The surface tablet, is it worth your money?

With so many phones, tablets, and a ton of other similar devices out there, it is a tough time for the conscious consumer. The electronics sector is constantly shifting with a myriad of new devices such that lingua is being developed to describe devices like the galaxy note. The Note is now popularly referred to as a phablet, which is a clever connotation of the words phone and tablet. The question on many people’s minds is whether to buy a tablet or not, and if so, what’s the best tablet out there? To answer this question, we have to look at what the existing tablets have to offer and what new devices promise to offer. One of the upcoming and most talked about tablet in the tech world recently is the surface tablet. Just a few days after it was open for preorders in the US, the device sold out. So the question on everyone’s lips is, what sets apart the surface tablet from devices like the kindle fire tablet and the nexus 7 both of which are considered just as good if not better?

The biggest and most significant feature about the surface tablet is the software. With windows 8, the surface tablet is already miles ahead of the competition. This is because, with a device like an iPad, yes it’s flashy, looks good but what can you really do with an iPad? The same can be said about all the other tablets on the market. When it comes to functionality, all the tablets in the market are limited to browsing the internet, playing games, light office applications and mostly social networking. This can be attributed to the fact that the software in these devices is limited in terms of functionality. The truth is that, the software versions in these tablets are just not tailored for heavy daily usage. Both iOS and Android in these tablets focus on media consumption more than anything else. With Windows 8 preinstalled, the surface tablet literally shifts the ground in terms of functionality. Imagine a tablet with full office capability and a bunch of other mainstream software found on laptops like the adobe suite on what is considered a tablet. This means that one can then do so much more with the surface tablet than is currently possible. The surface tablet is not the most powerful tablet out there, heck, it’s not even the most pixeled tablet, the nexus 7 and the new iPad cover both grounds respectively. The surface tablet actually makes a difference in the software department.

With things like a Magnesium chassis, vapour deposition coating and display technology termed as ClearType HD display, the surface tablet is certainly a top contender in the design sector. The other impressive feature about the detachable keyboards is their method of attachment. The detachable keyboards are not only easy to attach, they are fun as well when the magnets snap in place. Still to do with the keyboards, these tablets are made in a way that whenever a keyboard of a certain color is attached, the color scheme of the theme changes to match that of the keyboard. If that’s not cool, I don’t know what is.

The other feature that deserves mentioning is the back stand. I haven’t had the pleasure of holding this device in hand so I can’t say much about the ergonomic design. It seems like with the absence of spinning hard disks, Microsoft made a lot of use of magnets. Just like the keyboards, the stand is also held in place by magnets. It’s really helpful that Microsoft decided to include the keyboard as a standard peripheral for this device. This is because typing on the screen is really tedious and tiresome compared to the normal QWERTY keyboard people are used to.

To those worried about the price, the surface tablet is competitively priced, compared especially to its biggest competition the iPad. The stakes are certainly high and Microsoft had to come up with something to not only match the competition, but even go a step further. The Surface tablet will certainly give Apple a run for their money and I look forward to see future iterations of the device.

Its important to mention that the surface tablet comes in two versions, the pro version that comes with a core i5, and the ARM version that runs windows 8 made specifically for ARM devices. Those not familiar with ARM devices can read more on it on the post about ARM processors versus X86 processors here. For those who would rather stick to reading this post, the major difference among the two is in the way they handle instructions. The two use different formatted and different sized instructions and also different modes of processing the instructions. All in all, both the two versions run windows 8 and developers are currently working on many applications to run on the two platforms, especially the ARM device, ahead of its release on Friday.

Now this would be an unfair review if the different tablets on the market and those not yet released are left out. This is what brings me to Google chrome books. Chrome books are very similar to the surface tablet. The chrome book, albeit less powerful than the surface, can be used for word processing and internet browsing on a better scale than what the tablets on the market do offer. For those seeking a cheaper alternative to a laptop and mostly for business applications, a Google chrome book and the surface tablet would be the best choices. I would recommend these devices to students, but most of the students I know prefer devices that can play the latest games apart from being able to surf the internet.

Finally, to answer the question brought fought by the title, yes the surface tablet would be a good use of money. This is mostly because it can be used for virtually any processing needs most laptops provide not to mention a bunch of other goodies like detachable capacitative keyboards, micro USB compatibility and video output via HDMI or mini display port.

Find us on Google+