onlysublime
New member
If they carry over some of the Windows Phone touch keyboard features, the Windows 10 touch keyboard will be fantastic. The Windows 8 touch keyboard is lacking overall (why the heck put the autocorrection so far away from the typing fingers??? ARGH!!!). But that number pad arrangement is fantastic in the Windows 8 touch keyboard.
As for the combination of a tablet and laptop... The reason why I love my Surface machines is because I can do whatever I want on a whim. I remember back to my laptop days and how unwieldy it was to use a laptop while standing. Sometimes I wanted to rip that keyboard right off. And back in my laptop days, it didn't have a touchscreen. Try using a trackpad and keyboard while standing. Awkward. Ultrabooks are sleek and thin (I do love my friend's Acer S7 and my other friend's Dell XPS 13) when closed but open it up and it's unwieldy again. I tried to like the Yoga machines but feeling the loose keys underneath in tablet mode was really weird.
Sure, the Surface isn't perfect in either mode. But I'd rather have a system that's functional in both ways than a system that's functional only in one way. Better to have 80% laptop and 80% tablet than 100% laptop and 0% tablet or 100% tablet and 0% laptop. People who own an iPad will never be able to do Photoshop (real Photoshop, not that stupid Photoshop Touch). People who own a laptop will never be able to remove that keyboard. I won't be using my Surface 3 as my primary machine to do InDesign or Photoshop. But if I'm at a restaurant and my friend needs a rush job on minor edits to an InDesign document, I can whip out my Surface 3 in an emergency and deliver it on the spot if I don't have my Surface Pro 2 with me (I always have at least one of the machines with me always). And the Surface machines have a good pen option.
How many machines have a pen option, a tablet mode, a touchscreen, AND a laptop mode all together? Almost none.
And I know you always bring up the tablets with keyboard docks. I own an ASUS Transformer Book T100 64GB machine. And that was such a compromise, much more so than a Surface machine. I would say that was 60% tablet score and 60% laptop score. The keys were tiny. The performance was actually okay. The keyboard was so light that if you tilted the tablet back like a laptop, it would tip over which actually made the Surface a much better machine on the lap. The USB port was in the keyboard dock so if you had it in tablet mode, you had only a microUSB port. The screen was half the brightness of any Surface machine (even the Surface RT had a better screen).
If it was possible to put the majority of the weight of a tablet/dock into the dock and have a featherweight tablet so it doesn't tip over, that could be the ideal setup but that'll never be the case. In fact, the new ASUS Transformer Book T300 Chi... They put weight into the base to counteract the tipping over. But that made the keyboard dock/tablet heavier than ultrabooks.
In many ways my Garmin car GPS is far superior to any cell phone GPS but a lot of people decide to go with a cell phone GPS out of convenience. That's kind of what the Surface is: convenience. If you want the best possible tablet, there are other options. If you want the best possible laptop, there are other options. If you want a machine that does everything, there are very few options and Surface stands out.
As for the combination of a tablet and laptop... The reason why I love my Surface machines is because I can do whatever I want on a whim. I remember back to my laptop days and how unwieldy it was to use a laptop while standing. Sometimes I wanted to rip that keyboard right off. And back in my laptop days, it didn't have a touchscreen. Try using a trackpad and keyboard while standing. Awkward. Ultrabooks are sleek and thin (I do love my friend's Acer S7 and my other friend's Dell XPS 13) when closed but open it up and it's unwieldy again. I tried to like the Yoga machines but feeling the loose keys underneath in tablet mode was really weird.
Sure, the Surface isn't perfect in either mode. But I'd rather have a system that's functional in both ways than a system that's functional only in one way. Better to have 80% laptop and 80% tablet than 100% laptop and 0% tablet or 100% tablet and 0% laptop. People who own an iPad will never be able to do Photoshop (real Photoshop, not that stupid Photoshop Touch). People who own a laptop will never be able to remove that keyboard. I won't be using my Surface 3 as my primary machine to do InDesign or Photoshop. But if I'm at a restaurant and my friend needs a rush job on minor edits to an InDesign document, I can whip out my Surface 3 in an emergency and deliver it on the spot if I don't have my Surface Pro 2 with me (I always have at least one of the machines with me always). And the Surface machines have a good pen option.
How many machines have a pen option, a tablet mode, a touchscreen, AND a laptop mode all together? Almost none.
And I know you always bring up the tablets with keyboard docks. I own an ASUS Transformer Book T100 64GB machine. And that was such a compromise, much more so than a Surface machine. I would say that was 60% tablet score and 60% laptop score. The keys were tiny. The performance was actually okay. The keyboard was so light that if you tilted the tablet back like a laptop, it would tip over which actually made the Surface a much better machine on the lap. The USB port was in the keyboard dock so if you had it in tablet mode, you had only a microUSB port. The screen was half the brightness of any Surface machine (even the Surface RT had a better screen).
If it was possible to put the majority of the weight of a tablet/dock into the dock and have a featherweight tablet so it doesn't tip over, that could be the ideal setup but that'll never be the case. In fact, the new ASUS Transformer Book T300 Chi... They put weight into the base to counteract the tipping over. But that made the keyboard dock/tablet heavier than ultrabooks.
In many ways my Garmin car GPS is far superior to any cell phone GPS but a lot of people decide to go with a cell phone GPS out of convenience. That's kind of what the Surface is: convenience. If you want the best possible tablet, there are other options. If you want the best possible laptop, there are other options. If you want a machine that does everything, there are very few options and Surface stands out.