Beyond protecting the 4.3-inch, 720p panel, this sheet of glass covers the 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera (top-left) and capacitive buttons along the bottom (back, Windows and search) which are both stenciled and backlit in white.

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Things are, by default, a bit more finger-friendly than your average Windows desktop, with bigger buttons and menu options.

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While the low-voltage Core i5 chip (there's a Core i3 option), 1080p IPS-based screen, 5-megapixel rear camera and front 1.3-megapixel shooter don't scream for attention by themselves among higher-end Windows 8 slates, there's an optical trackpoint and mouse buttons that make themselves genuinely handy in the non-Metro desktop.

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Fusion creates live 3D models of both people and objects, while Interactions adds a whole variety of recognizable gestures to the Kinect for Windows SDK ("push-to-press buttons, grip-to-pan capabilities, and support for smart ways to accommodate multiple users and two-person interactions, " says Microsoft).

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Windows 95 featured the first appearance of the Start menu, taskbar, and minimize, maximize, and close buttons on each window.

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