In defence of Surface RT

Posted on by al

I have a confession to make… my house is populated with Surface devices. There is Mr. Surface (with a blue cover), Mrs. Surface (with a pink cover) and of course Dr. Surface (a pro with a type cover). Grandpa iPad (an iPad 2) and Great-Grand-Daddy iPad (a classic iPad) are pretty much firmly in the retirement home now (bottom drawer of my bedside table – ok, enough with the metaphors). This may not be a big revelation, given where I work, but even still, I feel like I am at a usage level that is past the initial hype and learning curve and can make some interesting observations.

surface

The Surface RT is the better device.

Yes, I said it. Prevailing wisdom of the blogosphere and my own initial reaction was otherwise, but over time I have come to consciously accept that I actually prefer the Windows RT device over it’s Windows 8 sibling. Before going into why, let me first talk about the Surface Pro – it is a great device and there are some things I love about it:

  • The screen is awesome. 1080p resolution and bright colours make watching movies on it very impressive. You can see every hair follicle on the actress’ upper lip and the foundation padded over the actors brow.
  • The stylus is impressive. Well, the stylus itself isn’t that impressive (Mont Blanc, go talk to Wacom and make an amazing digitizer/pen combo. I would buy hundreds!). However, the writing experience on the Surface Pro screen is second to none. I have used all manner of tablets, convertibles, touch screens and even the 82″ monster that is the PerceptivePixel display, but the Surface Pro has the most natural writing experience out of all of them. Touch is all well and good, but once you start using a pen again, everything gets better. Documents are easier to highlight and annotate, PowerPoint decks are less bullet-pointy and finicky non touch optimized websites are even manageable.
  • It’s fast. Say what you like about ARM performance improvements, but a Core i5 today still kicks the crap out of any ARM device I have ever used.
  • It runs all your apps. Well, in particular, desktop-mode Adobe Reader, winzip and, of course, Steam. With Steam, comes Civilization V. Did you know Civ5 is now optimized for touch? If it is ever optimized for pen input it may just stoke my megalomania a little too much.
  • The power cable has a USB charging port in it. Genius! Although, in fairness, it isn’t quite as revolutionary as you might think. Lenovo has had a travel kit power adaptor that supports USB and laptop charging at the same time. But still, this feature is now in the box, which is awesome.

However, despite all these cool capabilities, I still prefer the X1C as my day to day laptop. The screen is bigger (but lower res, go figure), the keyboard and touchpad are nicer to work with. So, with my laptop needs taken care of, where does an additional device fit into my day without just bulking up my bag? The Surface can go where the laptop can’t:

  • 8 hours of battery life. While the Surface pro has a great battery life for a laptop, it isn’t 8 hours. Now that we’ve established that I will have my laptop with me anyway, additional stamina is important
  • The Surface + cover seems optimized for economy class air travel. I was amazed on a recent flight from Seattle to San Francisco that the surface fit perfectly regardless of how far back the goon in front of me decided to push his seat back. This is a place that my laptop is usually too big.
  • Recent updates have really improved the performance of the Surface and core apps. I don’t know if this is just subjective, but the device today seems so much more responsive than when it first came out.
  • The app store is growing… and while there is still no Civ5 RT, Skulls of the Shogun and Galactic Reign make for awesome time wasting when stuck in airplanes, airports or hotels.
  • USB port + Office + windows media player = awesome presentation preparation aide. I can very easily review content and rehearse presentations without needing to get out my full laptop
  • For everything else, there is always Remote Desktop.

So, for the time being, I still carry around 2 devices – laptop and tablet. The dream of device convergence is alive and kicking in the Surface Pro and there will be plenty of people that can prosper with it alone. For me personally, I need a bigger screen before I could truly consolidate on one portable computing device… or new glasses. If I can’t consolidate, then the other device needs to be able to do things a laptop can’t – and with the Surface’s size an battery life, it makes the ultimate companion device for those of us that travel frequently, and need to work from anywhere.

Besides, carrying an Ultrabook and a Surface device is still lighter than the laptops I used to carry.