I thought the same thing! I even spent a good hour with a surface book on launch. I also own a chromebook pixel 2015.
On the surface, the stylus experience and typing experience wasn't there. And the weight / feel wasn't as appealing. Even if equal, it would have been a tough call because I penalize windows heavily for small annoyances, security updates, notifications, difficult-to-understand security hierarchy.
It may seem counterintuitive to prefer either total or nearly zero OS control, but iOS just gets out of my way. When I'm in linux, I can have things precisely how I like, which means much (not all) of the OS question can be reduced to "is there a quality ssh client?"
Finally, I'm typing this over an LTE network, something that the book didn't offer as far as I know.
I see. I was referring to the Surface Pro 4 or the Surface 3, which might be more comparable to the iPad Pro than the Surface Book.
I've tried several, and I think that with a decent Linux setup they can be very enjoyable. I agree Linux can get on your way, but I've found that a very minimal Arch setup, or a declarative Nix/Guix setup can be fantastic. I cannot say the same about heavyweight distros.
