Monday's big ​announcemen​t.

The Touch Covers (not the Type Covers) come in every Lumia colour plus orange.

I wonder how well it will work on lap instead of table, if the keyboard is thin and flexible, lot of the weight will be on the screen in the "laptop mode" of operation, so it would likely require the stand to be extended, but to where if it's on your lap.

Perhaps the most unappealing thing of what I've seen so far is the aspect ratio (and the $1000 quoted for the Intel version). I like wide screen. In a movie theater. Something halfway between 4:3 and this might be a compromise I could deal with.

I wonder if there will be other types of covers or will it only be keyboard. Like, maybe the neat Surface-Touch Cover interaction (when you attach a blue touch cover, the Surface theme changes to blue) hints at different types of panels that are individually recognized and that will extend the device's capabilities (like, a second multitouch display add on).

It looks very cool!

Although t's a mistake to think the majority of consumers understand cpu architecture. They'll buy this thinking they're getting Windows. There will be disappointment. 

Can I watch the announcement somewhere?

Is there no way to make a tablet with a dual-CPU x86/ARM that can switch between OS versions and has common storage?

I wonder how well the track pad works on the type cover? And, has anyone noticed the torx screws on the bottom? How refreshing to see hardware that screams, "Take me apart!" Also, the pro has what seems to be a 207 dpi screen, or maybe my math is wrong.

-Josh

25 minutes ago, brian.shapiro wrote

Is there no way to make a tablet with a dual-CPU x86/ARM that can switch between OS versions and has common storage?

What's the point, battery life?

I like what I see, but I am somewhat troubled that MS is trying to make hardware again. With the exception of the Xbox 360, when has that ever worked out for them?

They need to get the price well under ultrabook levels if they want to compete with the iPad. With that said, this device is sexy and the video posted is very slick. But I'd much rather see it coming from Acer or Dell than Microsoft directly.

It's also nice to see touch, pen, and keyboard input in a thin tablet.

But why launch 3 months after Windows 8? Make it a launch device. 3 months after misses the holiday season (unless the rumored July launch date is actually true).

12 seconds ago, spivonious wrote

I like what I see, but I am somewhat troubled that MS is trying to make hardware again. With the exception of the Xbox 360, when has that ever worked out for them?

How do you define worked-out? I think MS does a top-notch job on peripherals. The Zune hardware wasn't half bad, but the business plan was terrible.

They need to get the price well under ultrabook levels if they want to compete with the iPad. With that said, this device is sexy and the video posted is very slick. But I'd much rather see it coming from Acer or Dell than Microsoft directly.

For a company of this size, for an announcement of this importance, there are an awful lot of jpg compression artifacts on that first page of the Surface site.

38 minutes ago, JoshRoss wrote

*snip*

 I think MS does a top-notch job on peripherals.

*snip*

Yes, indeed, and now the PC is a peripheral, and Azure is the OS.

That's pretty cool. If I get it, I will get the blue keyboard. Gotta be colorful and stylish.

27 minutes ago, Charles wrote

That's all you got, Niners?

C

Are you trying to drum up conversation, Charles? 

Give folk a chance; the UK is still asleep!

8 hours ago, Ray7 wrote

Mmmm.

If it was new MS hardware then I think someone would have leaked it by now - unless it's something that won't be available for months.

It could be someone else's hardware carrying an MS badge, or some software/service thingy.

Well, I don't want to sit on the fence like an IT analyst, so I'm going to plump for Office for the iPad.

I should have stayed on the fence. 

Still, this won't see the light of day for a time so the hardware leakers didn't really disappoint. Not quite sure this is the finished product, but the idea seems very sound to me. At the very least it gives the hardware partners something to aim at (a very good thing) and keeps Apple on its toes (an even better thing).  

Though if I were in charge of marketing, I would have kept the word 'vapor' out of the spec list until the device was closer to shipping.

How will the hardware partners react? Well, IMO, they're getting exactly what they deserve because they've been pretty mediocre for the past five years. MS needed to step just to point them in the right direction. The other thing is that MS can afford to sell this at a loss if they need to; the OEMs have nothing to gain by doing that.

11 hours ago, MasterPie wrote

*snip*

"MSFT fell 15 points after Monday's announcement."

Quite common after an announcement of this magnitude. A lot of folk decide to take profits for some reason, rather than waiting it out. 

3 hours ago, JoshRoss wrote

I wonder how well the track pad works on the type cover? And, has anyone noticed the torx screws on the bottom? How refreshing to see hardware that screams, "Take me apart!" Also, the pro has what seems to be a 207 dpi screen, or maybe my math is wrong.

-Josh

Close. It's 213 according to this:

http://members.ping.de/~sven/dpi.html

2 hours ago, itsnotabug wrote

For a company of this size, for an announcement of this importance, there are an awful lot of jpg compression artifacts on that first page of the Surface site.

I've never seen a site that auto-scales the images as you resize the browser window. I think it's a pretty cool feature.

@Charles: It looks gorgeous and the touch-type cover idea suddenly seems like one of those so-obvious ideas that it's quite hard to believe we haven't seen so far. A great start for the arrival of next-generation hardware.

Looking forward to getting more details once I've had morning coffee!

@cbae: Oh wow. I didn't even notice that... I'm running 1920 x 1080 and it gets grainy with my browser at full screen.