When Steve Jobs decried touchscreen laptops in 2010, he was merely relaying the common wisdom of decades of user experience research into "gorilla arm syndrome." Simply put, it's the idea that if you hold out your arm in front of a touchscreen for an extended period of time, it's not going to be particularly comfortable. However, that assumes an awful lot — what if you're not holding your arms out in space waiting to touch things, but resting them comfortably on a keyboard?
We've been looking at this all wrong. A touchscreen isn't a replacement for a keyboard or mouse, it's a complement. If I want to type things on my laptop and have enough room to comfortably open that clamshell and stretch out my arms, the keyboard's still my best bet. I'm not going to touch-type 70 words per minute on a touchscreen keyboard. But when I'm in the cramped quarters of a train, plane, or standing in a line — say, when the only thing standing between a critical email and its recipient is a few dozen words and a tap of the button marked "Send" — I can grab that Windows 8 laptop by its hinged section, one hand on either side of the screen, and tap out that message with my thumbs.
You're issuing a false dilemma by saying that it's all touch or all keyboard/mouse. It can be both, and that's the point of the article. Keyboards are usually better for typing, but using a mouse isn't always easier for pointing, and sometimes using a keyboard isn't convenient. Having touch, mouse, and keyboard all available makes sense, because you can use whichever is best for the situation you're in.
The Surface Pro does include touch support - 10 point multitouch, in fact. It happens to also have an active digitizer to support pen input. It can do both.
The fact that you didn't know that implies that you really have no idea what you're talking about.
Do or do not. There is no try.
Until you've actually used a touch/laptop hybrid device, don't go knocking it. When I say "use", I don't mean "try", I mean actually used it for day-to-day tasks for a couple weeks. Not "poked one in the mall and didn't know how to do everything right away, so I gave up," or worse yet, "saw a picture or video online and haven't even tried one in person." Spare me the "but I know I won't like it," because until you've actually used the device, you don't know.
The overwhelming opinion of people I know who have actually used these devices that are neither a tablet nor a laptop, but really a bit of both, is that they work well and are not just a gimmick. New things can take some getting used to. That doesn't mean they're bad.
It's a work in progress, but there's a new YouTube series called Crash Course which presently covers biology and world history. They're planning to encompass other subjects in the future as well, but it just recently started. The history lessons are taught by author/nerd John Green and the biology is taught by his brother Hank Green. I suggest you check it out; it's got lots of neat graphics, simple explanations, and is easy to follow.
As mentioned in other posts, Khan Academy is also a fantastic online resource. It's not quite as spiffy as Crash Course, but covers far more subjects, and is easy to follow.
There have been some comments about how Microsoft implemented secure boot and unfortunately these seemed to synthesize scenarios that are not the case so we are going to use this post as a chance to further describe how UEFI enables secure boot and the options available to PC manufacturers.
As the blog post explains, manufacturers will be expected to offer an option to disable Secure Boot, and power users will have the choice to use different operating systems if they do not want to use Secure Boot.
This exists for Microsoft Office; it's called Search Commands and is available as a free add-on. It works pretty well, and does exactly what you describe: you type in a search box, and it shows relevant actions. The addon is made by Microsoft, so obviously they do have this idea and are considering its applications.
I was excited when I found this product, since I've been thinking something like this would be nice ever since the ribbon was introduced. But you know what? I never use it. I find it much quicker to just use things where they're built in. Once you get used to it, everything in the ribbon is actually pretty well laid out and easy to find. One nice feature of the Search Commands addon is that it'll tell you how to get to the tool normally. It's a good way to figure out how to get places, but once you know where things are, it's much faster to go straight there.
It tells us that you participate in the mass cultural delusion that the sun's apparent position relative to arbitrarily defined constellations at the time of your birth somehow affects your personality.
If all you need is "a" text processor, spreadsheet program, and slideshow program, then go ahead and use another text processor, spreadsheet program, and slideshow program. There's plenty of them out there. Office is a bit more complex than you make it out to be there. The integration between office programs (ability to edit excel graphs within word for example) and features like sharepoint server, office is quite a bit more than just those things though. Simple documents, spreadsheets and presentations don't require office, though some may find office easier to use. But for complex things, it does its job well, and may be worth the price.
Furthermore, office home and student (the version which costs $150) can be legally installed on three computers at once. That's a mere $50 per license, which makes it a good deal for families. It's also often on sale at both retail and online stores - right now newegg has it for $105. That's $35 per license. Which is barely over your stated price of $30. Maybe not such a bad deal after all, eh?
"May your future be limited only by your dreams." -- Christa McAuliffe
