As someone who was against 8 inch Windows tablets....

I'm sold. There, I said it, I want one.

The other day I was poking around some Windows tablets out on display at the amazon showroom and picked up the 8 inch Windows tablets. Before, my experience with such was playing with a Dell Venue Pro 8 and that was just something that boggled my mind. Why would you want an x86 based tablet with a screen so small you can't use the Desktop properly?

Well, along came Windows 10 and the speculation that having a Desktop UI might not be there, or if it was to be there still; it would be in a very touch optimized form. The thing that REALLY sold me is how utterly well put the Windows' keyboards are. Not only is the keyboard phenomenal in all regards on Windows Phone (miles ahead of ios, loads better than android and is the stock keyboard too), but even on 10 inch tablets the keyboard on Windows is very usable, MUCH better than other sized tablets. But on an eight inch tablet....it's spectacular! I mean, I can literally use it like on my Windows Phone, type things out in landscape made as I do on my phone and can hit EVERYTHING with ease. It's simply awesome!

Not only that, they're like 100 dollars nowadays, that's a steal! Except I think I want me an ASUS tablet with a Wacom stylus and of course they have one.

I'm also against smartwatches, but might pick me up a Microsoft Band watch to try out.... I also need to trade in my Surface RT tablet.

So, you say the keyboard is great on the 8 inch tablet and that has sold you? What about the small screen and resolution?

I've yet to find an in screen keyboard I like to type on. My galaxy s3 with the Swype keyboard is the best so far. On my surface pro, I exclusively use the type cover keyboard.

Yep, the keyboard sold me yet again. I was against touch keyboards on tablets because of android and mainly the ipad and how those aspect ratios just don't work that well for a workable keyboard. Surface tablets come out along with others, I tried those out and was rather surprised at how well laid out they and the fact the keyboard sound itself is pretty pleasing.

http://www.amazon.com/VivoTab-Note-...6463309&sr=1-2&keywords=asus+windows+8+tablet

I'm now looking at this one, my favorite brand ASUS always pulls something awesome out. An 8 inch Windows tablet with a Wacom stylus! That's PERFECT for what I want a tablet for, mainly OneNote work and sketching and other fun stuff. The resolution I'm not too keen about, but with that screen size, it's not too terrible. The tablet also comes with Office preinstalled and if you get a 32 gig SSD, only $200. That beats out the Dell Venue tablet for me. I'll check around some other tablets for full USB ports and/or HDMI outputs...

But in all honesty, for an 8 inch tablet, you shouldn't be expecting a whole ton out of the device. Yes, it's Intel based and yes you can use all sorts of other programs if you want. MAYBE Photoshop or Lightroom will fly, I know I've done Photoshop on an ASUS VivoTab that had an Atom processor and it worked just fine. Windows 8.1.1 is excellent for tablets, Windows 10 looks to be a home run for tablets like these. We'll have to see what's in store for the 8 inch form factor with 10, if rumors are right about a Desktop-less UI for Atom based tablets like these.