The Surface 3 Review
by Brett Howse on May 4, 2015 9:00 AM ESTDisplay
When Surface Pro 3 moved to a 3:2 aspect ratio, it made a lot of sense. 16:9 in a tablet makes for a very poor experience, and in a laptop, it is not much better. Almost everyone has moved to 16:9 in the laptop space and the lack of vertical height can make for a less than ideal experience. Most web content is vertical, and working in Office means you want vertical space as well. The widescreen does help with two windows snapped open at once, but I always find myself craving more vertical room.
On a tablet, I feel that 16:9 is even worse. Holding a 16:9 device in one hand can feel very heavy due to the length of the tablet, and turning it to portrait means that it is very tall and skinny. The move to 3:2 really squares up the device, and makes it a lot more balanced in either direction. Holding it in one hand is much easier, and finally portrait mode is usable on the Surface.
So the aspect ratio is a big improvement. The display size also has a slightly wider corner to corner of 10.8 inches versus 10.6 inch model that came before this. The actual width of the display is about 9 inches, compared to 9.2 on the outgoing Surface 2 model. The display height is now 6 inches, up from 5.2, so the total area of the display is almost 54 square inches, up from 48 inches on the outgoing model.
To fill this display, we have a Panasonic panel with a resolution of 1920x1280. This is roughly the same pixel density as the Surface Pro 3’s slightly larger 12 inch 2160x1440 display, coming in at 217 pixels per inch. It is not the highest PPI of a tablet, but it makes a good compromise between desktop and tablet use. Speaking of desktop use, I found that it makes a perfectly acceptable size for a small notebook, and even with touch it was not too difficult to work with the icons.
When Microsoft launched Surface 3, it said “with incredibly accurate colors and clarity from multiple viewing angles” and that would be excellent to see. The Surface Pro 3 has a decent display, but it was not the most accurate device we’ve tested.
To do our display testing, we use SpectraCal’s CalMAN 5 suite with a custom workflow. Brightness and contrast readings are taken with an X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter, and color accuracy is measured with an X-Rite i1Pro spectrophotometer. We target 200 nits brightness when doing our tests.
Brightness and Contrast
The Surface 3 gets quite bright, coming in at 432 nits at maximum output. The black levels are a bit high, but overall contrast is a decent 920:1. This makes the Surface 3 almost 100 nits higher than the Surface Pro 3 that Anand reviewed last year, which is a good start for this less expensive version.
Grayscale
The grayscale average for the Surface 3 is very good, coming in just about at 2.5 as an average for the sweep. There is a bit of a spike at 25% but it is not indicative of the overall calibration. Gamma is a bit low, but the white point is fairly close to the ideal value.
Saturation
The accuracy on our saturation tests is outstanding, with an overall average score of just 1.57. Looking at the individual colors, the red is a bit oversaturated at 100%, and blue tends to be undersaturated, but the amount of error is very small.
Gamut and Gretag Macbeth
Once again the Surface 3 comes in with fantastic scores on these two tests, with the comprehensive GMB test under 2. When we are doing these tests, values under 3 are considered good, and the Surface 3 has passed with amazing scores. The best part of this is that all of this is done without the use of an ICC profile, so that means the hardware is being calibrated directly. ICC profiles can fix some issues, but not all programs respect them so having it done in hardware is a much better option.
Calibrated
Since this is a full x86 Windows operating system, we can also calibrate the display with the CalMAN software. Even though it was very good out of the box, the calibration pulls it even closer to perfection.
Surface 3 has one of the most accurate displays we have ever tested, which is great to see in what is considered the value member of the Surface family. Microsoft promised an accurate display and they have delivered.
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khanikun - Friday, May 8, 2015 - link
I have an SP3 and it's big selling point over essentially everything you mentioned, the ability to actually make it a tablet. I don't need a keyboard strapped on the thing 24/7, nor do I want to put the keys in harms way when converted into tablet form.I use it like a laptop when I hit my destination and I rip the keyboard off it, when walking around or having it put into my tablet mount in the car. If it were a convertible laptop, I probably would have lost a few keys by now.
Rebelismo - Tuesday, May 12, 2015 - link
Yeah. Lack of apps... That's a good one.There is a clear chasm nowadays between content consumers, and professional users. It seems that MOST people would be fine with a social media content device. The way I see it, the Surface line was made for engineers, designers, scientists, artists etc. If you're worried that the windows store might not have Snapchat, then please get yourself a nice android or ios phablet.
eagle63 - Sunday, May 17, 2015 - link
"...the Surface line was made for engineers, designers, scientists, artists etc...." Those people primarily use Macs, not Windows. Windows is for corporate-types who push spreadsheets around all day. :) Obviously I'm generalizing but I'm not that far off the mark.If you're looking at a Windows tablet and honestly intend to use it as a tablet, then yes there is a remarkable lack of apps - I actually can't believe you would think otherwise. (have you used iOS or Android before??) If your primary goal is a professional/business device, then you're probably set - but you're also probably looking at the Pro model, not this one. So I think the app argument (for this device at least) is absolutely valid and relevant.
JRX16 - Wednesday, May 27, 2015 - link
"Those people primarily use Macs, not Windows. Windows is for corporate-types who push spreadsheets around all day. :) Obviously I'm generalizing but I'm not that far off the mark."This... And while some will point out that engineering and scientific organizations will be filled with Windows machines on desks and cubicles, that's a business decision to cut initial costs. The engineers and scientists' personal machines are more often then not Macs.
JoeOliano - Wednesday, June 17, 2015 - link
I'd say it's 50/50Depends on the scientist and the area of research. I never understood the desire for macs and I'm a scientist. They are just sleek and fancy. Only (bio)informatics would benefit from the mac productivity wise. The rest, not so much. And they could do just as well with linux, just no linux tablets on the market ;). That said, the surface line runs ubuntu flawlessly as dual boot!
illegaloperation - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
Why do you factor in the price of the dock? Does the HP Spectre x360 comes with a dock?illegaloperation - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
1. The dock is more of an optional accessory than anything. I don't know why you factor in the price of the Dock.2. The HP Spectre x360 weigh 3.26 lbs. That's the weight of the Surface 3. If weigh and portability isn't a concern for you, why even get a laptop? Just get a desktop and you'll get even more for your money.
illegaloperation - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
I intended to say "over twice the weight of the Surface 3"NeatOman - Monday, May 4, 2015 - link
$599 model + keyboard and pen puts it at $780, i don't think anyone cares to much about the dock for the surface or any other laptop unless they use it for work and it is also powerful. But for $780 i think its a bit slow (despite the NAND being about twice as fast as the 64GB model) at about half the speed if not less at times, it is not worth it.I would just pick up a UX305 with the Core M-5Y10 8GB/256GB for $699 like they said in the article. But if it was $499 for the 4GB/128GB model then i would have no problem recommending it as an option with caution. The surface pro 3 on the other hand i think is still a great PC.
romprak - Tuesday, May 5, 2015 - link
I am a big fan of the UX305! But it really isn't comparable, for one the S3 is a tablet - and there are some good applications for having that pen. If you are going to compare it to the UX305, at least remove the pen from your comparison price to knock the price of the S3 down to $730.I have a S3 Pro, and the reason I cannot go to something like the UX305 is that after using the 3:2 aspect ratio screen, I have a hard time coding on a 16:9 display with the lack of vertical space for code. I wish PC manufacturers didn't start using a video oriented aspect ratio for productivity machines :(