Is there an ultrabook laptop with a 1080p touchscreen, an active digitizer with a stylus, atleast Core i5 for $1000 to $1100 ? I am not being facetious here, I am looking to buy something to replace my 6 year old laptop so looking for real suggestions here.
The problem for Microsoft isn't that Surface Pro isn't a good pen tablet. It's that 98% of people don't want, or don't know they want, a pen tablet. Now, before the iPad, 98% of people didn't know they wanted a tablet. That's a fair point. But in the last decade, Microsoft has demonstrated zero market making ability of that kind.
On top of that, Surface Pro is probably not the ideal pen tablet for current technology. I think a cheaper, lighter, thinner device with a Clovertrail processor, digitizer, and 8+ hours of battery life would have hit the sweet spot if Microsoft wanted to make a serious go at making pen computing happen. My guess is that the battery life is going to lose them a lot more customers than the extra oomph of the Ivy Bridge is going to gain them.
In fact, if you think your sweet spot PC would be attractive to a lot of people, you could set up a company and market it yourself. There are hundreds of factories in the Pearl River Delta capable of producing that sort of thing at a reasonable price. Kickstarter here you come?
That's the real hope of Surface--to free us from OEM's and their OEM crapware and OEM brain damage. Microsoft has a lot of money, but even it can't buy the Chinese/Taiwanese OEM's taste.
There is just a powerful marketing pitch in being able to sell a product "this is the one true way Windows 8 was meant to be experienced." There is a reason everyone raves about the Nexus 4/7/10. Surface is the only Windows 8 tablet on the market that can go toe to toe with Apple in terms of industrial design and vertical integration. The success of Windows 8 tablets lives and dies with Surface.
However, your point on crapware is well made. Unfortunately, Microsoft can't do anything about it (because the DoJ sued it into the ground and specifically prevented it). Also, crapware brings in money and this is significant in a market that buys on price. I don't see it changing in the near future.
http://www.lenovo.com/products/us/tablet/thinkpad/thinkpad-h...
I loved the X201 tablet (apart from heating issues), but the crap resolution and 16:9 on that line makes it not worth having.
I have a feeling that this year, we're going to see a lot of decent small-sized, full res devices, thanks to Apple's Retina push. Haswell is supposed to be out mid-year so that might also help create some better devices.
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As people are complaining over how little free space the surface pro has, I wonder what the reaction to all of these on a 128gb machine would be...
EDIT: Formatting
I like it because it can be a full laptop, with real hinge (unlike the Surface Pro), but can still detatch to be a real tablet. Coupled with the official 360° handstrap case, I don't find its heft to be an issue in tablet mode either.
I was unsure about whether I'd have use for the stylus when I bought it, but it has exceeded expectations. It is great for inputting short text here and there (e.g. searching the web). It is also great for having finer grained input for those occasions when I want to drop into the Win8's 'desktop mode' without switching the hardware back into 'notebook mode' (i.e. avoiding the need for the mouse pad for casual usage).
VAIO Duo 11 Ultrabook http://store.sony.com/c/VAIO-Duo-11-Ultrabook-Laptops/en/c/S...
3rd gen Intel® Core™ i7 processor available Windows 8 64-bit 11.6" Full HD IPS touch display (1920 x 1080) Converts from tablet to laptop Digitizer stylus
Do I win a prize? ;-)
Ok, poll: how many of you really want a digitizer (and have ever used one for more than a few minutes)?
Edit: Oops, didn't notice the digitizer requirement. Please disregard.