$10 is an absolute steal when you consider most Digital Photo Frames sell for similar prices at thrift stores but with

Yes, Microsoft did indeed shut down the store. But still 10$ is a great price for the surface RT

Before the store got completely shut down it was in a weird state where you could view all of the available apps but it wouldn't let you download anything.

Fun fact, Qualcomm still has some developer documentation available for the Surface RT if you sign up with a developer account and poke around. One of the documents shows they had a game running on it. The Surface RT is also the reason that modern Windows on ARM devices have a "Program Files (Arm)" folder for backward compatibility since the Surface RT was 32-bit ARM.

Ugh I love this tablet. I saved up all that money and bought it my junior year of hs. It made everything extremely convinuent. All my school work and everything I needed to do. I loved it. Specially the specific reading mode. When you read articles it made it look like a simple text like a Kindle.

Damn, good job making me feel old. I remember being super excited on Christmas, because I got an Asus Windows 8 tablet. Luckily my dad did his research and stayed clear of an ARM-based device. Being 19, "retro" tech usually is stuff from before my time, but not here - I still vividly remember all those apps working.

At $10 dollars, this thing can still play video with the edge browser. It's definitely worth $10 as I recall these early surface tablets having a very good screen for media consumption

You should definitely consider booting a Linux distro on this! That would be a really fun video to see.

I'd be interested in seeing Linux on the RT. I've got Win10 on a Surface RT, but the experience isn't much better. It's a leaked Chinese arm32 build, not arm64 like Surface X devices. The biggest issue is lack of modern web browser.

RT was also the first time MS tried enforcing digital signature for applications. It wouldn’t have been a huge problem if MS store was comparable to other mobile platform’s offerings, but we all know how it went 😅 They also made the same mistake with Windows 10 S Mode. Again, only allowing MS store applications.

this device would make much more sense in 2023 than it did in 2013 with more webapps in use everywhere, x86 emulation in place and more workplaces using tools like Citrix and windows 365

I picked one of these up a few months ago for a similar (but slightly higher) price. Bought it to frame on the wall for running a bespoke app for various home automation, still a work in progress so it's not yet on the wall. They run Raspberry Pi OS very well, gives it a new lease of life.

I still think Windows 8 is one of the most underrated versions of Windows ever and it would have been much more accepted of they allowed the Metro-style apps to be in a window and backported the Start Menu from Windows RT 8.1 (the one that the early prerelease versions of Windows 10 had back in late 2014)...

Something like a decade ago a friend gave me a surface RT because it was so bad at the time and I only used it to watch anime and play emulators on it, the full size usb port was really nice as it allowed me to plug in a wired Xbox 360 controller

9:30 Microsoft actually announced this if you were one of the few people who got the Windows 8.1 EOS screen. In that screen they stated that making new purchases after January 10, 2023 on Windows Store was now impossible, and the last updates to be made on Windows apps needed to be released by the end of June 2023. Given that we are in the middle of October of 2023, it's safe to say that Microsoft was eluding for the silent shutdown of Windows Store.

There's an ARM32 version of Windows 10 that you can install on the Surface RT. I have it installed on my Surface 2. I was stupid and thought that I could try to install the ARM version of Windows 11 before I bought it because it has an "ARM PROCESSOR", but I was wrong and the processor was ARM32, not ARM64. I have a Surface Pro 2 now and I'm happy that I was able to upgrade from Windows 8.1 to Windows 11.

Man, this was quite the nostalgia trip. I remember one of my friends had the Surface RT, and we would watch some KZfaq videos during our downtime at school. It looked really cool to have back then

I've got one of these. It has one really great use: it has a copy of Remote Desktop built in. If you use it to remote into a Windows desktop, it gives a pretty good experience.

One thing they did really well was the touch optimised web browser. It was very smooth and responsive to use and unfortunately they never carried that feel over in later versions as they moved away from emphasis on Metro.

Even after all those years I still find Windows 8/8.1 kind of beautiful 🙂

Run 10 Minecraft 1.2 - 1.4 mods at once on it.

The Surface line really became great, I have always loved their Surface Laptop Go.

i have the Surface Go 3. its pretty decent. I like how today's Surfaces can run full windows! i also have an Ipad. its hard to chose which one i like better because i like them both for different reasons. Surface is close to a windows laptop but even more portable and can multitask better. where as the Ipad seems to be a lot faster and has a way better battery life.

I absolutely can't believe this! I just dug my Surface RT out of the closet to do a video on it too!

I bought one at a garage sale, and then immediately bricked it trying to install the ARM 7 version of Windows 10.

I actually use one of those old Surfaces Pro on a day-to-day basis. I use it to run the home assistant ui as a kiosk on my kitchen counter. Perfect to turn lights on or off and display the regular home assistant things

My dad got one of these when they first come out for free as part of doing his diploma in management and it was selling back then here in Australia for like $1k so an absolute bargain for the both of you guys

My personal assumption (as you've stated in the video) with the Windows Store not working on Windows 8.1 is that Microsoft probably shut it down after June 30, 2023 (the day that MS stopped accepting new updates for Windows Store apps on Windows 8.1, probably for security reasons). For me, the Windows Store will either open and display a message saying it couldn't connect, or gets stuck on an infinite loading screen. Outside of apps from the Windows Store, the preloaded MSN apps (i.e. the Weather, News, Finance, and other related apps) were quietly shut down sometime back in early 2020 (which I can confirm myself, along with other Windows 8.1 users at the time), which is why some of the apps don't load anything or don't work properly. The News app seems to partially work (as you've showed in the video), but it never loads the main page and is functionally broken.

This is such a blast from the past. I still have my original Surface RT with the type cover at my folks' place. I should crank it open again just for fun... I personally thought the Windows 8 interface was really good for touch interaction especially with the gestures, they just made sense, but the implementation with the classic desktop was clunky, not to mention the lack of apps and the hardware underpowered by the Tegra chip. But that little thing got me through some tough times at school with its Office suite. Good times.

I've still got my surface RT that i bought in 2013, is currently attached to the wall, and I'm using it as a nixie digital clock, i managed to get some click apps before the store closed. I'm amazed the battery still works well, and the screen is not scratched and it looks brand new. Weirdly netflix still works on it and a random selection of apps. All credit to Microsoft for building a solid machine!

I had one of these and actually loved it. Though, to get around the app limitations, I used Remote Desktop and a VPN to remote into my desktop PC. I think if you knew the limitations of this device and knew what you were expecting it was a cool device and design for the time

Had one of these Surface RT's to try and fix from a relative, as they didn't know that it was ARM and was trying to install some modern applications. Managed to flash on a Windows 10 ARM build that I got from a tutorial on KZfaq, surprisingly quite a lot around. It did work and apps that supported ARM on Win 10 but not Win 8 worked. It wasn't great due to the degraded battery inside so we've just left it be. Was actually pretty fun to use and experiment with! Loved how it felt tbh, kinda sad it was ARM only on these cheaper RT models.

I worked for a "Microsoft Shop" (as they called it) type job some years ago, and was gifted a Surface RT as a "holiday gift." The company itself wasn't directly affiliated with Microsoft, just in some kind of contracts or whatever with them. Anyway, not important, point is, got an RT for free. And it was a fun toy. Eventually folks at XDA figured out how to "jailbreak" it (in a temporary sense) and run specially compiled ARM-based executables on there. I remember running PuTTY and a few other things. Honestly, I'd have to say, the stupidest part was Microsoft locking it down to their Store. Even if it required apps to be compiled for ARM, it would've been ""fine"" to leave it open, so it could be a fair contender in the Windows ecosystem. I know what they WANTED from it, but it was incredibly shortsighted and overly optimistic, to say the least. I remember the device being pleasant to use in terms of performance and whatnot for as long as I had it. I eventually gave it to my dad who wound up using it as a glorified alarm clock until the power cable was damaged, dunno what happened after that.

fun fact about the RT, it is the only device to get the lucrative update 3 for windows 8.1 The update that adds in a start menu on the only device that didn't need it, us 4 remaining 8.1 users didn't deserve it I guess lol

Would love to see a part 2 where you try and load it to the Win10 IOT for ARM. I did it on an RT2, it required finding a second arm powered device, installing Windows to the first reboot after the percentage screen. Then imaging that drive to an external, then copying that image to the Surface storage using a USB Bootable Linux Distro (Since Hirens/other clone tools won't USB Boot from ARM) A lot of that isn't documented! I hope it helps if you end up getting stuck trying it!

i love the old surface it genuinely felt so good

The start of a saga

idk if im the only one here, but this is such a throwback because i remember using these a TON in middle school because for my 3 years that i was there, i always had at least 1 to 2 classes that would offer these constantly in the classroom. i completely forgot about them until now lol. it makes me want to try to run Windows RT on a virtual machine to test the operating system out.

as someone who owned a Microsoft surface pro, RT and the. later on the 5, onto the 6........this is insane.

Its crazy how much difference those few hundred dollars can make all these years later. I have dell venue 11 pro, which came out at a similar time but was x86 based. I currently dualboot windows 10 and nobara linux on it and even after 9 years it still works pretty good thanks to 8gb of ram and being able to run an up to date os. I think the venue is a little hidden gem, it has a full dell uefi bios and unlocked bootloader so as long as there are lightweight linux distros you can keep using it forever. It has a normal m.2 ssd instead of emmc drive like most tablets at the time, wifi and broacband cards also slot into mini pcie slots and its super serviceable. I did a cpu repaste on mine and i was surprised how easy it is to dissasemble and get to the cpu. Its a full on computer packed into a 10 inch tablet chassis. Its honestly such a shame this form factor didnt catch on, most modern windows tablets are 11.6 inch and its still hard to find one that has reasonable specs.

Poor Surface, I hope you can do exciting stuff with it!

5:17 that animation is so cool!

As a Polish person, I can confirm the official closure of the store in Windows 8.1. story: it was a January day around 2 . and I decided to check my old computer to see what was going on with it. I had some fun until I decided to go to the Windows store, which turned out to be a message about the store closing on January 12, 2023. that's it

Ooh, maybe a new saga's here, the 10$ Surface apart from that, your videos makes my day, keep up the good work! 👍

Windows Phone 8.1 had the most consistent and smoothly animated UI I've ever used

It was an amazing device! Touch was extremely responsive, it had integrated Reading mode and ad blocker in IE, came bundled with Office RT and OneNote MX is still the most efficient tablet UI ever created. This product also inspired a lot of what we now have on iPad OS.

I remember that device! It sparked my love for microsoft. Still have a rather large surface collection!

Worth $10 to buy this Surface with Windows 8 RT. (Not what I ever wanted before Windows 10)

windows 8 store died for me around 2020-21 along with the first version of windows 10, it was mentioned in all the apps (weather,news...etc) like a popup instead of this infinite load we see now and only had a close option to click. i was there using windows 8.1 with all the updates when it happened out of the blue and i had it on dual boot on my main PC. it was more snappy and gave me more fps in games compared to 10 build 1903 something but shortly after, i saw the steam banner say "windows 8.1 is not supported" along with chrome but 2-3 weeks later i got modern updates for both of them and proceeded to work fine but the store app never worked after that. never checked after that cuz i upgraded my pc. it was a 3rd gen i5 system with a 1050ti iirc.

I remember seeing a tech demo when I was like 8 or 9 where the Surface RT was running minecraft java at like 20fps. My jaw was on the floor, I thought it was the future of gaming and begged my parents for one for Christmas. They got me a Wii U and somehow they still won out 🤣

I’ve been pretty busy lately, but your videos are amazing and I’m so glad to be back

While I was at MS they gave these out to us for personal use, I suppose as a way to kickstart adoption (just a guess). Sad to say there was not much love for them even within MS's ranks, at least in my corner (dev tools and UI libraries - we made a version of the tile view like the start menu, but it was a different codebase from the shell). It was an interesting time. We developed a lot of the UI on clunky desktop touch-enabled monitors (tennis elbow was a thing), it was a real joy to see everything working smoothly on the first Surface tablets. There was a lot of security around the app signing keys for RT. Our team did not get access to run dev builds on these tablets! But, erm, apparently there were ways to get third-party programs to run in desktop mode (like PuTTY) using an exploit with the volume controls. I'm super glad to see a Linux effort around these, nice hardware (metal case!) shouldn't languish for want of software.

What timing! I recently just found my old Surface 3 and was wondering how well Linux would run, I'm lucky - it was the first x86 of the regular surface line!

Windows 8 was NOT bad on a touch screen, not at all. I used to have some rando 8" Asus tablet with Windows 8, and I loved it.

Windows store hasn't been working for a while. I had a surface 2, was a great machine until 2016-17 then apps started being dropped or stopped working and I sold it before it was too late... Got a surface pro 2 with keyboard recently for $150 (on WIndows 11) and this thing still flies, it's basically as fast as my Surface go 2 with i3. Mainly got for the Wacom support, works with the Samsung s-pen. Surface 2 was a great device (Surface RT not so much), but Windows RT has been abandoned and it's now little more than a brick...

You should definitely install Linux on it! I bought an old Surface Go 2 exactly for that purpose. It worked pretty well for taking notes in class and watching KZfaq in bed, or just as a little extremely portable laptop. Unfortunately mine bricked itself after only a year. Not sure why, but it seems the hard drive went bad as I can't detect it at all when booting from a live USB.

I've been hunting for a good deal on a old surface pro for taking to college. But I am kinda afraid of some issues old gen surface devices have with the screen.

i remember having this one back in my younger days, the internet explorer was so slow back then, but i use this one to watch tons of movies and series with my sd card back then and it was actually good, too bad mines dead now and its currently sitting inside my closet

I actually have one of these mounted on my wall as a decoration. They are sleek and nice looking

4:39 Well, not only Win8 deserved the hate, everything that followed after wasn't more than marginally better.

I really didn't like windows 8 on desktops, but I still have Surface Pro 2 and I really wish MS would've kept the Metro UI, but they absolute should've made division path right there. Compatibility for normal Windows desktop UI and Metro UI, but just allow user to switch between them and default to Metro with device that accelerometer, meaning tablets. W 8.1 is actually still better usage point of view than W11.

thanks for the laughter and learning in every video!

I once got 3 Surfaces, two RT and one 3, for only 30€. All of them had problems and I only managed to get the Surface 3 working, the one RT had a broken battery and you could only see half the LCD and the other RT was stuck in Bitlocker recovery, but I still managed to profit. I still find these machines very unique and cool.

Well, Firefox has an ARM Window$ version that you can download, but WinRT actually blocks EXEs from running if they're not part of Window$, just like Win10 S Mode.

It always astonishes me how you can pick up somewhat functional computers for prices these low, laptop manufacturers selling unusable e-waste for 300$ really have no excuse.

Before the store closed, I managed to download several apps and games from my library (here, I hope I never have to restore the tablet or maybe I lose everything). Even though there are no longer Modern UI apps from the store, you still have Microsoft Office and accessories like Notepad and Paint, so it's not a brick at all. I think the video, music and photo apps still work decently.

nice video! i picked up a surface go lte 8gb ram with his signature keyboard for 10,000yen (67$) and i think this form factor is fantastic. this « 4th generation » surface rt showed me where Microsoft can shine with hardware and software hand made

so weird seeing windows 8.1 in this state. back in 2020 i bought a used surface 3 which i downgraded to windows 8.1 for better performance, and every single app including the store worked fine without issue. kinda sad in a way, but inevitable

I liked those Windows tablets but i was a teenager at the time and i didn't have the money to get one. They were not that powerful but they could still run Windows apps and it looked more useful to me than Android and iOS tablets. Now the only tablet computers available are just the ones that fold up and end up being way heavier than just a regular tablet

I remember having a Surface RT when it was only a generation or two old; surprising number of programs compiled for ARM (on the company sites, not the Windows Store). With a decent stylus, it was very useable and the battery life was closer to a high end tablet than a price-competitive laptop. Besides the power-off battery drain issue and sleep paralysis (neither of which have been fixed on any Surface product to this day), it was a decent machine for the price. BTW: Watching this on my Surface Pro 4

i love the microsoft surface. i have a surface pro 5 and its a great little laptop. its great for art with the pressure sensitive pen, and a lot of drawing programs have support for touch gestures to quickly do things like undo a stroke. surfaces are great and worth the money.

I remember the Microsoft Surface, i was upset that i can't play my Favorite PC Games Like Bejeweled Deluxe on it due to limitations on Software and Apps. Brings Back Alot of Memories.

The problem is Microsoft decided to make one OS for both desktop and portable. However, the Windows 8/8.1 metro inference didn't work on desktop PCs where people still use a keyboard & mouse.

Man. This thing brought back memories. I used one of these for college for a bit. The Microsoft Word app came clutch many times.

This has a built-in kick stand, meanwhile Apple wants $1000 for a monitor stand.

i remember getting a surface rt for my birthday in 2014, i still have it but i cant hold a charge anymore... i wish it still managed to charge so i can take a look at it one more time

Still has incredible daily value with apps that work ( if downloaded prior to the store closure). Just sit it on a kitchen bentch or office desk : - browser, mp3 player, photo frame(screen saver) , Netflix , window frame clock and my favourite Halo Spartan Assault(offline playability). Built rock solid, lasting a very long time ( had the display on for 5-6 years with no problem, just requires a restart every few weeks).

I still have one of these! Recently booted it back up and the nostalgia hit me!

While it can’t do much on Windows now, you could probably install a nice Linux Distro and keep getting updates + use otherwise unsupported softwares, or even just keep it for Remote Desktop into other computers.

I remember writing some software at work using Visual Studio and when I picked up one of these second hand about a year after they were released for very little, I was able to compile it for Windows RT :)

I remember having one years ago. It was kinda useless device, but Food and Drink app was so great I actually started to cook something

Dell's lineup was pretty similar. ARM-based Dell Venue 8, and x86-based Dell Venue 8 Pro. I got the latter and still use it for very light computing.

Never thought I’d see something THIS modern on this channel! I’mquite early (42min ago)

I remember when those came out and I really wanted one...but I was way too poor to have afforded it at the time. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet I have now basically does everything the Surface did and more (including running Android apps and Linux) and it has a detachable keyboard with physical keys and a trackpad (and the keys are really good because Lenovo) plus an adjustable kickstand. It's also one of the newer Chromebook devices that gets updates for 7 years.

Agree for sure with other posters that it would be a fun MJD video trying to get Linux booting on this. I'm sure someone somewhere has made a compatible build.

I still have and regularly use my "first day of sale in Australia" Gen 1 Surface Pro.

wait... 11 years??? holy crap thats a lot longer than i thought

Michael, I'm not familiar with your videos and I forgot I had the speed set to 1.5 for the last vid I watched. I was like, I like this guy's enthusiasm! xD It was 5 mins into the vid before I realized it was just playing fast.

The dual mode seems to work well with Samsung’s Dex mode, where you have a desktop and mobile version available for you whenever you need it, it’s not confusing.

another great video, michael!! :]

Crazy thing about this tablet was its ability to connect to two external monitors simultaneously. So you could have a tri monitor setup from an arm tablet. Can’t even do that with a MacBook Air officially. And the iPad Pro can do one.

I would imagine most of the apps aren’t working because they were placeholders or only partially loaded to save space and would download once you tried to open them. Anything that needed internet or Microsoft services will likely not work until someone comes up with a proxy service to bypass the certificates and access the MS Services those apps need.

My grandmother still uses hers occasionally. Her main issues - no updates for IE, and as the OS is so locked down, no alternatives for it. She only used it for MS office, basic web browsing and managing photos that she took on holidays. I helped her pick it out, and for the price it did what she needed while having a normal USB port. If I knew of a way to get Android installed on it, I'd buy it off her to see how much better it runs than an Asus TF201/700 - as their internal storage is excruciatingly slow and they only have 1GB of RAM (personally I love the Tegra 3 - the 5th LP core was actually used most of the time), which is a significant problem reading large ebooks or comics (the LCD are fantastic however). TBH though, I'd have to replace the screen as a corner cracked.

Loved my RT and RT 2 yes it had limited usage but both did me well until the 3 came out and that was in a world of it own.

u should make a episode trying alternative OS

When I was training to be a pc technician they told us to avoid recomending to clients this product when it came out for many reasons. We learned the differences between Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Hi I absolutely love your content I've been watching you for years and I'd really like another windows parody video

Very interesting 😄 My middle school technology teacher (in France), who was also the middle school headmaster, back in the day, used a blue Surface RT in his class if I remember correctly, Students could use it to project their works (PowerPoint presentations, for example 🙃) on the blackboard after plugging their USB drive to the Surface RT, and I think my teacher used it to display the course in Word too, I liked it 🙃

I bought one when it came out, after a day i put it on ebay without the typecover and sold it for the same price an bounght myself the pro model ;-) best choiche ever

As an owner of the orginal surface RT the Asus Surface RT i appreciate this blast from the pass.