In my experience, iPads are quite durable, but the Surface Pro 3 is really nice from a Windows productivity perspective. SP3 can certainly replace one’s (Windows) laptop for example.
Yep my daughter is getting one for Christmas. She is a big laptop user but she says it will stay in her dorm room once she gets her new Surface.
She tells me lots of kids in her classes are transitioning to Surface from their regular Windows and Apple Laptops. I like what I see so far but I always wait for a bit to let them work out the kinds in a new product line