Following Sony, Samsung has stopped sales of its laptops in Europe

In the UK at least if you walk into a store you will find they have a confusing set of badly specced models of brands you probably shouldn't buy at prices you probably shouldn't pay.

I give a lot of credit to Apple in keeping their line fairly straightforward (usually only devs or photo/video people need upgrades) otherwise everyone gets the same base model for one of a tiny number of variants. The prices across channels and concessions are always the same too.

I think you're misunderstanding the term decline as used here. See the following link,

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/decliningindustry.asp

Or just buy an older ThinkPad X201 / X220 / T410 with 1440x900 display and get a new 9-cell battery.

The things are really cheap, have a proper keyboard, are bomb proof, every part is replaceable for minimal cost, they are 100% supported by all operating systems, have excellent docking support and you can just sling them in your bag. Mine lives down the back of the sofa cushions when not in use.

I knackered the headphone port on mine from overuse. 5 mins on ebay, £7 spent, new board installed in 5 mins with a Philips screwdriver and the service manual.

For every day tasks, I use an i5 X201 with 8Gb of RAM and a Samsung 840 Pro and it's no different to the stacked HP Z620 I have in the office to use. If I need more power then I use that remotely.

Totally awesome machine and I paid virtually nothing for it.

PC tech is moving so slowly now it's a better investment to buy two older machines so you have a backup unit than one new one if you ask me.

The model numbers manufacturers have definitely don't help. A friend recently bought an Acer Aspire E1, of which there are about a million different combinations. The range she got has model numbers like E1-472P-XXXX, where the last four digits mean "whatever configuration of components we plucked out of a hat". Her's is Core i5 4200U, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD - which I can't find anywhere online :D

As another commenter said Apple has it right in that it's easy to say "this is the 2013 model". I bought a TV yesterday, and although they seem to have confusing model numbers too, at least the shop displayed them saying which was the latest models and it was easy to see the difference between them (apparently "dual core CPU" is a feature of TVs now).

EDIT: Typos.

Those are 2 older Korean Crossover 2560x1440 MDP Screens with Display Port. Technically the Surface Pro 2 is able to connect to both of them over its one Mini-DP Connector via DP 1.2 Daisy Chaining, but since those Monitors only support DP 1.1. i tried connecting them over the MSI Multi-Stream-Transport Hub, which didn't work reliably enough, the monitors weren't always recognized instantly and it felt to fickle to work with. The solution was an older USB3 DisplayLink DisplayPort Adapter. It works much better than I expected and I can dock and undock as often as i want without the configuration or drivers becoming unstable which was my main concern.

Monitor TL;DR: 2x 2540x1440 Monitors, one via Mini-DP, one via USB3.

There is only one USB3 Bus on the Dockingstation for the SP2 and sadly Microsoft has cheaped out on the Ethernet Port for the Dockingstation as its only 100mbit. (The Dock is only Connected via one USB3 Port, one Mini-DP Port and its Power Connector, so guess they wanted to save the usb bandwidth since most people don't need >100mbit anyway) As i've got a 1 Gbit Line (we work next to a server farm) at my office i didn't want to compromise on that too much, so i've attached an USB3 Hub with included Gigabit Ethernet Port which is hidden with all cabling under the Desk. With the USB Monitor switched off i get about 800mbit over the card, with the USB Monitor it varies between 300mbit and 650mbit, depending on what is going on at the Monitor at the time.

Network TL;DR: External USB3 Gigabit Adapter, between 300-650mbit throughput.

We're a JS and PHP Webdevshop mostly, so I run PHPStorm on it, often alongside Photoshop CC 2014 to review Designs. The hardware takes that beautifully, but i can push it towards its limits when opening 2-3 animation-heavy sites in Chrome with the debugger open. Thats the only performance painpoint that i'd like to see wiped out when i'll buy my next Surface, i guess when they roll out the 4th or 5th gen. I've also ran Eclipse on it for Android Development and again, no problem there aswell, so i would guess Visual Studio would run on it nicely aswell. Unity3D runs nicely to do quick prototypes, but its obviously limited to the graphics capabilities of the Intel i5-4200u it runs on, so its okay for a Game Jam, but I (obviously to me) couldn't recommend it as a professional GameDev device. I've got the top model with 512GB SSD since it's supposed to last me 2-4 years atleast, i'd just hope for 16GB of Ram so I wouldn't have any regrets when opening multiple browser VMs (IE6-7-8-9 in parallel running vms with 6-8 each getting 1gb of ram and 9 2gb makes it run sluggish aswell), but I didn't find that in any notebook under 1.5kg so I compromized on that with the Surface and am not disappointed.

Software TL;DR: PHPStorm & Adobe Suite run alongside beautifully, more graphics power would be nice, but i don't really need it. If you NEED to run >5GB RAM of VMs, this device isn't for you.

With PHPStorm in PowerSaving Mode it lasts me about 5 hours before I need to find a plug, which is okay but I hope it to improve in the next iteration I get.

Battery TL;DR: 5 hours.

I have an IKEA BEKANT electric standing desk[1] and the cables are all tugged tightly under it and out of the way. On the Desk I have the Google Nexus Wireless Charger [2] for my Nexus 5 and an Dyson Fan which i've got as an gift, wouldn't recommend it for being so expensive while just being a regular fan. I carry my Surface around in a small vertical messenger bag [3] which contains beside the Surface Power cable an Jabra Speak 510 portable bluetooth conference speaker[4], an Logitech R800 Presenter[5] and an EasyAcc Battery Pack[6] which I can charge with the integrated USB Charger in the Surface Poweradapter.

My whole setup is geared towards me being always ready to do intensive dev work while staying mobile enough to jump up and do sales or community management and the Surface fits that purpose perfectly.

[1] http://www.ikea.com/de/de/catalog/products/S29022539/ [2] https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_wirel... [3] http://www.amazon.com/CaseCrown-Resistant-Vertical-Messenger... [4] http://www.amazon.com/Jabra-SPEAK-510-Bluetooth-Softphone/dp... [5] http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Professional-Presenter-Green-... [6] http://www.amazon.com/EasyAcc-10000mAh-Brilliant-Portable-PB...