Microsoft Surface RT Yin To iPad’s Yang – No “Toaster-Refrigerator”

The Chicago Sun-Times’ Andy Ihnatko thinks the Microsoft Surface With Windows RT represents whole point of what Microsoft is undertaking with Windows 8 – which is that by creating a separate OS specifically tuned for the needs of consumer-oriented tablets with mobile processors, they’ve created a separate user interface and experience that works both with smaller screens and limited CPU power but also crosses over nicely to the desktop.

Ihnatko notes that if this strategy fails, Microsoft would wind up with a mashup that is unsatisfactory on both kinds of computer and Surface RT really would be the “toaster-refrigerator” Apple’s CEO Tim Cook alluded to when asked for an opinion about this strategy.

“Well, now,” Ihnatko says, “I’ve been using Surface RT for a full workday and this is no toaster refrigerator.”

He says the emblematic distinction between the Surface and the iPad is that the iPad’s soul is in mobile computing, rendering it occasionally clumsy when you try to use it as a keyboard/mouse input PC, while the Surface RT’s soul is in desktop computing, which means it’s occasionally clumsy as a multitouch tablet. However, in his estimation no matter how you use an iPad or a Surface RT, they’re never anything less than Good, and when you use them the way their makers intended respectively, each one shines, with that the iPad and Surface RT being separate answers to the question: “What form should a modern computer take?”

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