Yes, it's very different. Though, it really depends on how the courier would fold. Since it's just a 3-D simulation, we don't know. But, if it really folds flat so it's glass-on-glass, it'd be a major problem. When you fold a laptop, you're folding glass on keys. The keys have "give" to them, and little things like grit will not damage the screen.
You really expect glass? At the weight they are talking it either has to be paper thin glass or just good ol' PC plastic. In which case the problem is amplified 10x
I think what the poster is saying is that we've only seen one application for the courier in the demo videos... and that demo is like a digital scrapbook - of very limited use. Neat? sure... but very limited. Who knows if the courier has some other function. It's just not clear at all what the OS on this thing is, or how applications would be developed or installed on it.
I think if MS is to be successful with this device they would be well advised to
not attempt to compete with the iPad, by being a general life enhancement device, but rather stay focused on this one-note-on-steroids approach and stay squarely focused on business and students.
MS in general is the least qualified to be at the head of the computing game. They can't innovate to save themselves, they consistently poorly imitate others innovations, they always put sales ahead of furthering computing evolution at the expense of the buyers experience, they repeatedly develop closed proprietary clones of well established open standards then force feed them to developers to prevent competition.
That said, there is one area of Microsoft which is worthy of some respect and that is the MS Office dev team. This is the
only facet of MS worth anything and having used OneNote (and InkSeine) on a tablet PC for some time I can say that the Office team have done a great job of it. It isn't perfect but it is good. This steroid injected version they are proposing here is a worthy evolution of OneNote/InkSeine.
So I reiterate, if MS can stay focused and build this device around this single function then it will be successful,
not as a competitor to the iPad, but as a unique and evolutionary device on it's own.
Chances of that happening based on prior MS history? Close to nil unfortunately, but there is always hope.