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Comment by firefoxman1 | Hacker News Reader

When I first got an HP Touchpad, the touchstone stand, and the keyboard I understood what the "post-PC" era really was. It was perfect: physical keyboard for productivity, yet a touchscreen with a tablet interface, and the mouse had finally seen its end. The Asus transformer was the next big step, I think. Again, keyboard and touchscreen, but this time a 19 hour battery. If it allowed dual booting it would be perfect.

So when I saw the Surface I thought "yes Microsoft gets it!" Then you use windows 8 RT and realize they're about as out-of-touch as ever. Behind that nice tablet interface is the same old windows. Ever try using classic windows interface with your bulky fingers? That's exactly what you have to do with essential apps like Office or anything written > 3 months ago. It's the exact reason tablets didn't catch on in the early 2000s: windows wasn't designed for use on a touchscreen.

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> The Asus transformer was the next big step, I think. Again, keyboard and touchscreen, but this time a 19 hour battery. If it allowed dual booting it would be perfect.

I'm a fan of the Asus transformer too. One benefit from the keyboard having a battery that I didn't notice till I had been using it this way for a while is that I never charge the tablet directly. When it is low, I attach the keyboard and let that charge the tablet. Then when the keyboard is low I pull that off and charge it. So the tablet itself is never tied to a wall. Psychologically, the tablet feels a hair's breadth away from being a device I don't have to charge at all. The battery state is never in the way of me using it.

Having used the HP Touchsmart 2500 (2007 laptop/tablet convertible), I feel the same about the "post-PC" era. Moving my hand from keyboard to screen became more natural than moving from keyboard to touchpad, or keyboard to mouse. At the time, I physically administered rackmount servers through a console with a trackball - it was painful in comparison to the touchscreen.

Ever try using classic windows interface with your bulky fingers? This is why the Touchsmart shipped with a weighted pen-sized stylus, even in models with the passive touchscreen.

How is Office with the Touchpad?

There's only quick office which isn't robust enough for most people. Full-blown Office was one of microsoft's main opportunities with the surface (price being the other), neither of which they did well.

Hence the keyboard and trackpad.

There is a benefit of having both the desktop and "Metro".

Well here's the problem I've seen: the trackpad is (or should be) mostly useless in tablet mode, and the touchscreen is impossible to use in desktop mode. I much prefer a dual boot setup, so you aren't mentally switching every few minutes.

I hear this a lot from people who haven't actually tried the keyboard and trackpad. Trackpad is so small that I truly found it unusable. It's fair to say that it's smaller than any laptop or even netbook trackpad out there. The non-mechanical keyboard was also unusable for me, but I think TypeCover keys would be much better.

But Microsoft could only think of using the desktop to run office RT. why didn't they make office an app and hide all of the pc bits to the user?

I love Asus, and I really wanted to love the Transformer Prime, but I just can't use that keyboard. I don't think I have freakishly huge hands, but I can't fit my fingers on the home row without overlapping.

I'm going to take a look at the Atom-powered Vivo Tab that runs the full version of Windows 8 when it comes out, but I suspect that the keyboard may still be too small.

Samsung's convertible tablet is 11.6", which has already proven itself to be large enough for a full size keyboard, when its done properly.

I wish Asus, or someone else, would come out with a convertible that's as thin, light, and attractive as the Zenbook Prime, but with a screen that's 11-13" and 1080p, with an i5, 8GB of ram, a wacom digitizer, and a quality keyboard.

I think what you really mean is that Office is not meant to be used on a tablet with a touch interface. Especially on Windows RT running on a slow ARM processor. Surface RT is supposed to be a device that's 99% Metro mode, for simple consumer demands with a touch interface.

Office on the other hand is a production app. Not a consumption app. It's workflow fits best on the Desktop PC with a keyboard.

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