OK I got the base Surface Book, have had it for the better part of a week now. I'm used to using pens from my previous computer, a Lenovo X200 convertible tablet PC running Windows 7. (The replacement battery on that boy was on its last legs and rather than replace the battery I figured it was time to leap into the future after avoiding windows 8 machines for a few years.) I might be slightly biased in that I am one of the people who prefers using a pen to typing, I think in college and grad school lectures taking notes by hand helped me remember things better although probably typing is faster for most people. So instead of a notebook or folder of notes I have OneNote. I don't usually convert my handwriting to text, on my older Lenovo that didn't always perform that well. Might try it on the new machine to see if it's improved. But even if your handriting isn't digitized, it's still keyword searchable in OneNote which I find useful.
But anyway - about the Surface Book. The magnesium frame does kinda scream MacBook but the display form factor at 4:3 instead of 16:9 is somewhat distinctive. It's
almost big enough to use two-page view for reading a document, but where I really like it is to ink/annotate a PDF in portrait mode. Here it ouperforms my older machine - the pen is responsive, smooth and the pressure sensitivity is nice. A PDF inking program called Drawboard was included which I've been using. There is also a painting type of program where you can mix oils and stuff, but probably one of the target markets for this technology is artists using Illustrator. I'm not artistic enough to learn/buy Illustrator, but a couple of the reviews did have artists try it out and they sounded positive about it. This technology has progressed - if you think it's the same as drawing with your finger on an iPad, it's not, it's much more precise and responsive, although I recognize not everybody places the same value on that (and the next iPad is also going to have an improved pen despite Steve Job's wishes).
Display looks great, I've been leaving it on auto brightness but if you pump up the brightness adjustment it gets REALLY bright. I have had an issue a couple times with the display driver hanging using multiple tabs on firefox, I haven't noticed a consistent cause for that yet. Hopefully it'll go away with an update.
Typing is fine, keys are spaced well. The trackpad is large, which I like, and while I have noticed some press issues that
@jleves mentioned, it happens less at the bottom of the trackpad... and you can use another finger or your other hand to press/click somewhere else on the trackpad (and you might be used to doing this if you previously used a trackpad with buttons at the bottom). I have gotten in the habit of using the touch screen to scroll especially during web browsing. But I'm keeping my mouse for use with the second monitor I plug into at work.
Sound is pretty good, you even get nice left-right separation. Boot up is fast! I didn't spring for the graphics upgrade, not being a gamer. Still, everything is responsive and quick-loading, I don't think I'll have any awkward freeze-ups running power point. I haven't thrown anything too intense at the processor, maybe later I'll try running some intense tracking code in MATLAB and see how it does compared to some of our workstations...
As far as battery life - it's fine as long as you keep the screen attached to the base. If you detach and go tablet mode, the battery in the screen should last long enough for a meeting (even a long meeting like the ones I'm used to... but that's neither here nor there) but it probably won't get you through a full afternoon. To take advantage of both batteries, you can detach, flip it around, reattach to the base and fold it down; I anticipate doing this for conferences and that sort of thing. In tablet mode, the form factor is definitely not one where you'll be holding it in your hand walking down the street like a phablet. That's not what it's for. They call it a digital clipboard and that's how people will use it, the same way you tuck a clipboard under your arm and then (if you're standing) hold it in your left hand with the bottom edge braced against your sternum or in the crook of your elbow so you can write with your right if you're right-handed. Sitting at a table or with it on your lap is fine in either laptop or tablet detached mode. I was worried about the screen wobbling but that doesn't seem to be a problem.
So maybe it comes down to this - do you want to be a pen user or need a large touch screen, or are you happy using Windows the way it was in the XP thru Windows 7 era? Do you want a premium machine with the latest tech? It's not a cheap computer, that's for sure. If you wait a year or so, it's possible other manufacturers will have similar convertible or detachable Windows 10 machines with similar performance, maybe a little bit more affordable, depending on the specs. I don't see this as being something for college students, for example - probably a Surface Pro or something from Dell or Acer would be the target here. On the other hand, most people these days spend more time on the computer than they do in the car, for example. So an argument can be made for forking over a few hundred more for a premium product if you do want the extra functionality.
, not that people are all that worried, but I'm doing more than fine considering. So normally I would not fork over $2k for anything, but I felt since I needed a laptop and my Asus Android Transformer tablet bit the bullet a while ago, I'd get this 2-in-1 device which would likely be used much more as a laptop though sometimes as a tablet.