Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 23, 2014 3:55 AM ESTBattery Life
Microsoft made no sacrifice in battery capacity in pursuit of Surface Pro 3's thin chassis design. The new tablet features an integrated 42Wh battery just like the previous two models. Charging duties are handled by an external 31W charger with a brand new magnetic connector. Microsoft never seemed to get a good MagSafe clone working in the previous models, so Surface Pro 3 abandons the previous design entirely in favor of something a bit more sensible.
The new connector no longer looks like an oversized MagSafe connector, and instead features a thin plastic insert that mates with the charge port on Surface Pro 3. Charge time hasn't changed, you can fully charge the device in around 2.62 hours:
The device-side connector features 40 pins but you only need 12 of them to charge the device. The remaining pins are used for Gigabit Ethernet, USB, DisplayPort (up to 4096 x 2304) and audio. Microsoft seems hell bent on avoiding Thunderbolt at all costs so instead of embracing the standard it has created a custom alternative of its own doing. The benefit to Microsoft's connector is it can obviously deliver more power than Thunderbolt can, the downside is that it can't send PCIe and thus you don't get support for any ultra high bandwidth external storage devices. I still would rather see Microsoft implement Thunderbolt as there's at least an existing ecosystem built around that but here we are three generations into Surface and if we haven't seen it by now I don't think we're ever going to.
The supplied power adapter includes a USB charge port capable of delivering 1A at 5V.
As Surface Pro 3 is designed to be both a laptop and a tablet I've run it through both our Windows laptop battery life tests and our tablet battery life tests.
Laptop Battery Life
As a laptop, Surface Pro 3 delivers comparable battery life to other optimized Haswell ULT designs. I threw in Sony's Vaio Pro 13 into the mix because it has a similar sized battery (37Wh vs. 42Wh) and is one of the most power efficient Windows Ultrabook platforms on the market. Surface Pro 3 manages to deliver similar battery life, which means it's a little less power efficient but the two are within the same range at least.
Compared to Surface Pro 1 and 2, Surface Pro 3 at worst delivers similar battery life and at best increases range on a single charge by up to 20%. We're looking at 3.75 hours - 7.6 hours of notebook usage on a single charge depending on usage.
It's worth noting that there's a substantial advantage in battery life if we look at the 13-inch MacBook Air running OS X. I only mention this because of Microsoft's insistence on comparing Surface Pro 3 to Apple's popular line of notebooks.
Tablet Battery Life
Tablet workloads are going to be far more display power bound than anything else. Here we see 7.58 - 8.03 hours of continuous usage, a slight regression compared to Surface Pro 2. Video playback remains more power hungry than web browsing, which is something I've noted in previous tablet-evaluations of Intel's Core silicon. I don't believe Intel's Core processors are very optimized for video decode power consumption. If anything is going to change with the move to Broadwell and Core M I suspect video decode power may be it.
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name99 - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
"This used to be how people felt about Apple products."You mean back in the 90s when they were extremely unpopular?
MS appears to sell about a million SP's per quarter; Apple about 25 million per quarter. (Both rough numbers, but correct order of magnitude.)
Sure, I'm making a cheap shot, but the fact is that all this reviewer and internet love is not translating into substantial sales. There is no obvious reason to believe that SPro 3 significantly changes this dynamic --- basically it appeals to the same people who would have bought the first tow versions without adding a compelling improvement to bring new buyers into the fold.
kyuu - Wednesday, June 25, 2014 - link
As far as sales numbers go, I won't argue that the Surface line has been a huge commercial success. *However*, what has to be kept in mind is that the Surface line is simply one option in a crowded market of Windows-based laptops and tablets. On the other hand, all of Apple's products are the *only* option for those in Apple-land. Comparing the sales of *any* Windows OEM to Apple's sales is a flawed comparison.andrewaggb - Tuesday, June 24, 2014 - link
in 12-15 months there will likely be a surface pro 4 or 5.mtalinm - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
By far the best of the dozens of reviews I've read (laptopmag was also good). Most are biased. Recode was a complete joke.scbundy - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
I read the recode one. It was pretty horrible. Business Insider, which is essentially an Apple blog, posted a really awful one too. The review's major complaint was that when she was in a coffee shop, with the SP3 on her lap, that when she crossed her legs, it flipped shut cause it's top heavy. And her macbook air never did that.....ymcpa - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
At a coffee shop, I pretty sure she used the table and not her lap. I have never seen anyone use a laptop with their legs crossed. Have you? Also, if she lowered the kickstand, the surface wouldn't have flipped even with her legs crossed.Tigran - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
No Onscreen GPU test? Pro 3 screen resolution is 1.5 times higher than in Pro 2 (1,440 x 2,160 vs 1,080 x 1,920) - how to score the actual GPU performance on the device?jameskatt - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
Quote: Yet in a device like Surface Pro 3 where you're forced to rely on touch more thanks to a cramped trackpad, I'm often in a situation where I'm interacting with the Windows desktop using the touchscreen - a situation that rarely ends well.This says it all.
BPB - Monday, June 23, 2014 - link
When that situation arises on my 8" Windows tablet I use the pen. And for non-lap times I use a wireless mouse. In fact a use a wireless mouse for actual notebook use as well. I'd take the SP3 over anything if I could simply afford it. But any nice/high end notebook is going to be costly.mkozakewich - Monday, June 30, 2014 - link
I've actually gotten really good at pressing where I want with my fingers. I've used the assistive tools to show that white circle where I pressed, so I could learn where I pressed in relation to how my finger felt.The only problem is when I touch where I want, but Microsoft decides I probably meant to touch somewhere close by. If I could turn off that auto-adjustment feature, I'd have no problems.