I admit that I often don’t pay close attention to the evening news, but I could swear they said the Surface wasn’t shipping with Win8, but with Windows RT.
I haven’t paid much attention to this particular gadget. Is RT the same as Win 8?
Surface run Windows RT, which a slimmed down version of Windows 8. It runs on less expensive ARM chips (which is what all iPad and Android tablets use). ARM chips are what gives it killer battery life as well.
The trade off with RT is that you can’t load all your old programs on it. Legacy apps don’t work unless they are ported to the RT platform. To soften that blow Microsoft includes a free copy of Office which runs on RT on every surface.
Surface Pro which will come right after Christmas runs full Windows 8. It will cost more, have lessor battery life than RT, but is effectively a full blown PC in tablet form