Yeh, the main downside to the surface is that it uses a kickstand. It doesn't have a fixed position hinge to hold the display part up at a given angle. This can be an issue sometimes, and you might want something like the Book instead if that's a big deal.

For instance, I watch youtube videos pretty often before going to sleep. So I'm lying in the bed with the Surface on my chest. It used to sit just right. But, over the last six months I've lost almost 25 lbs, and now it tends to want to fall over backwards on me if I let go of it. I guess my computing platform has been reduced.

OTOH, if you really want something that's sometimes a tablet and sometimes 90% of a real laptop, it's hard to beat. And of course they have a 'docking' station thingie you can use at home to turn it into 90% of an office machine if you want. So it's pretty flexible.

I wonder why no one has made a carrier/holder for the surface that provides the rigid hinge? It would be a perfect option. If it just let you slide the top part down into a slot onto the keyboard that is held in the bottom part of the holder. And you could easily slide the two parts out for use at home.