A Winning Tablet, and From Microsoft, No Less The Surface 2 is a bargain machine that packs a tremendous amount of value for the price, which is $450 for the 32-gigabyte version. I can't be the only person who needs fewer gadgets in his life. Over the last decade, my home has turned into an electrical outlet battle zone, with family members bouncing one another off the power grid so they can charge their Kindles, iPhones, Android phones, laptops, iPods, iPads,, Bluetooth headsets and a flip phone or three. Some ingenious 14-year-old will soon make a fortune designing a tabletop nuclear reactor with a USB port, or maybe a powerstrip the size of a Cadillac Escalade. Until then, I will put a fat checkmark next to tech items that let me move one step closer to single-outlet nirvana. Actually, the first such device just hit my hands, and if my eyes did not deceive me, this baby did not come from the Company That Invents Products You Didn't Know You Needed, otherwise known as Apple. Instead, it came from Microsoft. The device is the Surface 2 ($450 for the 32-gigabyte version), a tablet/laptop hybrid that, unlike its predecessor and competitors, may put a dent in the demand for powerstrips in my house. The Microsoft tortoise has been playing a slow-and-steady strategy on mobile, largely because it was about 1,000 years late to the starting gate. But Microsoft's continued dominance with Windows and Office gave it time to develop a mobile strategy while maintaining a prominent place on desktops. That's the glass-half-full argument, at least. While everyone was watching Apple's can-you-top-this show and Android's flood-the-zone operation, Microsoft was grinding out mobile software that eventually reached Downright Lovely status. Why didn't anyone notice? Oh. Right. Microsoft hadn't quite figured out apps or hardware. Apps remain an open question, but good Microsoft mobile hardware finally arrived this year, with the release in October 2012 of the Surface and last February of the Surface Pro. March of the Surface and the Surface Pro. These are tablets that can double as laptops because of a beautifully designed kickstand and a detachable keyboard (the Type Cover, $130). Put another way, these were entertainment machines that could double as workhorses. The Surface runs the company's basic level software for desktops, laptops and other devices, Windows RT (version 8.1), while the Surface Pro runs Windows Pro (version 8.1). The upsides were significant. Here, at last, were Windows machines that let users experience the company's mobile and desktop software in one device, with a nifty interface, and, most notably, the Type Cover, which enabled a seamless transition between tablet and laptop. The Type Cover's less versatile sibling, the Touch Cover, sells for $80. The downsides, sadly, were also significant. Among them: a rigidly designed stand, a battery with a short life - someone get me the powerstrip! - and, on the base Surface version, the omission of Outlook, the popular email and scheduling program. But the second iteration of the Surface, which went on sale in late October, most of those downers have been addressed. The new Surface includes Outlook, an upgraded battery, a kickstand with two viewing angles instead of just one and faster USB ports, and other goodies. It has roughly the same thickness and weight as the iPad - it weighs 1.5 pounds without the cover - and the overall screen size is 10.6 inches, giving it slightly more viewing space. With a Type Cover, it feels similar in your hands to an iPad with a cover. In all, the device falls nicely below the "bulky" threshold. The company says the battery lasts up to 10 hours, two hours more than the previous version. I tested it by streaming video with the screen at full brightness and had power for 8.5 hours. Why buy the Surface 2 instead of the Surface Pro 2? The Surface Pro 2 is a $900 machine, not including the $130 keyboard, and at that price the detachable tablet would have to provide a great all-around experience to justify the cost. While the Pro has an excellent high-definition screen (1080p) and a feather-light feel, you can get better apps - and many more of them designed for a mobile experience - on Apple and Android devices. Disclosure: I co-created an iPad app. An earlier version of this article misstated the release date of the first version of the Surface and the Surface Pro. The Surface RT was released in October 2012 and the Surface Pro last February, not in March 2013 for both tablets.