[markbot]

So, I’ve been playing around with the Microsoft Surface RT since yesterday and can satisfyingly say that it’s a great device that fulfills its promise as a tablet for both work and play. The real star is the O/S. “Live tiles” are so much better than boring icons, a metaphor that has been around for 20 years without much change. Windows RT is a leap forward beyond both iOS and Android in several respects. One of the first things you will realize is that RT is a full blown desktop operating system…but has a touch interface that works smoothly on a tablet form factor and gets 9 hrs of battery life (not as good as the iPad but it gets the job done). After using the Surface, I found my iPhone to be very restricting because Windows 8/RT has so many natural gestures that give you full command of the computing environment. The iPad is just a large and powerful iPod Touch, isn’t it? On the other hand, the Surface RT is an ARM PC in a tablet form factor with a touch optimized O/S.

The hardware in tablets is so powerful, doubling each year,...why not give them the tools to be productive also? This is exactly what MSFT did with the Surface. It is wide so you can naturally use their innovative keyboard/cover that works great. It has MS Office....indistinguishable from the desktop version. It works the same, except for VBA as far as I can tell....it's completely compatible with the other versions too. There's a full USB port that is compatible with legacy devices, like mice. The drivers are apparently Windows drivers because I immediately saw my printer on the network and can also access my desktop computer files via the HomeGroup.