Surface 3 review: Smaller, slower, cheaper… better?

To understand the Surface 3, you must first understand the Surface Pro 3.

The Surface 3 is not the third Surface. It’s not a successor to the Surface RT released in 2012 or 2013’s Surface 2. Those systems used ARM processors and could not run common-or-garden Windows desktop software.

In many ways, these devices exacerbated all the flaws found in Windows 8. The operating system had a decent enough touch interface, but it was desperately incomplete, forcing the use of the Windows desktop interface even if you were trying to use fingers and the on-screen keyboard. The ARM devices took it a step further: the only third-party applications they supported came through the Windows Store and offered those same finger-friendly interfaces—but they also included Office, in all its finger-unfriendly glory, running on the Windows desktop. They took Windows 8’s awkward hybridity and turned it up to 11. As Nigel Tufnel might have put it, “it’s one worse.”

The Surface 3’s heredity is, instead, the Surface Pro line. The Surface Pro and the Surface Pro 2 were both somewhat clumsy. They had the same basic form factor and concept as the Surface RT and Surface 2, but these were thicker, louder, heavier, and hotter tablets. They packed in x86 processors. What they lost in portability and longevity, however, they made up for in versatility. The processors meant that they could run more or less any Windows application ever written, and their integrated stylus support won them praise from both OneNote fans and digital artists.

Nonetheless, these were still strange machines. Their screens in particular were sized for a tablet: a 10-inch screen is a decent size when hand-held, but it was awfully small when using the Windows desktop.

Last year’s Surface Pro 3 delivered an altogether more coherent design. It was still clearly related to the Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2, but with the Pro 3, Microsoft tailored the design to play to the strengths of the older models. The screen was made bigger, with a 12-inch diagonal. This might not sound much, but it greatly increased the comfort when using desktop applications. The aspect ratio of the screen was also changed, from 16:9 to 3:2. This made the device feel more natural when used with the pen.

The Surface Pro 3 still isn’t the device for everyone, and its form factor isn’t perfect for every occasion. But it’s nonetheless a solid device that has found a growing number of fans. If you mostly work at a desk but still need portability because it’s not always the same desk, or if you want a tablet some of the time but need a laptop’s power all of the time—the Surface Pro 3 makes sense.

In being a better desktop workhorse, however, the Surface Pro 3 gave some things up. While its size is small for a laptop, it’s relatively oversized for a tablet. It’s relatively expensive for a tablet. And its battery life, while not horrible, isn’t exactly tablet-spec. It has a fan and gets quite warm.

The Surface 3 is just a cheaper, smaller, lighter, slower version of the Surface Pro 3. It has an x86 processor, it runs full Windows 8.1, it supports a stylus, it has a 3:2 aspect ratio, and there’s a docking station for plugging it in to extra peripherals. It can do seemingly everything that the Surface Pro 3 can do. This tablet is just a little bit smaller, a little bit slower, and a little bit cheaper.

A now familiar design

For all the missteps, the one thing that Microsoft truly nailed with the Surface line has been build quality. They feel like quality devices. The Surface 3 is no exception; it still has a magnesium alloy body, it still has a surprisingly sturdy kickstand, it still has neatly beveled edges. The front is once again all glass, and again the glass is optically bonded to the LCD panel, eliminating the air gap that would otherwise exist. This construction both enhances rigidity and improves the pen experience by ensuring that the digital ink appears as close as possible to the pen tip.

The Surface 3 is the thinnest and lightest Surface yet. It’s one hundredth of an inch thinner than the Surface 2 and 0.12lb lighter. While not quite iPad Air 2 thin or light, it’s nonetheless thin and light, and it’s much more comfortable as a tablet.

The 10.8-inch screen, with its peculiar 1920×1280 resolution and 3:2 aspect ratio, is a fine unit, what we’ve come to expect from the Surface line. It’s bright, blacks are black, and there’s no discernible color shift when viewed at an angle.

The default 150 percent scaling provides a decent trade-off between legibility and interface density.

This is a really nice screen, but there’s no escaping the awkwardness that prompted Microsoft to make the screen of the Surface Pro 3 larger: 10.8 inches is quite small for using the Windows desktop. That’s not to say it’s unusable or anything like that. With the default scaling (it’s set to 150 percent, effectively 1280×853), text is beautifully crisp and readable, and the resolution is high enough that application toolbars and such are reasonably sized (they don’t take up too much of the screen) while still being able to display in full (no hidden buttons to shrink them down to size or anything like that). But it’s all a little smaller than I found comfortable, forcing me to sit a little closer to the screen than preferred.

This kind of thing is inevitable, of course. There’s no way to square a circle. Smaller screens are cheaper and more portable; larger ones are easier to read.

Look closely and you’ll notice four ways in which the Surface 3 isn’t just a miniature Surface Pro 3.

The biggest difference is the kickstand: it’s a three-position kickstand instead of the continuously variable kickstand in the Surface Pro 3 and the two-position kickstand in the Surface 2. This configuration sacrifices some flexibility in the name of lower prices, and the trade-off actually feels OK. The three positions more or less cover the two extremes of the range of positions that the variable hinge offers. There’s a far back position that’s ideal for using the pen, a fairly upright laptop-like position, and an in-between position.

The kickstand has three positions, ranging from this fairly upright posture….

The kickstand has three positions, ranging from this fairly upright posture….

… to this laid-back pose.

… to this laid-back pose.

… to this laid-back pose.

The screen is really tilted quite far back when it’s in its most reclined position. I believe this is meant to be nice when drawing and writing with the pen.

The other side has the USB and charging ports.

Yet another new Surface charger. This time, the connector is plain old micro-USB.

The next big difference is the long-overdue abandonment of the proprietary magnetic charging port. Surface 3 uses a regular micro-USB port for charging. The Surface 3 charger can now charge a phone, and conversely, a phone charge can charge the Surface 3. Surface 3’s own charger is relatively high power (at 13W) for fast charging, but lower power charges should still work (it even charged from my PC’s USB hub). I was disappointed to see that the charger itself doesn’t have a USB port of its own; the Surface Pro line lets the charger serve double duty as a charger for the Surface Pro itself and a phone or a tablet. As someone who can always do with more USB charging, this is a pity.

The Surface 3, like all other Surfaces, also has a full USB port. Unfortunately, Microsoft is still bound by the laws of physics, so you can’t charge the Surface 3 from its own USB port.

A couple of devices have recently come to market—the new Chromebook Pixel and the MacBook—with the new USB Type C for their charging ports. USB Type C is the future, and it’s inevitably going to proliferate… but as of right now, virtually nobody uses it. For good or ill, micro type B ports (and cables) remain abundant. As such, Microsoft probably made the more convenient trade-off. There’s little point in engineering a system that’s able to charge from any old phone charger and then using a port that phone chargers can’t plug into. No matter what, the transition to USB Type C is going to be an annoying one, and there’s going to be a lengthy period during which people need all kinds of adaptors. I’m comfortable right now with sticking to micro-USB; that might not be the case a year down the line.

Like the Surface 2 and RT, and unlike the Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2, the Surface 3 has no gaps around the edge. That’s because it has no fan, so it doesn’t need the air vents. This is another feature that bolsters its tablet credentials; we simply don’t expect tablets to include fans or air vents. The reason is the processor on the inside: the Intel Atom x7-Z8700 is a 2W part, and hence it only needs passive cooling.

The rear of the machine also has a stylistic difference: the Microsoft logo on the back is shiny polished steel.

The Microsoft badge is now shiny.

The cameras, 8MP rear and 3.5MP front, seem competent. The speakers, which have some kind of Dolby tech involved, are better than average.

Front-facing camera.

Front-facing camera.

Rear camera, indoors.

Rear camera, indoors.

Rear camera, outdoors.

Rear camera, outdoors.

Rear camera, indoors.

Rear camera, outdoors.

The keyboards are starting to grow on me

The feature that defines the Surface, even more so than its kickstand, is the keyboard cover. Microsoft has always positioned the Surface line as more productive than other tablets, and having a first-party keyboard/touchpad has been key to this positioning. The keyboard cover is what makes the Surface line somewhat competitive with laptops. Not perfect substitutes, since laptops’ stiff hinges still have advantages in some use cases, but competitive, especially for users who only ever plan to use the devices on desks and tables.

The Surface 3 uses the latest iteration of Microsoft’s clicky keyboard cover, the Type Cover. The membrane-style flat Touch Covers are no more. Although they always worked better than one ever expected them to work, the proper keys on the Type Covers have always been superior.

The keyboard layout has been slightly altered, making keys such as Print Screen and Insert easier to use.

For a small keyboard, the Type Cover is remarkably good. The keys are a little narrower than those of the Surface Pro 3 due to the system’s smaller size, but not so small as to harm typing accuracy or speed. The keys don’t have the longest action, as you’d expect from the thinness of the cover, but it’s crisp and positive. The backlight is attractive, too, enhancing readability without dazzling (contrast this with the HP Spectre x360, which was a fine laptop, but it had the worst backlight implementation we’ve seen for a long time).

The Surface Pro 3 introduced a magnetic strip that allows the keyboard to be slightly propped up instead of slightly flat. The Surface 3 retains this strip, and it helps make the keyboard comfortable. I’ve certainly used proper laptops with worse keyboards.

The keyboard layout itself has been slightly updated as well. The fanciest feature is the Fn button. The Fn button now automatically acts as an Fn-lock; tapping it toggles the option on and off. It has an integrated indicator to show its status. For one-off access to the alternate set of F-key functions, pressing Fn plus the F-key works without changing the Fn-lock status. I’m a little surprised that I’ve not seen this style of Fn key before, since most systems need a particular combo for Fn-lock but few have an Fn-lock indicator light. It makes a lot of sense, so other manufacturers may start to copy Microsoft here.

The layout itself has also changed. Specifically, some of the F-key alternate functions have been switched. The four Windows 8 charm options have been replaced with Print Screen, keyboard backlight brightness controls, and Insert. It’s a much better layout.

While the keyboard aspect to the Type Covers has always been solid, the touchpads have always felt weak, primarily due to the small size of the touchpad. The Surface 3 Type Cover touchpad is… well it’s not bad, actually. It’s still unavoidably small, but it’s responsive, with a good click action and a smooth glassy surface (I didn’t hate it). Scrolling and right-click gestures were accurately detected, and palm rejection was effective. It’s also a precision touchpad, so it supports the standard set of Windows 8 gestures. Having used Surface systems off and on since their introduction, it’s fair to say that I’m quite accustomed to their foibles. I’m sure this familiarity has helped with touchpad use, but this is a touchpad that one can get used to and live with.

The other input mechanism is the screen. The touch capabilities have been upgraded relative to the old ARM Surfaces, as it can detect ten fingers, up from five. More significantly, the screen includes the N-Trig digitizer as used in the Surface Pro 3. Accordingly, the Surface 3 is compatible with Surface Pro 3 pens. I’m not an artist and have no meaningful insight into whether it’s good enough for artwork. I can say that the pen tracking felt quick and accurate, and OneNote users will enjoy using the Surface 3 as a digital notepad.

Cherry Trail powered

This was in spite of the biggest difference there is between the Surface 3 and Surface Pro 3: the use of a Cherry Trail Intel Atom x7-Z8700 processor instead of the Haswell Core i5-4300U (and its faster and slower siblings) in the Surface Pro 3.

Make no mistake: the Atom processor is a lot slower than the Haswells (or the Broadwells found in 2015 model year computers). It has a tiny 2W TDP (hence the elimination of the fan), but it gives up performance relative to the “big” Intel chips. Be under no illusions: this is not a CAD machine or a gaming rig.

But it’s not horrible. For browsing, common day-to-day chores in Office, and taking notes in OneNote, the processor is up to the task. Benchmarks give a sense of the performance, and they show that in an absolute sense, the Cherry Trail Atom isn’t super quick. This is the first Cherry Trail system to come to market. The 14nm processor should offer a small improvement in CPU speed and a larger improvement in GPU speed when compared to its Bay Trail predecessors.

That the Surface 3 gives up performance compared to PCs with hotter, hungrier processors is no surprise. More surprising is that it’s giving up a lot of performance relative to the processor in the iPad. The gap isn’t too big in multithreaded workloads, with the quad core Atom being in the same ballpark as the tri-core A8X in the iPad Air 2, but in both singlethreaded and GPU workloads, the Apple custom processor is far ahead.

The Surface 3’s storage is also slow, apparently using the SD interface rather than the SATA or PCIe found in laptops. Our test system had the 128GB disk (and 4GB RAM—the two go hand in hand) but we’d expect the 64GB version to work similarly.

The comparison with the iPad processor is awkward, though. Here’s the thing: if you wanted to, you could install, say, Visual Studio on the Surface 3. You can’t do that on an iPad, no matter how well it scores in benchmarks. I tried it out. Building the Boost C++ library using the Visual Studio 2013 compilers on Surface 3 took about 30 minutes. The Surface Pro 3, with its faster processor and faster disk, managed it in about 11 minutes. But the Surface 3 could still do it. It worked. The Surface 3 isn’t going to be the best developer workstation ever made, but it will be a functional one. I’ve done real, paying work on slower machines. Is this good enough for a student machine, a cheap spare system, or a highly portable system for taking on the road? Without a doubt, especially in the 4GB iteration.

The processor even supports the VT-x virtualization extensions, so it could be used to host virtual machines in Hyper-V or VMware. Unfortunately, the Surface 3’s firmware turns VT-x off and offers no ability to turn it back on. Microsoft tells us this is something that the company is looking into. While the machine will obviously never be a VM-hosting power house, the ability to fire up, for example, the Windows Phone emulator (which depends on Hyper-V) would have been neat.

Battery life also impressed. Microsoft estimates, vaguely, that the Surface 3 will do 10 hours of video playback or nine hours of Web browsing. Our Wi-Fi battery test appears to support this.

Surface Pro 3 Lite

In just about every sense, the Surface 3 is a Surface Pro 3 Lite. It’s smaller, lighter, slower, and cheaper. It will appeal to the same constituency that the Surface Pro 3 appeals to—OneNoters, digital artists, desk-bound mobile workers—but with markedly greater affordability and portability. It’s a slightly worse laptop than the Surface Pro 3 but a somewhat better tablet. Many people will be able to find it useful.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is lapability. That’s not because the Surface 3 finally fixes this long-standing gripe; a laptop with a stiff hinge is still better for use on your lap. Rather, this is a system that’s priced more or less as a (high-end) tablet or mediocre laptop, not an Ultrabook. As such, I never felt that I was using something less capable than comparably priced machines; in fact, the device felt like something more capable. Even if it isn’t quite as good at being a laptop as a real laptop, it’s much better at being a tablet, or at fitting in a backpack, or for watching movies on a plane, or as a sketchpad with a stylus. Using the Surface Pro 3, I always had a nagging sense of “I could get a nice Ultrabook for this money.” I couldn’t get something as nice as the Surface 3 for the money.

That utility is enhanced further still by the Surface 3 dock. I never actually used the dock for Surface Pro 3, as it was never available at the times I would be interested in it. The Surface 3 dock is, and stop me if this sounds familiar, a smaller version of the Surface Pro 3 dock. It adds two USB 2 ports, two USB 3 ports, gigabit Ethernet, mini DisplayPort, a headset jack, and a Kensington lock hole. The left-hand side is also magnetized, holding the pen safely when not in use.