Re: Thunderbolt - You have USB 3.0 for generic connections. Thunderbolt for VGA/Gigabit/Docking/DVDI. Thunderbolt is thankfully compatible with Display Port,

Re: Thunderbolt - You have USB 3.0 for generic connections. Thunderbolt for VGA/Gigabit/Docking/DVDI. Thunderbolt is thankfully compatible with Display Port, so you can connect your 30" monitor at 2560x1600 over a $5 mini-display port to display port cable (as I am right now). I haven't used my Gigabit Adapter in a couple years, and this was even before 802.11ac came out. I don't know if I'll ever use one again. I guess if you are resolution sensitive - then the Surface Pro has that going for it as well (I've never preferred the retina versus the normal resolution on Laptops - so that's kind of wasted on me) Regarding what's a better deal - like you said, it all depends on what you want. I've got bash/terminal.app/aperture/quicksilver all in my finger memory now, so kind of stuck on OS X. And - we can't overlook the keyboard. Be interesting to see if the Surface Pro can go head to head with a laptop keyboard. Regarding Windows Domain Joining - works fine on OS X for the last couple iterations, pretty much the same as the PC for things like accessing file shares. And, Office Productivity Apps (Excel/Office/PowerPoint) are pretty identical on the Mac (plus we get Acorn, Pixelmator, iDraw)... You've got me intrigued though - I'll have to go into the Microsoft Store and play with one for a bit - the Stylus alone is really, really intriguing. And all those PC Games...