Interesting article. Thanks for the link. I completely agree with the author about the Modern versions of Office being available. I would have thought that would be a necessary pre-requisite for the Surface devices. Hopefully, by next year, this will be the case. Having read this, I am thinking of writing a similar article for the Surface RT. It has now occupied a key role in my work-flow and it has made me a lot more productive. However, my caveat is that my work flow requires me to have a desk-bound machine, which I do, with the "cloud" - specifically Skydrive (but it could probably any other similar service) - playing the role of the connector between my devices.
Having said that, yesterday, I had an interesting experience. I was reminded as to how my work habits have changed over the past 24 months. Here is an example:
I have been a member of
Amazon Prime for sometime. A couple of days back I discovered that I can "borrow" a book for free from
Amazon every month and I found a such a book. I downloaded it to my Kindle (first generation). I then proceeded to read parts of that book on the Kindle. A couple of hours later, I had to work on some documents but did not feel like doing so in my office-study. So, I went out to a coffee shop with the Surface RT. I worked there for a couple of hours. When I was done, I saved a local copy on the Surface and uploaded a working copy to a relevant folder on Skydrive. I returned to my digs and wanted to explore Steam (yes! I know, I just signed up). I downloaded and played for an hour or so on the demo version of Company of Heroes 2. I then went back to work on the document by pulling it down from Skydrive. Again, I saved a local copy and uploaded the latest working copy when done. After dinner, I wanted to watch some episodes of Yes Minister, which I proceeded to do on my Nexus 10. I then went back to my document, but this time on the Surface since I wanted to work at the dining table. The same saving protocol followed. I then went to bed but wanted to read some more, so I took my Kindle with me and read a couple of chapters before passing out!
So, the work-flow involved - e-book reading (Kindle) + document creation when mobile (Surface RT) + static document creation (including doing some online references) (desktop machine, currently a ThinkPad hooked to an external monitor) + gaming (desktop machine) + movie watching (Nexus 10). Not bad, I think and a far cry from what would have happened if I did not have the Surface RT. I say this because I have had the Kindle and the Nexus 10 and the desktop set up for some time now.
I should also mention that I pulled out the Kindle (which I don't use too often nowadays) only because of that book from
Amazon, which was not available in ePUB format. Most of my digital books (and I now have close to 3000 titles) are either in ePUB or in PDF format with only very few in the Djvu format. I use both the Nexus and the Surface for reading too.
The above description is, however, not a typical workday, but it is close to it. More typically, I spend at least 8-9 hours on the Surface RT (this includes working online and on documents) and, I should add, the battery works out just fine!
