Microsoft Surface Touch cover review.

When the Microsoft surface was finally announced one of its most unique features was the Touch and type covers. The idea of having a keyboard working as a cover is not new, the IPAD has been doing it for quite some time, the unique part of it comes with it’s physical interface. These covers are magnetically connected to the tablet and they don’t use Bluetooth or any type or wireless connection.

The Touch Cover is about 3mm thin, is available in 5 colors and it costs $119. At 3mm the Touch cover wont change the tablets portability in any meaningful way but having a usable keyboard will really make you more productive.

The Touch Cover uses a type of touch sensitivity technology that, to be perfect honest, is kind of amazing. The keys are responsive, soft and not overly sensitive (you can rest of fingers on top of the keys without having to worry about firing it up).  The touch pad on it is a little slow and unresponsive, but taking into consideration how thin, light and portable this thing is that can easily be overlooked. Being that touch cover was designed for the surface and therefore for windows 8, you can find a shortcut for all your charms on the top of it as well as multimedia keys. The touch cover can be bent to almost a 360 degrees, from flat in front of the screen to flat in the back of the tablet, and you don’t have to worry about typing on the keys while holding it up as the keys are automatically disabled when the device is held as a tablet.

The magnetic connection to the Surface is pretty strong, strong enough that you can hold your tablet upside down by the cover and it wont disconnect, not that you should ever do that.

All and all the Touch cover is extremely useful and pretty amazing for what it is, but is not perfect, sometimes the keys don’t register your touch causing some mistyping, and I wish Microsoft would just make them a little cheaper as $119 dollars seems very steep (specially after buying the surface for $499) however it is a far better option than a Bluetooth keyboard.

The touch cover is a usable keyboard, you wont be typing very fast on it but still way faster than using an on-screen one. The $119 price tag is a bit much, being that the surface is being marketed as a productivity device it should have been included with the surface at $499.