welcome to my unboxing and first look at the type cover for the Microsoft Surface
this is the English layout and it comes
in a box that says it's designed for surface Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro
okay awesome and that's pretty much all the information there is on the outside
so I'm going to treat this as a bit of a comparison between the Surface type
cover and the Surface touch cover you can see the touch cover is installed on
the surface that's behind the packaging right here I love Microsoft's packaging
for the surface line of products overall they've sort of taken a couple cues from
from companies that do packaging well and implemented them not to sort of you
know don't want anyone to run crying foul about how you know o Microsoft
copied a packaging idea or whatever else um in here we've got a little bit of
documentation that covers kind of not a whole lot of information that could
matter that much it should be pretty straightforward this is the type cover
so what is the difference between the type cover and the touch cover they both
attach to the surface using this magnetic and proprietary keyboard
interface here Microsoft is allowing third parties to use this interface if
they pay a licensing fee so that way Microsoft takes a little bit more margin
out of it and uh other companies will be able to contribute their their addition
to what they see as a vision for how it should work um so the difference is this
is pressure sensitive so you press a button by
like pressing a button there's no tactile feedback this is a very low
profile keyboard you can see that in actual thickness like in real terms
they're not that different the the touch or the type what is it called
the type cover is not that much thicker
than the touch cover and both of them are significantly thinner than something
like see an iPhone my usual iPhone thickness comparison very very close
would it help if I turn these on edge for you so you can see them a little bit better very very close now the overall
feel of them is similar on this side where they have like kind of a a dense
sort of fabric cover that should be pretty durable it doesn't feel like it's
going anywhere and then this one has kind of a almost like a microfiber sort
of clothy feel to the inside whereas
this one is just a keybo Bo um now the keys are ever so slightly recessed
around an edge of sort of a more rubberized softer feeling material here
so that you're not going to end up scratching the screen um and their
actual travel is not that bad all things
considered there's a little bit of movement to the Keys you see how I can
move them back and forth a little bit so because of the low profile construction
there's only so much they can do to make it like the most rugged rage proof
keyboard ever uh the layouts are very similar
so there's not a not a whole lot of differences there at all and they use a
they both use an acceptable layout there's layout sort of cardinal sins
that drive me crazy and neither of them do but one thing that I'd say is going to be a huge improvement improvement
besides the obvious typing experience is the fact that the touchpad is a proper
touchpad with a hard surface I did notice that with the uh with the touch
cover this is a little bit harder to use
than I'm than I'm used to with a touchpad because this FY material makes
very small precise movements not as easy as they would otherwise be so to attach
it to the surface is very straightforward all you do is kind of
somewhat remotely align them up align
them up line them up align them and it's a very very strong bond that Finds Its
way into the right place sort of almost no matter what you do except the one
time when I'm yeah see there you go so you don't really have to do a whole lot of adjustments the kickstand is awesome
now from my like user perspective it almost feels like I'm using this more
like a notebook than like a tablet
except that I can sort of put my fingers all over my screen if I wanted and enjoy
my computer use that way so let's just go ahead and well I mean all the usual
Windows features are here so you've got Aros snap which I think they call um
modern snap or something I don't know what they're calling it but uh so let's
have a look and see how typing is on this I did try out the touch already how
are you today sir this is a much better
experience than the touch uh what's it touch
cover uh the tactile feedback is most reassuring sir
so without any practice is my first time I'm actually able to type on this thing
whereas with the touch cover it will take some getting used to um it's very
quiet um unless you're really mashing on
it with the exception of the backspace
backspace has a bit of a sound to it space bar has a bit of a
sound these keys are all very quiet um I
think that's pretty much it I mean we can compare how it how it affects the
overall profile of the surface the surface is still a pretty acceptable
profile if you consider more like a notebook form factor and if you consider
it less like a tablet at this point and more like a super duper Ultra portable
notebook that can then have its keyboard removed very easily and be used as a
100% tablet you sign in just like that and I think that pretty much covers it
not much else to say thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look
at the type cover for the Microsoft Surface don't forget to subscribe to L
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