Surface Pro 3 (5/20/14)

12 inches? 2160x1440? Terrible. I also like how the Surface Pro dock that I kept around is useless now.
 
Snowdog said:
16:9 is pretty much a deal breaker for me as well. 16:10 is is the widest aspect I want, though ideally I would have 3:2, something I think only the B&N Nook HD+ did.
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Specs:

12" 3:2 (2160x1440) screen.

Yay!

From worse aspect to best aspect. Shows that someone is thinking it through this time.

This is shaping up to be a very nice tablet.

Kudos Microsoft.
 
Does anyone have any specs on the i7 CPU? Contemplating between i5-8GB RAM-256GB or i7-8GB RAM-256GB.
 
wonderfield said:
It's a shame they're crippling the i3 version by restricting it to a 64GB SSD. There's no particularly good reason for that other than to shove consumers up to the next price tier.
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Eh, might not hurt that bad. Can always add some storage (up to 128GB) using the MicroSD slot.
 
Deinos said:
Only specifics I've seen have been on the i5 (i5-4300U). Looks like the i5 ships by 6/20/2014 and the other 2 procs ship by 8/31/2014.
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Yeah, I'm eyeing the i7 512 GB version and that's not out for 3 months according to web site. And the i3 versions won't be out until then. Kind of thinking about pre-ordering the i5 256 GB tomorrow but I will probably will wait for the i7.
 
MicroSanta did get my wishlist!
Thinner? Check
Lighter? Check
Aspect ratio? 3:2! Never thought I'd see such an insightful and practical design decision.
Can't complain about 12" 1440p resolution either.

Not sure about the pen. Bluetooth remote clicking is neat, but we'll have to see how long the batteries last. I had been hoping for something in the other direction, smaller with an integrated silo, but I'm open to the possibilities. I do expect the new bluetooth pen will appeal to anyone hosting presentations from their SP3.

All things considered the Surface Pro 3 looks like a great piece of hardware. But with broadwell right around the corner, do I really want to get one with Haswell? The extra gpu power of broadwell might be pretty useful on a 1440p screen...Decisions decisions.
 
wonderfield said:
It's a shame they're crippling the i3 version by restricting it to a 64GB SSD. There's no particularly good reason for that other than to shove consumers up to the next price tier.
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No worse reason than Apple charging $100 to go from 16 GB to 32 GB on iPads.
 
the i7 is still dualcore?

if so i see little reason to buy it..... more cache and higher turbo clock speed... marginal performance increase with higher TDP
 
heatlesssun said:
No worse reason than Apple charging $100 to go from 16 GB to 32 GB on iPads.
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The price jump from a 256GB to 512GB SSD is more than what Apple charges for increasing a MacBook Pro's storage the same amount, and the SP3 doesn't use PCI-E based storage.
 
The pre-order page is live now. I pre-ordered mine an hour ago now. If anyone wants one of the initial shipment, they probably shouldn't wait until tomorrow to do it.

The microsoft store hasn't been good about keeping the better configured SPro 2's in stock. The 3's might not be available for long. Or maybe they will. Who can say?
 
Just pulled the trigger on the i5/8GB/256GB model. Really excited about FINALLY having a "tablet" that's an actual, honest to goodness computer and not hilariously gimped.

- x86 with a proper Windows OS and i5 processor, no ARM/Atom/Windows RT.
- High res display. Hello beautiful. 3:2 is excellent for portrait use. I'd hoped for at least 16:10 but this is even better.
- Gorgeous construction. Mmm, magnesium. Plastic is the devil.
- Pen input. You can't sign things or write notes with your finger, no matter what some marketers try to tell you.
- Price is inline with comparable convertibles (namely the Dell XPS 12, which is heavier, slightly more expensive, and only has a 1080p display)

I'm rather excited. Hopefully 6/20/2014 is a worst case shipment date and they start showing up before that.
 
Why bother with overpriced ULV core series when its capability is still limited. Weak GPU so it cant play modern games. CPU is too weak to be a productivity machine. Casual usage is more ideal on smart phones and lower priced tablet. Who is the audience? The same PC cavemen group who were crying about start button?
 
On one hand this is very interesting.

On the other hand there is the inevitable Surface Pro 2 price cuts. Also likely the Broadwall upgrade in 8-9 months (follows Intel's release plans and MSes aggressive Surface upgrade cycle).

One concern is the cooling performance. The SP2 was much better than the SP1 because the original chassis was designed for a 17w Ivybridge versus the 15w Haswell of the SP2. The SP3 went much thinner so what is the noise like now? Throttling? I mean specifically for extended performance usage (eg. gaming).

Also wondering how well that screen aspect ratio is supported while gaming. Mixed feelings about the 3:2 aspect ratio.

Still disappointed in the rather hefty extra cost to get 8gb of ram.
 
"Workhorse" tablets no longer make sense to me. For a machine that is designed for serious work, a keyboard is mandatory and should always be attached. So why not just get an ultrabook, which features a real keyboard and not a gimped alternative?
 
Okay, to be fair, I had totally forgot about the pen functionality.
 
KENNYB said:
The price jump from a 256GB to 512GB SSD is more than what Apple charges for increasing a MacBook Pro's storage the same amount, and the SP3 doesn't use PCI-E based storage.
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I think you meant to say "Mackbook".
 
KENNYB said:
Maybe I should of called it a MAC? Now before y'all go saying it's obvious what MAC means, not it isn't. This was the first hit. I'm surprised Mac tools wasn't even a suggestion. :D
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Everyone knows the "Mack"book is far superior to the "Peterbilt"book and "Kenworth"book lines :D
 
seanclayton said:
Why bother with overpriced ULV core series when its capability is still limited. Weak GPU so it cant play modern games. CPU is too weak to be a productivity machine. Casual usage is more ideal on smart phones and lower priced tablet. Who is the audience? The same PC cavemen group who were crying about start button?
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I think you're creating an unrealistic image of what a computer "must" be to rule the Pro 3 out. Productivity doesn't always mean editing 4K video or gigantic image files, and not every device must be a 3D gaming machine. There's still a swath of people who may want PC-level tasks but wouldn't mind a tablet for use while curled up on the couch. It's not going to threaten the iPad or Galaxy Tab in terms of sheer sales volume, but it doesn't have to.
 
Of course it's going to threaten the iPad and even the Galaxy Note/Tab. Informed consumers factor in capability, versatility and cost so the SP3 > Note > Tab > iPad. Was close to buying a Note Pro 12.2 but for the same price the SP3 is even better. With promo code SP3 i3/4GB/64GB was ~$720 compared to ~$750 for Note Pro 12.2 3GB/64GB for the lesser Exynos version while the Snapdragon 800 is ~$850.
 
mi7chy said:
Of course it's going to threaten the iPad and even the Galaxy Note/Tab. Informed consumers factor in capability, versatility and cost so the SP3 > Note > Tab > iPad. Was close to buying a Note Pro 12.2 but for the same price the SP3 is even better. With promo code SP3 i3/4GB/64GB was ~$720 compared to ~$750 for Note Pro 12.2 3GB/64GB for the lesser Exynos version while the Snapdragon 800 is ~$850.
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Not in terms of sales, it won't. It's still a challenge to get people to pay at least $800 at normal prices for a tablet ($930 when you factor in the keyboard) if they don't necessarily need everything it offers. The Pro 3 looks like it should be a great machine, but it's overkill if all you want is to browse the web, play games and watch Netflix.

This reminds me of the online poster who told me that you could never, ever take a good photo with a smartphone, and that you shouldn't bother taking any shot unless you have a DSLR or mirrorless camera. In both cases, it's an illogical, absolutist stance. It ignores the value of cheaper devices that do a very good job in the right conditions, and which can provide some conveniences that the more expensive devices can't offer, like added portability.
 
In terms of consolidation it swallows a laptop and tablet combo for less money and you have the benefit of carrying only one device instead of multiple. 4th generation Surface Pro might even take this further with AMD's x86-64 CPU plus ARM SoC hybrid running virtualized Windows Phone/Android in a window.
 
seanclayton said:
Why bother with overpriced ULV core series when its capability is still limited. Weak GPU so it cant play modern games. CPU is too weak to be a productivity machine. Casual usage is more ideal on smart phones and lower priced tablet. Who is the audience? The same PC cavemen group who were crying about start button?
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It's Intel HD 4400 series graphics inside the same (U, not Y) 2.9GHz Core i5 that's in many ultrabooks. What's wrong with the horsepower? It's obviously not a desktop replacement, but it's about as good as you're going to get in a mobile form factor. Nobody is buying either a tablet or ultrabook to play modern PC games.
Megalith said:
"Workhorse" tablets no longer make sense to me. For a machine that is designed for serious work, a keyboard is mandatory and should always be attached. So why not just get an ultrabook, which features a real keyboard and not a gimped alternative?
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I don't like carrying both a tablet and an ultrabook, and serious work is best left for desktops, but light work can't be done on non-x86 tablets that lack real operating systems and keyboards. That's my reasoning, at least. I can live with 2mm less key travel compared to a not "gimped" ultrabook keyboard if it means having one less device in my bag and saving several pounds. Let's be honest, ultrbook keyboards suck almost as much as I'm sure the type cover does. The Cherry MX hotness will forever be relegated to the desktop.
 
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If the i7 is the i7-4650U or i7-4550U then it's using HD5000 GPU which has 2x the shaders compared to the i5-4300U with HD4400 GPU.

40 vs 20 (EUs)

We really need more detailed specs on thse Microsoft....
 
Ultra Wide said:
We really need more detailed specs on thse Microsoft....
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The i7 and i3 SP3s won't be out until August according to the Microsoft Store website so they may hot have yet nailed down the exact specs at this point. I would expect more info to becoming in time.
 
Ultra Wide said:
If the i7 is the i7-4650U or i7-4550U then it's using HD5000 GPU which has 2x the shaders compared to the i5-4300U with HD4400 GPU.

40 vs 20 (EUs)

We really need more detailed specs on thse Microsoft....
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i7 with the HD5000 would be very nice and definitely go a ways in justifying the price :D
 
They waiting for what Apple inform on the WWDC in June, like update on MacBook Air ... Or 12" iPads with split screen by ios 8

But the SP3 looks promising. At work I use a Lenovo Helix right now, would exchange that for a SP3.
 
ChristianVirtual said:
They waiting for what Apple inform on the WWDC in June, like update on MacBook Air ... Or 12" iPads with split screen by ios 8

But the SP3 looks promising. At work I use a Lenovo Helix right now, would exchange that for a SP3.
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I think there is some pressure on Apple to do more than they have been doing lately. Indeed it will be interesting how they finally implement multiple onscreen apps after being somewhat late to the party. And if a 12" iPad is coming, it picked a bad time with the SP3 on the way. If it's hard to justify the price of the SP3, I would imagine that it'll be even harder to justify the price of a 12" iPad that will probably cross into the price range of some SP3 models.

Apple is not any significant danger but they are going to have to pick up the pace and I think expand outside of the box of non-touch screen x86 clamshells and ARM slate touch tablets with their mobile computing lineup.
 
heatlesssun said:
I think there is some pressure on Apple to do more than they have been doing lately.
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Apple has this other OS that can do multi user logins (simultaneous even!), has widgets, and even lets you set the default email and web browser. No word when this next generation technology will make its way to the iPad or iPhone.
 
I owned a lenovo helix for a while..... and it was a perfect tablet/notebook.... the keyboard dock was amazing with a fantastic trackpad, USB3.0 and 2 batteries as well as being thin (not SP3 thin)

I really want this idea to work..... i sold my ipad gen 1 a long time ago and dont want to own another, but i keep finding the need for one.

I currently own a Dell XPS 15 for the horsepower of a quadcore CPU and GPU for video editing and it is a nice machine.

if I can get a tablet with that horesepower I would be very very content.


as it is a dual core i7 doesnt make a lot of sense to me personally.

If i buy it will be i3 or i5 depending on performance
 
Bobalias_LeShay said:
It's Intel HD 4400 series graphics inside the same (U, not Y) 2.9GHz Core i5 that's in many ultrabooks. What's wrong with the horsepower? It's obviously not a desktop replacement, but it's about as good as you're going to get in a mobile form factor. Nobody is buying either a tablet or ultrabook to play modern PC games.
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What can an ULV-equipped machine do that an Atom device can't? Both can't run intensive programs or play AAA games. Unless they start including Iris Pro, then the user can do more...
 
seanclayton said:
What can an ULV-equipped machine do that an Atom device can't? Both can't run intensive programs or play AAA games. Unless they start including Iris Pro, then the user can do more...
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Well, most of the Bay Trail Atom devices so far have been limited to 2GB RAM. So a SP 1/2/3 crushes them in multitasking, and anything more processor intensive than web browsing.

The ULV chips aren't great for gaming, but are actually pretty decent for processor intensive programs, particularly single threaded ones where they can turbo boost a single core.
 
Compared to BayTrail the ULV processors are stronger for gaming as well.

Look at Steam's top 10 games for example, the ULV processors are capable of playing most of them and with a significant advantage of BayTrail as well. This is also just factoring in games on Steam.

The problem is a large part of the audience for this forum (and these types of forums) tends to views things as all or nothing. Specifically in terms of gaming it is either max everything for all games or bust.
 
I for one can't wait to see some reviews on the SP3. Very excited by what I'm seeing. May even get one to replace the Sony Vaio Duo 11.
 
What more information are you specifically looking for? Anandtech preview already covers the screen in detail. CPU and GPU is using existing ones that have been covered before (the current leaked info is i3-4020y/HD4200 and i7-4650u/HD5000 for the other SKUs btw). Storage performance differences are likely negligible outside of benchmarking. All the "hands on" type previews really cover the physical chassis changes.

I think the only stuff that hasn't really been covered is thermals/noise and pen performance. For the latter most reviewers aren't artists so you likely won't get much information on that without first hand experience or until users (who are artists) start getting it. Although if you have the Duo 11 you probably have a good idea on roughly what it'd be like. Although I believe the N-Trig solution in the Surface 3 Pro is newer and more advanced so it should be better (aside from device specific features/functions). I guess maybe more specifics on the speaker improvements and wifi performance?
 
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