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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darwinosx - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
True since in a month or two it will be in the bargain bin because nobody buys it.at80eighty - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
that was hilarious usernameOSXbasroil - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
SP2 never changed in price since it's release, despite idiots claiming it would. The only time the device will drop in price is when the SP4 comes out.MarcSP - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Severely compromised, depending on your needs. I mean, for average office work, email, non-heavy programs it is more than adecuate. Surface 2 has half the RAM and a much inferior SoC, and I can work quite well with it.Sure, if you want to load 500MB raw images or things like that, it's not enough.
My main laptop has GB RAM and a 2 generations old Corei, and I never feel underpowered (of course, I don't play new games on it). I use Audacity, Gimp, Office and dozens of programs totally fine. Never had a "low memory warning" or anything similar.
The storage, somehow agree, but you can just get later a 128GB microSD. Not the same, but better than nothing and quite inexpensive. And the USB3 can help when at home with an external HDD/SSD.
MarcSP - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
"My laptop has 4GB of RAM""I never feel it underpowered"
Damn no "edit" :-/
mkozakewich - Monday, June 30, 2014 - link
I don't agree with the bundling. Everyone says it requires the keyboard cover, and I agree, but the packaging is far simpler if buyers have the option of choosing their cover separately, and in whichever colour they want. Or they could save $130 if they really don't care and already have a bluetooth keyboard.The proper way to handle this is to include the keyboard price in any discussion of the Surface family's pricing. For one, the chart of prices in this very article should have started at $928 for the base model, and continued from there.
Microsoft should really be talking about the price differently than it has, too. Like, show it for $928, then put some subtext about it being separate $799 and $129 purchases.
For $928, the base model is still a fairly good value.
euskalzabe - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
No, what people are saying is that the type cover should be included in those $799, not bundled for more money.cryptech - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
^This. Any way I try to grock the Surface Pro it’s not appealing. Why would I wan’t an awkward ultraportable with terrible battery life or a heavy, hot and overpriced tablet with a fan?kyuu - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
What ultraportables have better battery life asides from the MacBook Air?Since when is something that weighs the same as an iPad 2 "heavy"? Why is something that has less heat issues than the iPad Air "hot"?
What other tablets with equivalent internals are so much cheaper that the Surface is "overpriced"?
You are right that it has a fan, though. Oh noes.
kyuu - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
My bad, I was confusing the iPad 2's thickness and weight. So the SP3 does weight about a quarter pound more than the iPad 2. Whoop de doo. Considering that drastic difference in what it can do, it seems a small price to pay. Same goes for fan noise (which is only an issue during intensive workloads, you're not going to hear it while web browsing).If you must have a super-light and passively cooled tablet, that's cool. There are plenty of those around. Even ones that run full Windows. The Surface Pro line isn't about competing with oversized smartphones like the iPad.