Last week I attended an event for the Microsoft Surface on launch day. Despite the fact that I had a fairly "Surface incompetent" salesperson who could barely answer a single question (read: NOT an Apple store employee) I found my way to a Surface, tested out the hardware, and made some judgments. The first: don't buy this device. Not now, and possibly not ever, until they fix three fundamental flaws in the OS and device hardware:

1) The device, which feels long, but not heavy, does not allow ALL apps to be viewed in Portrait Mode. Sure, NY Times looks great lengthwise, but not everything reads like a newspaper.

2) Sound quality outside of headphones/ext speakers is actually WORSE than the iPad. Didn't think that was possible.

(cont...)

3) There is no "screen off" button. Every iOS device (and similarly MOST CELLPHONES) have a "power" button which when pressed and held will power down/restart the device, or when pressed briefly, will shut off the screen. The Surface, believe it or not, does nto have this button. When not using it, it immediately goes to Sleep (like a laptop, but hey, i thought this was tablet?) and displays a screen that has user preferences like weather and calendar. That's great, but I'm sure over time that means a battery suck. So, users who want to just shut the screen but not the device off, must then hunt-and-seek for what I'm calling the "actual sleep" mode, which is literally buried inside of the "Start menu" and control panel or similar.

Like I said, the person who showed me the device could barely answer ANY of my questions, meaning that he either didn't remember his training or that MS barely trained the personnel working the event to handle the surplus of guests coming for launch day. Another disappointment.

I will say this, the hardware, magnetic keyboards, Gorilla Glass and all, seemed HIGHLY durable, which a big selling point for me. But no, I won't be tossing out my netbook to upgrade to a Windows tablet yet. Like Ozar says in his article, the Surface is half-baked: an idea that with more field testing and less push-to-release-before-holiday may have truly been MS' answer to the iPad.

Let's talk about this. Have you seen/held/used the Surface? What are your thoughts? Do you have other questions for me about the device? let's Branch about it.