Disclaimer: I've been a web developer for 4 years and have used a Mac during that whole time. Before that the only experience I had with windows was a typing class in high school and casually using it at people's houses. I don't have a bunch of Windows experience. This was the first native windows app that I've ever created. Also I've been using a full blown copy of WIndows 8 which is different than WinRT. Any of the mentions of 'desktop' software below won't run on a WinRT device.

Truthfully I'm not entirely sold on the idea of having a full blown computer in a tablet. Sure if was convenient for me to travel with the tablet and then when I got to a desk just plug in a mouse and attach a wireless keyboard but something still seemed incorrect.

More than once I was showing a workmate some code and absentmindedly touched the screen which highlighted the code and rearranged the order or cut it to the clipboard. Granted I'll develop the muscle memory to deal with that issue over time but I thought it worth noting that my initial reaction to having a 'full' computer on a tablet was negative.

Though I agree with you 100% that there is more "Windows" in here than we've been led to believe. In fact I found that only when launching apps did I interact with the metro start screen. Other than that I could just alt+tab right past it. All of the apps that I was using (sans the app that I was actually developing) were 'desktop' apps: Internet Explorer 10, File Explorer, Visual Studio 2012, cigwin and Tortoise SVN.

FWIW I like the traditional desktop version of IE10 much better than the new metro version of IE10. Which version of IE10 do you prefer? Have you done any app development?

The app that we created was built on the HTML5/CSS3/Javascript stack.Just like a webapp you build the UI in HTML/CSS and wire it together with javascript. There's a suite of UI elements in the WinJS.UI namespace that you can quickly build the UI with. You can also access the hardware and the Windows Runtime from javascript APIs.

The development experience was a real eye opener. The high level take away is that all the talk over the past 5 years about HTML5 eventually being used to create applications that could rival their native counterparts is finally coming to fruition.

You can build a Windows 8 app in either the native or the web stack and they will have nearly 100% feature parity. I've been considering making the switch from being a web developer to being a native app developer recently because I've been feeling limited by the browser. I've just wanted to get deeper access to the hardware and the OS and windows 8 fulfils that need.

Unfortunately they completely mangle the DOM and inject insane amounts of useless markup and attribute/values which make the semantic web geek inside of you die a little each time the app compiles and runs.

A small example--in my code I had a button that was a child of a div. It was literally two lines of HTML. After the app 'built' I couldn't get an event listener that was listening for an event on the child button to fire.

I used the DOM inspector to check out what was happening and not only had the compiler injected about 20 lines of html around each of my elements complete with dozens of data-foo attributes—it didn't even maintain the parent/child relationship from my markup! You can imagine how disconcerting it is to doubt that the core relationships of your markup aren't going to be maintained.

If you have time check out the app I helped created-Trulia for Windows 8: http://apps.microsoft.com/webpdp/en-US/app/trulia-real-estat...

PS: app is pretty sharp!

:-]

If you have a Trulia account and use any of our other apps (www.trulia.com, m.trulia.com, or any of our iOS/Android phone/tablet apps http://www.trulia.com/mobile/) and save a search or a property that data will get synced to the Windows 8 app and will show up on the main page (what we call 'the hub').

You can create an account from within the Windows 8 app from the charms bar.

Also to change your location go to the map view by tapping on a map tile from the hub.

Once on the map view swipe from the bottom to reveal the app bars. In the bottom app bar you'll see a tap target for search filter.

Once you filter your search and are on a new location swipe again from the bottom and tap 'Near Foo' from the app bar at the top.

This will take you back to the hub populated with your new location and nearby cities.

Search filtering from the hub is coming soon but we didn't have time to get it in the first release.

Thanks again!

Why would you touch the screen when pointing? Non-touchscreen monitors generally shouldn't have your fingers all over them, so at least for me I've developed the habit of never touching the monitor when pointing.

As an aside this brings me to one of my problems with Windows 8. When I was in Desktop mode and I first discovered the Side Bar (forgot what it's called) and saw the Share Button, I knew from before that you can use that to update twitter and facebook for example, so i got really excited thinking I had this quick easy way to update twitter and facebook without having to open up the browser. Turns out I was incredibly wrong. When you do click Share, it says "Nothing can be shared form the desktop". Then what is the point of keeping that button in the bar when in the Desktop context? Initially I even thought it was because I had to have a Twitter app open in Metro, but that had no effect.

Not related to the share charm, but you can snap Tweetro from the app switcher to the side like so[0]

[0] https://www.dropbox.com/s/9x8pothn1h3qf1i/Screenshot%20%288%...

Another problem I've had with the Mail app (though this is Windows 8, so not sure if it's in RT as well) is that you can't just use the Mail/Calendar apps like how you'd use them on an iOS device, where you can just add your gmail as an accunt and then you have your calendars and email. I'd love to be proven wrong, and for there to exist a way to do this though, without having to create another Microsoft account. And I saw another, as I've used my recently revived hotmail to log into the Store and all.

I've read that the covers can be on the back of the tablet, while holding it like a magazine. Are the input keys disabled if you do that?

Yes, keys are disabled when the cover's folded back. I haven't done any scientific testing on a threshold, but the on-screen keyboard will pop in/out as you flip the cover in and out of position. It also engages the rotate lock when the keyboard is out, for obvious reasons.

* Can you comfortably hold it with one hand (e.g. for reading a book)? * Can you comfortably hold it with one hand and type onscreen with the other? * Can you comfortably type onscreen while holding it with both hands? * Can you use the Touch Cover and/or Type Cover with the device on your lap (as if you were sitting in an airport, doctor's office, etc.) as you would do with a laptop?

But after seeing some reviews, it seems this hybrid doesn't function very well as a tablet and neither as a laptop. I'll still have to see someone using it on the lap to understand how the screen is able to stand. Granted it's an edge case but when I'm at airports I tend to do that.

Anyway, you reply just made me more curious to try one.