Surface Pro 3 Review | Hacker News Reader

Surface Pro 3 Review

anandtech.com

131 pointslispython72 comments

I agree with Anandtech the Pro 3 is almost there, but not quite. The Surface Pro 1 sold me on the idea of an everything device. It had its limitations, but it worked as a laptop, desktop, and a tablet. Each scenario had its limits and the most limited one was the laptop perspective. As a tablet it worked great with movies, browsing the web, light gaming, etc. As a desktop it was powerful enough to run the adobe suite on an external monitor. But as a laptop the kickstand and keyboard were not ideal.

The Surface Pro 3 removes some tablet usability and improves on the laptop experience. I am not sure if this is ideal. I recently upgraded from the Pro 1 to the Pro 3. I am having a hard time using the 12" screen as a tablet in bed and on the couch. Using the device with pen in hand is harder due to the larger screen real estate. Even using the Metro side of things is more cumbersome due to the larger screen. Tiles and settings on touch interface are too far apart now.

After a few days, I have concluded that the Pro 1 was a better "tablet" with the ability to be a desktop and laptop. The Pro 3 is more of a laptop/tablet hybrid with a focus on laptop-ability. Even with all the new enhancements, I think I will return the device and purchase a Pro 2 instead.

Edit: I used the Pro 1 as my main machine for almost a year. The pen was useful in photoshop/illustrator. I also used it for gaming; Fifa 2013, Civ 5, and some indie games.

The article makes it sound like there's no place at all to attach the pen on the Pro 3, is that true? I'm a heavy pen user w/ my Pro 1, that would be a dealbreaker for me.

True. It comes with an attachable pen holder, but it is held on by glue. I do miss the pen's ability to attach to the Surface. The eraser nub is now a button on the pen. The top of the pen activates OneNote. The pen does feel more durable and better in hand. I would check it out in person.

I kept losing the pen on my Surface Pro because I needed power more than the pen. Very annoying.

Now that it doesn't attach there, I think you'll develop new habits to avoid losing it in the future. Happened to me too because the pen was tiny, black and ... less useful.

Yeah, I bought an aftermarket pen and promptly list it, too.

I clip mine onto the cover, the same way I used to clip regular pens onto the cover of my notebooks.

You can "attach" the pen magnetically to two positions on the surface device itself, including the power area where you're used to, and magnetically to the power bar also, iirc. Plus a loop for the keyboard if you buy one. Personally, I used the Universal 13" Snugg case I also got at the Microsoft Store and was very happy putting the pen in with the power adapter.

I'll post what I said in the comments of the article.

Well, this is the device basket in which I'm throwing all of my eggs. My mobile devices are currently a 2006 Dell 17" laptop running Windows 7 and an HP Touchpad running CM10.1. I've been waiting to upgrade until the right "hybrid" device came along, and this is the one I'm banking on, albeit the i7/512 model.

My usage is a little atypical. My work requires me to occasionally spend time on construction sites creating sketches and recording measurements. I am hoping this device will allow me to skip the full size (24" x 36" or larger) architectural prints and the paper sketch pad and simply carry everything on the SP3. After I finish on site, I am often going back to a hotel room for the night, or spending the next few hours in an airport/airplane. I make heavy use of AutoCAD, and being able to make tweaks in the field, or even the hotel, should be amazingly helpful. I don't expect to be at full productivity, but then again, even on a typical laptop, running AutoCAD on one small screen will never be as productive as running on 2 or 3 large desktop displays.

In theory, the SP3 should be perfect for me. I do worry about the batter life though. I suspect that I might need to pick up an external battery pack for those times I'm on site without access to a wall outlet. Time will tell, I guess. I also think about general durability. I am generally not on fully active construction sites with lots of dirt and dust, but I will be in environments that are not office-like. So we'll see if there is some sort of rugged case or screen protection available for those scenarios.

All in all, I am really looking forward to getting my SP3 in August. I just wish they would release it already since I could really use it mid-July. But I've waited this long, so what's another couple of weeks.

Thanks for the nice review. This is the one I've been waiting for, and it didn't disappoint.

Just got mine yesterday (typing on it for this post). There are some problems on it I wasn't expecting.

- Drawing apps like Fresh Paint don't work sometimes when on split screen. By doesn't work, I mean it won't recognize the pen on start up. I would have to full screen the app, use the pen, then I can use the pen on split screen.

- Apps aren't adjusted to split screens correctly. The resizing of the apps gets rid of functions like creating a new page that can only be seen when app is in full screen.

- Chrome Windows 8 mode sucks. That thing resized to a quarter of the screen, blacked out the other 3/4ths and it took me 30 minutes to figure out how to undo it because the menu button on Chrome was blacked out. Figured out that they were still there, just not visable.

- Chrome sometimes disables my trackpad click recongniztion? I can activate links and tabs via the touch screen, but not by clicking the trackpad. All was good after restarting Chrome.

- Tablet does not recognize that I took off the keyboard sometimes. This causes orientation lock. I would have to reattached and detach keyboard.

- Trackpad kinda stuttering with movements. Sometimes jumps around so not very precise. This happens more when using on my lap for some reason..

- Changing screen orientation is sorta laggy, definitely more than a 1 second change. I have the 8gb/256gb version.

- I'm pretty sure Flux crashes this tablet. Froze it twice in 30 minutes after install. Perfectly fine now after uninstall.

I'm actually getting used to Windows Metro...strange. This is the first Windows machine I bought myself after 4 years. I was a Windows user for most of my life until college.

EDIT: Pen holder could have been designed better. Everyone at the store trying it out was confused it wasn't there. It's basically a stick on piece that comes with the keyboard, but none of the floor models have them at the Microsoft store. It's also uncomfortable placing the pen in there. I know it has to be tight so it doesn't fall out, but it's a struggle every time. Probably takes a good 3 seconds to fully place it in. If you don't think that's a long time wait until you're leaving a meeting and everyone is waiting on you. Bad user experience on the pen holder.

- Too heavy to hold for tablet use. Wasn't really expecting it, but have heard reviews about it, and this is the lightest pro version too. Good thing the kick stand can rest on my knees (actually pretty good for posture with knees bent because you're neck won't be pointed down the entire time).

I am experiencing many of these issues. I think they will continue to roll out firmware updates. But, the software needed a little bit more work. For Chrome I would disable scaling. 1. Right click Chrome shortcut icon and choose "Properties." (if you do this on an icon in you startbar, then you'll need to right click again on the third one up that says "Google Chrome.") 2. Click Compatibility tab. 3. Check box for "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings." 4. Click OK. 5. It will show small fonts, but you can change that in Chrome Settings under "Show advanced settings" --> "Web Content" --> "Font Size."

The workflow between Metro and Desktop becomes easier and better over the course of a week.

Will try this tonight. I do understand it just released, thankfully a lot of things can be updated.

Thanks for the helpful advice, steps included! I'll give that a try tonight.

In general Chrome has terrible DPI support. I've noticed this across-the-board, not just in Win8/Surface.

One of the many reasons I had to switch to IE on my laptop, it just sucked way too much.

Chrome 37 (the current dev channel) enables high-dpi support on Windows out-of-the-box (which might fix the issues you had with win8 mode -- at least, it seems to work for me).

I'll have to check which version I have. I just downloaded the latest consumer version. The experience also wouldn't reflect most of the users since they would just be downloading off the main page. I probably won't give this a try since desktop mode works fine for the most part.

Thanks for the advice!

Is there a way for you to submit your information to Microsoft ? I heard the Surface Pro team loves feedback & does their best to listen to users.

I'll look into this, definitely saw the Penny Arcade articles so hopefully they'll be as receptive =)

The trackpad issue is probably from how Microsoft rolls their own capacitive trackpad solution and the capacitance from your leg is causing issues. My Type Cover 2 would also have issues when my fingers got sweaty. The way to fix it would be to reconnect the cover so that it would recalibrate. I've heard the Type Cover 3's trackpad is leaps and bounds above the previous two in terms of usability, though.

Genuinely wondering, why Chrome? IE11 has a really awesome touch UX, in the metro version, IMO. Did you try it and dismiss it, or not even consider it given IE's track record?

Ecosystem traps people if I want to be cynical. I do everything on Chrome from personal to work, all my favorites/bookmarks are synced through all my hardware.

Even if there was a sync option for IE to Chrome accounts this is just extra effort. You put too many steps in front of me I'm just not gonna do it (yes, I'm lazy, but UX should consider the lazy).

uhmm, people want choice?

Try Firefox. I'm surprised almost no Surface Pro user recommends it, but I've found it very friendly with HiDPI and touch screen. Except for zoom, stepped reflow instead of continuous scale; although I like it like that).

I plan on dl'ing FireFox, mostly because Chrome doesn't support download helper extension (super helpful since machines run super hot streaming video).

If you don't have impaired vision, change dpi sizing thing to 100% instead of the zoomed in default it ships.

Instant brand new tablet. You're welcome.

Looking at Microsoft's track record, if Apple could execute on a tablet stylus with their traditional level of excellence, they could kill! If I could have a combination of a small Macbook and an iPad mini which could also act like a decent "mini Graphire," this would be simply awesome! They could sell tons of these to the angsty teenage journalling set. It would also be a tremendous boon to designers and game and web developers.

It wouldn't be easy to do, however. As the hardware manufacturer and OS producer, they are in a unique position to be able to do it, however.

One of the reasons why I bought the SP3 before the Apple announcement this year is because I know how unlikely they are to come out with a product such as this because it would cannibalize their tablet line. Lesson learned the hard way waiting for an iPod Touch with a good camera (0.7mp...).

How could Apple's tablet cannibalize Apple's tablet line?

Late reply. A product like the SP3 for me would be at the MBA having touch screen like the Ultrabooks have. This would have the MBA cannibalizing the IPad sales. Thin, lightweight, touchscreen device, full OSX.

I was jhust on an airplane trip and watced with some amusement my aisle-mate fumbling with a new surface pro.

When first using it on his lap, the screen kept flopping around as the kickstand slid off his legs--he eventually used the back of the seat in front of him to prop it up a bit.

Then when the tray came down, he clearly could not get a comfortable typing angle.

At some point, he dispensed with the keyboad and used it as a tablet with the kickstand on the tray, and that looked like a pretty good set up.

I asked him if he liked it near the end of the flight, and alas he said he plans to dispense with tablets all together and go back to laptops.

To be fair, I've never found a satisfactory way to use my laptop on a plane. There's not enough leg room to put the screen at the right angle and the keyboard ends up too close to my body. Tablets are better, but as you say, when he switched to using his Surface as a tablet it worked OK.

So it seems like a bit of a wash to me.

I was using a laptop on a plane one time and the person in front of me put their seat back without even turning around to see what was going on. It cracked the screen hinge, but luckily everything still worked.

So now I'll never bring anything but a tablet on the plane.

You just have to be careful you don't wedge your screen up into where the tray table folds up into.

We also reviewed the Surface Pro 3 in our labs, looking at things like screen performance and battery life among other things. You can find all of the graphs under "Science & Testing"

http://tablets.reviewed.com/content/microsoft-surface-pro-3-...

The Surface Pro 3 seems an awesome device for students. Being able to read PDF textbooks, hand-write notes while using diagram/drawing tools, browse the internet, follow along with (and write on/annotate) lecture slides, word processing with a physical keyboard, writing on PDF practice exams, etc, all in a single device is extremely convenient.

I agree that a device which can do all these is an excellent choice for students. As an engineering student, I used all of the above versatility on my HP TX2510US, and dealt with the burns that the poor heat management gave me :-)

I haven't played with the SP3, but I'm sure there are a multitude of other options as well which are well-suited to student use.

I have been using the SP1 as a student for over a year now and love it. I print all PDF hand-outs to OneNote and annotate them with notes from class. Everything is indexed so I can search across 5 quarters worth of notes in an instant and access them from any device.

I'm in business school (don't hate :) ) so most of our content is in the form of HBS case studies and diagramming and drawing graphs/charts is pretty common.

I see a lot of people using Notability on iPads. If I could get a Wacom or NTrig active stylus on an iPad, that would be sweet, but alas, not possible.

If you haven't seen it in person, you'll love the new 3:2 aspect ratio. I want all my laptop/tablet devices in that ratio in future. So productive :)

Just a note: I too have noticed that my trackpad (on my HP envy laptop) will sometimes lose 2-finger scrolling or any multitouch support, usually it's just in chrome but sometimes it'll be for eveything. I have a touchscreen as well so it's not as big a deal but often the only way I've found to fix the problem is to restart the machine.

I'm assuming its a driver problem possibly with symantic. I'm dreading calling HP support about it because the first 4 or five layers seem to be ignorant knowledge-base-only-readers. (They really are only about as effective as google. They'll recognize a keyword and use that as the basis for their response. No matter how insignificant that one word is.)

This happened on my Zenbook prime as well. You need to restart the synaptics driver, which was very annoying.

I got rid of it and just went with a Macbook Air. It's just better in so many ways.

right except that my laptop costed ~$700 and had a dedicated graphics card and touchscreen while the macbook has nothing at that price point.

Well, you still get what you pay for. Is there a PC laptop with a decent trackpad experience at any price point?

Does a macbook has touchscreen at any price-point ? At least with the windows machine if you have trouble with trackpad, touchscreen will come to rescue. Its insane how people get hung up one thing and talk as if that is central. When Apple released Retina branded hi-res, its all about resolution, now that Macbooks are not hi-res than their competition somehow its not that important anymore.

Dude, its just a tool - use it if you can. Your reality or competence of usage of a tool is always subjective, so lets all chill and pick the marbles we like respectively.

> Does a macbook has touchscreen at any price-point ?

Why do I care? I barely use the touchscreen on my 16k RMB X1, and I numb my pointer finger on its precise yet painful trackpoint because the trackpad is useless. Without the trackpoint, I would have to give up, since the touch screen really doesn't work for programming.

> Dude, its just a tool - use it if you can.

A tool that doesn't work, and I'm pissed off about it. This is not a pissing contest, but about having a tool that doesn't suck.

> Your reality or competence of usage of a tool is always subjective, so lets all chill and pick the marbles we like respectively.

I use PCs because of my work. But whenever I use my wife's macbook, I'm absolutely floored by the trackpad...that actually works...why should designers get better equipment than programmers?

People that settle for crappy tools make me unhappy.

Your argument has merit, but my point is you are overblowing the importance of trackpad. I would rather have the trackpad that is as capable as MBA on SP3, but I am willing to compromise there given other aspects of SP3 as well as, at least in my case as a programmer I used touch to compensate for some shortcomings of trackpad.

No this absolutely is not a pissing contest.

The track pad is very important to me, a working one is very useful, and who wants to carry around a mouse (and find a table to use one) or suffer from guerilla arm using touch all the time. If it is important to you, you can only get a MacBook.

http://laptops.reviewed.com/content/asus-zenbook-ux301la-dh7...

Asus Zenbook UX 301 has the best touchpad (according to the site). So, I guess if you are objectively looking for a touchpad - you do have option.

Can't wait to try it out, hopefully they have one at Zhongguancun already somewhere.

Some things are more important than others. A good keyboard and good touchpad is more useful and important than a touchscreen.

How good was the trackpad scrolling when it was working compared to the Mac? I got a Macbook Pro recently, and I'm amazed at how terrible the trackpad scroll is on every windows laptop I've ever used compared to it. I have to wonder what the deal is with that.

Has anyone load-tested that hinge at 150° extension? I'm concerned the weight of my hand while drawing might destroy the kickstand, or at least the hinges.

How good is the speech recognition Windows 8? I've become a fan of Siri on the iPhone, pretty good. I get the feeling that were pretty close to very accurate speech recognition. Between Microsoft, Google, and Apple I think we're going to get over the line really soon. This post was done entirely with Siri. The missing words or her fault. :-)

speech recognition is just as good as android EXCEPT windows doesnt recognize punctuation. It sounds like a small difference until you try to speak multiple sentences and it gets registered as a single run-on sentence

just use siri then http://myechoapp.com/

I'd like a slightly improved Siri, and almost no one wants to screw around with one device to dictate to another device. I simply want to say "Siri|Google|Cortana..." then start dictating.

With iPhone sitting on my coffee table: "Siri, display on Apple TV... open Evernote.. New Note ... "

I'd love to get one of these, but I simply cannot fathom investing in hardware on which Linux will not run. I suppose it would work in a VM, but .. really .. what a pity that its so locked down and unworkable to change ones OS in this day and age. Register this one protest non-buy, fwiw ..

Apparently it's really easy to install Ubuntu [1] on a Surface Pro 3.

"...you’ll find that most things work out of the box. WiFi works, but only 2.4GHz networks can be detected. The touchpad on the Type Cover works, but the keyboard does not. You’ll need to activate the virtual keyboard in the accessibility setting to get much of anything done, and Ubuntu’s virtual keyboard is lacking in desirable features. There are some third party alternatives you can install, but the initial experience here will likely have you scrambling for a USB keyboard.

The pen works as a pointer and as a left-click when you press down, but because Bluetooth does not work out of the box you lose the buttons on the pen."

[1] http://www.geek.com/microsoft/linux-users-rejoice-heres-ubun...

That's a big improvement, then. The original Surface Pro was awful, with serious problems [1] in the mwifiex driver. I also found its wireless support was unstable when bluetooth was also in use, even in Windows 8, which was the final deal breaker for me.

I would recommend waiting on adopting any Surface devices until there is general acclaim that they got the hardware right, beyond a reviewer who just used it for a few days then rushed to press.

[1] https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69661

Ah well that is a relief .. as long as we can boot it without having to go through arcane enchantment, we can fix all of that. I wonder why MS decided not to implement the Type Cover keyboard as a standard USB device, seems pretty weird to me, but then again maybe they've created a new accessory market for themselves, yet again ..

Good to know Ubuntu at least boots on the thing and you can get on a network. I guess it'll be a matter of a small amount of time before the rest of the device works. When that happens, I'll seriously consider getting one ..

I bet the type cover 3 works with the same patch for the covers 2. The only big issue I have with Linux in my Pro 2 is WiFi. I compile from time to time a wireless-testing branch of the kernel to find the most stable build. Also I have a very small WiFi dongle for when the internal one stops working. I hope the Pro 3 WiFi is not as problematic.

Also I'm working in my spare time in a bunch of scripts to imporove the surface experience (touch gestures, palm rejection, sound feedback for touch cover, etc). I'll upload them to github soon.

Great to know you're working on such things - if I didn't have a deep-seated mistrust of MS in general, I'd probably be a bit more willing to deal with some of these issues myself, but I'm also willing to admit that my prejudice is preventing me from checking out what looks to be some sweet, sweet hardware.

You can change the OS on this, the driver support's got some issues. The Windows RT machines were completely locked down.

OK mine decided to shut down itself for the second time ever since I had it. Full battery charging, No BSOD, not even useless crash report after boot. I'm done, eBay there it goes, bye.

The review was sounding good until it mentions the high speed camera for measuring pen performance... And do not include videos, not which models were tested in the table selling the 3 as faster.

Was it the i5? i7?

To resolve the lack of edge gestures when the screen bezel is covered, they should configure the TrackPad to also work with edge gestures.

It does - at least sliding from the left or right. I'm not sure if there are others I don't use.

Microsoft, stop bombarding us with your ads, you've already missed the train even after your 3rd try.

I have been a linux user for the past 10 years. Didn't event want to bother with Windows for all that time.

This machine is the only thing that will get me to use windows again (if i dont end up installing linux on it)

As far as hardware i believe this is superb machine. They might have lost the train, but if they keep it up the version 4 will be much much better.

They just need to continue improving the software

The real problem is innovation. Don't forget Apple iPad and Android-pads are also evolving too. Until that's changed, Sadly, MS will always be playing me-too.

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