Surface with Windows 8 Pro: February 9 Release, Additional Details and Accessories

Dying to see if you can use this docked as a full pc, and on the go. And how the transition back and forth works. Whether or not you have to dip in to desktop settings to enable external monitors or if it just works. I'm going to skip this purchase till I hear comments. Happy with my RT for now. And most of all what the real battery life is. 6 would mean a LOT more than 5, and 4 would suck.

Paul, I think that "with Type Cover" is just a typo on Microsoft's part. It looks like the only place that's mentioned is in the little photo gallery on Microsoft's PR site. Whoever put that page together probably just copy/pasted incorrectly. Other captions in the photo gallery don't say "with Type Cover".

ETA: As I feared, Microsoft has edited the caption to read: "The Surface Windows 8 Pro is shown with an optional Type Cover and is available for purchase in the U.S. and Canada Feb. 9 and starts at US$899."

Well that's disappointing. Throwing in a type cover for the first 30-90 days or so would have been a welcome promotion.

I like those TouchCovers with the design on them but not the colors.

I'm definitely purchasing a Surface Pro when pre-orders come out. Does anyone know if you are able to get better support options purchasing direct from Microsoft versus Best Buy or Staples? I usually purchase direct from Lenovo because of available warrenties, and customization (I know doesn't apply.)

(What follows is a sentiment I've wanted to express for awhile. I don't know what about this article did it, but something about the near psychedelic designs of the pictured Type Covers above really crystallized a few things for me.)

I think that in its irrational mania to emulate everything it thinks Apple is doing--Microsoft is close to some sort of schizoid breakdown as a company. What has happened to this once-great, once-logical company?

At the moment, most of the planet is caught in a downward economic spiral wherein price becomes far more a critical pivot than it ever is in robust and hardy economic times. For instance, in good times people buy or build their own desktops joyfully and buy their portable devices afterwards and in addition to the centerpieces of their work/play environment: their desktops. The fact that some people are *temporarily* making economically driven choices at the moment to buy that ~$800 "portable device" *instead* of that $1.5k-$2k really powerful and upgradable desktop system they *really wanted* is all too true. Such devices otherwise *naturally* would be second-third tier choices in a robust economy. Additions to a desktop centerpiece strategy--not replacements. Never replacements.

But it looks like there's some kind of leadership vacuum at the head of Microsoft these days and that the company is simply afraid of leading in rational, sane directions that make sense for customers and the company alike. And, no, emulating Apple "*ain't*" it. It's sad, really sad, to see Microsoft floundering like this--almost in a mad dash to emulate Apple as if Apple has all of the answers and Microsoft has none.

How was it possible, I wonder, short of a schizoid rift, for Sinofsky to brilliantly orchestrate Windows 7 into arguably the most popular release of Windows Microsoft has ever shipped (and it was Vista 2.0, without a doubt!), only then to turn around almost in the same breath to so carelessly dump Windows 8 Pro, Windows 8 Core, and WindowsRT for ARM?

No Apple OS has ever come remotely close to the market penetration of Windows, and Windows 7 in particular. No contest. Windows 7: indisputably the world leader by a very large margin. Windows 7 being so recent in its history, notwithstanding, it's nigh incredible that Microsoft seems somehow to have managed to forget the whole thing. (If that's not symptomatic of a split with reality I don't know what is.)

I mean, if Microsoft wanted to get into the "McPhone" smartphone race--terrific! If Microsoft wanted to also join in in the tablet/and/or/other-portable-devices carnivals, great!

But what's all of this double-talk about cell-phones and portable devices *eliminating* a need for the tried & true desktop hardware configuration? For as long as I can recall we've always had a cell phone market growing very fast on an annual basis so as to practically eliminate land-line phones. Portable devices with limited computing performance have *always* been around and been popular for *gasp* *portable* use!

But through it all the desktop hardware configuration has reigned supreme for decades! And for a literal raft of good reasons--reasons that hold true today as much as they ever have in the past. In terms of value, computational power, and hardware upgradability, the desktop form factor has no peer. And the desktop has been in constant development and refinement for ~30 years--portable tablet configurations like the iPad, for instance, have been in development and use for roughly 10% of that time. The prospect of similar desktop longevity for tablet-like form factors is remote, in my view. In any event, we must wait a long time to see what ultimately transpires with tablets--whereas we know what has transpired with the desktop form factor for three previous decades, at least.

Anyway, the companies that emerge from this "time of economic testing" will be the companies who remain calm and cool in the face of the juvenile three-ring circus that is and always has been Apple (eg, Samsung hasn't lost its head, etc.) Microsoft should have remained calm in the face of Apple's huge but oh-so-temporary upsurge within the volatile and highly competitive hardware markets.

Apple's traditional business model is one that chooses to compete with the rest of the world through a variety of schemes that always guarantee it a spot near the bottom when the competition ultimately shakes out--because suing its competitors will never work to win for Apple what the company cannot win by way of competition. But that the way Apple has always played the game.

Microsoft's business model, otoh, has been to support the entire plethora of hardware companies around the globe who support the x86 hardware paradigm and its resultant hardware development. Of the two strategies there is no doubt that Microsoft's has been the better for the company and its customers alike. There is also little doubt that for the long run Microsoft sits atop an enviable position--provided the company doesn't lose sight of that.

IMO, Apple's stock being sold for ~$500 a share is almost as ridiculous and ludicrous as Google's stock going for 50% more than that per share!...;) The only gratification I have at this point is in knowing that without a doubt as the economic mess stabilizes sanity will return to the markets in sweeping waves. My hope is that by that time Microsoft will not have thrown away all the advantages the company has labored so hard to accrue over the last few decades! Seeking to emulate Apple in these matters would no doubt be the worst of follies for Microsoft and I hope the company doesn't throw out the baby with the bathwater. Microsoft is capable of so much more--when it isn't emulating Apple, that is.

I'm done. I guess this was all a bit pent up, eh?...:) Sheeesh--what a wall of text...;)