Touch Cover
When you become accustomed to the features that Surface has to offer, it's difficult to imagine Microsoft's tablet without them. The USB port, the kickstand and the Touch Cover are, in a way, essential to the Surface experience. Trouble is, the Touch Cover is an optional extra, and it costs £100, taking the total cost of Surface+Touch Cover ownership up to £500 - a precarious precipice for a tablet device.
Price is an obvious hurdle, but if the budget can be stretched, be sure to opt for one of the two available keyboards; the pressure-sensitive Touch Cover (£100) or the mechanical Type Cover (£110). We've yet to experience the latter, but having lived with the Touch Cover, we can't imagine using the Surface without it, particularly in the Windows 8 desktop environment where it's very useful.
Making good use of the form factor, the Touch Cover provides a full QWERTY layout in an ultra-thin profile and attaches to Surface using a strong magnet. The two components snap together remarkably well, and a series of protrusions make for quick alignment. We've never once had to realign; the Touch Cover always clicks into place perfectly.
But here's a bit of advice; don't dive in expecting to type at over 50 words per minute. The polyurethane-coated Touch Cover's pressure-sensitive keys take some getting used to, and, if like us you're accustomed to typing on a mechanical board, you'll start with typos and missed characters in every other word.
It's initially frustrating, as you attempt to jab harder in order for keys to register, and we didn't warm to the idea of using the Touch Cover on a regular basis, but lo and behold, we soon got to grips with it. It's like flicking a light switch, but once it clicks, the Touch Cover becomes an excellent accessory, and one that greatly enhances productivity.
Microsoft has to be applauded for producing a worthwhile keyboard in a profile that's merely a couple of millimetres thick, and over time you come to appreciate the finer details. The slightly-raised keys are easy to identify (with extra indentations in F and J pointing the way for touch typists) and the slim top-row has a useful set of shortcuts, including one-touch access to the four Windows 8 charms: search, share, devices and settings.
Continuing to surprise, the Touch Cover's integrated trackpad ain't bad, either. It's understandably small, and multi-touch input is limited to two-finger scrolling, but it's handy to have and the left and right buttons (split with a small groove) are a godsend when you're using the Windows RT desktop. But while the keyboard is a real boon, the trackpad is obviously less attractive; though it works reasonably well, we found ourselves reaching out to use the large, multi-touch display instead.
The keyboard is such a pleasant surprise in terms of functionality that our biggest gripe is entirely aesthetic. Though the Touch Cover is available in multiple colours, our black variant is backed by a felt-like material that looks unfinished. It doesn't compliment the style of the tablet particularly well, and you'd be wary of leaving it upside down on a coffee table; someone could easily mistake it for a large coaster.
£100 for a keyboard is steep, no matter how you look at it, but the Touch Cover's saving grace is at least it's good. And for other reasons, too. In addition to being a competent input device, it features all of the requisite sensors to put Surface into standby when the cover is closed and to disable the keyboard when it's folded behind the tablet - preventing any unwanted keystrokes.