Microsoft for the day

Harry McCracken has a Time article about the latest iPad imitator:

It’s $499, with 32GB of storage. Or $599, if you want one with the slick keyboard cover. And $699 for a 64GB model with the cover.
Those are the answers that tech watchers have been seeking since Microsoft announced its Surface tablet at a press event in Hollywood last June, without mentioning the price. Those of you who have been on tenterhooks can take a deep breath now and, if you so choose, may pre-order a Surface starting at noon today. Along with Windows 8, Surface will go on sale at Microsoft Store locations and on Microsoft.com on 26 October. (This first version runs the Windows 8 variant that’s known as Windows RT, designed for processors based on ARM’s power-efficient technology; Surface Pro, a more potent model with an Intel chip and full-blown Windows 8, is due about ninety days alter.)
You know what, though? If you’ve been obsessing over Surface s price for the last four months, you were missing the point. Sure, it would have been a big deal if the rumors about it costing $199 (implausible though they were) had somehow panned out. But instead, Microsoft merely did what it had said in June that it would do: It gave Surface a price that’s competitive with the prices of other tablets. (It has the same starting price as Apple‘s current-model iPad, but with twice as much storage and a larger screen.)
Even if Surface s price had been surprisingly cheap, or steep, this tablet was never going to be defined by its price tag. Good products rarely die purely because they’re too pricey; bad ones don’t become landmarks simply because they’re affordable. Surface is the first PC Microsoft has built, after more than three decades of building software for other companies’ PCs. It is a radical rethinking of what a PC should be in 2012 and beyond. It’ll do well if it makes sense to consumers, and it’ll flop if it doesn’t.
Microsoft, which had revealed precious few additional details about Surface since the June unveiling, disclosed the pricing to a small number of journalists (including me) during a hush-hush briefing at its Redmond, Washington campus yesterday. The session was short on hands-on time with the new tablet (more on that later) but long on behind-the-scenes details.
The event began with an introduction by Steven Sinofsky, president of the Windows and Windows Live Division, and Panos Panay, general manager of Surface  Then we visited with some of the people who’d been covertly working on Surface for years, in the facilities where the tablet was created. We saw stacks of rejected prototypes; we saw 3D printers and CNC machines cranking out test components; we saw automated test equipment that dropped Surfaces onto hardwood flooring, and opened and closed its cover over and over and over and over again.
Signs of secrecy were still everywhere: guards, copious amounts of lockable storage, tacked-up memos explaining the proper procedures for getting rid of trash. Microsoft showed us journalists an awful lot, but we were asked not to quote anyone except for Sinofsky and Panay, and we weren’t permitted to take photos except at the very start. For one chunk of the event, we were even required to surrender our cell phones.
Just to emphasize the unique nature of the event, the company presented us with Wonka bars wrapped up with golden tickets labeled SURFACE before we set off on the tour. Sinofsky even cheerfully ordered us not to dip our hands in the chocolate river.
Throughout the day, the aspects of Surface that are most classically Microsoftian– the fact that it runs Windows and comes with Office– were barely mentioned. Instead, the presenters focused on the tablet’s hardware. And they dwelled on the decisions they made to make Surface more, well, perfect. (Again and again, Panay used that word when describing the company’s goals for its tablet.)
A few notes:

After considering a bevy of sizes, the company’s engineers settled on a 16:9-ratio, 10.6″ screen, even though it’s a non-standard size. They think it’s the closest thing possible to the ideal form factor: Big enough to give Windows breathing room and allow for a roomy keyboard, yet small enough to be ultra-portable.
Surface’s 1366-by-768 resolution sounds skimpy compared to the iPad‘s 2048-by-1536 Retina screen. But a Microsoft researcher argued at length that Retina displays aren’t inherently superior. For one thing, he said, aging eyeballs can’t always tell the difference. For another, like the iPhone 5– but unlike the iPad–  the Surface uses a touchscreen that’s been bonded directly to the LCD. That improves contrast and reduces reflection, permitting Retina-like clarity without the Retina display’s battery-sapping tendencies.
The tablet’s Vapor Magnesium case and Gorilla Glass 2.0 screen are remarkably sturdy, Microsoft says. To prove the point, Sinofsky briefly stood on top of a Surface that had been equipped with skateboard wheels.
Like Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD, Surface is equipped with MIMO wi-fi, which uses two internal antennae for better wireless performance.
Above all, Sinofsky, Panay, and other Microsoft staffers kept returning to two specific details of Surface’s design:

The cover with the built-in keyboard and touchpad– dubbed the Touch Cover– uses magnets to precisely and firmly attach itself to the tablet. It’s reminiscent of the way Apple’s Smart Covers work on the iPad, but, if anything, the magnets feel more insistent about aligning everything properly– the cover practically lunges out of your hand and grabs ahold of Surface. (In doing so, it makes the electrical connection that provides the keyboard and touchpad with power.)
The tablet’s kickstand lets Surface stand upright when it’s folded out; along with the Touch Cover, it gives you a laptop-like working experience. But, when you fold the kickstand away, it shuts with the same satisfying feel as a luxury-car door, and is perfectly flush with the case. Microsoft devoted untold hours to making the kickstand not only feel sold but sound solid, and ended up using an extra hinge devoted entirely to the audio effect.

I could tell that Sinofsky, Panay, and crew were smitten with the magnetic magic of the cover and the classy clack of the kickstand, because they kept snapping on covers and opening and closing kickstands. And actually, these two features are about the only things that Surface’s first television ad (which premiered on Monday night) tells you about the product:

Several months after Microsoft first announced Surface, the level of attention it’s showing to nitpicky little details still feels nearly as disorienting as the fact it’s making tablets at all. A few years ago, its marketing honcho mocked Macintosh fans as wanting computers that had been “washed in unicorn tears”. But Surface, unlike the vast majority of Windows PCs, is the product of a unicorn-tear approach to design. We were even told that the stands and signage which will be used to promote Surface at Microsoft Stores feature the same 22-degree chamfered edges as the case of the tablet itself.

Rico says " a Microsoft researcher argued at length that Retina displays aren’t inherently superior"... Of course he did; you think they'd admit theirs isn't better? But perhaps the Surface has been washed in crocodile tears... (And does anyone besides Rico remember the Panay incident?) But Rico suspects the iPad mini event will eclipse the later Surface event...