My first impression, on what they have revealed so far, is that it looks absolutely amazing. Both built in kickstand and keyboard accessory are great. If the price is right I will most likely be picking this up in the fall.

It annoys me how windows is trying to play catch up with mac by trying to copy everything they do but a year or two after it comes out. First metro interfaces (which are great for tablets only) and now taking more control of their production line from start to finish, just like apple?

I have actually liked Windows products for a long time, before they started hopping on the bandwagon. Between forcing Origin and other poorly social media onto people who buy their products as opposed to trying to improve the quality or value of their current products.

Sorry I am just bitter about how much crap they try to make current customers use that are unnecessary

I have no real interest in a pure tablet like the surface, but an Asus Transformer Prime-like device running Windows 8 will almost certainly be my next computer.

This is great and all but there is absolutely no information about this thing? :S

They are trying to build a hype but give it a week or 2 and everyone is going to forget about it and when the actual release comes about it will be only the niche market that is actually excited about it.


Other than that it looks pretty cool, but in the end its all going to come down to specs and their App offerings.

It is going to be a long time before any one tablet is going to be able to catch up with the iPad. If the iPad were a tad bit cheaper it would be the perfect tablet.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

I have no real interest in a pure tablet like the surface, but an Asus Transformer Prime-like device running Windows 8 will almost certainly be my next computer.

That is what my plan for my next laptop, but I may stick to android depending on the price when I do buy one. Getting free open office for android is easy, and besides that having the touchscreen would be great for engineering courses when taking notes.

Asus Zenbook anyone ?

I think, in Metro's defense I should remind that in case of cell phones, a single core processor running Windows Phone 7 is as responsive as a quad core Android phone. So think about it, Microsoft has now everything to deliver same comfortable experience of an iPad with abilities of a Windows 7 tablet, but way cheaper.

It annoys me how windows is trying to play catch up with mac by trying to copy everything they do but a year or two after it comes out. First metro interfaces (which are great for tablets only) and now taking more control of their production line from start to finish, just like apple?

Ok, now so we are clear Apple did not create the first tablet computer, those have been out there for the longest time.

Originally Posted by TheBrickWall

Asus Zenbook anyone ?

Defininately, except for costing like a grand and a half with taxes..

I've heard that it runs photoshop. D:
I wish they'd work together with wacom and produce a screen with the same level of pen pressure as wacom's cintiq line. microsoft would potentially make millions, based on the niche market for graphic designers, photographers and especially digital artists.

Originally Posted by RyanC

Defininately, except for costing like a grand and a half with taxes..

It blows my mind that having good design and solid materials actually costs money too... back to 10 pound gaming computers, with fans that sound like lawnmowers, and cheap plastic constuction I guess

Originally Posted by Alexmahone

Why not? Not that I've used it, but I've heard it's quite popular with computer geeks.

Something being popular amongst computer geeks does not instantly qualify a UI as being "friendly", in fact I'd go as far as to say that it means it probably isn't user friendly.

Between forcing Origin and other poorly social media onto people who buy their products as opposed to trying to improve the quality or value of their current products.

In regards to this, are you referring to EA's Origin Client? If so, that's definitely not Microsoft.

I think that tablet looks pretty slick, and actually useful for something. I haven't paid for a tablet yet because I found them all lacking, now that I see I fully functioning OS that I could probably get some productivity out of, I might spend on it, assuming Surface comes out in the next 2 years >.>

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

I have no real interest in a pure tablet like the surface, but an Asus Transformer Prime-like device running Windows 8 will almost certainly be my next computer.

I'm not sure I get what you are saying, I'm pretty sure surface has a desktop interface which lets you use it like a computer (it is Win 8 after all), that in combination with a cover-to-keyboard and a retractable kickstand, how is this that different from what you are expecting out of Transformer Prime? Its more of an Ultrabook than a tablet to be perfectly honest.

Originally Posted by Twinkle

now so we are clear Apple did not create the first tablet computer, those have been out there for the longest time.

Of course, I was aware of that. I am more talking about recently (like past 5 or 10 years) and is why I had a positive outlook on them for the longest time, since I am usually a few years behind on technology since I wait till it is a bit cheaper in most cases. All the new "innovations" are copied off other companies, but there is no doubt other companies did that to Microsoft in the other company's early days

In regards to this, are you referring to EA's Origin Client? If so, that's definitely not Microsoft.

Sorry your right, my mistake. I meant Games for Windows Live. It took me half hour to start Sector 8 (I think, either that or another game) since it refused to allow me to play without signing up for a new account, which I didn't want since I have slow internet with little bandwidth.

Originally Posted by newbo

I'm not sure I get what you are saying, I'm pretty sure surface has a desktop interface which lets you use it like a computer (it is Win 8 after all), that in combination with a cover-to-keyboard and a retractable kickstand, how is this that different from what you are expecting out of Transformer Prime? Its more of an Ultrabook than a tablet to be perfectly honest.

The larger base houses a battery that nearly doubles the battery life of the unit, has an excellent keyboard with a decent amount of key travel, has a nice track pad, is large enough to stabilize the unit on a lap, has additional ports, and can be used for interesting feature like housing a discrete GPU.

The surface is a tablet with a cover that doubles as a so-so keyboard, I want a laptop with a detachable screen. They're similar in concept, but one is meant to be used as a tablet first and a makeshift laptop when needed (Surface) the other is functionally a laptop with the ability to be used as a tablet.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

The larger base houses a battery that nearly doubles the battery life of the unit, has an excellent keyboard with a decent amount of key travel, has a nice track pad, is large enough to stabilize the unit on a lap, has additional ports, and can be used for interesting feature like housing a discrete GPU.

The surface is a tablet with a cover that doubles as a so-so keyboard, I want a laptop with a detachable screen. They're similar in concept, but one is meant to be used as a tablet first and a makeshift laptop when needed (Surface) the other is functionally a laptop with the ability to be used as a tablet.

A couple of things though, we don't really know how long the battery on the surface will last currently, and there is another keyboard you can use instead of the default one that also comes with a trackpad. I'd also hold off judgement on the stability of surface before people get to actually use it, from what I could see, it seems like it would have no problems being on my lap, especially with the sturdier keyboard attachment. The surface also has USB 3.0 ports, and hosts an intel core i5 (however the idea of a discrete GPU on a tablet does intrigue me). And I recall reading somewhere that they managed to reduce the input delay to something like 1 ms. Although I cannot be sure of how useful Surface will be I reserve my judgement for its release, perhaps you are too quick to dismiss the Surface, who knows, you might be surprised.