Thanks, Patrick, for a great review. Your perspective is always valuable to me.

I think Surface (all types) is a great concept and I applaud Microsoft for taking the risk and doing it. The problem is that they've copied Apple's pricing and are obviously shooting for the same market. If they can lose about 2/3 of the price, I might buy one. My hope is that this is just paying the development costs and soon they'll be able to do just that. (But I doubt if that's their business model.) I don't look down on or envy the Apple fans who like shiny, pretty toys and need some way to unload all that heavy cash. But as a retired programmer living on Social Security, I need for someone to build that Surface functionality and adaptability into a $250 phablet w/ a keyboard cover that contains an extra battery. Perhaps if they marketed the elements separately, I could eventually put it all together.

The timing is certainly right with Windows 8 offering the prospect of a single system on all devices. It will no doubt take a few years to smooth all that out. I just hope that Microsoft is able to hang in there until all the bumps get sanded down. It will certainly be a challenge for them, but hopefully they are big enough to pull it off. I imagine that their hardware partners will pick up the lead eventually.