Last week, Microsoft loosed upon the world the latest generation of its Intel-based tablet that runs full Windows 8.1 Pro. It is available for pre-order and is expected to be in stores in mid-late June. The quick run-down is that the Surface Pro 3 features the same computing guts as the Surface Pro 2, but adds a low end option with an Intel i3 processor and 64 gigabyte SSD, and a larger screen, running at 2160x1440 pixels, for a taller 3:2 ratio.
During the presentation, a very large focus was put on "lapability" (Microsoft's word) and the fact that Microsoft views the Surface Pro 3 as the logical successor to both your laptop, and your iPad. Microsoft was pretty specific about two things. The first was the MacBook Air – the Surface Pro 3 is thinner than and weighs less than the 13-inch MacBook Air. The second was the iPad. The Surface, while larger than Apple's current iPad, has all of the tablet staples (web, e-mail, twitter, video, games) and has nearly as impressive a battery as the iPad, and costs less than an iPad and MacBook Air together.
The problem is that the Surface Pro 3, even with the newly re-designed hinge and bigger keyboard cover that attaches, the Surface Pro 3 will still take up a lot of real estate on a lap, and some really tall people have commented that it's still far from optimal. On the tablet side of thing, Microsoft is advocating a very large device with a whole lot of compute horsepower even though the rest of us are now moving toward smaller devices for things like games, reading, etc. I also don't know if Microsoft's cost savings proposition makes a lot of sense. If you "just" need a tablet for reading or games, you're likely to choose an iPad mini or a Google Nexus 7, which is a less expensive device. (There are also laptops available that cost less than the MacBook Air, especially for Windows users.) Microsoft could have had this market on lock with a 7/8-inch Windows RT device with a stylus, but that's for another day.
The problem with the presentation was that instead of talking about people can use the Surface Pro 3, and norms about using laptops on tables or tablets on their laps or sitting on different tables, Microsoft bold-facedly told a room of journalists, nearly all of whom had MacBook Airs (or close competitors) on their laps that the Surface Pro 3 was a better computer for the tasks they were performing. Every single journalist tested it with this in mind, and almost all of them came up with the same conclusion: If you need to put a computer on your lap, the MacBook Air is still the best one to put there.
I personally think the Surface Pro 3 could be a very good writing and general productivity computer for me, but I have a lifestyle that has me running from table to table, not necessarily from park bench to couch. I also think Microsoft could have played up the function of the new nTrig based digitizer a little bit more. Instant OneNote doodling gratification has been something I have been after for years, and no matter how many phones with styli or tablets I buy, I just can't quite get something that's accurate and fast enough. (And, because I know somebody who reads this will think about the myriad Android tablets with styli, something that's supported with OneNote.)
Though, at $930 for the base model with a keyboard, it would be extremely difficult to justify the Surface Pro 3 as a dedicated digital legal pad. Microsoft would have been wise to show off the existing inking functionality in the desktop Office applications, such as annotations in Word and Excel, or drawing diagrams directly onto PowerPoint slides (in situations where, say, the formality of Visio isn't needed.) They did show off some upcoming Adobe CC pen/touch integration, which looks great and would be a compelling reason for me to subscribe to the CC in the future, but other examples were pretty light – a Sudoku puzzle and annotations on another type of document are all they showed. The Surface Pro 3 can successfully replace: A $3 legal Pad, a $2 New York Times Sudoku puzzle, and a $99 HP LaserJet, a $5 ream of paper and a $3 pack of red pens.
I think that the Surface Pro 3's biggest challenge will be the fact that the killer app for it (so far) is pretty clearly Microsoft Office, and Microsoft isn't going to bundle Office or provide a break on an Office 365 subscription for purchasers of the device. From this perspective, the $199-299 Surface RT (which may have been discontinued) or the $450 Surface 2 look like much more economical ways to get access to most of the Microsoft Office suite. They each include Word, Excel, PowerPoint, desktop OneNote, and Outlook, and the Surface 2 adds the additional benefits of a 200GB SkyDrive storage subscription and Skype premium for two years. If you don't need an active stylus, one of Microsoft's own RT devices is probably going to be the most economical way to get Microsoft Office.
What Microsoft will need to do is emphasize really heavily that when you buy a Surface Pro 3 instead of a Surface 2, your extra money toward memory, processor horsepower, a significantly upgraded display, and the trade-off between convenient tablet size and more productive desktop experience are worthwhile, and still convincingly suggest that it's an appropriate "tablet." Otherwise, what they're selling is a laptop that just doesn't work on your lap. This goes back to emphasizing the machine for markets where you're going to have a table available, or maybe where "lapability" involves ripping off the keyboard and using it as a pure slate tablet on your lap, with handwriting recognition or the on-screen keyboard. Handwriting recognition has long been one of Microsoft's strengths, after all.
The Verge's review definitely started by suggesting the reader think back a bit more than a decade, when Microsoft had released a tablet-focused version of Windows XP, and almost every vendor had a tablet on the market. The Surface Pro 3 is both Microsoft's ultimate competitor to the MacBook Air, and the ultimate realization of a Tablet PC vision that they've had for not just one but two whole decades, at least.
The question is whether or not Microsoft's (and the tech blog industry's) collective vision of post-PC and post-laptop computing are really relevant. There is no faster method of text entry than a keyboard on a laptop or desktop computer, and to my knowledge, nobody has come up with a real mainstream killer app for tablets. Probably the closest thing there is hand-written form filling (and there have always been industrial focused machines for that type of task) and document annotation. There are already better tablets (including one from Wacom) for artists, and unless your laptop is up for replacement, your usage patterns match up well with an ultrabook, and you do a lot of document annotation, a laptop may still make more sense than a Surface Pro 3 anyway.
Whether or not the Surface Pro 3 successfully executes either of these visions, and whether or not either is really relevant in an era where tablets for quick games and reading books are incredibly cheap and laptops that can get more than 12 hours of battery life are so inexpensive, is going to be the biggest question.
Microsoft has correctly identified the MacBook Air as competition for the Surface Pro 3, people have been making the comparison since the first Surface Pro was announced two years ago, which is what I think prompted Microsoft to target the MacBook Air how they have. At the default screen resolution, the Surface Pro 3 has a working space fairly comparable to the MacBook Air, approximately 1620x1080, which compares favorably to the 1440x900 work space on the 13-inch MacBook Air. This type of workspace should work really well for working on Office documents, web browsing, and other desktop tasks.
If I weren't saving to replace my ThinkPad T400 as my main computer with a new desktop, I would certainly be investigating the replacement of both the Surface RT (as my "everyday" tablet) and the ThinkPad T400 (as my living room World of Warcraft and longer-term travel computer) with a Surface Pro 3. By and large, my mobile computer usage patterns have me moving from table to table, and in the few instances where there was nothing other than a couch available, I have had some luck with the Surface RT on my lap anyway. I'm definitely aware of the trade-off between a tablet as small as the Surface RT and the Surface Pro 3, as well as a laptop as large and with as much operational flexibility as the ThinkPad T400 (dual hard disks and PCMCIA+ ExpressCard/54, anyone?), and a laptop-succeeding tablet like the Surface Pro 3.
I suppose ultimately that the decision will rest with an individual. The Surface Pro 3 has a respectable amount of computing horsepower, and it will be interesting to see what applications develop (or already exist, but need to be shown off) that make use of its particular combination of horsepower and portability. It’s not the best laptop, nor is it the best tablet, but it certainly is the best Surface yet, best at all the things Surfi are best at.