Crosspost from the Surface thread, but I think most of this could apply to any RT touchscreen PC. These are some of my impressions after using the Surface for a day or so:
- Touch cover is taking some getting used to, I can actually type faster on the on screen keyboard. I'm used to typing on the iPad and the on screen keyboard here seems better. I type quite fast on screen, probably at 90% my normal typing speed, so no issues there. Will have to practice with the touch cover.
- One awesome thing I noticed was that keyboard shortcuts like copy and paste work on the on screen keyboard as it has a control key right next to the space bar. VERY handy. I love this so much. The keyboard sound is the same dynamic tapping sounds from Windows Phone, which I love and find much easier on the ears compared to the static iPad keyboard sound. Small detail, but really nice, nonetheless.
- I played around with the built in options for the keyboard, too: full screen like iPad, thumb keyboard, where its split, and then one that converts ink into text. The ink input works flawlessly, considering how abysmal my handwriting is, it just would not screw it up. I could see myself using that a lot actually, even with a capacitive stylus with how responsive the screen is (I use a jot pro). Very excited to test it out on the Surface Pro.
- Surprised at the lack of an official Facebook app, but as a Windows Phone user, the People and Messaging hubs are more than adequate for my needs, and quite beautiful, too.
- I opted for the 32GB model, with the touch cover as I ordered a 64GB microsd card last week. We will see how nicely that plays with the device. I'm left with about 25GB of usable space out of the 32GB, which I imagine is due to the way the data is measured, as well as swap and windows/office installed. After installing some apps, etc, I'm down to about 16GB of storage, so that sd card can't come soon enough.
- Being able to plug in USB devices is really freaking cool. My laser printer worked no problem. Same with a wireless mouse. I'm a student in IT, so I always carry around a lot of gadgets in my bag, one of them being an external hard drive, so my data space needs are quelled by that handy little port.
- SkyDrive integration throughout the OS is a godsend. I'm a fairly heavy SkyDrive and Office user, as well, so having 2013 included is a really sweet deal. Make sure you update from the preview version that ships with the device to the final version, though, as it improves performance and touch elements considerably.
- Side note: I accidentally pressed the back button in the browser and thought I lost all this, but it saved it within the text input field. Nice one.
All in all I'm quite pleased with the device. The hardware, like most of the reviews say, is definitely at least on par with iPad, if not better - or different as they say. I've owned the first three generation iPads, and this device just seems so much better in all the little places, which is quite nice, indeed. Obviously the software selection is a little low right now, but that will most definitely increase over time. This is Windows after all. That said, there are already more useful tablet apps for my day to day use than on my Nexus 7. Android is already trailing this new platform in that regard, in my opinion, and its only been out for two days.
Very pleased with this device. Still on the fence about selling this in January to put towards the Surface pro, as all my x86 needs are dealt with via RDP. We will see.
--
Edit: Additional thoughts:
- Metro, or Modern, is fucking beautiful. I've been a Windows Phone user for almost 2 years now, and damn does this interface work well on a tablet. The gestures take a little getting used to, but once you get the idea of it, it makes the traditional iOS/Android interfaces seem downright dated. I've been using Windows 8 RTM via MSDNAA since early September on my desktop, so I'm already fairly familiar with a lot about the OS, which I suppose helps (and makes RDP kick ass).
- I'm excited to see how this will play with Windows Phone in the future. I own a 7.5 device, so as of right now I can only charge the device, as the Zune desktop client doesn't run on RT. I have heard that Microsoft will be releasing a WP8 app in the near future, though, perhaps we will find out on Monday during their press conference.
- IE 10 is really awesome, and really fast (even with flash!) though I wish other browsers were allowed in the Store. I like tab syncing from Chrome.
- One thing I love about IE is the flip ahead feature, where, on a multi page site like neogaf or reddit, it allows you to "drag" the page to the left in order to advance to the next page rather than having to tap the small next link that is often at the bottom. Same goes for going back to the last page, just swipe it to the right. Very slick.
- As far as I can tell, tabs also load in the background, which I don't remember my iPad doing.
- I like that pressing the capacitive home button makes the Surface vibrate. I also like that it wakes the device, too. So many devices with capacitive buttons require use of the power button exclusively to wake the screen.
- I forgot to mention the battery. It seems as good as my iPad, maybe a bit less. I got around 9 and half hours of fairly heavy usage from 100%. It then took 1 hour, 48 minutes to charge from dead to 100. That's a lot faster than my iPad, which took over 4 and half hours to fully charge.
- Multiple users is nice, however as far as I can tell, your apps are tied to one account, so you'll have to buy them again for each account. Hopefully that is changed in the future, especially with the higher price of RT apps compared to their iOS counterparts.
- As far as the screen is concerned, it looks considerably better than other screens of this resolution, but not as sharp as the iPads. I will say, though, the colours and contrast seem better on this screen than on the iPad.
