Microsoft surface convertible tablet - anyone have any experience of them?

[MagratGarlik]

Hi

I have a laptop, which has just died and I have a Nexus tablet, which is excellent for surfing the internet, mail, fb etc, but not really suitable for doing any work on. I'm looking for something which will replace my laptop, but is more portable as my work involves lots of travelling. I need something which is ultra-portable, will display PowerPoint files, word documents etc properly (a bit hit and miss on the Nexus), but something which doesn't take an age to start up, unlike my laptop.

I've been looking at the Microsoft Surface convertible tablet, which seems to fit the bill, but I've never seen one in RL and I don't know anyone who owns one.

So, does anyone know anything about them, good or bad?

Thanks

There are two main versions - the Surface RT and the Surface Pro.

The Surface RT runs a special cut-down and very quirky version of Windows. The bonus is that it's cheaper, lighter and has a good battery life as Windows RT was built to run well on this kind of machine. The downside is that you'll struggle to find many applications that will run on it. You can get a (cut-down) version of Microsoft Office that works on it, and there are a few other apps written for Windows RT, but they're rare.

The Surface RT has been an immense sales disaster for Microsoft so the future of it and its special version of Windows is very much in doubt. If you can buy one really cheap and it does everything you need today while appreciating it might not have much of a future then it might be worth it.

By contrast the Surface Pro is a "proper" Windows 8 PC that happens to be in a tablet form. As it has to have everything needed to be a PC (more memory, more storage, faster processor etc etc etc) it's bigger, heavier and more expensive than the Surface RT. It's not bad as a PC - Windows 8 seems to work better on a touchscreen device like the Surface Pro than it does on conventional PCs - but many conventional Windows applications just aren't built for easy use with touchscreens. The most recent version of Office works well on it. If you do anything artistic then get the optional pen to go with it - it works really well.

There are strong rumours that there will be an updated Surface Pro coming out in the next couple of months. This will likely result in price drops for the original Surface Pro. Microsoft is desperate for these things to take off but so far they've not proved very popular.

Start-up times for Windows 8 on Surface Pro are no better or worse than start-up times for Windows 8 on any modern laptop that uses SSD for storage. The speed comes from Windows 8 and the SSD storage rather than the Surface Pro.

Does that help?

That's very helpful, thanks.

So, in terms of value for money, a netbook with touchscreen capability may be better than the surface tablets?

Don't bother with Windows RT. My mate bought one...it's rubbish.

If it is normal Windows 8 then fine. If it is Windows 8 RT then forget it.

Thanks. So, if I go down that route is HAS to be the Pro version, I guess (which is loads more expensive - for a reason, by the looks of it!)

Correct. But at least you'd be able to use the damn thing.

You can't install normal apps on RT, has to be 'special' apps designed for RT. And because no-one has bought any, no-one it's writing apps.

My mate now has a nice looking tablet but can't install anything useful nor can he print cos no-one has written drivers for it....

Thanks, that is very helpful.