Microsoft Surface for Windows 8: Something else to want

I love my iPad. But I don’t find it useful as such. It is great for playing games or consuming data, and should I ever feel the need to paint a portrait or compose some music it might prove useful I suppose. But I like to spend my time creating programs and documents and stuff like that, which the iPad just won’t let me do. But the new Microsoft Surface should.

At the moment I’m loving my Samsung Series 7 Slate, which gets pretty close to the larger of the two new Surface devices. I’ve got my slate running Windows 8 Release Preview and it is a properly useful device. In fact at the moment it is my main computer. I’ve got two docking stations, one at home and one at work, and I now carry my desktop around with me. The machine has more than enough power to do what I want, which is use Office, Visual Studio, Photoshop, play a bit of media and browse the interwebs. It is a bit restricted in terms of built in storage, but I’ve got around 20G free at the moment and a 32G SD card plugged in the side which has got a whole bunch of movies and other stuff on there. Battery life is fine too, with at least 5 hours if I work the machine hard, and up to 8 if I take it a bit easier.

The Surface should be rather like this, but better. It has a case that turns into a touch keyboard, and another that turns into a keyboard with moving keys. It also has a kickstand to make it easy to stand on the desk. The two words that come to mind for me are “want” and “one”. The only snag with the Surface is that it isn’t in the shops yet. But when it is, I’ll be there, queuing up for a blue one.