[jp10558]

Well, I don't know about that. I pretty much recommend Windows 7 computers to people because I expect they can buy one and get it to work for their definition of work. I might think a Mac or Linux would be better for them for what they want to do, but not for their ability to actually do it.

In the same way, if someone wants a top of the line tablet, it just seems obvious it's an iPad. That's what almost anyone with a tablet is going to have. It's just going to fit the expectation of what a tablet is for a naive user. Surface doesn't. Just like Linux on a desktop may be better in your context-specific suggestion, but it isn't what a naive user thinks a computer is.

Unless the friend also wants to pay me regularly to teach or tech support their computing device, in which case I might go outside the expected zone, but I've yet to find this to be the case.