Microsoft Surface Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on October 23, 2012 9:01 PM EST- Posted in
- Tablets
- Microsoft
- Mobile
- Surface
- Windows RT
Type Cover
If Microsoft’s Touch Cover is the perfect companion for occasional typing, its Type Cover is the professional counterpart. Thickness increases by roughly 2.2mm, enough to be noticeable while still maintaining the svelte profile of Surface, but in exchange for marginally more bulk you get a keyboard with actuating scissor keys.
The keys themselves are a little bigger than in Touch Cover, thus reducing the amount of empty space between each key, but overall the feel is very similar. Where Type Cover really delivers is in its use of scissor keys. If you want more of a notebook feel, this is the way to go.
Typing quickly on Type Cover isn’t fatiguing at all and it’s just as easy to write large documents or emails using it as it would be on a traditional notebook. There are very few tradeoffs that you make to enjoy Type Cover. There’s only one color (black), and of course there is some additional thickness. The keyboard itself isn’t perfect but it’s good enough to write this review on.
I actually wasn’t bothered by the relatively shallow keystroke depth on Type Cover, although I am very used to the relatively shallow feel of most ultraportable keyboards by now. If you’re expecting the same sort of keyboard as you’d find on a thick mainstream notebook, you will be disappointed.
Type Cover’s trackpad is marginally better than what you get with Touch Cover. The trackpad is actually a tiny, top-hinged clickpad, which makes clicking a bit easier. Tap to click and two finger scrolling are both supported. The trackpad surface isn’t particularly smooth, and it isn’t all that large of a surface which work together to make scrolling nice and frustrating. The lower right section of the trackpad serves as a physical right mouse button.
Type Cover sells at a $10 premium to Touch Cover. At $129 it isn’t cheap, but it’s likely the option anyone who is going to do a lot of typing will need to take to get the most out of their Surface RT tablet.
My only complaint with Type Cover was that it would randomly stop accepting keystrokes in mid sentence, sometimes even in the middle of a word. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on, whether I’m hitting performance limitations and the platform is just dropping keystrokes or if there’s a physical problem with my unit (or Type Cover in general), but it was annoying. Even with the occasional dropped keystrokes I was still able to type faster and better on Type Cover than I could with Touch Cover. If you write for a living, you can live with Touch Cover, but you’d probably rather have Type Cover. Neither is as good as a traditional notebook keyboard, but both are light years ahead of typing on a glass screen.
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Old_Fogie_Late_Bloomer - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Don't get me wrong, Microsoft clearly did a lot of things right here in terms of the physical design. They made a product that part of me really wants to own. But as snazzy as the whole package is, I wouldn't be able to bring myself to buy this when the VivoTab Smart has the same price and an x86 processor.On a different note, what struck me most about this writeup was the very beginning. Contrast Sinofsky's attitude towards Microsoft's competitors to Jobs' attitude towards Android and Google. If you wanna attract me to your closed ecosystem, Sinofsky's approach is the one to take. :-P
mantikos - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
I amfaizoff - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Just skimmed through this review and it's excellent. There is the one typo I noticed last sentence."consumption and prodcutivity device"
michal1980 - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
really? To me this review felt forced. Like Anand was forced to review it, not because he wanted too.Read some of the Apple reviews and you can feel the imagic seeping through. Here its like, bla, M$ released something, its alright, but you know thats all.
Boogaloo - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Anand really really likes his Apple devices.N4g4rok - Tuesday, October 23, 2012 - link
Nothing wrong with that, If anything i appreciate it. It may illuminate us to some things he notices right away whereas someone who's used a series of products for a long time becomes a tad bit more forgiving or accustomed to.For example, i'm glad he mentioned that bit about the type cover losing keystrokes occaisionally. I'll be sure to test that out before choosing between that one or the touch cover.
yourfather239 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Everything wrong with that and it has nothing to do with him noticing differences right away, but it definitely has everything to do with him being an Indian, trust me I have seen many Indians kissing Apple's butt for no obvious reason and after the release of the new iphone 5 they believe that this is how every phone is supposed to look like. It's shameful and biased thinking at its finest.melgross - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
What is wrong with you? Are you retarded or something?mgl888 - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
You, sir, are naive, racist, narrow-minded and pathetic.How about first searching your own comment for signs of bias?
MilwaukeeMike - Wednesday, October 24, 2012 - link
Its not racism, its stereotyping. Racism would be if he said Indians were inferior somehow, prejudice would be if he no prior experience, but since he does and he's applying it to this example, its a stereotype. Can we ignore the fool and move on now?