Well clearly that doesn't work here, people are always called out for that and if not their point is rebutted. The problem is most of the time they are called out on it - like in this instance - is just because the person calling them out doesn't agree with their subjective opinion. There is no rebuttal, just an accusation because he/she cannot come up with a valid rebuttal.

Correct, that's why I called this guy out on it.

I think it's software more than drivers, but that's an issue to take up with software vendors. Desktop Linux is technically a great operating system, even Windows Phone, webOS and Meego are technically a great operating systems but ultimately they all fail as operating systems from the point of view of being able to run applications and that's the primary job of an operating system, that's all anybody cares about.

Ok but hang on, that is not a "known fact" in this instance at all. While you might say this is commonplace because PR people suggest it that doesn't appear to be the case here, in this case it clearly is "if somebody has a different opinion on a subjective matter to me i'll brand them a paid shill", apparently "Surface and Windows desktop suck" and anybody who doesn't agree with that is a paid shill, that's just braindead idiocy.

Of course, the shots on Apple's product marketing aren't photographs, they are renderings that simply do not have the camera bulge included.

Can you point me to the factual basis? I have heard that quite a lot but it's always been from people who use that as a rebuttal rather than making a real argument.

I'm sure many people can manage without Windows when they're just doing basic computing tasks like email, browsing and documents, but in that situation iPads are much more the device of choice than Linux PCs and everybody needing CAD, CAM, CAE. photo/audio/video editing, simulation & analysis, etc ... will continue to use Windows or OS X.

That all depends what your use case is, obviously you don't need a touch screen or active stylus input. Saying your better off with an MBP than a Surface when you don't need the features of the Surface is as redundant as saying you are better off with a boat than a car because you need to travel across water.

Oh get over yourself, nobody is "shilling". The reality is that nobody cares about an OS, it exists purely to run applications so even if you have the technically best and technically most advanced operating system ever created it is utterly useless unless it can run the programs that people need to run to accomplish the tasks that they need the computer for. Windows - and in large part OS X - accomplish this on the desktop for the vast majority of people, Linux accomplishes this largely on servers and smartphones. Windows fails at this on smartphones and Linux fails at it on desktops.

Nobody is saying Windows is a superior operating system to OS X or Linux from a technical perspective - in fact I don't think you'll find an overall winner in any category - but from the perspective of being a desktop operating system, by and large it is. Just as Android and iOS are on smartphones and Linux is on servers.

Of course they do and if they work they'll not bother to change it. They could quite easily change if there were a reason to but there isn't so they won't.

So what's the problem?

You could always google it. They are jailbreaking the non-Pro Surface models, we are talking about the Surface Pro, which is not ARM and - like any other certified Win8+ system - it has secureboot turned on by default which you can turn off.

Ok, well if you had just said that upfront we wouldn't even need to discuss it then.

So install Linux on it then, it's commodity hardware that is used by all manner of other laptops and the bootloader isn't locked down or anything like that. The fact that it runs Windows is a good thing for me because many of the programs I use don't run on Linux.

So people use it simply because they paid for it?

Yes I agree, but that's not what I was rebutting, I also restated it to try and avoid confusion which is that nobody is being "forced" into using Windows just because it is what ships with systems. You seem to be saying the issue is lack of viable alternatives, perhaps that's true.

The only real problem I have with the Surface Pro is the small screensize (though that seems to be mostly resolved with the 3), so instead I found myself using my MBP more if I needed a laptop for lengthy amounts of time. Definitely prefer web browsing with a touchscreen and you can just use it as a tablet when doing that stuff and aren't stuck with the laptop formfactor.

I'm sure people will find use cases where the Surface isn't ideal and pretend that this makes entirely useless for everybody but I do think it is a great device. If you don't need Windows and/or don't like touchscreen or stylus input then you probably would be served better by something else.

You do realize desktop Linux distros have been unbelievably easy to install (or even run from a Live CD) for the last decade or so don't you? Nobody has been "forced" into using Windows just because it happened to ship as the default for a very long time.