One of my favorite tablets of last year was the Microsoft Surface Tablet R/T. I know a ton of people have rendered this tablet useless because most people just go for the Surface Pro because it has the ability to run real computer applications and actually function as a laptop computer. The screen is better on the Pro and if I'm not mistaken I believe you get a touch cover with it as well.
So with all these great features, how can you sell someone on the "watered down" version? Well it goes like this. It depends on what your needs and wants are and can you sacrifice with this and that. That could be the argument for all things but this one is just a little bit different. I will tell you what the difference for me was in actually buying this over other tablets.
The Surface tablet, for me, was a great tool for school. I had the surface for about 27 weeks and used it for school for about 18 or 20 weeks. That was about 2 and a half classes for me (9 week classes) and it served a huge purpose for me. At the time there were not a ton of apps for the tablet (still hear there are not many) but I wasn't focused on that. What sold me really was Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. I did my class work in Word (real Word) and did projects in PowerPoint (didn't use spreadsheet or Excel, so I cannot comment on that.
I also had a touch cover (I will get into that later) and doing work was a breeze. One of the other things I liked about it was that there is a USB reader on it (and a micro hdmi out) and I hooked up one of my 500gb HDD and was able to watch movies and move pictures back and forth from the HDD. The stand that is built into the back of the Surface is a nice touch as well. Multitasking was easy and fluid. I was not a fan of Windows 8 in the beginning but after using the Surface and it on my Desktop, Windows 8 became second nature pretty fast for me.
The camera on the back of the unit was OK at best, as was the one on the front. Didn't take a lot pictures with it but I did take a few and they were again OK at best. The unit I had was a 32gb version and with the ability to read thumb/flash drives and HDD's, micro SD cards as well, there was no reason to ever run out of space. You can also hop on to Sky drive and save your things to the cloud as well. Here are some of the good and bad things I seen with the device.
The price was good for the tablet with all of it's features and saving options but the price was bad because other tablets have more support for them and their ecosystems with their said app stores. That and the fact that this runs Windows R/T and not Windows 8, kind of leaves you hanging or wanting to install more things to it. The price was good because it did the things that I wanted out to do without problem and the fact that it feels very well built. But again the price was bad because you could probably find another tablet and have it do the same things for you that you wanted this one to do and maybe more (again app stores play a huge role here).
This tablet to me is for a person who has never had a tablet and needs one for school, or a person who wants to try something different and are tired of the new Android tablets every other week or the same old boring (but very reliable) iPad. I was the person who wanted something different and to try other things. I had just gotten a Nokia Lumia 920 about a week before (and they work great together) and wanted to engage in a Microsoft ecosystem.
In the end, it was one more f my favorite tablets but the bad thing for it, was that lack of everything else. The ecosystem is so small for the R/T operating system and it is very limited in what it can and cannot do. It's not an everyday driver like an iPad or a Nexus 7/10, but it is for the person who just has one goal in mind and needs it to serve a great purpose or for school functionality. I needed it for school and it was a great sidekick to my desktop, but in the end I think a Surface Pro would eliminate a desktop and serve the sidekick purpose (the portable service) at the same time. Now all I have to do is try to afford one...
Surface Tablet R/T Overall 7.5/10
