11-13-2012, 03:22 PM
so I did my best 16 year old impression and headed to the mall to spend some time playing with new toys this weekend
Surface: hardware VERY impressive. built like a tank, crams in lots of stuff like built in stand, usb, etc and still manages to be thin and handy. The screen surprised me, dont listen to the apple fanbois, when a screen is this sharp and bright the number of pixels isnt relevant.
floppy keyboard cover : touch typing right away, its very nice to be able to have a touchpad and cursor when you want it. the cover is a hair bigger than the tablet itself all around which looks slightly unfinished.
win RT - intuitive and fresh looking, easy to use, live tiles are great. could be more efficient with screen space, takes more scrolling than it should. needs a back button like win phone 8 has
Im still not spending $600 for a tablet, but if this thing was $400 or less I would own one right now.
nokia 920 / win phone 8
I had just come from checking out the new (underwhelming) verizon andrioid phones and i stopped in the at&t store to check this out. I liked it a lot, the metro tiles UI were very good in the surface, but you can tell it was made for a phone. the os is smooth and fast and very good at giving you the information you want at first glance. id love to try it out, but im so dang invested in the android ecosystem i probably wont. the 920 itself was a little chunky for my tastes but everything about it from the screen to the camera was superb.
touchscreen ultrabooks: will be my next laptop. a touchscreen combined with win 8 is a game changer when it comes to laptops. very well done, and some were as cheap as $500 msrp.
interesting anecdotal observations: the microsoft store was packed, and the apple store was almost empty. in the at&t store there was a crowd around the win8 phones.
in the microsoft store all the surfaces were set up like laptops at first glance. if MS wants these things to catch on, they are going to have to market them as the new hotness (tablets) not old news (laptops)
Surface: hardware VERY impressive. built like a tank, crams in lots of stuff like built in stand, usb, etc and still manages to be thin and handy. The screen surprised me, dont listen to the apple fanbois, when a screen is this sharp and bright the number of pixels isnt relevant.
floppy keyboard cover : touch typing right away, its very nice to be able to have a touchpad and cursor when you want it. the cover is a hair bigger than the tablet itself all around which looks slightly unfinished.
win RT - intuitive and fresh looking, easy to use, live tiles are great. could be more efficient with screen space, takes more scrolling than it should. needs a back button like win phone 8 has
Im still not spending $600 for a tablet, but if this thing was $400 or less I would own one right now.
nokia 920 / win phone 8
I had just come from checking out the new (underwhelming) verizon andrioid phones and i stopped in the at&t store to check this out. I liked it a lot, the metro tiles UI were very good in the surface, but you can tell it was made for a phone. the os is smooth and fast and very good at giving you the information you want at first glance. id love to try it out, but im so dang invested in the android ecosystem i probably wont. the 920 itself was a little chunky for my tastes but everything about it from the screen to the camera was superb.
touchscreen ultrabooks: will be my next laptop. a touchscreen combined with win 8 is a game changer when it comes to laptops. very well done, and some were as cheap as $500 msrp.
interesting anecdotal observations: the microsoft store was packed, and the apple store was almost empty. in the at&t store there was a crowd around the win8 phones.
in the microsoft store all the surfaces were set up like laptops at first glance. if MS wants these things to catch on, they are going to have to market them as the new hotness (tablets) not old news (laptops)