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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

This is the best review I've read so far. I agree with the reviewer in that I've had the same sort of feeling that Microsoft doesn't really 'get' it, but phrasing it as their 'perspective' on the market is exactly right. The first time Microsoft tried to do a 'tablet' aka the 'tablet pc' too much 'pc' and not enough 'tablet'. This seems to have moved in the spectrum closer to 'tablet' but the PC roots are still showing.

I want this to be successful because I would love something like it with a bit 'denser' screen and flexibility. I wonder if they tried a keyboard with a fold out mouse like ginormous scroll area.

I really like the fit and finish though. That is some awesome tech right there.

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> The first time Microsoft tried to do a 'tablet' aka the 'tablet pc' too much 'pc' and not enough 'tablet'. This seems to have moved in the spectrum closer to 'tablet' but the PC roots are still showing.

Basically, they've gone and perfected the OQO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OQO

Pretty soon, we'll have 512GB flash drives in these things. Most of us won't have a reason for an old fashioned PC. We'll just have different interface form factors.

If the x86 version has sufficient horsepower, they could present the iPad with a serious high-end challenge, because there's a lot of software I like on my Windows box that I'd love to be able to use in a tablet environment (without needing any more functionality than mouse emulation), not to mention a goodly number of USB devices that interface with same. That would substantially reduce my iPad envy.

I can imagine myself having a few windows open on one of these things doing small bits of programming. On the go. That would be great!

I presume you just won't get the battery performance out of x86 version though? Surely it's going to struggle.

To say nothing of heat.

And thicker/heavier. Plus fan noise. And several hundred dollars more expensive.

It'll be interesting to see if the Surface Pro feels more like an iPaddish-tablet or more like a traditional PC-ish tablet. Unless it's really good at what it does, I think it can easily end up doing more harm than good to Microsoft through Surface brand dilution, consumer confusion (x64 vs ARM, which apps run where), etc.

I guess the PC roots showing is actually the intent of the design. I have used Windows 8 and I can only imagine how much it will feel natural on a device like this. The metro UI invites touch interaction and the older office like apps will work best with mouse and keyboard. I'd prefer the surface with full windows though so that I can use all my legacy apps as well.

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