[Toshio]

Ahem, your post sounds so enthusiastic about a product that has proven to be a dud with consumers, that I'm missing some kind of disclosure from you. Therefore, let me ask you this: are you in any way affiliated with microsoft? As in, you know, employee, freelance evangelist or member of a benefit program such as MVP.

LATER EDIT: Yeah I looked at your profile, my suspicions were confirmed.

[phaus]

Its good to be aware that he does have a connection, but there are unaffiliated people that do like the Surface Pro.

Its a dud with consumers because the price is high and the implementation is lacking.

When the day finally arrives where someone absolutely nails the implementation of a hybrid device that's light enough to function as a tablet, as powerful and long-lasting as an ultrabook, capable of transforming from one to role to the other, while remaining competitively priced, pretty much everyone is going to want one.

I think that we are nearing the time when such a device is possible. Unfortunately, it hasn't been designed yet, so here we are discussing the failures of another half-hearted attempt at making convergence a reality.

There are bound to be people that say "Not everyone wants that", but if you could have a device that's equally well-suited to each role, without paying more, why wouldn't you?

[Toshio]

> "why wouldn't you?"

Maybe because of my UNIX-influenced worldview which says that the things I'm using should be streamlined, do-one-thing-but-do-it-very-well, and should be "composable" as in ... via UNIX pipes, if we're talking about software utilities, and by putting them on the same network, if we're talking about computing devices.

[phaus]

Before the introduction of tablets, traditional computng devices performed the tasks now expected of tablets. They simply offered an alternative input method and a more convenient form factor.

We need to quit acting like convergence forces a computer to do something that its not well-suited for. Before the iPad, computers were used to consume content. In the past, we did have to make compromises, because the technology wasn't sufficiently mature. Now it is, and we don't have to compromise.

In my hypothetical scenario, the device is equally well suited to being used as a tablet or an ultrabook. Such a hypothetical device renders your argument moot, because your argument depdends on a hybrid device not being able to perform as well as a single purpose device. We are at the point where hybrids are a small fraction of a lb heavier than a tablet while in tablet mode, and a small fraction heavier than a Macbook Air while in laptop mode. This indicates that the technology is there, we simply need someone to come up with a good design.

[fekberg]

I got my Surface RT before I was an MVP. I bought the Surface Pro after I became an MVP. I'm going to buy the Surface 2 now.

You're saying I can't be enthusiastic about the Surface because I am an MVP?