Travel with Windows 10 on a Tablet

My Surface 3 has not traveled well on my current trip. To be fair, I gave it a chance and I even got it a new leather folio case, but it now just feels like a sub-par laptop. The touch-screen is nice, I like the size, and it runs well - but it just isn't a tablet anymore. It is a laptop.

I feel this is Windows 10's fault, and I am having real problems with some of the choices Microsoft made. In a desktop configuration with a mouse and keyboard, Windows 10 is better than Windows 7 and I love it. On a tablet, it is just horrible. They changed so much from Windows 8 I am wondering what they were thinking.

Just the "close open applications" interface frustrates me to no end, gone is the Android-style swipe the app away and close gesture, and you are back to clicking the X in the corner. Do you know how stupid it feels to always miss the microscopic X with you finger, accidentally open the application, and then have to go back to the task manager thing just to end up making the same mistake again? It is beyond frustrating and just plain stupid.

And this is in "tablet mode."

I sit here and wonder if I am missing something so obvious, but the default experience with the same machine is much worse from Windows 8. The vertical tile scrolling is painful on a widescreen, and I miss the Windows 8 interface badly. This is made for a mouse, and it feels like they forgot everything they learned with Windows 8.

I am starting to believe Apple is right, you can't mix the user interface paradigms of tablet and PC. What was simple on either a tablet or a PC now becomes something you have to know works this way if the machine is in that mode, or kinda-sorta works that way if the machine is in another mode. things that should be easy on a tablet are hard because this is a hybrid. My phone is easier than this. My workstation with Windows 10 is easier than this. My Mac is easier than this. I can't help from feeling a touch interface just messes things up.

Even Samsung's or Amazon's strange versions of Android are easier.

I want a true tablet again.

Light. A true tablet UI. Something easy to pick up and play. Something widely supported. Something I can just pick up and read a book with when I am bored, or go check Facebook or Wikipedia. Something simple that doesn't require knowledge of how something works in one mode versus another. Something where I am not hunting for a keyboard or a mouse to do something basic.

I like my Surface 3, but it is staying as a Windows 10 laptop. The new case helps, it pulls the floppy device together and makes it a nicely-protected laptop style thing. It is bulky and heavy now, which I lament. Even my Chromebook is lighter and thinner. Even without the case the Surface is bulky and needs the stand constantly. The case is staying on.

It's a nice case though. I like it.

We're not there yet on the convergence of laptop and tablet, and I don't see it happening with this generation of Windows (like we were heading towards with Windows 8). With an iPad or Android device, yes, I see it happening. The UI on either of those is still touch-centric enough to keep a strong design paradigm throughout the experience. There is one way to do something, and you don't need a mouse or trackpad. Keyboards are optional mechanical productivity devices.

It is the curse of providing people who make software with too many options. With Android or iOS, they build an app for touch first. With Windows, touch is an afterthought if an app supports it at all. Yes, my Surface runs desktop apps, but hardly any of my desktop apps work well at all with touch.

With tablets, there are purpose-built apps that do 90% of what my Windows apps do, and they are built for touch. They work. They don't require me to jump through hoops. I can export the data to my workstation if I need to. Why do I need to keep supporting Windows apps on a device that does not support them well at all? Why do I want a device where developers will treat touch as a second-class citizen?

To be productive on a tablet, I want apps that support the tablet.