[majormajor]

With an active digitizer and the ability to run full apps, this looks like the perfect photography/graphic work portable workstation, that you can then dock at your desk at home. Extremely interested in it for that alone.

But I might wait a round or two, or look for similar 3rd party convertible things... At $1000, currently, it would need to be something that could do everything I wanted when traveling, and I'm skeptical that the in-lap keyboard experience on one of these will be good enough to make it a true laptop replacement for me. Typing in an airport, for instance (or just a recliner, or bed, or wherever)... I want it to be able to sit in my lap.

A cheaper Surface Pro in the future will appeal just for the portable photography workstation aspect. A laptop-based 3rd-party alternative with as good a digitizer, at about the same price, would appeal as my next laptop. Not sure this version 1 hits what I want, though.

[seanmcdirmid]

Active digitizers aren't cheap, and are really great with one note (I have the Samsung tablet). My problem with this tablet is also that I can't use it as a laptop (literally, I like working on sofas at starbucks). On the other hand, the resolution looks quite promising, its almost retina!

The good old tablet PCs have good digitizers on them, and they are still being made. I'm not sure what I will replace my EliteBook with...I like the digitizer but would prefer something thinner and bigger (like a Samsung Series 9 or a Carbon X1).

[sukuriant]

Disclosure: Microsoft employee.

I'm also a photographer in my spare time, and I'm looking forward to this device, in part because a friend of mine is an artist and she wanted me to evaluate it when it comes out to see if it's worth the money to her. The digitizer is definitely the biggest thing I want to test on the device. I'm hoping that the pen has pressure sensitivity, at least; and I'm hoping that it turns the screen off far enough from the screen that I can safely lift the pen a little bit before the touch screen turns back on again. Color accuracy will also be interesting; but, since it's an x86 device, I imagine we can install color correction software that will somewhat fix any issues there might be with that. (I have a very specific screen at home I use for color-accuracy. I'm very picky.)

I own a Surface RT, too, with a type cover and have experience using it for ... well, I got it the day it came out. First things first, I've worked with the device on my lap. I have pretty long legs, so the stand sits just fine in my lap; and, while I do prefer to have a hard surface underneath it, like a logitech or targus laptop stand, it's plenty usable in this situation. I use the machine on my lap at a friend's house on their futon all the time.

As for the "it's almost retina!" statement, the Surface Pro is going to be, for normal intents and purposes, retina at 17" away from your face(#). That's less than a normal laptop to face distance. For the Surface RT, I've personally find myself frequently having to raise the resolution of some webpages as they day goes on, because the text is too small to read. Using the same calculations as above, the Surface RT is "retina" at 23 inches.

(#) http://isthisretina.com/

[seanmcdirmid]

I'm eager to try a surface in my lap to see how it feels, which I wasn't able to do at the Microsoft store. I do a lot of lap work; coding, writing papers), so this very important to me.

I've been spoiled by the iPad 3 in terms of resolution, especially when reading in bed where the tablet is about 10" away from my face. The pro is decent, but I think I could still see the pixels in bed; that would affect what device I choose to use there.

I agree that the digitizer is the best thing about the device, that alone could sell it for key niche uses (taking notes, sketching).

[sukuriant]

Hm ... I haven't done too too much reading in my bed. I do notice that setting up ClearType the way you like it seems to make reading text better. That said, when I was reading Lovecraft in one of the epub readers, I forget which one, the text was nice to read in 2-column horizontally and 1-column format vertically. I honestly haven't had much time in front of > 300ppi displays at close range and with text ( I tend to like things a bit farther away from me than close, so the screen would still probably be 15 or so inches away), so perhaps my experience hasn't been adequately adjusted yet.

Oh, and of course, as a touch-typist and a fast typist, I recommend the type cover for using on your lap. Both keyboards are stiff, but I imagine the feedback of pressing a key will make it easier to work with on your lap.