Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2014 3:55 AM ESTTablet Performance
The tablet performance comparison is as ridiculous as it's ever been. Surface Pro 3 is substantially faster than any ARM based tablet on the market. Web pages load quicker and you can play a completely different caliber of game on the device.
Tablet GPU Performance
All news isn't good though on the tablet front. Surface Pro 3 still struggles to behave completely like a tablet, despite finally gaining support for Connected Standby. Waking up the device from sleep still requires around 1300ms, a period that sounds small but feels like an eternity compared to an Android or iOS tablet.
WiFi
Marvell remains Microsoft's partner of choice when it comes to the WiFi implementation on Surface Pro 3. The updated design features a Marvell Avastar 88W8897 SoC supporting 2-stream 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.0. The SoC also features NFC support but it's not leveraged in Surface Pro 3.
WiFi performance is better than on Surface Pro 2. Peak performance improves from around 160Mbps to 260Mbps when connected at an 866Mbps link rate. I didn't notice any weird behavior or poor performance when connecting to WiFi networks, although as 2-stream 802.11ac implementations go this is hardly the fastest.
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bernstein - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
great review! Endless thanks for the Pen Drawing Latency values & comparison!!!!!! Although i'd really like a comparison to samsungs galaxy note line.techcrazy - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Finally, I've been waiting for this review. Anand, are you also going to review Xperia Z2?ljp882 - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Nice review with no bias which I am looking for.V-600 - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
The battery life is the only niggle to me.Any thoughts on whether it will get a mid cycle update when Intel release broad well.
BPM - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
I don't think so. I believe Microsoft wants to separate it's product cycle from Intel release schedule. Like Toshiba and it's Kirabook line of ultrabooksstanwood - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
I think you are on to something. Let's assume Intel is providing MS with cream-of-the-crop low power high performance parts. This is not something they can do in any substantial volume on day 1 of the Braswell release. They need time to work up the manufacturing yield curve and optimize the power-performance.DanNeely - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
With 3 releases in 16 months, I suspect you won't have to wait long for a Broadwell version even if MS isn't a launch day partner.jeffkibuule - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
My guess is we will see an update around the same time Windows 9 comes out which is rumored to be Spring 2015.Coup27 - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Nice review as always Anand.It would be nice however to see some consistency with units of measure on AT. Page 1 of this review uses inches and page 2 uses millimetres.
Laxaa - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
So, wait for Broadwell then?What will it bring to the table? Better GPU performance and lower power consemption?