Howdy...I literally created an account here just to reply to this thread, so hopefully you'll find this helpful. I have a Surface Pro 4 I5/8GB which I bought in early November. I was weighing between this and the new Surface book, but the rational side of my brain eventually won out when I accepted the fact that I didn't have enough money to frivolously dump another few hundred to a grand.
Let me start with some background as to what kind of user I am. I travel frequently for work, so weight and portability were big considerations for me. When your computer is constantly in your backpack, dimensions and weight matter. Similarly, battery life was also key as it's rare to find power plugs throughout most commercial planes (though they're getting better).
I rarely use the pen nor do I have a need to touch the screen. I accidentally fried my last Acer S5 ultrabook (which I adored) by tipping over a glass of water on the keyboard. So I needed a new machine, but I'm not a "tablet guy."
My laptop is used primarily for MS Office productivity, web browsing and media play. All updates were installed as soon as they were available and the brightness is kept at 25%. I've never sat down and done a hard test on my battery life, but I'd guess it to be maybe 6 hours if the machine was in airplane mode just playing movies (could be wrong, again, life is too busy to sit down and measure that). I don't use sleep or hibernate unless by accident. If I don't need my computer, it is shut down. The boot is so absurdly fast that I have no need to keep it on. I'm not a gamer, which is not to say I'd never play one but just that they don't really come in to my usual usage rotation.
I don't run aftermarket antivirus -- not because I'm against it but just because I have yet to get around to installing my Eset on here.
The thing has been running so smoothly that it hasn't crossed my radar (having a 2-year old will do that to you).
I've had none of the video driver or power button issues that I'm seeing in the threads here. The thing just works and I've been pleasantly surprised by the keyboard. A side benefit of this platform that hadn't occurred to me when I bought it is the defense against spill damage just by design alone. If I were to clumsily spill another damn cup of water on THIS keyboard, I simply replace the type cover and everything's fine. That's a nice plus in a chaotic world with a lot of moving parts. There's a flexibility with becoming a surface user that you may not even realize the benefit of until you own one. I never would've predicted, for example, loading up a netflix movie for my daughter, popping the kickstand and yanking the keyboard before setting it on a coffee table to entertain her. It becomes a "tool" in your daily life.
Though I'm a staunch Win7 pro user, Windows 10 has been a pleasant surprise to use.
Looking back over this, it doesn't seem like a compelling argument for you to buy a surface.
Guess it's difficult to really convince someone with all one's "non-issues." It works smoothly and I use it damn near every day. Build quality and screen are also nice. You can tell it's not your typical budget-build computer. There was care put into the details and that matters to me -- not so much for the aesthetics (which are nice), but just the logical peace of mind that such a mindset indicates that care was put into OTHER details as well. I don't know what your age bracket is (I'm 41), but that stuff starts to matter more as you get older and lose patience for other peoples' laziness, !@#$-ups, and bullsh*t excuses. I'll pay more money to deal with less idiots and liars. I simply don't have the time, energy, or patience for it anymore. So I'd rather give a company my money that's committed to making their customers happy.
Because of the afore-mentioned indicators of good corporate character, I also have faith that updates will continue to roll out that will tweak and improve things.
So there's my two cents. Wherever you land, I hope you have a good experience. I'm enjoying the tranquility of having a reliable machine that gets things done that I can take anywhere. It's nice to have one less thing to worry about.
