What happened to the Surface 3?

[Misinthe]

So I was looking into surfaces and I kept trying to find the Surface 3 but they don't have it listed in Microsoft's store anymore, did they stop producing it? It just fell off the face of the earth? 

[Drak3]

The Surface may not be profitable anymore, but Newegg still has some.

[79wjd]

1 minute ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

Probably stopped making them, although I should point out that they're trash.

I don't think they're trash. It depends entirely on your specific use case. It's great if you want/need a good stylus interface, if you don't, then the entire Surface lineup is probably the wrong choice as there are better/cheaper alternatives. 

[Misinthe]

27 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

The Surface may not be profitable anymore, but Newegg still has some.

Why wouldn't it? It was like a good entry level one, the Pro starts at like $900 which is way too high, the regular offerend smaller screen and specs for a lower premium.

21 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

Probably stopped making them, although I should point out that they're trash.

Why where they trash? 

19 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

I don't think they're trash. It depends entirely on your specific use case. It's great if you want/need a good stylus interface, if you don't, then the entire Surface lineup is probably the wrong choice as there are better/cheaper alternatives. 

I agree.

[Doramius]

Production of the Surface 4 ended the production of the Surface 3.  While there has been plenty of stock from the Surface 3 available, they have not been making any more, or have been doing very limited batches for specific instances (possibly under contractual agreement with some distributors).  The Surface 3 has some very serious issues: 
It can become unresponsive to touch or stylus when overheated.
i7 version overheats constantly when connected to a dock, running multi-display.
i5 underpowered for most professional use in enterprise environments.
severely limited upgradability

 

However, the Surface 3 has significantly improved specs over the Surface 2, including more accurate stylus and touch response.  They're getting better with the Surface line, but not quite at the Zenith they should be at.  My only hope is that they don't do the stupid thing ad go with the m5 or m7 CPU, like a lot of other tablet makers are doing.  Keeping a full powered CPU and being able to run a full blown OS, are some of the main points they have going for them.

[GoodBytes]

It's old, powered by a discontinued Atom CPU, and as the Core M is in the entry level Surface Pro, and Intel stop working on Atom. MS can't have it. Maybe with the 5tg gen system  they'll have a Surface 5 with a Core M, and Surface Pro 5 with U series, but we have to see. The price difference needs to be large, and it it needs to be lower end, while not being crap.

[Drak3]

1 minute ago, Miguel552 said:

Why wouldn't it? It was like a good entry level one,

1 minute ago, Miguel552 said:

the regular offerend smaller screen and specs for a lower premium.

1 minute ago, Miguel552 said:

Why where they trash?

The Atom processors are very lackluster when it comes to running full fat Windows. Outside of a lightweight web browsing tablet and MS Word, it isn't exactly capable. There are cheaper tablets, in both Windows and Android variants, that do the same job to roughly the same capacity (if not better).

 

3 minutes ago, Doramius said:

Production of the Surface 4 ended the production of the Surface 3.

Microsoft typically doesn't end production of a product when it's immediate successor becomes available, unless there is no demand for said product anyways. They'll maintain the older product's production at a reduced rate, and sell them at a reduced cost to widen the pricing portfolio.

 

That being said, the Surface 3 was a very shitty deal, and any potential user is better served elsewhere.

[Doramius]

4 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

Microsoft typically doesn't end production of a product when it's immediate successor becomes available, unless there is no demand for said product anyways. They'll maintain the older product's production at a reduced rate, and sell them at a reduced cost to widen the pricing portfolio.

Agreed.  They don't end it immediately.  For the Surface 3, MS still had contractual agreements to produce the hardware for up to 3 years and provide to distributors.  Anything not under contract is pushed to the next gen model.  Orders for the new model are set as priority in production, and to push the surplus of the old model, they'll reduce the cost.  

5 minutes ago, Drak3 said:

That being said, the Surface 3 was a very shitty deal, and any potential user is better served elsewhere.

[Drak3]

2 minutes ago, Doramius said:

Anything not under contract is pushed to the next gen model.

Unless we're talking about use case specific hardware, like the Surface Hub, Microsoft will typically continue producing the same product at a slower rate until they either run out of hardware, or they cannot make ANY money off of it.

Yes, they'll severely reduce general production, but they won't outright end it. Even if they remove the submission of the product in their own store (likely that the Pro 3 will fill the role when the Pro 5 comes out, and the Pro 4 assumes the role that the Pro 3 currently fills).

[79wjd]

27 minutes ago, Doramius said:

Production of the Surface 4 ended the production of the Surface 3.  While there has been plenty of stock from the Surface 3 available, they have not been making any more, or have been doing very limited batches for specific instances (possibly under contractual agreement with some distributors).  The Surface 3 has some very serious issues: 
It can become unresponsive to touch or stylus when overheated.
i7 version overheats constantly when connected to a dock, running multi-display.
i5 underpowered for most professional use in enterprise environments.
severely limited upgradability

 

However, the Surface 3 has significantly improved specs over the Surface 2, including more accurate stylus and touch response.  They're getting better with the Surface line, but not quite at the Zenith they should be at.  My only hope is that they don't do the stupid thing ad go with the m5 or m7 CPU, like a lot of other tablet makers are doing.  Keeping a full powered CPU and being able to run a full blown OS, are some of the main points they have going for them.

There is no Surface 4 though. Microsoft never released a successor to the Surface 3. (OP is talking about the Surface 3, not the Surface Pro 3)

 

Also, even the SP3 is a good device and isn't noticeably worse than the SP4, which is also a very good device. 

24 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

It's old, powered by a discontinued Atom CPU, and as the Core M is in the entry level Surface Pro, and Intel stop working on Atom. MS can't have it. Maybe with the 5tg gen system  they'll have a Surface 5 with a Core M, and Surface Pro 5 with U series, but we have to see. The price difference needs to be large, and it it needs to be lower end, while not being crap.

That was always the problem with the S3, it wasn't cheaper by enough to make it worthwhile over an i3-based SP3 especially when the typecover was the same $130. The S3 started at $500 with 2gb/64gb ($600 for 4gb/128gb), plus $180 for pen+typecover. While the SP3 started at $800 for i3/4gb/64gb, plus $130 for pen+typecover. The 2gb S3 variant really wasn't worthwhile, so you're looking at $600 for the Surface 3. To make matters even worse, by the time the Surface 3 was released (almost a year later), SP3 pricing was already heavily discounted making the difference even smaller. With all of that said, the S3 did still make sense for those people who wanted a smaller device and didn't need more power than an Atom (or who could get by on 2gb of ram). The Surface lineup still has by far the best stylus interface of any tablet I've used, and for that reason I bought a used SP3 to take notes and paid FAR more than I would have had I gone with something like a Galaxy Note (which is what I originally had, but got rid of, and was such crap).

 

The SP5 will probably launch at $800~ and the SP4 m3/4gb/128gb will end up being even less. So the S4/5 would need to compete with that. If it comes with an m3/4gb/128gb and costs around $500 with a pen, then it would be good. 

[Misinthe]

Well I was looking for a solution for my wife, she's starting one of those lady side business where they have "parties" at other people's houses and present products, like Tupperware, Avon and those things. So she wants something she can carry easily and keep all her business stuff there, which is mostly Excel, Dropbox, Word and Web. I have no idea on what to get her anymore, I've gone from iPad to XPS 15 and still can't decide haha.

[79wjd]

18 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

Well I was looking for a solution for my wife, she's starting one of those lady side business where they have "parties" at other people's houses and present products, like Tupperware, Avon and those things. So she wants something she can carry easily and keep all her business stuff there, which is mostly Excel, Dropbox, Word and Web. I have no idea on what to get her anymore, I've gone from iPad to XPS 15 and still can't decide haha.

Well, the Surface lineup isn't worth considering if you're not going to heavily use the pen.

 

First things first is to decide what she wants -- does she want a tablet or a laptop? 

[Misinthe]

42 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

Well, the Surface lineup isn't worth considering if you're not going to heavily use the pen.

 

First things first is to decide what she wants -- does she want a tablet or a laptop? 

Well she was talking about selling her old laptop and getting a replacement. But the options available in the budget are no good. Currently she has an i7 4710HQ, 16GB RAM, 860M GPU. She doesn't want to lose too much performance, so it would need to be something with another HQ processor, not an U or something that are only dual cores.

 

Failing to find one, she was thinking just getting a windows tablet or something cheap and keep her current laptop and just that this to the places and then come back and migrate everything to the main computer.

[GoodBytes]

13 minutes ago, wrathoftheturkey said:

They're great in theory, and I'm a big fan of the SP4. But prior to this gen, they've had problems (overheating is a big one). I had an SP3 and with all the bugs it gave me I'd never recommend it to anyone. I say if you're going for a Surface, get one of the new ones.

I have a SP3 but mine is a warranty replacement from a SP2 rev 2 (that is the one with the same updated CPU as the SP3). This was due to accidental damage protection.. I didn't have any issues. per se, in terms of bugs. So, I think that they managed to fix all the issues. The pen tracking needs work still, but this is where the SP4 improve further, as the SP3 is an improvement over the SP2 that I had (which was better than any other convertible on screen device that cost ~3000$ from OEM at the time).

 

Anyway, I did notice a performance drop from my SP2 to SP3. You can see the impact from the dual heatsink, larger (in depth), dual fan design of the SP1 and SP2 and the single heatsink design, which is also thinner (device is thinner). Also, the SSD is not as fast. It passes from a async MLC SSD (from Marvel?.. I don't recall), down to a Samsung TLC drive.

 

Hopefully, the SP5 continues to improve the pen further (it can always be improved), uses a more power efficient chip (Coffee Lake?), OLED screen, USB Type A and USB Type-C (thunderbolt support would be nice), and PCI-E NVM SSD. It would also be nice if it had Intel wireless card for WiDi support.

[Misinthe]

34 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Hopefully, the SP5 continues to improve the pen further (it can always be improved), uses a more power efficient chip (Coffee Lake?), OLED screen, USB Type A and USB Type-C (thunderbolt support would be nice), and PCI-E NVM SSD. It would also be nice if it had Intel wireless card for WiDi support.

I heard the SP5 will be coming out in the next couple of months, so I don't think there will be time to add Coffee Lake to them.

[GoodBytes]

5 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

I heard the SP5 will be coming out in the next couple of months, so I don't think there will be time to add Coffee Lake to them.

Depends... Intel needs to official release the chip in the same time frame as Microsoft or before, and be able to produce the chip in consideration in mass quantity so that it can meet demand. And of course, it isn't a a weeks of work to implement and test a new CPU and its chipset, especially that I am sure Microsoft wants to avoid the mess it had with the SP4 at release, not to mention buggy Intel drivers (although it is just a  die shrink and not a new architecture), and it is usually said that it takes 2-3 month for mass producing a product and having it on store shelves.

[Misinthe]

13 minutes ago, GoodBytes said:

Depends... Intel needs to official release the chip in the same time frame as Microsoft or before, and be able to produce the chip in consideration in mass quantity so that it can meet demand. And of course, it isn't a a weeks of work to implement and test a new CPU and its chipset, especially that I am sure Microsoft wants to avoid the mess it had with the SP4 at release, not to mention buggy Intel drivers (although it is just a  die shrink and not a new architecture), and it is usually said that it takes 2-3 month for mass producing a product and having it on store shelves.

This is true.