It was a random improvised visit to Virgin Megastore yesterday to purchase perhaps the most incredible audio experience we have had in some time. Miki wanted some distraction-free headphones so we plunged for the award-winning top-of-the-range Sony with some delight that Sony was still leading the charge in one aspect of its product line.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a Microsoft display area, atop of which was the Surface. The gigantic touchscreen device I had seen released months or years before but never experienced up close. I was drawn in. As a decade-plus Macintosh fan (I write this now on my first generation MacBook that I adore to this day), something about a gigantic touchscreen yet also a fully-functional “normal” computer excites me.

It is also an area that Apple needs to pay attention to. The iPad-as-laptop option and constant focus on iOS as separate from MacOS is frustrating in some aspects. This may change in the near future as ARM chips infiltrate the desktop environment at the expense of Intel, allowing Apple more innovation internally, but right now Microsoft is making some incredible products.

The Microsoft pen you can use on all the Surface products feels way better than the Apple Pencil we bought a year or so ago. It invites you to use it and feels fantastic to do so, mistakes erased in the old school way of reversing the stylus and rubbing out with the other end. I am obviously a dinosaur because this just feels like the way you should erase.

My recent plea for a new work laptop to replace my aging Lenovo may need correcting – I requested a MacBook of some sort but may see if a Surface Pro is possible. I will be grateful for a newer anything, but one can always hope for something that invites you to create, the tablet-and-stylus format I can imagine will invite collaboration with clients and make for easier note taking and sketching, all for the enhancement of my client servicing.

Image courtesy of StockSnap.io