Microsoft Corporation’s new Surface tablet is quirky and occasionally awkward, and it demands a fair amount of patience (and practice) from its users. But for lawyers thinking of buying a tablet, it warrants serious consideration. Flaws and all, the Surface does a better job of replicating the PC experience than any other tablet on the market—including Apple Inc.’s iPad. It brings several innovative features to the table, it is compatible, right out of the box, with all manner of USB devices, and has one huge advantage: official, full-featured Microsoft Office software built right in. Does the Surface get everything right? Not by a long shot. But even in its version 1.0 form, this is an impressive device.

We spent a couple of weeks using the Surface with Windows RT tablet. Right now, this unit—starting at $499 for a 32-gigabyte version—is the only Surface on the market. That will change later in 2013, when Microsoft releases the Surface with Windows 8 Pro, starting at $899. The main difference between the two is that the Windows 8 Pro version will run Windows 8 and Windows 7 software, while the RT version is compatible only with special Windows RT apps downloaded from Microsoft’s online app store. Given our experience with the current model, we’re not convinced that more is necessarily better, and think it’s likely that the Surface with Windows RT is all the tablet most lawyers will need or want.