DigitalNoob

The House of Redmond teased us over the last week with an announcement due today, and the bookies had it right: it is a tablet.

In a move that will undoubtedly make their hardware partners fume, Microsoft has gone its own way with the Surface and has designed a very intriguing tablet for a market where the only interesting news concern the next iPad’s specs. As Steve Ballmer took the stage to present the Surface, the question of “why are they even bothering?” took a bit to answer, but it was well worth it.

And it’s not about the rather neat idea to include a kickstand off the bat, excellent for comfortably watching movies through the Windows 8 Netflix app. The Surface will come with its own detachable cover, which was then revealed to be a full multitouch, paper-thin keyboard.

Add it all up: kickstand + tablet + keyboard, and you have yourself a proper workstation. Thinner and lighter than a laptop, with Office included. It will come in two flavors, one aimed more at the business-on-the-go professionals, and one for casual users:

Is it the iPad killer? It sure is the most interesting alternative to Apple’s dominance to (pardon the pun) surface in a long time. People who haven’t substituted their trusty laptops may find it a safer alternative for work than a regular tablet, but when no date or price have been released we’ll just have to wait and see what the market says.