Yesterday was an important day for Microsoft. With the announcement of the Surface Pro 3, Redmond is continuing to show that they’re in this for the long-haul and perhaps more importantly, they’re actively improving upon their previous work. A Surface Mini was not revealed as expected, but it sounds like for good reason, including the possibility of it contradicting the “one device to rule them all” message. Sitting in the same room with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Stephen Elop and the who’s who in tech media, it was fascinating to watch Panos Panay – the corporate vice president for Surface Computing at Microsoft – take the stage and sell us on the idea of the Surface Pro 3. Soon after the now familiar promo ad for the device, the audience cheered and enthusiastically clapped. It was an odd thing because it felt genuine; people were seriously excited about this announcement. Best VPN providers 2020: Learn about ExpressVPN, NordVPN & more Fast forward 24 hours and most of the ‘new tech high’ has worn off, and a few of us who have the Surface Pro 3 are digging deep into this new creation. Being sold on the idea is one thing, but using it and actually liking it is another. While it’s much too early for a review, here are some of my first thoughts on the Surface Pro 3 and Microsoft’s chances of success with it.

It’s really well built All of Microsoft’s Surfaces have so far felt very premium, and the Surface Pro 3 is no different. Machined parts, no wobble or creaks, the Surface Pro 3 feels the price it fetches. The Surface Pro 3 isn’t meant to compete with budget computers; it’s an all-in-one, high-end, high quality device that demonstrates the best of Microsoft. Here, I think it succeeds. I love the color My favorite device up until now has been the Surface 2 and Surface 2 with LTE. Part of the appeal was the metallic grey color, because I just find black boring. Making the Surface Pro 3 in that same color scheme makes the device stand out. It’s also less dreary. It’s light and it’s heavy The Surface Pro 3 weighs 1.7 pounds. That’s on the heavy side for a pure tablet (versus 1.44 pounds for iPad Retina; just 1.0 pound for iPad Air), but it’s not prohibitively heavy. By that I mean it still feels good to hold, partly due to it being so thin. Is it too much tablet? Maybe, but it’s not as silly as the Lenovo Yoga and flipping that to be a tablet. The Surface Pro 3 at least feels like a legit tablet on its own and dare I say, it feels more tablet-y than the Surface Pro 2 too. But if you think of the Surface Pro 3 as a laptop, it’s very light (MacBook Air is 2.38 pounds by comparison at 11 inches; 2.96 pounds at 13 inches). When tossing it in my Ultrabook shoulder bag, I’m reminded just how light it is when compared to even standard Ultrabooks these days. The new kickstand is great Having a kickstand on a tablet was nice (Surface gen 1); having two positions was better (gen 2), but having an almost infinite amount of positions is the best. The kickstand has always been the cornerstone of the Surface series, and it’s one of the main reasons I’ll choose it over a Lumia 2520 any day. It will be fascinating to see how long this new hinge lasts. I will say it’s very stiff, so stiff that you feel like you may break it off at first. Good problem to have, I suppose.

The pen holder is awkward As you could tell from Mark’s earlier article, the pen holder is a bit odd. Having said that, I’m not sure what else Microsoft could do to resolve this issue. They can’t put the pen into the device (it’s already too thin and packed too tightly) and the pen is too unique to abandon. C’est la vie. It’s fast Running an Intel Core i5-4300 (1.9-2.5 GHz), it’s easily the fastest Surface I’ve used. I couldn’t imagine the Core i7, though I assume some of you need that much horsepower. For me, for now, I’ll take the extra bump in battery life. Seeing as how fast the Core i5 feels, I have high hopes for the cheaper Core i3, which is good for those of you on a budget. Battery life seems legit No, I haven’t performed any battery tests*, but from using it all day and having hordes of people ogle it all night, it still had 30% by midnight. It doesn’t feel like I need to monitor the battery on the Surface Pro 3, which is a good thing. We’ll see though how that holds up over the next few days. *Microsoft rates the battery life at about 9 hours for web-browsing Front-facing speakers are awesome Nokia got the front-facing speakers rights on the Lumia 2520, so I’m glad to see Microsoft follow suit. Having stereo speakers produce sound aimed at your face is the only way to go. In fact, it feels downright silly to have speakers on the sides. Considering these are supposed to be 45% more powerful than the last version, they’re exciting. They won’t shake the room, but they will envelope you when using the Surface.