It’s not surprising to see the Windows RT platform die. IMO, there simply are not enough apps in the Windows Store to make it useful or a viable alternative to Android and iOS. There are no official Google apps, which for me is a huge loss, although the Hyper For YouTube app would probably still beat out a real Google YouTube app. With all of the cool features, advantages and upgrades done to Windows 8/8.1 over Windows 7, the Hyper For YouTube app is waaay better than using a web browser and worth it for that alone.
We are a Dell shop at work, when I first got a hired, I could have pushed for approval for a Surface Pro 3, but I bought myself (or should I say the company bought me) a Dell Venue 11 Pro tablet instead, with the detachable cover and a bunch of accessories, used it for about two weeks, then ordered myself a real laptop. Not a fan of the whole tablet/laptop, convertible, two in one idea. Even when playing with my friends Surface Pro 2, the keyboard seemed flimsy and awkward to type on and I do not like the idea of no number pad.
The Venue isn’t much better and I couldn’t get the hang of using an active stylus as opposed to a real mouse. And if you’re using it as a laptop, get up, use the keyboard cover to cover the screen, take a few steps and the fold the cover back and use it as a tablet, when the keyboard is folded back, it’s nearly impossible to hold the thing without pressing a bunch of buttons. I eventually gave the tablet to one of the supervisors and he uses it solely as a digital notepad for Evernote. I’d much rather ‘lug’ (I put that in quotes because I fail to see why people complain about carrying a laptop that is a measly 10 lbs or so) around my 17” Precision M6800, with a real keyboard and real processor and dock for connectivity to two monitors or use a KVM switch to toggle between desktop and laptop.
Being a gadget guy and always into the latest (as long as it doesn’t have a logo of a fruit on it) and greatest, I feel like I should want a Surface, but I don’t care for all of these super thin and lightweight things. My Android tablet has always been a toy, and when I replace it in a few months with the Sony Z4, I will use that as a toy. As much as I would like to, I can never see myself owning a Surface type tablet and using it for real. At home I have a powerful Core i7 Ivy Bridge Extreme tower with 32 GB of RAM and dual 27”ers, at work an Ivy Bridge Core i7 for the desktop and Haswell i7 for the laptop with 16GB of RAM each and connected to dual 24”ers. I just cannot imagine doing anything but basic web surfing on one of these things..
