Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 claims to be able to replace your laptop. Enough customers have bought this idea to make the powerful tablet/laptop hybrid a success, but to date Microsoft has struggled with its entry level Surface RT tablets.
The Redmond-based company looks to have shaken things up with the Surface 3, which is essentially a smaller, thinner, lighter and slower version of the Surface 3 Pro running full Windows 8.1, but all for a starting price of $499 compared with $799 for its more powerful big brother.
The Surface 3 is the lighter at 1.37 pounds (the Pro 3 weighs 1.73 lbs), has a smaller 10.8-inch 1,920 x 1,280 pixel screen (the Pro 3 is 12-inch, 2,160 x 1,440 pixels) and at 8.7 mm is ever so slightly thinner than the 9.14 mm. Though smaller, the screen on the new device is actually brighter than the one-year-old display on the Surface Pro 3 (430 nits of brightness compared with 400). A nit is a unit of visible-light intensity and the term is used to specify the brightness of a cathode ray tube or LCD computer display.
The biggest difference comes with the processing power. The Surface 3 ships with the Intel's new quad-core 1.6 GHz Atom x7 "Cherry Trail" processor. The Cherry Trail is a hybrid laptop/tablet chip, whereas the Pro 3 is powered by Intel's full-PC chips, the Core i3, i5 or i7, depending on how much you want to pay. However, the less powerful tablet should last longer and Microsoft is claiming the battery will last an impressive 10 hours.
Significantly, the Surface 3 will run the full Windows 8.1 operating system with a free upgrade to Windows 10 when it is released later this year. Previous Surface models were criticized for running the Windows RT operating system, which lacked the real applications of a full Windows machine and had software compatability limitations. The Windows RT operating system was optimized for thin PCs and was designed primarily for tablet computers that use 32-bit ARM architecture. Its design took advantage of the architecture's power efficiency to achieve longer battery life and it used system-on-chip (SoC) designs to support thinner devices.
The $499 Surface will come with 64 GB of internal storage and 2 GB of RAM and has the same 3-point kickstand as the Pro 3. For an extra $100 users get 4 GB of RAM and 128 GB of flash storage. Users will still have to pay an extra $129 for the signature Surface 3 cover holding the keyboard. There's also no stylus pen, although the Pro 3 pen will work on the Surface 3.
A full line of specifically designed accessories will also be available, including a docking station ($199), a mouse and a full-function keyboard and mouse. The Surface also has a decent selection of ports. It has a full-size USB 3.0, a Mini DisplayPort, a microSD card reader, a microUSB charging port (which doubles for USB 2.0 data), and a headphone jack. There's an 8 MP rear-facing camera and a 3.5 MP camera on the front. Also included is a one-year subscription to Office 365 with full versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote as well as 1 TB of OneDrive storage.
This is a lot of functionality for just $499, the same price as the entry level iPad Air 2. Granted, you'll have to pay extra for the keyboard to make the Surface 3 into a "working" machine, but with full Windows support the device is likely to be more successful than its RT predecessors.
The 2 GB and 4 GB Microsoft Surface 3 models are on presale starting March 31, in stores for testing from April 1 and will go on general sale May 5 in 26 markets worldwide. There will also be a model with LTE connectivity later in the year.
