 Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the type cover for the Microsoft Surface. This is the English layout and it comes in a box that says it's designed for Surface, Windows RT and Windows 8 Pro. Okay, awesome. And that's pretty much all the information there is on the outside. So I'm going to treat this as a bit of a comparison between the Surface type cover and the Surface touch cover. You can see the touch cover is installed on the Surface that's behind the packaging right here. I love Microsoft's packaging for the Surface line of products overall. They've sort of taken a couple cues from companies that do packaging well and implemented them. That's a sort of, you know, I don't want anyone to run crying foul about how Microsoft copied a packaging idea or whatever else. In here we've got a little bit of documentation that covers kind of not a whole lot of information that could matter that much. It should be pretty straightforward. This is the type cover. So what is the difference between the type cover and the touch cover? They both attach to the Surface using this magnetic and proprietary keyboard interface here. Microsoft is allowing third parties to use this interface if they pay a licensing fee. So that way Microsoft takes a little bit more margin out of it and other companies will be able to contribute their additions to what they see as a vision for how it should work. So the difference is this is pressure sensitive. So you press a button by like pressing a button. There's no tactile feedback. This is a very low profile keyboard. You can see that in actual thickness, like in real terms, they're not that different. The touch or the type, what is it called? The type cover is not that much thicker than the touch cover and both of them are significantly thinner than something like, see, an iPhone, my usual iPhone thickness comparison. Very, very close. Would it help if I turn these on edge for you so you can see them a little bit better? Very, very close. Now the overall feel of them is similar on this side where they have like kind of a dense sort of fabric cover that should be pretty durable. It doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. And then this one has kind of almost like a microfibery sort of clothy feel to the inside, whereas this one is just a keyboard. Now the keys are ever so slightly recessed around an edge of sort of a more rubberized softer feeling material here so that you're not going to end up scratching the screen. And their actual travel is not that bad, all things considered. There's a little bit of movement to the keys. You see how I can move them back and forth a little bit? So because of the low profile construction, there's only so much they can do to make it like the most rugged rage-proof keyboard ever. The layouts are very similar. So there's not a whole lot of differences there at all. And they both use an acceptable layout. There's layout sort of cardinal sins that drive me crazy and neither of them do. The one thing that I'd say is going to be a huge improvement, besides the obvious typing experience is the fact that the touch pad is a proper touch pad with a hard surface. I did notice that with the touch cover, this is a little bit harder to use than I'm used to with a touch pad because this felting material makes very small, precise movements not as easy as they would otherwise be. So to attach it to the surface is very straightforward. All you do is kind of somewhat remotely align them up, align them up, align them up, align them. And it's a very, very strong bond that finds its way into the right place sort of almost no matter what you do, except the one time when I'm, yeah, see, there you go. So you don't really have to do a whole lot of adjustments. The kickstand is awesome. Now from my user's perspective, it almost feels like I'm using this more like a notebook than like a tablet except that I can sort of put my fingers all over my screen if I wanted and enjoy my computer use that way. So let's just go ahead and, well, I mean, all the usual Windows features are here. So you've got arrow snap, which I think they call modern snap or something. I don't know what they're calling it. But so let's have a look and see how typing is on this. I did try out the touch already. How are you today, sir? This is a much better experience than the touch, what's it, touch cover. The tactile feedback is most reassuring, sir. So without any practice as my first time, I'm actually able to type on this thing, whereas with the touch cover, it will take some getting used to. It's very quiet. Unless you're really mashing on it, with the exception of the backspace. Backspace has a bit of a sound to it. Spacebar has a bit of a sound. These keys are all very quiet. I think that's pretty much it. I mean, we can compare how it affects the overall profile of the Surface. The Surface is still a pretty acceptable profile if you consider more like a notebook form factor and if you consider it less like a tablet at this point and more like a super duper ultra portable notebook that can then have its keyboard removed very easily and be used as a 100% tablet. You sign in just like that. And I think that pretty much covers it. Not much else to say. Thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the type cover for the Microsoft Surface. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.