My Surface for Windows RT Review

If you can't decide, then I would wait. Your iPad will easily do the job until then.

Surface 2 hardware and the Windows ecosystem with a year or so under its belt is going to be a force to be reckoned with.
 
Rilot said:
Grrrr, I don't know whether to get one of these or not....
I have an iPad3 which is cool and all but I really like the whole Surface and Windows ecosystem.

If we had more info on Surface Pro or if some of the OEMs were close to shipping Pro tablets then the decision would be easier. As we stand with no release schedules and no pricing info it's hard to decide.
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If you're undecided then don't rush into this, none of these devices are cheap. I don't regret getting a Surface, do I wish it were slightly better or running full fat Windows? Sure but it's still the most suitable device for my needs, if I didn't care about being compact and light with a keyboard I'd feel more comfortable picking something like a Dell Latitude 10 or one of the other million devices we've seen to date.
 
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Well, can't say you didn't have fair warning. :p

It does come with a serving of early adopter sting but I really like it nonetheless. I pick it up more than the iPad generally.
 
My Surface turned up yesterday. I really like the hardware build and the touch cover is a lot better than I was expecting.
I've not played with it much yet but first impressions from an iPad3 user (me) are good.
I like the interface but it's got quite a steep learning curve.
The screen is excellent despite the resolution.

I'll give some more impressions later after I've had a good play.
 
Look forward to hearing your impressions.

I've been thinking over the last few days, and I'm not just saying this, but the Surface has really changed my opinion of 1366x768 screens. No, its not as good as the iPad 3, but I'm really not missing the retina display.
 
theheyes said:
Look forward to hearing your impressions.

I've been thinking over the last few days, and I'm not just saying this, but the Surface has really changed my opinion of 1366x768 screens. No, its not as good as the iPad 3, but I'm really not missing the retina display.
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To be honest I do notice it now when looking at my 920...but saying that I can put teh 920 up to my eye and not see much, in fact the entire talk of 1080 screens in a mobile has me laughing now as theirs no point to them at all. But I would notice the "lower" resolution on the Surface, and I do mean its just lower, not really bad at all.
 
cu3ed said:
To be honest I do notice it now when looking at my 920...but saying that I can put teh 920 up to my eye and not see much, in fact the entire talk of 1080 screens in a mobile has me laughing now as theirs no point to them at all. But I would notice the "lower" resolution on the Surface, and I do mean its just lower, not really bad at all.
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Well I've got a Surface and an iPad 3 next to one another, from a normal viewing distance it's really not a big deal but if you go very close the differences start to become more apparent.

Text is another matter, a few websites I read aren't that comfortable until I've zoomed in a bit for clear type to kick in and I can see why some people might be bothered by delay for text to smooth out.

Still like to know why my start screen tiles seem to have shrunk in size.
 
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Yeah, the higher resolution displays are clearly better. But before I got the Surface, I was expecting to pick up the iPad for reading text/browsing and the Surface for video/email etc. because the significantly lower resolution would annoy me. That hasn't happened, somewhat to my surprise. Maybe it's because I tend to use the Surface a little further away than the iPad.

I think 1920x1080 displays are going to become the standard for these types of devices. I know you can get these resolutions in mobile phones today, but really, it's a bit insane IMO on such a small screen. Its the megapixel wars all over again.
 
Now my Surface has gone back to 3 rows on the Start screen, I wasn't even aware this was a feature you could control. Any ideas?

I also noticed there's another update to the music app, it's now running pretty quick which is nice. Hopefully they'll start updating the rest in the same way!
 
No idea on the tile thing - my money is on bug not feature. They really are motoring through those music app updates which is good to see. I've sent them at least two emails through the feedback option.

I picked up an HTC 8X today and its interesting to see Windows Phone 8. Their metro implementation is slightly different than what you get on Windows.
 
Athanor said:
Start Screen ->Settings ->Tiles->show more tiles?
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Nope that was one of the first things I looked for but the option isn't there on Surface, when it went to 4 rows of tiles they were smaller as if my device was running at a higher resolution like a normal Windows 8 install but last night it switched back even though I hadn't done anything (that I'm aware of).
 
Don't think I've seen anyone mention if this works, but if you have multiple tabs open in IE do the tabs in the background still work? For example, listening to youtube in one tab whilst browsing with another.
 
jr1104 said:
Don't think I've seen anyone mention if this works, but if you have multiple tabs open in IE do the tabs in the background still work? For example, listening to youtube in one tab whilst browsing with another.
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Just checked for you. Works fine.
However, if you leave ie for the start menu etc, it stops.
 
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