I’m going to do with this what I should have done with the Piece Of Fruit (POF), blog about the experience.

Getting the silly thing required several phone calls and a car trip, but I wanted it.

Out of the box.

It turned on. Yay!

The first thing it wants is a Live login. No problem. I have two, my professional one and the one I use for all my personal stuff. Ooohh, which to use? All the fun stuff, Xbox, Music, is on the home account. But, I’ve set up Skydrive and all the more interesting technical stuff on the other. Crud. I decide to start with the professional account.

Everything sets up nicely and I find myself looking at the all new Windows 8 interface. I’ve never been shy about saying my opinion of Win8. In fact, I started using the POF as a protest against the stupid thing. Guess what. On a tablet, it’s slick and cool. I’m really digging how you can control so much with simple little gestures in from the edges of the screens. It works on this. On my laptop, not so much, but here, it’s a joy.

I’ve only started exploring the apps. There really are a dearth of them in the store currently, but I’m checking out the ones that are included. I’m typing this through the Explorer app. It works great. I’m not sure I’m crazy about the search and URL entry being at the bottom of the screen than at the top. Nearly 20 years of internet use makes me glance to the top for that entry. Can’t help it.

I went ahead and logged in with the other account. Music was immediately available from what used to be my Zune account but is now Xbox Music. I tried to set up email and ran into my first snag. POP comes up as an option, but then you get the message that it isn’t supported. Nuts. My home email is through  provider that seems to only have POP. First real problem. I’ll attack it initially from the provider side, see if I can find a way to use IMAP.

I’ve been typing all this using the new touch type keyboard. I didn’t opt for the more expensive keyboard, or do the crazy thin some of my friends did and order both (god bless you rich consultants). It’s not the greatest typing experience of my life, but I’m actually able to  type with it. It works. I’m making a few more mistakes than I usually do. I find it’s a little easier for my hands to wonder off the home keys because you want to maintain a light touch. And when I don’t maintain a light touch I occasionally get extra letters. But, overall, it really works well. I’m actually surprised and gladdened by that.!

I put on the new Xbox glass app and was able to take control of the box from my son. Cool. I can mess with him remotely. Bwa-ha-ha-ha, the power!

Overall, this is one of the best initial tablet experiences I’ve had. Enough is familiar that I was immediately functional. And the new stuff has been mostly intuitive.

More as it comes up,