Surface, iPad and the space between tablets and laptops

Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 launch triggered a discussion about the nature of tablets, laptops and what ever spaces exist between these categories. That's assuming there are spaces.

It’s a discussion worth having. We need to think more about why we make certain decisions about the technologies we buy and use.

Tablets that act like laptops

Technically a Surface is a tablet. That’s how Microsoft pitches them in its marketing. Yet most Surfaces leave a shop or an online store along with a keyboard.

At this point they become something else, something much closer to laptop.

The other giveaway is the landscape orientation. Tablets originally had a portrait orientation more like a phone handset, while laptops have always been landscape.

A Microsoft Surface rarely spends much time in portrait orientation.

Keyboards and the productivity question

There is nothing to stop people using a keyboard with an iPad, I ordered my iPad keyboard within days of receiving the tablet. At the time I saw a keyboard as the route to productivity.

Since then my iPad keyboard has spent most of its time sat in a cupboard gathering dust. It still gets used occasionally, but rarely. The iPad mainly functions as a tablet. The Apple Pencil gets more use.

I’m writing this post on my iPad while sitting on the sofa. I often write stories on the iPad in cafés. The on-screen glass keyboard isn’t perfect, but that’s not important. What I lose from not being able to touch type efficiently, I gain in portability and mobility from working with a pure tablet. It has become natural.

On the other hand, working on a Surface without a keyboard feels unnatural. It's as unnatural as working on a laptop without using a keyboard.

Of course that may change over time, just as the way we work with iPads has changed. But Microsoft's Surface belongs in a different niche to the iPad. The distinction between the two may be slight, but it’s real.