Just finished watching it, and have a few more observations and comments. First I'll tackle what annoyed the heck out of me.
1. The current generation of MS corporate heads are totally out of touch with the type of audience the Surface is aimed at. They need to stop trying to get "personal" with their kitchy catch phrases which make them come off as a bunch of geriatrics trying to sound hip and in touch. The use of phrases such as "eco system" and "personal experience" or possessive adjectives such as "yours" really come off as them trying to deliver the same speeches we'd hear at an Apple Keynote. That really annoyed the heck out of me. They need to get their P.R. team together and fire the lot. Start with a clean slate and have them take control of their own team rather than have corporate dictate the kind of cold, meaningless drivel that was present there. I could go on but.. I digress.
The other things that stand out and that are not strictly positive are more questions than anything, so on to the positive:
1. Wow. MS has the opportunity to do so much right here! The design/aesthetics, power, simplicity and functionality for a tablet here are truly looking to be outstanding! They really seemed to have taken their time and put an immense amount of detail into this thing from A-Y. *more on that after* From the beautiful keyboards to the sleek fold-away stand, central ventilation/cooling duct and even the proper place for the magnetic stylus.
HDMI, USB 2/3 and a micro USB port, without sacrificing form factor or weight. Running REAL applications and not just ports of them? YES PLEASE! Using Photoshop or Lightroom on a 2 lb. tablet would be one of the best things to happen to me since sliced bread, if it is implemented properly. Just being able to have my entire catalog available, and all of my photos on an portable external drive is ... well, droolalicious. Now of course, I could have an MacBook Air or any other notebook for this kind of thing, but we're talking about portability now!
Ok, so the MBA is quite light, but it's also a notebook with a totally different form factor. We're talking ultimate convenience and ultimate portability all round'. This tablet seems to fit that bill to me. I guess I could go on a bit more, but have to get ready for work soon. So on to questions:
What about security? This is after all, Windows that we are talking about. Not an mobile OS like iOS that is sitting nicely behind it's lovely walled garden, minding its own business keeping its users safe from all the bad people out there!
The OS its self. What assurances do we have that it's not just more bloatware from MS that will eventually cause the entire platform to come "crashing" down? I have lived without BSOD's for more than 5 years now, and don't feel like going back to them at this point.
Hate to be short, but must get running. More later.
Doug