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Old 10-30-2012, 08:52 PM   #16
mgmueller
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Posts: 3,308
Karma: 13024950
Join Date: Nov 2008
Location: Augsburg (near Munich), Germany
Device: 26 Readers, 44 Tablets
Momentary verdict after ca. 5 hours of usage

Pros:
Surprisingly smooth keyboard. The touch cover is highly efficient and needs only little pressure. I'd fear way more ruggedness.

Very consistent OS. You find all menus in they very same place, all touch gestures in all apps are the same.

Great multi-tasking. You can place 2 apps next to each other and freely divide the space between the 2. Or you can swipe between the various screens/apps.

Good battery life. I've got 56% left after maybe 4 hours of usage. I guess it should be in the range of 10+ hours.

Kindle and Kobo apps from the very beginning! Love it!

Neutral:
The Design is stylish enough. You probably can compare it best to Motorola Xoom 1. Still: There are cooler and nicer tablets out there.

Word/Excel/PowerPoint/OneNote 2013 are included, but Outlook is missing.
Well, it's included for free. Still...

Not so positive:
The back of my tablet has some minor "bumps" in the material.
Probably from casting the metal.
I can feel them when holding the tablet and I'm a bit worried, those slight imperfections might tear off over time and leave a scratch.

It was well known, but still the lack of apps is a bit unpleasant. With Microsoft backing it, we probably don't have to expect the same fate as with BlackBerry PlayBook (one of the best tablets with one of the best OSs, but doomed from the beginning due to lack of 3rd party apps).

No GPS. In the past, GPS usually had been bundled with 3G tablets only. But in the meantime, GPS to me more or less is some kind of standard. No buggy, without 3G I wouldn't use Navigon and other apps anyway. Still, would have been nice, especially considering the great Bing maps.

Less intuitive than iOS or Android. And I don't see a user guide. Neither in print, nor as a PDF (or whatever format) file on the tablet.
It's kind of fun, to simply test the various touch gestures. But I'm asking myself, how many great features I didn't discover yet due to lack of documentation.

Momentary summary:
Whether one considers it great or not: It definitely is the most "exotic" of all tablets. Android and iOS are quite similar and actually often seem to be "inspired" by each other.
Surface RT is a whole new breed. And it's actually kind of a beast.
I had been worried to get some kind of a "tuned up Windows phone". But actually it's very close to a full blown Windows notebook. If only my main apps would be available already...
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