Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 11 years and 4 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

Last month I picked up a 32gb Microsoft Surface RT tablet as a combined birthday/Christmas present for my daughter. In a bit of pre-planning I upgraded her laptop to Windows 8 so she had time to get familiar with the new OS before she finally got the tablet last week. So far, it’s been a hit, despite some of the setbacks of WinRT, but I’ll get into those later.

After initially unpacking the Surface, I immediately updated Office 2013 from the “preview” version that came on it to the final release, along with a firmware update and the first round of patch Tuesday patches for other problems like Wi-Fi connectivity.

Next up was adding local devices, like my Epson AcuLaser CX11NF, which works as a printer only (no scanning unfortunately). The Windows 8 RT Compatibility Center was a handy place for looking up what would and wouldn’t work with the new ARM-based OS.

On the, uh, surface, the Surface acts like a slim Windows 8 laptop with the addition of a touchscreen. In fact, I was so used to not having a touchscreen I found that I had been using the touchpad on the included Touch keyboard as a regular mouse for some time before I remembered I could actually touch and swipe on the screen!  I will admit that having a touch-enabled device with Windows 8 makes the OS seem a lot more fluid than trying to use it with just a mouse. Still, the split personality of Windows RT (the formerly-named Metro style interface and the classic Windows desktop) can be as confusing and jarring on the Surface as it is on a regular PC. For example:

• you can’t pinch-and-zoom on the classic desktop, which is a problem since all of the window controls are very tiny and not finger-friendly. this is really only a problem when using Office, and can be worked around by using the touchpad on the keyboard, but it’s still frustrating
• there is no scanning/faxing (although the Help still mentions Windows Fax and Scan (wfs.exe), which isn’t included)
• you can’t create a custom refresh image for restoring as the recimg utility is not available
• there’s a Windows 8 version of Microsoft’s SkyDrive, except it doesn’t actually sync your SkyDrive with the local files. it does work as a normal folder in the Office apps though, so at least you can still access your files, but only if you have an internet connection.
• you can’t sync multiple Google Calendars (only your primary calendar will sync
• the Computer Description field (under System Properties) is grayed out so you can’t change it

The Surface isn’t all bad though. This was my first experience with using a Microsoft Live account on multiple devices. When I upgraded my daughter’s laptop to Windows 8, I set her up with a Live account (which cost $.50 for a child setup, which was a little odd) and then used that to login to the Surface. The account sync works very nice … her wallpaper, color settings, etc. all came down to the tablet making the experience almost seamless. The Family Safety/parental controls are very nice as well, which give me the ability to grant permissions on her account which take effect on any device she logs into. This is especially handy for the Windows 8 App Store as I can initially block any app she downloads so she has to ask me for permission before it will run and I can keep tabs on what she’s downloading. The weekly activity reports from the Family Safety website summarize the data from her laptop and Surface into a single place for easy review.

After all of the Windows updates and application installs, the 32gb Surface has only 16gb left for general use. Ouch! I didn’t want to take up even more space with music, photos, and videos so I found this tip which lets you add media libraries on an SD card. Handy!

So far my daughter is thrilled with her new tablet, even though it’s not an iPad. I tend to agree with most reviewers who don’t “get it” and say the hardware is great but overall the Surface feels incomplete. Maybe Microsoft’s target market for the Surface is kids! 😉 We’ll have to wait and see how (if) the Surface Pro is accepted by business users when it’s released next month. In the meantime, for more information on Windows RT and the Surface, be sure to read the various posts on Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows.