Specs at a glance: Microsoft Surface 3 Screen 1920×1280 10.8" (213 PPI), 10-point capacitive touchscreen OS Windows 8.1 64-bit CPU 1.6GHz Intel Atom x7-Z8700 (up to 2.4GHz) RAM 2 or 4GB LPDDR3 1600 GPU 600MHz Intel HD Storage 64 or 128GB Networking 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0 Ports Mini-DisplayPort, headphones, microSDXC, USB 3, Cover port Size 10.52×7.36×0.34" Weight 1.37 lb Battery "9 hours of browsing" Warranty 1 year Starting price $499 (2GB RAM, 64GB storage) Price as reviewed $878.97 (4GB RAM, 128GB storage, Type Cover, Surface Pen, Surface 3 Dock) Sensor Ambient light sensor, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, 8MP rear camera, 3.5MP front camera Other perks 13 W charger

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.

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