There are so many ideas that could have been done...

A serious investment in flexible display and Kinect like controls when used at home, the office, or other setting. Though simple, one of those could have made a game changer. They didn't.

Everyone is copying/modeling another person's design. No innovation is going into these tablets as far as I can see.

Oh sure, there may be some innovation. The complete lack of jaw dropping innovation makes the current tablet market fall on its knees. They're popular now, but if it is anything like the Netbook drop, 2 - 3 years from now people will be tired of the tablet.

Went to the Microsoft Store the other day and played with a Surface tablet (I have a toddler so I regularly go for walks with him at the nearby mall).

It's pretty. That's about it. It's not super-intuitive. For example, I wanted to see what apps were available. I found the Store icon, clicked on it, and it took me to the store. So far so good.

I could not figure out how to search. At all. There was no search icon. Touching the edges of the screen did nothing. If I typed with the hardware keyboard, it would automatically start searching, but if I have to bring a hardware keyboard with me everywhere then I may as well get a laptop.

Also, the app selection is pretty poor. I'm surprised they didn't make the Surface compatible with Windows Phone - it's the same processor architecture so a software compatibilty layer shouldn't have been too much of a hassle.

olapbill: RevCarter: theurge14: RevCarter: arcas: The problem is it's not entirely clear what Surface aims to be. It's sized like a tablet, has a touch interface like a tablet, and has an OS that seems better-suited for tablets than for traditional desktops/laptops so it's only natural that it's going to be compared to other tablets. If Microsoft wants to establish Surface as something more than just another tablet, they're going to have to come up with some sort of application where Surface excels but where traditional tablets and touchscreen laptops fall short. I'm not convinced they'll be able to do it seeing how tablet-like Surface appears to be.

Like Microsoft Office?

Are people really clamoring to work on Excel sheets on their tablet?

I am.

Likewise. If I can get the stuff done I need to on the device easily, I'm all over it.

Me too. If I could run Office, Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator and had the ability to single-pixel control, I'd look at a tablet.

roflmaonow: We need a poll on FARK to see the breakdown of OS/Tech company allegiances are. At work I have a surprisingly good number of people who are OS neutral and having conversations regarding each unique OS with it's good or bad features is always a good discussion. I learn so much.

Most places online I read there just seems to be a bickering of MS vs. Apple with the occasional Linux user.

I've been aligned against Apple since the early to mid-80s - mostly because of price, their "no, this is what you want" marketing and their followers. Nothing much has changed on that front. I have admired their product execution in most cases, both hardware and software, but not enough to pay them for it.

I started as a happy Microsoft user back in the C/PM (Macro-80 assembler) and Atari (BASIC) days and kind of admired the image of a college dropout nerd helping to shape an emerging market. My admiration waned with Windows 9x and monopolistic, extortive behavior. From a technical and user viewpoint I liked NT, but they made (probably had to) some big technical/security compromises by folding drivers in too closely to ring 0. They went thoroughly off the rails with Vista - no farking clue how that could happen so badly. They seem to have pulled their technical shiat together since then, though I haven't had any chance nor much desire to try out 8 yet.

In the last decade, I've become most strongly aligned with Linux. Partly because it's $free, more because it's Free and mostly because it fits the kind of shiat I like to mess with. I use it at work in servers and embedded systems. I use it at home in my desktops, my laptops and netbooks. My kids use it in the same. I use it for home automation and security. I use it (with realtime extensions) in hobby automation projects. I use it with GNU Radio to do some really cool shiat with SDR hardware. Android seems to work fine for consumer stuff, I'd choose it over Apple, but meh, I'm no fanboy. And finally, Linus is a guy I can actually admire - super no-nonsense, alpha nerd who'll tell you what he thinks and why. But then he can also be convinced, slowly sometimes and always by demonstration, to accept new directions; two prime examples being real time kernel features and Android itself.

ManOfTeal: If you go in already having a benchmark. How can you be objective?
 
Seriously. And that goes for all those car reviewers who have driven another car before. And book reviewers who have read a book before. And music reviewers who have listened to music before.

Terrible article.

As for the rest of you, please actually spend time on something if you're going to make comments. Reviews only take you so far and are usually a product placement or "nothing is better than Apple, here's another example of crappy competition"

Use the hardware, try it out... then make a reasonable opinion to share.

I have experienced all the things that guy complained about. On an iPad. So, there's that.

Don't know a thing about Surface... I just know that the commercials are beyond ridiculous. Trying waaaaaaaaaay to hard to be hip.

/ster