I am a big fan of the SP4, but this surface studio seems too niche, whilst the iPad was testimony to creating a paradigm shift in digital interfacing, the surface studio will likely be utilised by pros and surface loyalists.
I have olny had my SP4 for a few months.
TL;DR got a cheap 2nd hand SP4 to try out, and absolutely love it!
Background:
I have used OSX as my home OS since 2005; when I had 3 laptops die within 3 months, and PC world 'technical' support was as ever efficient, courteous and helpful. I was finally given a full refund and bought my first mac. Never looked back.
The surface is the first windows machine that I have used at home since 2005, work being the NHS crippled vista nightmare. Having sworn to never use MS OS again [at home], I slowly immersed myself into OSX. Ive pretty much been through ever mac, and settled with mac pro at homes, and MBP for travel, light browsing around the house, which i could also take out on the fly. I have pretty much ever iphone and ipad since release [usually sell on ebay or donate to eagerly awaiting family members]. My iMac has replaced my mac pro,it was really for gaming.
I now have a 2013 rMBP, 2016 5k Imac, ipad pro 9.7, iphone 6s [iphone 6 as backup phone], nexus 7, Qnap server, smart hub on TV. I live alone and have 7 devices, thus i wanted to rationalise this gluttony of electronics. As i needed to increasingly work away from home: I would stay at work till late to avoid the traffic + spending 2-3 days a month at another city. I decided to get a IPP 9.7 [better screen edged it over pro) and my imac, i was to give my rMBP and mac mini away.
6 months after this affair, I tried everything to make the IPP a machine to work from, from MS office for osx, to Qsync and icloud, i just could not find a solution that worked. I brought the official keyboard [returned as I found it cluttered, poor response and hideous], settling on the slim book for zagg {excellent response, typing, back-lit keys, let down by it's weight and the fact it's prone to breaking at the dock connector), i had the apple pencil (lost it on the tube = literally fell between the gap of the platform and the carriage as it so slippery - ps mind the gap is my new trigger word; why did apple not create a magnetic or a better docking solution, the real work is not Cupertino space craft. The ipad is a great device to browse, write a few emails, basic word processing/excel, i even used it for light gaming and to watch films when away. For my needs, the IPP just could not replace my rMBP, whilst it came close, and there were several nuances to using the device in a professional capacity. What was nice was the seamless integration that apple has been working on over the past 3/4 years, osx 10 and sierra work so well together.
After much searching the forums and deliberations i pulled the trigger on a SP4. I had refused to buy the ip7+ for £800 and used the money saved on the SP4. Furthermore, I had been using windows 10 on my imac for over a year, due to some programmes being exclusive to windows, and legacy gaming like CnC, as the mac versions are never as good and I had several issues on running them on Parallels Desktop. The first thing i noticed was how fast windows ran on the SP4, i had the i5/256 gb model and it was incredibly snappy. It took a while to get used to windows again, the paucity of apps, when to use touch, trackpad, or stylus, and it's quite heavy and bulky compared to my anaemic IPP 9.7. I had exclusively used Evernote premium and had to get to grips with one note to fully appreciate the functionality of the SP4. I now had full office, could use multiple programs and do simple things without 3rd party apps. Whilst OSX remains my preferred os overall, there is little comparison between ios vs win10, one is for smart phones, the other for computing in every sense of the word. The SP4 is superb for gaming also, I use an external 500gb Samsung evo SSD for gaming, storage, and a 2nd HDD as needed; i tried a SD card, but I get ~450 +/- read/write on an external SSD. I found the writing with the MS pen as good if not better than the apple pencil, and i loved the oneclick function to open a note on one note. The main drawback os the SP4 has been the lack of osx/ios seamless integration that I became accustomed to,
I believe the refusal of apple to create a hybrid device like the SP4, or to create a touch-enabled osx for such devices [i fully agree that an imac touch would be useless for my needs], is primarily due to economics. Apple have an established tablet market and a growing laptop market, both the macbook and ipads were revolutionary devices, and out of fear that a hybrid device may cannibalise their sales, ie reducing profits. TBH, most people don't need an ipad and a mbp, a single device could do both, and as it stands ios falls so far short of MS, let alone osx. As an apple customer for over 12 years, since Cook and Ive have taken the helm at apple, the focus seems more on design, slimness, and $$$. However, the surreptitious nature on how apple tries to squeeze out $$$ is getting ever more brazen, from non-upgradeable custom SSDs, soldered ram, custom ports, steep price hikes on 3-year-old tech, they appear to have forsaken their loyal and long term customers, for a short term boost in $$$; albeit eroding their reputation amongst us fanboys. Yes, apple do currently captivate the masses + certainly a hit product amongst the masses, by milking the masses they forget that whilst amounting huge $$$ surpluses in the short term, tomorrow they may no longer have the hip product and may have fallen out of favour with the fanboys. Their basic 13" MBP now starts just shy of £1500, which is a huge price hike for what you're getting, gimmicky touch id bar or not.
