Any Windows tablet or Surface owners?

[atgcpaul]

My wife (who has been an iPod holdout forever, ughh) is completely enamored with the Windows Surface. She doesn't have a tablet now. I have an Android tablet.

I also like the Surface because it seems to be a Windows laptop without the bulk and I could potentially run Visual Studio on it. My work laptop is a beast and I hate lugging it home on my bike. I tell myself that's one of the reasons I don't commute by bike as much. I also read that you can run Android apps under Windows tablet software.

Anyway, is there a difference between the new Windows tablets and a Surface? It's the same software, right (except the R2 which seems to be Pro version vs Home). Regret your purchase or not?

Thanks,
Paul

[vaking]

You are looking at it at the wrong angle. Tablet uses touchscreen as input device. Laptop uses keyboard and mouse. If you are used to laptop - you will find touchscreen very imprecise and uncomfortable. Any device with touchscreen is good for only light duty tasks as far as input is concerned, reading E-mails and browsing Internet. You might be able to run Visual Studio on a windows tablet but I can't imagine you doing real programming without a keyboard. I have android tablet (HP touchpad converted to android) and I had an earlier model Acer (Windows tablet with Windows 7). I am able to run Citrix and VPN clients on either of these tablets, so technically I can use them for work, but you would have to pay me to do it. I gave my windows tablet to my son, but I think it is now collecting dust at his place. We are just not into e-mails.
I never dealt with surface, but I don't think it will be much different. Touchscreen is a proper input device for an ATM machine, not to do programming.

[dbhost]

Architecturally a Windows tablet, and a Microsoft surface are different, at least the Surface Pro is different. I believe the Surface is just a Windows tablet, but I digress...

The regular Windows tablet runs Windows 8 on hardware that is pretty much one flavor of an ARM SOC (System On Chip). Just like almost all Android tablets... The variances are going to be physical layout, display, ports, speed and number of cores on the processor, memory etc... Typically the Windows tablets have to run on pretty high end tablet hardware as the OS is a hog resource wise compared to Android. I have also heard you can run Android applications through an emulation / virtualization layer, although I haven't tried it.

A Surface Pro Tablet is based off of an Intel x86 architecture SOC, and is compatible with normal desktop windows apps and binaries. You can run your version of office you run on your desktop, or your version of Visual Studio from your desktop, on your tablet. Input may require the keyboard / mouse for many apps, but they should run.

I am not sure I would be willing to fork over the cash Microsoft wants for either a Surface, or Surface Pro. You can get a LOT more Android tablet for a lot less money. Aside from the Microsoft Windows 8 (ick) OS, I can't see any good reason to opt for a Windows tablet over an Android... 8.1 may change my impression of the OS though.