A week or so ago, my wife and I were shopping (at a local office supply store), and they had the two Microsoft Surfaces. The RT which is ARM powered, and the other one (pro?) with a Core i5 and full windows compatibility.
I was expecting to be underwhelmed, but the Metro interface, and the responsiveness of the product was surprising. Metro (the Windows 8) UI is well suited for touch interactions. The tiles are intuitive, and the system is quite snappy. As I played with it, I found it very well designed and easy to interact with.
I am not in danger of giving up my iPad, but if Microsoft launched this in 2010 at the same time as the iPad was launched, it might have had a chance. But now, it is too little too late, and the ship has sailed.
Shame, because it is a nice platform. I definitely like it better than the stock Android 4.2 on my Nexus7.
I also played with the laptops with Windows 8 (the wife was busy exchanging toner cartridges and finding the binders). After playing with the Surface, it was impossible to not reach out and touch the display. Even though only about 1/4 of the demo units had touch screens.
While Metro is fine for the tablet, I am not sold on the desktop. Again, there is minimal risk of me abandoning my Mac’s anytime soon for a Windows 8 system.
