Microsoft Surface Pro review

There’s no bundled physical keyboard, so the official Surface keyboard cover is another potential expense. The Surface Pro uses the same covers as the Surface RT, with a choice of the touch (£100) and type (£110) covers. The type cover is a proper keyboard that clips magnetically to the underside of the tablet, while the touch cover simply has lightly embossed touch-sensitive pads on a soft textured base.

The Type cover is our preference, but the Touch cover’s good and a little bit thinner

We definitely preferred using the type cover, particularly if we had to work on long documents, but the touch cover was surprisingly responsive and easy to use. Admittedly, it does feels like you’re typing on cardboard, but once we’d got used to it we were able to type at full speed within a matter of minutes. It’s much better than trying to use the onscreen keyboard, but we’d recommend spending the extra £10 on the type cover if you’re planning on using it the Surface Pro for a lot of word processing.

With a choice of keyboard, touchscreen and Pen, there are plenty of ways of controlling the Surface Pro

The Microsoft Surface Pro is the best Windows 8 tablet, but its battery life is slightly disappointing and it’s annoying that there’s no cover included for this price, which will set you back at least another £100. If you want the convenience of a tablet and the power of Windows, this is the model for you, but a fully-fledged Ultrabook is likely to be a better bet for most people.