Impressions after prolonged use of Microsoft Surface RT
A few months ago, not that curiosity, or the desire to stand out from the gray crowd of iPad owners (although I myself was a part of it), encouraged me to buy a new item from Microsoft. Surface RT seemed extremely unusual and interesting device, which in my opinion was worthy of attention. Now, enough time has passed since the purchase to formulate an accurate opinion based on the real advantages and disadvantages of the device.
I actively used Surface, as the main tablet for work and leisure, almost every day. By work, I mean working with documents and mail, and by leisure, watching movies and reading news over morning coffee.
The first thing I did after buying the Surface itself was that I purchased the “Touch-Cover” keyboard case for it, since without it the tablet is absolutely useless. Using a desktop interface without a keyboard and touchpad (and especially an office suite) is simply painful. “Touch-Cover” proved to be quite average - it is more convenient to print on it than on the onscreen keyboard, since the keyboard does not occupy half of the screen when printing, and it is more tactile, but still the netbook is far from the convenience of the keyboard. In addition, after 2 months of use, the cover has worn heavily at the edges and bend near the connector. I would advise those who buy Surface not to choose “Touch-Cover”, but “Type-Cover” because of its greater convenience and reliability.
Let's go back to the tablet itself. The body is made of extremely pleasant-looking, but terribly deserted in practice metal. It did not wear out much after long use - there are practically no scratches. Unfortunately, this metal is heavily wrinkled during careless handling, so it’s better not to drop the Surface especially.
Tablet screen has a diagonal of 10.6 inches, as well as a wide frame. After Surface, the 9.7 and 10.1 inch tablets seem small and compact. Such a diagonal is a plus when working with a keyboard case, but when you have to keep Surface on weight, it seems too big. The “home” button and the camera’s peephole are also located on the front panel - the touch button has average responsiveness, and the camera is suitable only for Skype calls.
On the side faces of the tablet is an extremely rich set of interfaces. In addition to the headphone jack and microSD card slot on the left side, on the right side there is Micro HDMI and one of the main advantages of the Surface is a full USB port. Frankly, the opportunity to charge the smartphone from the tablet came to my taste. The battery on the iPhone is almost discharged before our eyes, and the ability to extend battery life by using a tablet is quite a useful option. In addition to the charging already mentioned, USB greatly simplifies the issue of transferring files to the device (I know, I know ... cloud services are our everything, but simple flash drives are so useful in certain situations), and the opportunity to watch a movie from an external hard drive is also very pleasant. I almost forgot to mention one huge drawback of this product from MS - on the side edges are stereo speakers, which sound just disgusting. They are quieter than the dynamics of any tablet I've tried in recent times.
I will dwell more on the soft component of the device. As you know, this version of Surface does not work on a full-fledged version of Windows 8, but on a mobile tablet Windows RT. On RT, the only significant difference from the older version and the main drawback of the OS is the inability to launch applications from previous versions of Windows. This means that in addition to the pre-installed in Desktop Office and IE10, it’s simply impossible to install anything there, and the choice of software is limited only by offers from the Windows Store. In theory, this should not annoy the user, because the tablet is supposed to work with tablet applications, but the principle of the device-transformer with a cover-keyboard loses many advantages in this situation, and the number of metros (Microsoft UI) applications is still limited. The most regrettable thing in this situation is that in a few months the minimum number of new metro applications has come out. The only solution to the critical shortage of software is to use the web versions of popular services. Facebook, Evernote, VK - I had to use all this in a browser.
I would rate the overall performance of the system interface on 3 out of 5. When working with heavy applications (the same Excel or PowerPoint), the tablet is noticeable ... sorry for the expression - it lags. Non-smooth scrolling, slow response to pressing UI elements, long-running applications are the most common problems when working with Windows RT.
But enough about the sad. The advantage of Windows tablets I consider their focus on creating content, and not its consumption. I very often used Surface as a replacement for a laptop on the go, the benefit of the pre-installed Office makes it comfortable to work with almost any documents. Flash-enabled IE10 is a nice addition to Windows RT, although the need to use flash doesn’t appear often.
In my opinion, at the moment, Windows RT is still too raw. Even after several months from the release, the OS is still a weak point of Surface RT. Perhaps the situation will improve slightly with Windows Blue (8.1), but it’s not worth hoping for dramatic improvements.
Despite the huge number of shortcomings, Microsoft Surface left me with positive impressions. The idea of ​​a device that combines the convenience of a tablet with the functionality of a laptop seems to me very interesting. Such a concept could occupy free space between multimedia tablets and ultrabooks. Unfortunately, I would not recommend Surface RT either as a tablet or as a replacement for a laptop for office work, since this device does the job of both. On the other hand, I would recommend many people to pay attention to tablets with full-fledged Windows 8 and Intel Atom. Comparing Surface RT and Atom tablets head-on, it is easy to see that the devices on the Intel chip demonstrate much greater smoothness and speed of the OS, and in the end you do not lose the ability to use classic Windows programs (the same Visual Studio on the tablet looks very interesting offer). Windows 8 is a huge step for MS in the OS market, but Windows RT still needs some work and I would not recommend spending my time and money on RT tablets.
I actively used Surface, as the main tablet for work and leisure, almost every day. By work, I mean working with documents and mail, and by leisure, watching movies and reading news over morning coffee.
The first thing I did after buying the Surface itself was that I purchased the “Touch-Cover” keyboard case for it, since without it the tablet is absolutely useless. Using a desktop interface without a keyboard and touchpad (and especially an office suite) is simply painful. “Touch-Cover” proved to be quite average - it is more convenient to print on it than on the onscreen keyboard, since the keyboard does not occupy half of the screen when printing, and it is more tactile, but still the netbook is far from the convenience of the keyboard. In addition, after 2 months of use, the cover has worn heavily at the edges and bend near the connector. I would advise those who buy Surface not to choose “Touch-Cover”, but “Type-Cover” because of its greater convenience and reliability.
Let's go back to the tablet itself. The body is made of extremely pleasant-looking, but terribly deserted in practice metal. It did not wear out much after long use - there are practically no scratches. Unfortunately, this metal is heavily wrinkled during careless handling, so it’s better not to drop the Surface especially.
Tablet screen has a diagonal of 10.6 inches, as well as a wide frame. After Surface, the 9.7 and 10.1 inch tablets seem small and compact. Such a diagonal is a plus when working with a keyboard case, but when you have to keep Surface on weight, it seems too big. The “home” button and the camera’s peephole are also located on the front panel - the touch button has average responsiveness, and the camera is suitable only for Skype calls.
On the side faces of the tablet is an extremely rich set of interfaces. In addition to the headphone jack and microSD card slot on the left side, on the right side there is Micro HDMI and one of the main advantages of the Surface is a full USB port. Frankly, the opportunity to charge the smartphone from the tablet came to my taste. The battery on the iPhone is almost discharged before our eyes, and the ability to extend battery life by using a tablet is quite a useful option. In addition to the charging already mentioned, USB greatly simplifies the issue of transferring files to the device (I know, I know ... cloud services are our everything, but simple flash drives are so useful in certain situations), and the opportunity to watch a movie from an external hard drive is also very pleasant. I almost forgot to mention one huge drawback of this product from MS - on the side edges are stereo speakers, which sound just disgusting. They are quieter than the dynamics of any tablet I've tried in recent times.
I will dwell more on the soft component of the device. As you know, this version of Surface does not work on a full-fledged version of Windows 8, but on a mobile tablet Windows RT. On RT, the only significant difference from the older version and the main drawback of the OS is the inability to launch applications from previous versions of Windows. This means that in addition to the pre-installed in Desktop Office and IE10, it’s simply impossible to install anything there, and the choice of software is limited only by offers from the Windows Store. In theory, this should not annoy the user, because the tablet is supposed to work with tablet applications, but the principle of the device-transformer with a cover-keyboard loses many advantages in this situation, and the number of metros (Microsoft UI) applications is still limited. The most regrettable thing in this situation is that in a few months the minimum number of new metro applications has come out. The only solution to the critical shortage of software is to use the web versions of popular services. Facebook, Evernote, VK - I had to use all this in a browser.
I would rate the overall performance of the system interface on 3 out of 5. When working with heavy applications (the same Excel or PowerPoint), the tablet is noticeable ... sorry for the expression - it lags. Non-smooth scrolling, slow response to pressing UI elements, long-running applications are the most common problems when working with Windows RT.
But enough about the sad. The advantage of Windows tablets I consider their focus on creating content, and not its consumption. I very often used Surface as a replacement for a laptop on the go, the benefit of the pre-installed Office makes it comfortable to work with almost any documents. Flash-enabled IE10 is a nice addition to Windows RT, although the need to use flash doesn’t appear often.
In my opinion, at the moment, Windows RT is still too raw. Even after several months from the release, the OS is still a weak point of Surface RT. Perhaps the situation will improve slightly with Windows Blue (8.1), but it’s not worth hoping for dramatic improvements.
Afterword
Despite the huge number of shortcomings, Microsoft Surface left me with positive impressions. The idea of ​​a device that combines the convenience of a tablet with the functionality of a laptop seems to me very interesting. Such a concept could occupy free space between multimedia tablets and ultrabooks. Unfortunately, I would not recommend Surface RT either as a tablet or as a replacement for a laptop for office work, since this device does the job of both. On the other hand, I would recommend many people to pay attention to tablets with full-fledged Windows 8 and Intel Atom. Comparing Surface RT and Atom tablets head-on, it is easy to see that the devices on the Intel chip demonstrate much greater smoothness and speed of the OS, and in the end you do not lose the ability to use classic Windows programs (the same Visual Studio on the tablet looks very interesting offer). Windows 8 is a huge step for MS in the OS market, but Windows RT still needs some work and I would not recommend spending my time and money on RT tablets.
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Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/177789/
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