An Arm and a Windows

I have to say that as a first generation Surface owner, I'm pretty excited about the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2. It seems to me that Microsoft really took the lessons that they learned the hard way from Surface RT and Surface Pro 1 to heart. I'm confident in recommending specifically the Surface 2 to the following people for the following reasons:

Who should get the Surface 2? 

• Anyone looking for a productivity tablet (you really can't underestimate the power that comes with having the core Office suite pre-loaded and fully functional) 
• Those willing to shift over to (or are already in) the Microsoft ecosystem (i.e. Outlook, SkyDrive, etc) 
• Anyone who doesn't have a problem purchasing device insurance (see my post about that here)
• Those planning on also getting the keyboard 
• Anyone looking for a touchscreen laptop replacement that doesn't mind the fact that they'll only be able to download Start Screen apps, not traditional Desktop programs (i.e. NO Chrome or Firefox)

A few big pieces of news coming down the line for Windows RT:

* Outlook 2013 On Its Way (together with Windows 8.1)

For all of the missteps Microsoft took in releasing the Surface RT and with the RT operating system in general, you've got to hand it to them for adjusting course and essentially giving away a major productivity tool to everyone who owns an RT device. Speaking of giving things away...

* Surface RT now comes with a FREE touch or type cover (limited time offer...for now)

Should have done this a long time ago. In fact, this is how the Surface should always have been sold. Its main advantage over other devices is how well it works with a keyboard to enable the user to get work done. By selling it without a keyboard, Microsoft basically handicapped their own sales efforts.

* Windows 8.1 Public Preview in June

Sounds like you'll have to reinstall any apps once the "real" version comes out, but count me still in for installing the preview when it comes out.

* Surface Mini?

Sounds like a good move: a little bit of a lighter price tag for those not ready to commit wholesale to an RT device. Not sure if users will really get the benefit of having an RT device though (in my mind: the ability to do real work on a tablet).

Here are the top 50 free apps on Windows RT, as ranked by the App Store itself (I presume this is done using a pure download count...please someone enlighten me if I'm wrong).

A few notes based on differences between this list and the last one I posted at the end of March:

*Dropbox dropped off: I was never a huge fan of the Dropbox RT/8 app. Like the other cloud apps, it didn't give you any way of syncing folders, which is the huge power of Dropbox. What was even worse, the app didn't allow you to upload. I'm not sure if this has been updated since I totally switched over to just using the browser to access Dropbox.

*Facebook Now the clear winner? Back in March Facebook Touch was the client at the top of the list. Now in May Facebook Now seems to be dominating. Not only is it ranked third overall (compared with 40th for Facebook Plus), it also has a higher user rating.

*More Better Games: A few new games are rising to the top: Pac Pac Man, Tetris, SushiChop (the Windows RT version of Fruit Ninja), and Drift Mania. Samurai vs. Zombies Defense is a fun sidescroller defense game that was popular on Android and iOS a short while ago. A Bird's Journey looks absolutely beautiful...I'm going to give it a try after I finish this post.

*Last But Not Least: Nook. It's there. A lot of people have downloaded it. It's not rated particularly well.

The Best of the Best:

1 Xbox Smartglass
2 Skype
3 Facebook Now
4 Google Search
5 Pac Pac Man
6 Netflix
7 MS Solitaire Collection
8 Pinball FX2
9 Advanced English Dictrionary
10 ESPN
11 Twitter
12 Photo Editor
13 Tetris
14 Instagram Explorer
15 Cut the Rope
16 Youtube Player/Downloader - Megatube Support
17 Wordbrush
18 Jetpack Joyride
19 Drift Mania Championship 2 Lite
20 Work Notes Pro
21 SushiChop
22 Hulu Plus
23 Monsters Love Candy
24 Wikipedia
25 BubbleBreaker

The Next 25:

26 Slots
27 MS Mahjong
28 Flixster
29 The Weather Channel
30 Solitaire HD
31 OneNote
32 Amazon
33 Calculator Free
34 A Bird's Journey
35 4 Pics 1 Word
36 The Chess Lv. 100
37 Samurai vs. Zombies Defense
38 Audible
39 Backgrounds Wallpapers HD
40 Facebook Plus
41 Flow Free
42 Yahoo! Mail
43 Adobe Reader Touch
44 Kindle
45 Jewel Fever
46 Piano8
47 NOOK
48 iHeartRadio
49 DealOrNoDeal
50 Monkey Flight

It's only been about six months, but I'm already feeling very lonely as a Surface owner these days.

The still ubiquitous advertising campaign has only heightened that feeling, as the crowds all clicking their keyboards into place clearly exist only in TV-land, and not in reality. In the many times a week I do sit down at a coffee shop and "click in", I have never, ever seen another Surface owner.

The experts were right. Windows RT exists in no man's land. New, more efficient Intel chips are making x86 tablets more competitive with ARM based tablets. Most consumers aren't willing to spend $500+ on an RT tablet when they can find a very nice Android or iOS tablet for $200 - $300, even if it comes with a smaller screen. And the marketing campaign....

With that said, here I am, typing away on my Surface, nearly completely satisfied with my decision to sell my laptop and commit wholesale to using the Surface as my primary mobile computing device.

I'm not saying that the Surface is for everyone. There are just a few types of users that I would recommend it to. With that said, for users like me, the Surface actually makes a lot of sense, even at its current price point (though you can find other RT tablets now in the roughly $350 range...if you find yourself nodding at a lot of the following points, then you should jump at the next $350 RT device you can get). Let me share a few aspects of the Surface that have worked out quite well for me.

One Note

Ok, I actually was pretty turned off by One Note at first. I never used it on my old laptop, and I found it to sync rather inconsistently, sometimes creating notebooks that I didn't intend to create, other times duplicating notebooks I already had. But when I decided to just host all of my notebooks on my Surface's SD card and back it up elsewhere, suddenly my Surface has become much more functional as a replacement to my usual pad and paper. I take pictures of white boards, I "print" word files directly into my OneNote notebooks, and I print/share from OneNote fairly frequently. Although Evernote and other apps have their place, I found OneNote to be the best mobile note taking program yet.

Microsoft Word

The office suite alone is worth paying an extra $100 for the Surface. I've used Word heavily now on RT for the past six months and I've been completely satisfied with it. I really feel like it was a seamless transition from using Word on my old laptop to using Word on the Surface. And that's actually related to the thing that really makes the Surface a worthwhile option for some people...

USB Port and Compatible Drivers

I don't know how Android tablets are (or how many come with USB ports), but it is great being able to just connect a USB cable from a random printer to my Surface and know that I'll have hardcopies in seconds.

Overall Seamless Transition Between Tablet and Desktop PC

Unlike my Nexus 7, I don't experience any hiccups when I switch back and forth between my Surface and the Windows 7 PC I have at my office. Again, going back to Word, it's great not having to convert files to a different format in order to work with them.

Control Panel and Friends

It's nice being able to "look under the hood" by accessing such timeless Windows tools such as Control Panel, Task Manager, Desktop Personalization, etc. With iOS and Android I've always felt like a car owner who never checked his oil or tire pressure, instead just waiting for the indicator lights to come on. With RT you get access to many of the same utilities as have always been available on Windows. Now if we could just install other programs....

And one thing that has worked out terribly for me:

Inability to sync a folder with Dropbox or Google Drive or even SkyDrive. Yes you can access SkyDrive as a synced folder...when you're connected online. When you're not online, SkyDrive is disconnected as well. When I was using my Windows 7 laptop, I'd really grown to love keeping all of my current projects on Dropbox and working on them even when I was disconnected. No longer having that ability has been a major downside to working on an RT device.


Long Story Short:

The Surface (and other RT devices) works for those who actually want to get laptop quality work done on their tablet. Sure, most people these days carry both a tablet and a laptop. And sure, the Surface is neither the best tablet, nor the best laptop. But it is a suitable hybrid that's satisfied this user.

While you may want to wait and see what Windows Blue looks like before going with an RT device, the fact is the Surface is probably more powerful than you think.