It goes into tablet mode for me when:

1. I write in my daily journal using the surface pen and onenote.

2. I am taking notes in onenote with the surface pen at a meetup.

3. I am writing random fiction nonsense (onenote, surface pen).

4. I am taking notes in onenote w/ pen on one side of the screen, while having chrome open on the other with one of the MOOCs I am taking.

5. I am working on Chinese or Japanese exercises in onenote w/ pen with my kindle open to an exercise book.

I play around with portrait / landscape, having the flipback extended, etc, based on mood and position.

SP3.

I use mine about 50/50.

At work it gets hauled around as a notebook for writing notes and annotating documents. If I find I need to do some more serious work, I just stand it on the table and start using the keyboard. When I get back to my desk it gets used as an ancillary laptop.

At home whether it's a laptop or tablet depends on what I'm doing. If I'm just mindlessly clicking through reddit while using it as a remote for Netflix, then I'm definitely just using it bare. If I decide I want to type out a lengthy reply to a Hacker News post or do some programming, I'll shift over to the coffee table with a keyboard.

Definitely see a lot of people that bought them with the best of intentions that don't really make full use of them. I've had my eyes on the "convertible" market for years, though, and I don't regret the purchase at all.

Anecdotally I never actually use my surface as a laptop. When it's docked I use keyboard mouse etc. When it's not I use the OSK and touch.

They keyboard cover is nice, but I find it to be an incredibly annoying add-on to what I consider a perfect form-factor.

It's a laptop* 90%+ of the time. It's a tablet when:

- Reading, watching, or gaming, particularly if I'm walking around frequently

- Taking notes (principle reason I got the Surface was my attachment to handwritten notes)

*I often use the Surface with the keyboard attached, but in positions that no ordinary laptop could support. Laying on the couch with the hinge hooked between my knees and the keyboard on my thighs, or with the hinge hooked over the steering wheel and the keyboard more or less dangling (not while driving, of course).

Even though it's a small amount of my usage, having that capability available to me means I can avoid carrying other things.

I've got a surface pro 4 and use it roughly 33% of the time in 'tablet' mode. I also have a Surface Book which I used a lot in 'clipboard' mode (reversed and folded down over the keyboard). Always when drawing, and mostly when reading.

Perhaps not surprisingly I think a pixel sense "screen" that could be paired to something like a NUC wirelessly would be a pretty awesome peripheral as well. Something I intend to build out of my SP4 when I upgrade it.

I use mine in tablet mode when watching a movie. I get the keyboard out of the way so I can angle the thing just right when on a plane or a train. I also do it when browsing my RSS feeds with NextGen Reader.

i use my SP2 primarily in tablet mode for note taking in onenote. I study part-time and all my writing and notes go in there, which are auto synced to my Desktop and Macbook. In theory i could use the Surface for everything, but then i would need to hookup external peripherals and the note taking experience would suffer with rearranging/unplugging all the time. I wonder how others solve that.

It's great for drawing/doodling/note-taking and reading books and comics in tablet mode.