I am Liking the Windows 8 Tablet Experience

November 12, 2012

Okay, I am well past a week of use with the Surface RT and Windows 8, and here are some more thoughts.

• I like the Surface RT much better than my iPad. As I said in my previous post, I’ve stored the iPad away and now carry the Surface RT in my briefcase (along with my Ultrabook laptop). The two together weigh far less than a single older laptop.
• I love the keyboard cover… the keyboard is always there when I need it, and I do switch back and forth between using it like a laptop and then folding it back and using the tablet as a tablet—even in the middle of writing one article. You may know there are two versions of this and I settled on the Type version (see earlier post on differences between the two kinds of keyboard covers and why I landed on Type).
• Minor point: I just discovered that the Windows Logo at the bottom of the tablet screen is a button. Tapping it takes you right to the Start Screen (where you find all your apps). Sort of similar to the home button on the iPad.

One thing to highlight: I am surprised how much time I am NOT using the desktop mode to interact with the tablet; the Apps approach (using the Start Screen—the screen with all the tiles on it) is quite useful. This is both surprising and important.

It’s surprising because I suspected I would miss the Windows 7 desktop interface (that’s what desktop mode in Windows 8 is; using it basically puts up the old Windows 7 interface). But I find I don’t miss the desktop, particularly when I travel or move about a lot. I really like the Apps mode—it’s quick, effective, and I use that almost all the time now.

And I say it’s important because to me it validates Microsoft’s decision in designing Windows 8 to move all navigation, even the Start button functions, to the Start Screen. Many have been fighting them on this and I think that fight is wrong—Microsoft did the right thing. At least for those of you using a tablet.

Now keep in mind, if I need to do detailed work say in Photoshop, Dreamweaver, or some other more complicated software, I switch back to my regular laptop and use the old desktop mode. But if I need to use Word just to write an article, I pick up the tablet—it works just fine for that when using the Type keyboard or Dictation. And I launch Word from the Start Screen, just like an App, so I rarely notice even that I am in Desktop mode. And I just return to the Start Screen for nearly all other navigation chores. I am thinking the desktop is almost unneeded on the Surface RT.

Now, all that said, there have been some version 1.0 hiccups. For some reason in Word the mouse pointer occasionally just disappears. Also, sometimes when typing, random keystrokes start to disappear. Or typing gets slow. Rebooting clears this up (and rebooting is fast), but it’s sometimes frustrating.

Michael