There's been a lot of buzz about the Microsoft Surface tablet in the last week with people weighing up its pros and cons compared with the competitors. It was brave of Microsoft to launch a computer of this kind in an already saturated market. I'm not the most technology savvy person and don't know a lot about tablets but it looks pretty nifty. If you are wondering what it's got that the other players don't then I came across this article below:



All of the first-tier players like Samsung, Amazon, Sony, Lenovo, Acer, Asus, and Motorola (not to mention a Google-branded device that is expected) have already saturated the Android tablet market.

And then there's the iPad, which is simply shorthand for tablet in a lot of consumers' minds and commands most of the market. And has a two-year head start, to boot.

So, it's a tall order for Microsoft and Windows 8.

That said, the rollout of the 10.6-inch (16:9 widescreen HD) Surface tablets on Monday succeeded at the very least in showing that Microsoft has come up with a good idea.

The catch with tablets is the lack of a physical keyboard, which doesn't appeal to some consumers. And keyboard docking solutions to date have typically not been very elegant, with a few exceptions.

Microsoft's 3mm pressure sensitive cover doubles as a keyboard and trackpad and connects to Surface with a "single" magnetic click, according to Microsoft.

And price. It's hard to win either way. Go low and you have to cut corners, strip out features. That ultimately gives the product a bad rap. Go high and, well, the problem is obvious.

Microsoft appears to be leaning toward the higher end of the market, with pricing rumored to start at $599 for RT (ARM chip-based) models. Intel-based versions with 1,920x1,080-pixel displays could run a lot higher.