I submit that it's not a matter of whether the Surface is better than an iPad or Android tablet - it's a matter of whether it covers off more things and makes technology life simpler. Here's what I mean - right now I have:

1. Cell Phone. Pros: Small, easy to use, reliable, good communication (voice, text, email) device, allows quick and simple interface to Internet for looking up things. Cons: Inefficient format for keying in anything substantial (like a long email), small screen format for efficient consumption of anything meaningful, ineffective content editing.

2. Kindle. Pros: Extremely good battery life, easy display to read, very portable, lots of storage for content. Cons: ebook consumption device only - unusable for creating anything.

3. iPad: Pros: Large, colorful display, lots of apps, good touch interface, portable. Cons: Inefficient format for keying in anything substantial (like a long email), limited content consumption device battery life, poor at content creation and editing.

4. Laptop. Pros: Very effective content creation device with keyboard, mousepad, and relevant application install base; greate connectivity to USB/Bluetooth/WiFi/Ethernet. Cons: Heavy, large device, poor battery performance for consuming content.

5. Home Media Creation and Server Machine: Pros: Expandable, powerful, media server capabile, very capable at connectivity, high value to cost ratio. Cons: not portable.

What would a Surface do for me? Based on the demonstrated and published capabilities, it could let me eliminate the cost and support of items 3 and 4 above - maybe even 2. To me, that makes my life simpler and makes it a very enticing go-forward choice.