The Microsoft Surface offerings are quite interesting to me. At first, I was convinced that the Surface Pro would be the way to go but, frankly, was deterred by the price tag (Sorry, Microsoft, even reducing it by $100 didn’t sway me). The Surface RT left me cold – until I thought about what I really wanted a tablet to do: Not much! Internet access, e-mail, e-reader, limited Office support (but better than the Windows 7 phone version with no copy and paste functions), and maybe a movie now and again. Sounds like the RT is about what I’m looking for, doesn’t it?

Well, yes and no. I like that Microsoft now offers free upgrades from Office RT to full Office but wonder what the impact on memory and performance will be. Believe it or not, the deal-killer for me is that RT doesn’t have the right screen for a nice stylus and digital ink (there may be more to the problem than that, but…). I would happily buy an RT and go sit in the yard or in a class, making notes and sketches in OneNote or whatever – I just don’t want them to look like I was using a dull crayon. So, somewhere out there in Microsoft land, would somebody please think about how to make the RT into a handy tablet for those of us who don’t really want to be tied to a keyboard for everything? I’ll bet sales to students, home users, and maybe even business types who don’t need to lug a laptop to every meeting would skyrocket (OK – the bar is set rather low at the moment, but you know what I mean).