Today, during a press event which took place in New York City, Microsoft had announced the 12-inch Surface Pro 3 tablet. Although there were just 7 months since the Surface Pro 2 announcement, Surface Pro 3 is an good update that will make the Surface brand tackle yet another segment: laptops.
At first, Surface Pro 3 is a bigger tablet with a 12-inch screen and a 3:2 aspect ratio HD display. The good news is that the bezels were also reduced so that now the new tablet looks a bit like the iPad Air. It looks like the displays had also been improved and now has a 2160 x 1440 resolution(Surface Pro 2 was 1080p). Microsoft says that this new display is 38% bigger than Surface Pro 2, with 50% more pixels and that “every screen is color calibrated at the factory, so you’ll see accurate, brilliant colors, great white points, and great contrast on every device”.
On the back of the Surface Pro 3 the usual two position kickstand was vastly improved so that now it lets you pick whatever angle you want from 0 to 150 degrees. Personally, I think this is the best feature.
Inside, as it was expected, you can choose between multiple configurations(i3, i5 and i7). Regardless your choice, Surface Pro 3 will be powered by the 4th generation Intel® Core™ processor, so this should be a bit faster than the Surface Pro 2. The storage capacity is ranging from 64GB(the i3 version) to 512 GB(the i7 version), while the RAM is ranging from 4 GB to 8 GB.
To make thinner, lighter and to also keep it cooler Microsoft had to make some changes inside. Microsoft claims the need to invent a new fan technology that is 30% more efficient than previous Surface editions. Thanks to this new technology “thinner fan cools a series of fins placed around it instead of forcing the exhaust air out through a channel.”
As usual, we have 4 ports situated on the sides: fullsize MicroUSB 3.0, microSD card reader, headset jack, Mini DisplayPort, while inside there’s Wi-Fi 802.11ac/802.11 a/b/g/n and Bluetooth 4.0 connectivity.
After seeing today’s event, I can conclude that Surface Pro 3 is a tablet that is clearly designed for those who usually use a laptop/ultrabook and also want a tablet that can satisfy their needs from time to time. This is the segment that doesn’t have time to stay in front of a personal desktop computer and prefer using a laptop. I’m pretty sure after today’s announcement the bridge between tablets and laptops will soon become insignificant as others plan to make tablets more powerful.
Surface Pro 3 can be pre-ordered starting this night on microsoftstore.com and can be purchased from June 20th in the US and Canada. The rest of the world will get it by the end of this August. Prices begin at $799(for the i3, 125 GB and 4 GB of RAM version) and go up to $1,949 (for the i7, 512 GB and 8 GB of RAM version).
Source: Microsoft
