[rwp-review id=”0″]
The battle for the laptop/tablet hybrid is ever raging and relentless. The need for devices with dual usage and flexibility in form factor is high and the largest OEMs are racing against the clock to engineer their perfect products.
We’ve seen the ASUS Transformer T300 Chi and the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro. Both formidable devices that scored quite well with us, the latter more than the former.
So how does Microsoft’s latest Surface iteration fair against its competition and against it’s predecessors? Let’s check it out here.
Design
The new Surface Pro is thinner than its predecessors, with a larger, higher-resolution screen. On that mark alone, it outshines the Pro and Pro 2. The internal specs and performance are largely similar to the Pro 2, but that means it’s still just as fast as any current-gen premium laptop.
Both of the previous Surface Pro models had 10.6-inch screens and were 13mm thick, with a footprint of 10.8 inches by 6.8 inches. This new 12-inch version is 11.5 inches by 7.9 inches, but its thickness drops to an impressive 9.1mm. The Pro 3 is also a tad lighter than its predecessor: 800 grams versus 900. Again, when you consider the larger screen, that’s a worthy achievement.
Wrapped in a bright, silver-colored magnesium shell that’s cool and smooth to the touch, the Surface Pro 3 feels premium in every way. The tablet keeps the trapezoidal shape of its predecessors, but manages to come in both thinner and lighter than before. Plus, the tablet’s upper half is beset by vents on its edges to better dissipate heat pushed out by its fan.
Microsoft also moved the Windows home button to the device’s left side of its silky smooth – though, rather thick – glass bezel. This way, it appears on the bottom of the slate while held upright. While it’s no doubt the lightest Surface Pro yet, at 0.8 kg, I’m not sure I could hold onto it for long without my hand or wrist feeling the heat at some point not too long down the line.
Microsoft says this new Surface Pro design isn’t exactly fanless, but it might as well be. That’s because the new system internals, designed in partnership with Intel, allow the system run not only ultra-low-voltage Core i3 or i5 CPUs, but also Core i7 ones, with a slim, quiet fan moving air as needed, allegedly without that whirring sound, or a fan exhaust blowing on your hands. Our Surface Pro 3, a midrange model with an Intel Core i5 CPU, certainly felt cool during our hands-on testing, but an audible fan also kicked in at times. To call the experience fanless-like would not be very accurate. But still, it was quiet and inaudible the vast majority of the time.
One major difference in the new design is the kickstand, which can be adjusted to nearly any angle between 22 degrees and 150 degrees. That’s especially useful for tilting the screen way back, as an artist using a drafting table might, but as the owner of normal-size legs man, I still had a hard time getting the Surface Pro 3 to sit comfortably on my lap. The kickstand either kept the screen angle too severe to see clearly while seated, or else the end of the kickstand was sliding off my knees when I tilted the screen further back.
Taking the type cover and kicking in its additional top-edge magnetic hinge, raising the back edge of the keyboard to a better angle, helped a bit, as the raised angle feels much more natural for typing (which is why nearly every PC keyboard has tiny feet at the back edge). It’s a small change, but one that says Microsoft is thinking seriously about ergonomics.
Hardware
- CPU: 1.9GHz Intel Core i5-4300U (dual-core, 3MB cache, up to 2.9GHz with Turbo Boost)
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4400
- RAM: 8GB LPDDR3
- Screen: 12-inch, 2160 x 1440 multi-touch (ClearType, 3:2 aspect ratio)
- Storage: 256GB SSD
- Ports: One USB 3.0, Mini DisplayPort, microSDXC card reader (up to 128GB), headphone/mic jack
- Connectivity: 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0
- Camera: Two 5MP webcams (1080p HD video)
- Weight: 1.76 pounds
- Size: 7.93 x 11.5 x 0.36 inches (W x D x H)
With hardware here, I’ll focus on the Pen (stylus) and keyboard that come built in with the Surface Pro 3.
A tablet wouldn’t be much of a laptop replacement without a keyboard, and the Surface Pro keyboard was in desperate need of a boost. Luckily, Microsoft sent the Type Cover back to the drawing board, and what came back is the best version yet. From keys with deeper travel and stronger feedback to a wider glass trackpad that actually clicks, nothing was off the table.
But the most important improvement is the brand new double hinge. Equipped with a strong magnet that latches onto the Pro 3’s lower bezel, the Type Cover can now rest with just a portion of it touching your lap or desk. This proved to make writing on my lap much more stable than with previous Surface devices. (Plus, the plush cover comes in five colors: red, blue, cyan, black and purple.)
Tucked beside the Type Cover is also the newly improved Surface Pen. Microsoft made a point of calling its stylus that, because the firm wants it to be seen as and feel like the writing instrument we’ve all grown up with. With an aluminum finish and a useful clicker up top, the Surface Pen is weighted to better feel like a pen. Using Bluetooth and powered by N-trig, the stylus tracks closer to its physical position than ever before, thanks to some major improvements to the Surface screen.
While the Surface Pro pen works in a variety of apps, including The New York Times crossword puzzle app, OneNote is an easy example of how it works for drawing and taking notes. If you have all your Microsoft cloud services properly set up, your OneNote files can sync to other devices such as your phone (with cross-platform support on Android and iOS devices) or laptop (Windows or Mac). Even better, just click once on the Pen’s top to open OneNote, even if your Surface is asleep, and notes are automatically saved.
Following the Surface Pro 3’s release, in July N-Trig released a list of compatible applications that have been tested with its latest drivers. They are:
- Anime Studio Debut 9.5 Version 9.5 build 9768
- Crayola PhotoFx studio 1 Version 1.5.0.42, 1.5.0.46
- Flash Professional CC Version 13.1.0.226
- Adobe Flash Professional CS6 Version CS6
- Corel Painter Version 12.2.0.703
- Sculptris
- MyPaint Version 1.0.0
- Mischief Version 1.12
- Zbrush Version 4R6
- Adobe DreamWeaverCS6 Version CS6
- Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 Version 12.0.20130925
- Krita Version 2.8.3
- Substance Painter Version 0.5.0
Display
The screen you’ll spend a lot of time touching is a better-than-HD display, measuring 12 inches diagonally with a 2,160×1,440-pixel resolution. The IPS panel looks clear and bright, has excellent off-axis viewing angles, and follows a growing trend toward better-than-HD displays. Do you need more pixels on a 12-inch screen? That’s debatable, but some 13-inch models are already hitting 3,200×1,800 pixels.
More important is Microsoft’s interesting choice in aspect ratio. Rather than sticking with the Pro 2’s 16:9 or moving onto the iPad’s 4:3, the firm went with a 3:2 aspect ratio. The company claims that, with this aspect ratio, this 12-inch screen can actually display more content than the MacBook Air’s 13.3-inch panel at 16:10. The move was also made to make the tablet feel more like your average notepad when held in portrait orientation.
Software, Battery and Performance
With a product designed to be two things at once, it’s tough to quantify its performance with synthetic tests designed to typically test just one type of device. Regardless, the Surface Pro 3 performed just slightly better than the average Core i5-4200U-packing Ultrabook, which isn’t terribly shocking.
- 3DMark: Ice Storm: 30,264; Cloud Gate: 2,617; Fire Strike: 347
- Cinebench CPU: 208 points; Graphics: 25.14 fps
- PCMark 8 Home: 2,190 points
- PCMark 8 Battery Life: 2 hours, 38 minutes
Save for PCMark’s battery life test, these results are generally in line with what I would expect from a slightly beefed up Core i5 machine. This processor and RAM combo will handle video chat, streaming and perhaps the average spreadsheet VLOOKUP with ease. Plus, your lunchtime gaming breaks should go over smoothly within reason.
Microsoft claims that the Surface Pro 3 can hold out for up to 9 hours of web browsing before kicking the can. Considering that both PCMark 8 and my own test are plenty more strenuous than that simple task, perhaps the device could last longer under lighter loads.
Lowering the brightness will undoubtedly boost endurance, and I noticed that the tablet can last for days on standby.
In addition to the standard Microsoft apps and free trials, the firm includes OneNote with every Surface Pro 3 in addition to Flipboard and Fresh Paint among a few light casual games. In short, Microsoft keeps it incredibly light on the bloatware, as it should being a first-party vendor.
OneNote’s inclusion makes for a particularly attractive package since Microsoft opted to make the note-taking app’s previously paid-for features free for all. It means that you can now password protect sections of notebooks, track changes to notes using page history and better manage files by searching for words in video or audio recordings.
The Windows Store has come a long way since its launch, but still trails behind Apple and Google’s app marketplaces in terms of volume and quality. Windows 8 devices are still generally the last to receive major apps and app updates. This would be a more serious issue if the Pro 3 weren’t packing Windows 8.1 Pro, but it’s nevertheless a problem.
Conclusion
Throughout my time using the Surface Pro 3 I felt it was more of a laptop than a tablet. Perhaps that’s what Microsoft is going for, a PC in a tablet’s clothing.
With improved ergonomics, keyboard and Pen, the Surface Pro 3 has a lot going for it and a definitive edge over the competition.
On the other hand, sub-optimal battery life and slightly heavy package may cause people to think twice before acquiring one. It all depends on what it will be used for.
For us, this is the Chromebook to Google and the new Macbook to Apple. A flagship product that holds a lot of promise and is a supremely productive device. We see it as easily replacing some companies’ workstations in the near future.
