Microsoft’s Surface computer, if you didn’t already know, is a tablet computer and a laptop in one, a hybrid of both that has definitely had its fair share of detractors for its first and second version.
The Microsoft Surface Pro 3 might finally have gotten it right however.
As a tablet it’s very similar to an iPad but even better, as the Surface Pro has a gorgeous 12 inch touchscreen which is full laptop-sized. It also has a “finger friendly” interface, a battery life of nine hours and a plethora of excellent full-screen apps. For reading e-books, surfing the web, watching movies and connecting on social media, it’s excellent.
As a laptop what the Surface Pro brings you is a platform that the iPad can only dream about, access to full blown Windows programs like Photoshop, Publisher, Quicken and much more.
Thanks to a couple of ingenious features, which have both been greatly improved in this third version, the Surface Pro 3 works excellently as a laptop.
It’s new and improved kickstand, which is invisible when closed, has a new friction hinge that lets you angle the Surface any way you like, including almost completely flat. It’s truly a feat of excellent engineering.
It’s wafer thin, felt lined screen cover is the second feature that makes the Surface Pro 3 a very good laptop. It not only has a full keyboard but also a trackpad on the inside as well. Unlike the Bluetooth add-on keyboard covers that you can purchase for the iPad, the Surface’s cover magnetically attaches and turns on instantly. It also is extremely well designed, thinner and lighter, and the trackpad is now smoother and more solid with light up keys.
It doesn’t stop there however as the far edge of the new cover has a half inch fold that magnetically fastens to the Surface’s tablet, putting the keyboard at an angle, stabilizing everything and imitating a real keyboard much better. What this does is, for the first time, allow the Surface Pro 3 to be used on a person’s lap and, although it’s not perfect, it works quite well.
What all of this new technology does is allow you to transform your Surface Pro 3 tablet, with very little added weight or thickness, into an actual laptop that’s high-end, fast and powerful.
The new Surface Pro 3 also comes with a stylus that works very well and, even when it’s asleep, you can click the top button on the stylus to open it directly into OneNote if you need to jot something down quickly, like a phone or confirmation number. We only wish that there was some type of socket for the stylus to be stored somewhere.
If you’d like to find out more about what we believe is an excellent computer hybrid, please make sure to come back and join us for Part 2.