So as part of my looking for a tablet that could really be used for business I decided to give the Microsoft Surface RT a whirl.

I read the mixed reviews, many adamantly against the Windows 8 interface and then had a walk through of the Surface at a Microsoft pop-up demo site.  I was impressed.

So here is my story:

I literally stepped off of a plane (for a meeting in NC the next day), drove to a Microsoft Store and plunked down the $570 give or take it took to buy the Surface and the keyboard (which is sold separately — Microsoft obviously wants to be on a fair footing when being compared to an iPad which doesn’t come with a keyboard so they make you buy it separately).  First of all those cutesy multi colored keyboards you see on all of the commercials aren’t the only options, they had a more typist orientated one with real (chicklet) keys (the colored keyboards are flat and you really don’t get tactile feedback — well more than a flat screen I suppose but not anything I’d want to live off of).

I bought the black keyboard the snaps to the Surface and off to the hotel I went to plug it in for a charge and then go out to dinner.

Microsoft’s certainly got the packaging and “go live” routine down pat. Dare I say it?  It’s actually cool.  The unit was already charged and upon turning it on it asked me for my any Microsoft logon (I have a Hotmail address but I forgot the password — it graciously walked me through a recover password routine that didn’t seem to take me outside the normal set up process…. it was very smooth).  It asked me a few questions, did some screen gimmicks and in about 5 minutes my surface was ready to rock and roll. If you want to share with someone else you just create a separate user account, no sweat, no confusion.  Here’s an added bonus:  the Surface RT is automatically encrypted out of the box — if someone steals it they’re not getting your data without your password (so no sticky notes!).

The next day I took my surface (NOT my laptop) to my meeting and had access to my email, calendar, and favorite note taking application (evernote).  I was about 70% proficient on the user interface (really more like 95% but a couple of the swipes I kept doing wrong out of habit so I consider that a negative on me).  The user interface is well designed and works very well. BUT IT IS NOT INTUITIVE. If you don’t get 5 minutes worth of instruction you will garner tens of hours of hateful glaring at the screen.

As time has gone on I’ve been extremely impressed with the battery life (I get through a work day), the usability and the new interface which in a work environment is actually a little fun.  Make no mistake, this is a tablet but it also works quite well as a light duty laptop — a very light laptop at that!

I’ve read lots of negative reviews on the surface and my first opinion is:  the reviewers for the most part, don’t get it.  If you’re looking for a toy this is not it.  Buy an iPad, buy an Android tablet.  There are more apps to play with and more things to do.  If you’re looking for a work machine that’s portable, let’s you actually do work and has some play abilities (movies, books, music, etc.) then this is the machine. Period.  For the same price as an iPad I get a tablet WITH MICROSOFT OFFICE 2013 (sans Outlook). That’s like a $300 freebie. I don’t see the reviewers really noting this.

Don’t misunderstand, this is the full version of Office so when someone e-mails you a spreadsheet you’re not in view only mode, or going to a web interface or able to see some-of-it-but-its-not-quite-right because it’s not really MS Office that’s viewing it — nope, this is the fully version and you’re able to edit / view / do graphics and in fact do just about everything you could do on your regular laptop.

Is it as fast as a laptop?  No, but to be honest I didn’t see that as a show stopper — or even anything that really impacted me (gamers won’t like it though).  Between instant on and what I saw as flawless WiFi connectivity where I normally would have been waiting for my laptop to book and logon, I was already in and productive on my Surface (this doesn’t not include a 4G card built in only WiFi — at first I thought that was a negative but then on the other hand, I pay for 4G on my phone, why do I want to pay the phone company for another account just for my tablet?  I hook my tablet to my phone when I need to and it works fine).

Are there as many apps?  Well, no — but the average knowledge-worker probably lives in e-mail, web surfing, calendar/contacts and Office.  That’s about 90% of most people’s daily computer interactions.  I consider myself a power user and with the exception of one app, I found all of my apps had a Microsoft Surface counterpart.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Another surprise is how much I really like the new Internet Explorer.  I was a FireFox guy but I have to admit, this has almost won me over (negative:  you can’t change the search engine or if you can I haven’t figured out how yet — and I don’t like Bing).

See my next blog about the Metro, er sorry, “Modern” Windows 8 interface and how it both blows regular Windows away and at the same time changes your machine from a Windows machine to a Window machine…..