Microsoft Surface, anyone?

Have any of you used one of these tablets?  Lynn has been using one of the first ones for a while, and gave it to me a month or so ago, when her school district provided her with something better.  Her husband, Chris has one of the latest models and is very happy with it, but I'm thinking there must have been some improvements made.

Not looking a gift horse in the mouth (like my cliché?). I'm glad to have it, especially for free, and since my netbook is showing signs of age, but I'm finding it has limitations.  I like typing on my little Kindle Fire so long as I have my Bluetooth keyboard, but there just isn't a decent substitute for Microsoft Office, so it's limited to drafting.  I'm used to using Office 2010, which came on the netbook, along with Windows 7, but this sucker has Windows 8 and office 2013.  Between the two of them, I'm getting somewhat frustrated.

I like the size of the keypad, and am getting adjusted to the differences in feel and touch, but it's still slowing me down a little, and drafting by hand just doesn't work anymore.  I still can't quite make a fist, and my writing is totally unreadable if I try to write with any speed at all.

I haven't accomplished much during this past year, what with all this other stuff, but am trying to get going again.

One of the problems is that this tablet won't let me download the yWriter software, so I still have to go to the netbook for organizing scenes and chapters, etc.  It's slow, but speed isn't a big factor at that point.  Google drive has made some major changes lately, but I finally managed, over a whole day yesterday, to get my Daniel's Daughter file folder uploaded, downloaded, and opened onto this desktop.  I do not like the "improvements" to Google Drive, I do not.  And I do not like either Windows 8 or Office 2013, but I did not like Office 2010 when I first got the netbook, either, so I'm hopeful.

Meantime, anyone who knows anything about any of these devices or programs, I would so appreciate some advice.

Annie

Be patient with 8 and the new word...you'll love them soon!!!!

Windows 8 and 8.1 become much more tolerable if you add the $4 Start Menu add-on.

http://www.stardock.com/products/start8/

I stood in line three hours at Staples on Thanksgiving and bought an Azus netbook for $100.  My son made it so I skip the windows part by clicking on the "desktop" window. My desktop choices are along the bottom as I'm accustomed. He put on the Windows from online that I paid $59 for in addition to the $100 netbook.  By next year, I'll either have to pay an additional rental fee for Word or get software.I love everything about the netbook so long as I use a mouse.  The touch pad is too touchy and keeps taking me back to the windows that I do not like.  The keyboard is a dream.

I previously was using a tablet, 10", on which I put a software you recommended Ann that has worked great - Kingsoft or something like that -and translated wonderfully to my old Word that my newspaper likes me to use.  I never got a decent keyboard, though, and the keys are just a touch too close and I make lots of errors that drive me up a tree.

The netbook is MARVELOUS.  I don't need that touch screen stuff for what I do.  I dreamed of a microsoft surface but don't think I would maximize it.  The word that I bought with the netbook doesn't cause me any consternation at all.  Nothing does. I wish you luck.

So far, the biggest problem with surface is that it's a Microsoft product, so it doesn't accept programs that are in competition, like google chrome or, apparently the start menu that Al recommended, although it did let me purchase it through paypal.  Oh, well, surely I can get paypal to cancel the order; if not, $4 is no big loss.  It won't download Gimp, either, so I hope the 8 paint does a good job.  There are some things I will just have to go back to my old netbook to do.  Meantime, I don't recommend the Surface.  Since I got this one free, I can't complain.

Surface Pro 2 allows you to install any Windows app (so I have read). The earlier Surface does not run Windows. It runs a special OS named RT which is incompatible with non-Microsoft apps.

This one seems to be a cross between the two. The OS is clearly Windows 8, but so far will not load any app that doesn't come from its app store.

It didn't cost me anything, and I'm adjusting to Office 2013. I'll just have to accept its limitations and be grateful for what it will do. So long as the old netbook works, I can still use it for those things I can't do here.

Thanks for all the advice, everyone.

alj wrote:

This one seems to be a cross between the two.  The OS is clearly Windows 8, but so far will not load any app that doesn't come from its app store.

That's RT as I understand it. The user interface is like Windows, but the underlying OS is proprietary. I understand they still sell that model. The others are pricey.

Thanks Al, that explains a lot.