It's time for another tablet to enter the market. This week the Microfot Surface launched, along with Windows RT. You've been seeing bits and pieces of the new Microsoft era in the revamped Outlook.com, the brave if stunted entry of Windows phones, and now finally in Windows 8 and RT. It seems familiar... and not. Familiar in that it has entered our consciousness over the year and unfamiliar in that you won't know how to navigate it coming from Windows 7. The new OS is gorgeous, but I have little to say about it for now. Everything that you've read about it taking some getting used to is true. It's more ambitious than iOS, way swipes and gestures work sort of reminds you of the Blackberry Playbook OS, but in a more sophisticated way and with better graphics. Underneath it all is Windows and there are ways of getting to that familiar way of working with things, but this is a device that will take some getting used to. Overall, I like the Metro-esque era for Windows, the new colorful word is so not 50 shades of grey. Very refreshing coming from the pristine and austere world of iOS.
The screen resolution is 1366 x768, which has been maligned somewhat by the Retina Screen and Nexus10 fanboys, but pixels aside, the display is crisp and very readable. As we say in cameras, it's not just the number of pixels, but also the quality, and the Surface has good quality pixels. Screen crispness matters to me more than screen resolution, since eyestrain is a personal problem for me now that documents are no longer printed out and everything is read in electronically. In any case, the lower resolution count gets put to better use when you add the Touch Cover keyboard, as a virtual keyboard wouldn't be intruding into your visual space.
The screen resolution is 1366 x768, which has been maligned somewhat by the Retina Screen and Nexus10 fanboys, but pixels aside, the display is crisp and very readable. As we say in cameras, it's not just the number of pixels, but also the quality, and the Surface has good quality pixels. Screen crispness matters to me more than screen resolution, since eyestrain is a personal problem for me now that documents are no longer printed out and everything is read in electronically. In any case, the lower resolution count gets put to better use when you add the Touch Cover keyboard, as a virtual keyboard wouldn't be intruding into your visual space.