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Forbes Revisits the Surface Pro 3, Which May Face LG Competition
Forbes writer Marco Chiappetta revisits Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 half a year after its U.S. debut, and finds the tablet-laptop hybrid has held up pretty well, but suffers some dings worth knowing about before jumping at holiday sale prices, pointing out a number of scenarios where a full-fledged notebook, even if it’s roughly the same size, will be the better choice. I’ve found that the Surface Pro 3 is ideal for users that will likely fire the machine up when sitting at a desk or when in a conference room-type environment that has a table. The Surface Pro 3’s performance is plenty good for everyday computing and office applications, and the screen is top notch. Using the Surface Pro 3 as a notepad with its stylus is also very useful. In fact, over the course of the device’s life, Microsoft has issued a number of firmware, driver, and OS updates that have improved the overall responsiveness and usefulness of the Surface Pro 3. For those who want a laptop, though for actual laptop use, the Surface is an awkward fit. However, a thin, tablet-convertible, touchscreen laptop may appear soon from LG, as well.
It's not a tablet and its not a laptop, what the heck is it?????? Nobody wants one!!!!!!!
can this thing be hacked or are you locked in to the OS it comes with?
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Toilet. He means the kickstand is no good when using it on the toilet.
Is that Windows display scaling is unsatisfactory. Either I can read the screen and the display is too small or the display is so high resolution and has enough real estate but I can't read anything.
I'm not sure the larger screen of the 3 makes this any better. Maybe a little, but from the one I've seen it seems to suffer from a similar problem.
And the worst part is that display scaling seems broken in some way that causes it to scale external displays, making a laptop/desktop two display setup obnoxious.
The whole point for many people in getting the Surface Pro is its Wacom digitizer, which is where the majority of its additional cost is coming from. To compare that to the LG is just completely missing the point -- it's basically saying that capacitive pens are just as good as Wacom tech.
The quality of posts on Slashdot has really crashed in recent years but those on this story really are the very bottom of the barrel.
Not so much news for nerds any more, more like the ramblings of the under-educated and over-opinionated.
I could feel the loss of IQ points from just reading their drivel
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
This is about the SP3 not the SP2 and the article addresses the question of display scaling.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
It's like a Surface Pro 3 but cheaper and the price includes a keyboard / mouse / port replicator / speaker / stand to sit the tablet in. I find it very useful for holidays / travel etc. because it's a PC when I want it to be and a tablet when I need something simpler.
The SP3 doesn't use a Wacom digitiser... it uses one from N-Trig.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
It was posted by timothy: he's always been a provider of shit content.
The precipitous fall in the quality of user-posts is more recent and the main reason I rarely bother even visiting /. any more.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
I'm having trouble understanding what the point of this product is. What useful niche does it fill?
If you need a tablet, why not just get an android tablet or an iPad. Either one comes with tons of apps at their app stores.
What does the surface device come with?
If you want a low cost notebook/laptop/whatever, why not just get a Chromebook and install Ubuntu or Debian on it using crouton?
On what basis does this device compete? Price? Performance? What advantage does it have?
It's like they just don't get it. Why wont the MFGs try using the laptops on their laps?? LGs, while solves the problem of supporting the screen with the keyboard, introduces a new flaw. When you are sitting in class with your laptop on your lap, you need to keep it propped up, which includes using your wrists, basically, to keep the laptop in place. If there is no place to do that on the new LG laptop.
Ah well.
" In fact, over the course of the device's life, Microsoft has issued a number of firmware, driver, and OS updates that have improved the overall responsiveness and usefulness of the Surface Pro 3."
Translation: Microsoft released a product before it was ready. Do you want to buy from an abusive manufacturer?
Other recent examples of faulty Microsoft products: Windows ME, Windows XP before the 2nd service pack, Windows Vista, and Windows 8. One earlier example: DOS 3.0 was buggy in a way that was fixed in DOS 3.1, but buyers were expected to pay the full price for the new version.
In my opinion, Microsoft is the Zune of corporations in the sense that Microsoft uses its market power to deliver unfinished, faulty products. Quote from Wikipedia:
"On March 15, 2011, Microsoft announced that no new Zune hardware players would be developed, although existing models would remain for sale. The Zune had failed to capture significant market share after five years..."
I used a Surface Pro 3 for about a week before deciding to return it. I took it back because it didn't quite fit my needs, and I found it to be just an awkward device.
I had mostly hoped to replace an aging Macbook Pro and have a mobile sketchpad. The device works well as a laptop, although I found it tiresome to have to extend the kickstand every time as opposed to just opening a laptop lid. I did not find it a good device for sketching; the interface in Photoshop CS5 (my usual painting program) was absolutely tiny and a pain to navigate around in with the stylus. You often have to switch between the brush, zoom, pan, and layers menus while working in Photoshop, and it quickly became clear that this setup wasn't going to work. This isn't a failure on Microsoft's part, just evidence that mobile sketching either needs to be on a dedicated app - such as the included OneNote (not quite up to snuff) - or on some old tried-and-true pen and paper.
That said, it is incredible what sort of power they've managed to pack into such a thin device. I just think the whole "jack of all trades, master of none" schtick is the wrong route to take.
I have a Surface 2 that I tried using for a bit (got it from work) and it sucks, badly. The mouse design is horrible, you can barely see it. A coworker has been testing the 3 Pro for a while as a desktop replacement with the ability to quickly take the tablet/laptop thing and go on the road. He likes it, but he's got a full set up, docking station, etc.
I've had the Dell XPS 12 for almost two years and LOVE it for taking it to meetings and customers at work. Taking notes with OneNote is so easy and the touch screen make it really nice to use. I rarely if ever use the tablet feature. A nice thing about it vs. my iPad is that I can put it on my lap while on the couch at home and browse the web with touch with ONE HAND. iPad requires a stand or two hands and it's just uncomfortable for me.
A few months ago I got just an UltraBook with a 15 inch screen so I could program and work on servers better. It's a Dell Precision M3800 meant to compete with a MacBook but it was Windows 8.1 and touch. It's the best device I've ever had, hands down. Light, beautiful in design and screen, great mouse, touch works great. It's not trying to be a tablet/hybrid thing. It's just a great UltraBook. Don't get me wrong, I love my iDevices too (we have lots of them at home), but for work UltraBooks rock.
Chance favors the prepared mind.
Perfect is the enemy of good.
I've had the i7 512 Surface Pro 3 for several months now and I absolutely love it. I was worried about the hinge but it's lapability has no issues IMHO. The only problem I have is it simply doesn't work if I'm lying down in bed.
It's doubtful the LG will contend. I think the biggest threat is the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro but at close to a pound heavier and inability to detach the keyboard increasing the thickness in tablet mode, I'll stick with my Surface Pro 3 thank you very much.
CrankyFool,
Someone who genuinely cares about Microsoft will want Microsoft to examine its behavior as a corporation. The recent release of Windows 8 got very bad press. For example: [Serious] Users of Windows 8, is it really as bad as everyone says it is?
Because Microsoft has a "virtual monopoly", Microsoft still sold many copies. Eventually, however, people will find a way to navigate around Microsoft's craziness. Here is just one of many, many examples. Quoting:
There is so much going on that screams the fact that they didn't have the average Joe sitting in a Microsoft UX lab doing simple tasks such as: "Shut down the system" or "Uninstall software you haven't used in a while" and so much more.
'They tried to force a revolutionary new UI onto the mainstream users. And I love their design, I really do, but it simply doesn't offer any benefits to daily power users such as myself. On the contrary, it annoys me because it has such potential, and they implemented a half-decent version of what it could and should be.
I think that because I attempt to understand Microsoft, I am more caring toward the company than those who merely make negative comments about criticism of Microsoft.
As I said in my grandparent comment, Microsoft has been releasing unfinished products for many years: "... they implemented a half-decent version of what it could and should be." That abusive behavior makes a huge amount of money because there are so many non-technical users who don't know how to defend themselves.
Now Google's Android, a derivative of Linux, is beginning to take people away from Microsoft's operating system products.
Really? You can draw on your laptop with a digitizer? What kind of laptop is it?
Dell Inspiron mini 1012 running Xubuntu, with a Wacom Bamboo Pen digitizer plugged into a USB port.
I recently started working with the Surface Pro 3 and it blows, hard. Microsoft makes the hardware, the drivers, and the operating system yet none of these things work properly. I ask myself why these things don't work properly, but then I remember who is behind it. I'm going to list a few of the issues I've run across so far, and I'm sure I'll find more.
I've had issues where the keyboard cover (which is made specifically for the surface) stops working for no reason. Device Manager says there's no driver installed, so you install a driver but Device Manager still says there's no driver even though there were no errors reported. The only fix was to "refresh" Windows, which means reinstalling windows on top of the other install and re-installing all your programs. Very time consuming for a device made for the Surface by the same company that should just work.
Doing regular driver updates stopped the Surface Dock ethernet from working. Again, I had to reinstall Windows. All I did was Windows Updates that came from you-know-who.
One of the firmware update drivers makes the firmware update device fail to start. Device Manager says to reboot to make it work and they provide you with a reboot button. You click the reboot button, your system starts rebooting, but then you get an error saying you can't reboot because the subwindows from Device Manager are open and need to be closed first! Why even give the user a reboot button if they're not allowed to click on it?
I also see the display weirdness that people complain about. Some fonts look super crisp and nice on it's high resolution display, but others are blurry and ugly. If you change the resolution and then VNC into the machine, your mouse cursor is actually in a different position on the device and you can't really click on anything.
I've had trouble booting Linux on them too, but maybe I've just been doing something wrong. This has stopped me from imaging the software installs.
I would never want a Surface for myself.
The LapDawg X4 is an excellent stand for using Surface Pro in bed (hint: use $2 band of elastic to secure top of Surface to tilt the stand at higher degrees).
http://www.lapdawg.com/lapdawg-x4.html
Which means, that like most windows tablets and laptops, you can probably get another OS to boot, but it probably won't be pretty.
In theory, some distros of Linux have support for digitizers and touchscreens but the reality is, Microsoft is the only game in town when it comes to having a almost two decades of development into x86 tablets. Apple hardware running OS-X has never had digitizers or touch-screens built-in and Linux distros have done their best to cobble-together support for tablet-PCs into the interface and kernel over the years, but it is a sophomoric effort at best (still impressive considering it is free).
But I bet by the year 2030, the Linux will be the best operating system to run on a Surface Pro 3, like it is today with computers from 2000.
Did they fix the dodgy hardware from the first version of the Surface Pro as in "charging port will stop working just after warranty expires"?
I'm never buying another microsoft POS hardware.
I've been a big believer in pen computing since reading Niven & Pournelle's _The Mote in God's Eye_ and using a Koala Pad graphics tablet attached to a Commodore 64 in high school.
Reasons I prefer tablets w/ a stylus:
- drawing
- note-taking
- annotation
- more efficient usage of some programs, esp. those which can be configured w/ pie menus or menu structures which can become gestural (Punch in Altsys Virtuoso was a gesture for me on my Wacom ArtZ graphics tablet attached to my NeXT Cube)
- lighter weight / smaller --- currently trying to ``upgrade'' to a ThinkPad x61 Tablet (convertible) from a Fujitsu Stylistic ST-4121 slate and the former won't fit in my old laptop bag.
Almost bought an Asus Vivotab Note 8, and would've bought the Microsoft Surface 2 from sales this past weekend, but didn't. Concerns I had:
- poor build quality for the Asus --- there's a DIY fix posted for the digitizer ceasing to work
- standard LCD, not daylight viewable
- the Surface 2 which was on sale was the RT model, so can't run Macromedia Freehand --- the Pro 2 was out-of-stock
I'd be sleeping on the couch tonight if someone would make a pen slate which:
- ran either Mac OS X or Windows --- or if there was a drawing program for Android as nice as Macromedia Freehand
- was a pen slate w/ a Wacom digitizer
- had a daylight-viewable display (transflective LCD or better) --- I use my machine as a map reader when traveling and to control my CNC mill on the back porch
- had a resolution higher than 1024 x 768 and was not much larger than a letter-sized notepad
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.