discussion Surface Pro 3

[muse108dc]

While it looks like a nice piece of hardware with some mildly interesting pen tech...... WHAT ARE YOU THINKING MICROSOFT. And to top it off, a smaller battery.

Noone wants a big giant tablet, defeats the main reason most people buy tablets. Mobility. This is just an ultra book with an optional keyboard.

I've had my eyes on the Surface Pro tablets since they came out, Surface Pro 2 is just about exactly what I want from a tablet but I was kind of hoping, knowing better, that they might unveil something interesting today in the forms of a Surface Pro MINI. I truely believe the sweet spot for a tablet, at least for myself, is somewhere between 8 or 9 inches in size. And they give me this....... I don't think this will even lower the price of the Pro2 at all.... I really really hope that they do go back to at least the 10inch model, 12 inches they got to be joking.....

 

[enaberif]

The surface is not a tablet.. I'm not sure why people keep insisting it is. The Surface is a straight up portable laptop and the battery life of them is better than most laptops out there.

 

[JD]

Why do you need a Surface "Mini"? There's already 8" tablets from the major OEMs: Lenovo, Dell, ASUS and Acer. Microsoft would be competing against their OEMs (at likely a higher price point).

I think this SP3 is what they had intended the original SP to be, just that hardware wasn't available at the time. I'm actually thinking about getting one since it seems they've basically fixed all the "bugs".

 

[lowfat]

Why do you need a Surface "Mini"? There's already 8" tablets from the major OEMs: Lenovo, Dell, ASUS and Acer. Microsoft would be competing against their OEMs (at likely a higher price point).

I think this SP3 is what they had intended the original SP to be, just that hardware wasn't available at the time. I'm actually thinking about getting one since it seems they've basically fixed all the "bugs".

I also would like to see a Surface Mini. I love using an 8" tablet but I find them currently lacking in power. Especially when it comes to the speed of the 'SSD'. Something w/ USB3.0 would be nice to boot.

 

[JD]

I have a Venue 8 Pro too, and I think it's fine for what it is, a competitor to Android/iPads. I will agree that the eMMC is absurdly slow and they definitely could of used a mSATA or PCIe SSD instead, but I guess the Atom chipset simply doesn't support those buses. And yes, a full sized USB port (be it 2.0 or 3.0) would have made things so much better, but I guess then you'd have a thicker device.

The SP3 is more of a laptop replacement. It seems mostly geared towards artists though or heavy note-takers. Neither of which I am, but it still seems like a more polished and complete product than previous SP's. Personally, I'd like to use this as my primary computing device, with a dock at my desk, so that I can have a nice silent/low-power solution for day-to-day usage. Then I'd only turn on my gaming rig when I wanted to play games, akin to a console really.

What I'm most curious of, does this mark the end of Windows RT? I really hope so as it added pointless confusion to the Windows SKUs. I don't think anyone but Nokia/MS are making RT tablets. They should just scale Windows Phone accordingly if need be like iOS and Android.

 

[muse108dc]

RT should have died eons ago. I also disagree that the Surface is not a tablet, its not an ipad or android tablet but its still primarily a touch device.

Every 8 inch Windows tablet I've seen runs some kind of Atom or equivalent processor on top of the slow ssd, was more or else hoping for a Surface Pro 2 but with a smaller screen. I don't want to compromise on power just for a smaller screen.

But I guess the trend is bigger with phones which forces tablets to be bigger. For the record I don't need or want a phone bigger than 4.5/4.7 inches.

 

[ShinraCorp]

The whole point of the SP3 is to replace your laptop and tablet and just need that instead. I mean it does come equip with an i7 and 512 GB SSD in it and it has a docking station if you wish to display it on another screen or plug in a mouse+keyboard.

I can guarantee people will be flocking to buy this thing. I would want one but I already have an iPad Mini (once more because of Square it's the only reason why I own it...) People seem to think that the price is exaggerating.... I don't think it is, it's a 12 inch 1440p screen with Hashwell core i3 to i7 (although I wish there was only 1 model) and an actual PEN not some stylus that feels uncomfortable, the palm blocking thing is really interesting since you can write naturally (or at least what is considered naturally on a touchscreen). The Surface Pro 3 is a PRODUCTIVITY tool not a media consumption tool if you only want to watch vids or play music just get any else but the Surface Pro...

Although I've seen the Photoshop demo they did and it looked like the input was lagging, hopefully it's not a final built of the "optimize for SP3" version.

Generally the people who'll buy it are the curious, probably some artists since it can actually run Photoshop, some Architects to design 3D buildings, sales people who move around all the time, sadly without Iris Pro that's about it. If they added it then I could of just said people who want to play games lightly.

 

[turtletrax]

I am picking up one on Saturday. I think I will be grabbing the i5/256G and will be looking at the drop protection. If it is absurdly priced I will pass, but sure would be nice to not be shitting bricks with this thing in the wild. Main reason I am getting it is the ability to run all my Windows software without some mashed together app that "works". Only thing I find downright silly is the lack of GPS. Will be grabbing a dongle to have me covered, but you would think they could find some real estate to fit one in on a 12" slate.

I will drop in with my dirty review a few days after I get it.

 

[JD]

I got my i5/256gb model today :clap:

Quite a few updates out of the box (27+) and it went through a couple reboots. Seemed it was a firmware/BIOS update as well.

First impressions (haven't used it a ton yet), the stylus works way better than the Venue 8 Pro I also have. Likewise, the keyboard is a far better size and much easier to use. Performance is snappy as expected. The keyboard will still take some getting used to though and the backlight isn't super bright (even on the max setting).

Some crappy cell phone pictures below with a T440s beside.

 

[ShinraCorp]

ohhhhh shiny me wanty!

haha but ya I've read on wpcentral that there was a last minute firmware update yesterday before going out. It fixes the stylus errors and if I remember right the error of when using the style, the palm of your hand will hit the Windows button and go to thr start screen so it's supposed to disable the button when you're trying to draw something.