Review of the Surface Pro 3 (i7, 256gb SSD)

[Sidiox]

Why I needed a laptop/ultrabook

 

This year I started studying Chemistry and I needed laptop for this study, since we use some programs like ChemDraw. In my last year of college I used the Surface RT for a lot of notetaking and as my oversized smartphone, since at the time I didn't have one. I personally hated laptops though and have always worked with desktop pc's, since they are more powerful and versatile. Another big problem was that most laptops have bad batterylife, which probably wouldn’t allow me to go an entire day at collage without recharging, and note taking with a keyboard isn’t that great when working with chemical formulas. So, since I liked the Surface RT, I bought the Surface Pro 3, which got delivered to my home 3 days before my study started, about 2 weeks ago.

 

The Unboxing

The unboxing was virtually the same as the unboxing of my Surface RT, 2 separate boxes, 1 for the Tablet and its accessories and 1 for the keyboard. The design is very stylistic and very much reminds me of the OnePlus One packaging (I might do a review of that one as well). It looks professional and I like it very much. 

 

(Beware I have used large pictures, all taken with my One so don't mind the quality pls)

 

 

The Device

My device has the following specs:

I7-4640U @ 1.70Ghz with Intel Integrated Graphics 5000

8Gb RAM

256Gb SSD

2160*1440@60Hz

 

Lets start with the screen; it has a weird 3:2 aspect ratio, but it actually works really well. As they said when they announced it, it resembles a sheet of paper and is therefore quite good for note taking and actually allows you to hold device in portrait mode, something which felt really weird with the older Surfaces with the 16:9 ratio. The resolution is nice and high, and you can barely make out the pixels when holding it at a normal distance. The colors look good although I’m hardly an expert on colour accuracy, so it might not be too accurate. Its brightness adjust does feel a bit too narrow though, it feels like both my One and my Surface RT can go a little bit darker and a little bit brighter as well, it is still perfectly useable in normal situations, but at night in the dark it feels a bit too bright and when the sun is shining directly at it you can barely make out text (although that is the case with a lot of devices anyway).

 

Next, its design. It still has the sharp angles and the Mg vapour casing, which feels fantastic and looks good. This time however they changed out the black body colour for a more space gray look, which I personally think is ugly as hell, I loved the Surface RT, it looked very professional, this looks more like a weird MacBook Air, eventhough the screen bezels are still black. As for the rest of its outside; it has 1 USB3 port (which is handy, but I would like to have seen 2), a mini display port (which I have no use for) a charging port (vastly improved over the old one; I already liked the magnetic cable, but it was slightly fiddily on the old one, this one really pulls it self in) a headphone/mic combo jack (which is a bit higher on its left side then it was on the RT, which makes it feel very weird) and a power button at  the left top (again, on the RT it was on the right, so now each time I miss the button when I try to turn the device on) and a volume rocker. Under the kickstand is a miniSD card slot, where a fullsize one would have been a lot better.

 

With its design also comes the kickstand ofcourse, which is now more versatile. After you click it open to its 22 degree position you can force it further until it has about an angle of 150 degrees. This is a huge improvement of the first iteration since now I can use it properly on my lap and when I want to use the touch screen I can put it at less steep angle. This does seem to have sacrificed stability and “feel” though, because now when I flip it open with 1 hand and force it futher the other side seems to fall behind a bit and the unit doesn’t stand properly unless I also put the other side further. It also misses the nice clicking back sound and feel that the old one had, you need to actually use a lot more force and it does not at all make the nice “luxurious car door” sound.

 

 

The Pen

A big feature of this device is the pen, this time with n-trig technology instead of Wacom. I have no experience with either, all I know is that n trig is more accurate on the edges of the device and its detection layer behind the display is thinner. Because of this thinness there is very little parallax when writing and it feel spot on. It detection near the edges is good, but not ground breaking, and I still sometimes miss small buttons near the edge and constantly screw up scrolling. The pen itself has 3 buttons, 1 on the top “the OneNote Button” and 2 being on the side; 1 being right click the other being an eraser. And although the layout of the buttons is good there is one very big problem I have with it; it is not configureable. You cannot rebind them (there are ways to make the top button open other stuff, but it is not perfect). This I find very annoying for a couple of reasons. 1. The top button is nice, but the default settings for things like the line thickness are stupid so I can’t use it, nor can you reconfigure where it opens, I would have wanted the top button to unlock the device and allow you to continue where you left off, this should be configurable since it is such a major feature. 2. The eraser is not supported in all programs, they simply have no need for it, stuff like internet explorer for instance, it would have been better if it switches to middle mouse click at those moments instead of being just a useless button and again this should be configurable. 3. In different applications and in different usage scenarios different functions might be required (for instance removing the eraser buttons entirely or switching buttons around). What they should do in my opinion is implement a sort of Logitech Gaming Software kind of program, which would allow you to set up different profiles for different programs, because at the moment it is just lacking.

Another problem I have with it is that when the top part is fully screwed into the lower part, the pen sometimes loses connection, to this end I have loosend the screw abit, but of course that is not preferable. The writing itself is good though: it is very precise and the 256 presure levels are nice to have when taking notes, I can truly write with it.

The last problem I have with it is that there is no container or storing place, I understand that they couldn’t make it fit in the device but clipping it magnetically to the side is weak and  not useable at all. The loop sticker that comes with the type keyboard is also stupid solution because it feels cheap and doesn’t do justice to the design of the unit.

It’s a good pen, but the software and extra hardware implementation is poor.

 

 

 

The Keyboard

On my old Surface RT I had the Touch Keyboard, which wasn’t very precise nor felt good. The new Type Cover Pro feels like a normal ultrabook keyboard, be it with a bit smaller travel on the keys. I can type very fast and accurate on it and it works good. The touchpad is okay, but nothing amazing. The only big problem I have with it is then when it is folded behind the unit and you hold it like a tablet, you press the keys on the back, which feels odd and isn’t very enjoyable.

 

 

 

 

The experience and my usage

I use it mainly with onenote having a few side programs open such as IE 11 with about 5 tabs, a few word documents and pdfs files (and my background programs), it currently and usually sits at ambient temperature or a few degrees higher (it is 24 degrees in my home and the device is running at 23 degrees without having its fan on). The fan only kicks in when doing gaming or installing programs, anything that holds its CPU usage above 40% for more then 20 seconds makes the fan kick in. And the fan stays on until the temperature drops below 30 even if the CPU usage has dropped below 10%. And it is loud, not as loud as laptop or desktop, but in my lecture halls it is very noticeable. Because of its small form factor I can easily carry it in my bag and use it on the small lecture tables without problem. The i7 feels snappy and verything runs smooth, although the wake from sleep time is a bit long, but the boot time of only a few seconds makes up for that. I wouldn't try much gaming on it though, since the CPU isn't really capable of any high fidelity graphics work and the fan gets quite loud

 

This was my first review so please go easy on me guys. If there are any things you want me to add or have questions please ask!

 

[SSOB]

Great review! We need more of this on the forums!

[Sidiox]

Great review! We need more of this on the forums!

Thanks! I know it is a bit lengthy but I wanted to cover as much as I could, and I still feel like I left out a lot

[bry.yyyy]

great review 

making me wanna buy that surface  

[Commander Llama]

Good review!

 

I'm so on the edge of getting into the Surface machines, but probably not in the cards on this revision.  If they keep this design for the almost inevitable Broadwell version, I think that'll be the one.