I was looking at one in PC world last night, seems like value at £279, you get office, the video is good – sound not so much but I was in a noisy warehouse. I know it gets expensive if you buy the keyboard, but so does any other tablet.

Like I say seems like good value, but what am I missing?

Lack of apps.

But having said that, if you just want web, email (and the client supports your provider of choice) and office (and the version on it is ok – no macros IIRC) then you’re good to go.

I prefer mine to my airbook. It’s better for business use than the iPad, but it’s not as nice as a casual use tablet.

Battery life is incredible.

It’s pretty much dead – they’re just selling off excess stock cheap…

Microsoft Doesn’t Want To Admit Windows RT Is Dead

That’s quite a damming report. I need mine primarily for business use, presentations, filling in pdf’s, and showing video clips etc

Out of interest if they (microsoft) abandon it how long would they continue to support the Operating System.

Really like mine, it’s more ‘useful’ than my Android tablet.

Granted they haven’t been as successful as MS would have hoped but the support lifecycle takes it to 2017 so it’s not going to just stop working.

The number of Apps is growing and I’m only missing a couple of things that would be nice to have. It’s fairly straightforward to build Apps that work with both Windows 8 and RT so that side of things shouldn’t be a problem.

PS. The Windows 8.1 Preview update is worth installing for some nice improvements.

I’ve got a Surface Pro and its great. I did have a Dell XPS10 which is an RT tablet. I’d take a look at that as the Dell has a better keyboard that also contains a battery pack. I don’t know how the Dell compares weight wise to the Surface RT but it was loads lighter than my Pro and the battery, even without the additional one in the keyboard lasted much longer (to be fair the pro is a full on laptop replacement). It’s a real shame that the RT hasn’t caught on as it makes current iOS look very old hat and the app range isn’t really a problem. 70k apps (?) vs a bazillion, so what, most people only really use about 10 and most stuff I do can be done through the browser anyway!

If it does what you want now, then great. But be aware that Microsoft can just drop support for things that don’t sell (Zune, PlaysForSure, and will happily change things so that they’re incompatible with old devices (Windows Phone 7 vs 8).

They’ll in theory support the hardware until 2017, but the software support for Windows RT, they are very vague about, which suggests they have an open mind on dumping it, or at least aren’t so confident that they’re willing to commit to it:

“Microsoft will make software updates, including security updates, available for Windows RT. Additional information regarding the Windows RT lifecycle policy will be communicated as available.”

http://support.microsoft.com/gp/lifecycle-windows-rt-faq

It’s worth pointing out that Steve Balmer, who was all behind this, is retiring within the next twelve months, which might see MS having a ‘night of the long knives’ cull of poorly performing kit.
It’ll be interesting to watch MS and see what sort of direction they go in over the next couple of years.

That looks like a good tip.

Not sure how it matters if it gets discontinued. It’s technology. In two years it’s obsolete and you buy something else.

I’ve been using Windows 8 and thought it was OK. The wife has just got a Lenevo Yoga laptop and the Nokia Lumia 925 Windows 8 phone. Using the Microsoft account now makes much more sense and it is so well integrated with each other and easy to use it makes the previous Ipad and iphone look cumbersome. I know when my contract is up for renewal then I will be going down the same route too.
The apps look a lot fewer than Apples offerings but they all seem to work and not just variations of the same thing. The majority that we have required have been free and they work as well if not better than Apple’s more expensive apps.

Windoze – virus-ridden bloatware. Says it all that when one of their head people announced his retiement, share price surged by nearly 10%. As per countzero’s post, I’d wait at least 6 months while MS decide what they will and won’t support. Partly, some people will want support and won’t buy unsupported products (corporate users, the big market), partly stuff will plummet in price as product x is no longer supported rumours circulate

Virus ridden bloat ware? You tried doing anything useful on OSX or iOS recently? iPad takes nearly two minutes to open the App Store. If that ain’t bloated I don’t know what is.

The WinMin project did the Windows OS a host of favours, I don’t think it’s bloated anymore.

Windows 8 is OK, apart from a hellishly awful horrific nasty useless unproductive piece of crap formally known as ‘metro’.

They should have put the W8 kernel under the W7 dwm.exe.

Strange that: dwm.exe. Slowly but surely turning into UNIX….

Browsing on one but I’m a Microsoft fanboy for work so can forgive some of the v1 ‘features’

Apps can take a while to boot, speakers arnt loud enough and ie does a really annoying thing of shifting down slightly once its finished loading so what you tried to click on has moved!

Anyway I forgive it its foibles but partially because I want to!

It could frustrate if you are coming from an iPad imo

iPad takes nearly two minutes to open the App Store. If that ain’t bloated I don’t know what is.

Yours must be broken, on mine the AppStore opens in about 2-3 seconds.