Certainly the hardware looks good and it has a couple of innovative features. The first is the built in stand that flips out at the back and enables the tablet to be stood up in landscape mode. The screen aspect ratio is 16:9 which is fine for viewing widescreen TV and movies. The second is the keyboard/cover. If you thought Apple's cover was clever, this one goes one step beyond. It's a cover, but combined with the stand, it turns the tablet into a a laptop computer.
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| Microsoft Surface |
This is really clever and you're thinking it looks thick and heavy, it's not. It really is a cover. Microsoft has clearly pinched the idea from Samsung with its Galaxy Tab cover:
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| Samsung Galaxy Tab |
Microsoft's is uncannily similar, but slightly better looking and slimmer. Like an improved version of the Tab.
Although the hardware looks good, it is not sufficient to ensure that the Surface will be successful. The reason why the iPad is so popular is that it has a massive collection of apps that cover almost every subject you can think of. A few taps is all it takes to browse, download and install apps. It has a huge collection of music and a few taps enables you to browse, download and install tracks. The same with TV shows, movies, books, podcasts and so on. Tap and you're in the online store, tap to browse, tap and enter your password and seconds later it's on the iPad. This is what Microsoft has to replicate if its Surface tablet is to be successful.
Microsoft appears to have the right hardware, but now it has to create the content people want to consume on it, and make it super-easy to access. People need to be able to tap to get music, apps, videos, movies, books, podcasts and more. What I don't want is to have to fiddle around on a PC with complicated software ripping CDs or DVDs to disk and then trying to copy them across to the Surface. All the content should be available on the Surface simply by tapping an icon or menu. Without this, it will fail to impress.
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