cover doubles as a touch keyboard with a track pad and with the back stand it enables the user to use it as one would use a laptop. The build quality is really good, not that you'd expect anything less and the 10.6" screen resolution is remarkable. The touch interface is quite responsive and unlike other touch screen devices, you cant make out the finger print trace left on from all the touching.

The surface comes in 2 models, the 32gig and the 64gig and also 2 OS types, the standard being Windows 8 RT which is available on the models with the ARM CPU and Windows 8 Pro which is available on the models with the Intel CPU. The common asked question is, whats the difference? Well with the Windows 8 RT, the user is limited in terms of the type of programs he can install on the device, i.e your .exe files, thus limiting you to just the applications available to you from the store. You will still have a desktop option but that is purely for user preference. Windows 8 Pro on the other hand runs on the Intel CPU which allows the user to use the Surface like he would a laptop, installing programs as they please. That is the difference between the two in a nutshell.

I had the 32gig RT version to play around with for the evening, the Windows 8 interface is really user friendly and the live tiles gives it a very good visual appeal as to just having icons. The design of most of the apps are rather neat as they're minimized on the clutter and concentrate on just whats needed. The OS is what makes the device and Windows have done a brilliant job with 8, even the RT version has some pretty neat features like locking your search bar or media player to the side while doing other work. All Surface models come loaded with the latest version of office, so you can still view, edit or create documents on the go.

The downside to the Surface? Well I'm not really sure its a downside but it does not come with 3G/4G sim card slots, one can say with broadband getting more and more affordable one can foresee alot of Wifi hotspots becoming available but I think it will take SA a good 5-10 years to reach the level of Europe and the USA in terms of Wifi accessibility. It does however have a USB3 drive and if you have a 3G dongle, it can plug in and work...or so Im told otherwise if you own a Windows mobile phone or any other phone that can create a wifi hotspot, you can piggy back off your mobile phones data. Which makes sense, instead of having 2 sim cards (one for the phone and one for the tablet).

Overall I think its a brilliant device and for some it could replace their laptop, for real because you can actually do almost everything on it. The touch pad keyboard is excellent to use and the size is perfect to carry around. I held it under my arm for a long time and didn't feel uncomfortable, normally with some tablet devices the battery makes it very heavy but with this it was hardly noticeable. I think Windows have a real match winner with the Surface and with Windows 8 making waves through the market, it wouldn't be long since you see the sales of this beat that of the iPad. With regards to sales in SA, Microsoft SA have not released any information as yet but as soon as they do, I'll post all the details.

Windows 8

The 26th of October sees the official launch of Windows 8 to the world, the much awaiting operating system from Microsoft is a complete change to what we have been used to over the years from the software giant. If you recall my previous post on the Microsoft Device Update I did touch on Windows 8 and made it
known that it is very touch orientated. Seeing that most devices are now full touch screen, it only makes sense to integrate one of the most powerful OS's to suite.

The first obvious thing that you will realise about Windows 8 is that it doesn't have a desktop, well there is one along with a start bar but its located in one of the tiles. If you have used or seen a windows phone with Win7.5 or Win8 you would be used to this setup by now and it makes it much easier to scroll through to various items. I was supposed to attend the official launch on Thursday the 25th but due to work reasons I had to decline the offer but as soon as I can get more info on Win8 I will post it up.

Also rumoured to be launch is the Surface tablet, Microsoft's competitor to the Apple iPad. Now like any guy, I love my gadgets but I just didn't see the practicality the iPad had, this on the other hand is a different story, for starters it has USB3! So that's winning for me already, then there's the magnetic snap on keypad for when you need to type something fast, it also doubles up as a screen protector. It also has a built in stand. The prices were leaked last week and they seem pretty competitive, yes the standard models will be running a scaled down version of Windows 8, which they've called Windows 8 RT but it still looks like a good buy, cant wait to get my hands on one, maybe the powers at be can give me one ;)

Surface pricing *leaked