Michael,

The computer is incredibly slick.. A shining example of state of the art computing tech. The Ativ never gets hot.. Has a Core I5 processor, 4gb ram and a 128gb solidstate hd. All in a 1/2" thick device. I seriously can't say enough about this device so I'll stop there.

Windows 8 does use the left side of the screen for app switching and such. That said, 10 touches leaves quite a bit of room for growth.. I was thinking that it would be nice to have 4 and 5 finger modifiers.. Keep in mind that each modifier "chord" can go a number of ways. 4 fingers can be swiped in any direction, rotated or pinched. each of these represent opportunities to control parameters or execute commands. A good starting point for multitouch commands may be to set 4 finger swipe left and right = undo and redo.

Thanks,

IC