My philosophy is that if you want something to use as a laptop, you should get a
laptop, not a tablet.
Certainly that's what I do - I recently got a Hercules
eCafe, which is an ARM based laptop running Linux.
It's not very powerful, but
it has amazing battery life and a usable keyboard, and doesn't try to roast me
alive in my bed. I'm sure that some of the Atom or (better) Brazos based
netbooks would have similar
advantages - maybe more powerful in exchange for
less battery life.
An argument could be made for hybrid devices like the
Asus Transformer series, which closely emulate
a laptop form factor when
combined with their keyboard. The Transformer even puts an extra battery in
the keyboard, which helps to rebalance the device as well as making it more
useful. No kickstand
required or provided. It's expensive though, so you'd
better really like tablets.
Surface just doesn't seem to live on the same
planet as the rest of us. If the keyboard only works if it's
flat on a table,
then this thing actually requires *more* space than a laptop - which you can in
principle
perch on a brick wall or a seat-back table - and is less flexible. I
foresee the first crop of decent
reviewers trying to take it on a flight or a
train ride, and finding it utterly unusable in that setting. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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