Microsoft Surface 3 review
Will it be third time lucky for Microsoft's Surface?
The Microsoft Surface 3 is comfortably the best of the lower-cost Surface hybrids to date. The sum of improvements made to the hardware, both in the tablet part and the keyboard, and full Windows 8.1’s flexibility make it a very workable portable companion to a more powerful desk-bound laptop or desktop.
-
+
Good screen quality; greatbattery life; strong removable keyboard
-
-
Low CPU and storage performance; limited RAM; Fiddly to use on lap
Another impressive feat of industrial design in the keyboard is the backlight, adjustable using a keyboard shortcut. Few laptops at the price have keyboard backlights, a sign that with the Surface 3, a buyer benefits from higher-end features that have dripped down to entry-level.
Display
The screen is another good example of this. The Surface 3's display is 10.8 inches across and 1,920 x 1,280 pixels in resolution. This is the 3:2 equivalent of 1080p, and gets the tablet very good, if not quite iPad Air-grade, sharpness.
This is easiest' resolution Microsoft could have chosen too. Higher-resolution QHD-or-greater Windows laptops and tablets often suffer from scaling issues, Windows 8.1 doesn't deal with the problem as elegantly as OS X. Every application will have been made with 1080p screens in mind, largely sidestepping the issue.
While the tablet is not designed to accept all that many non-native resolutions at full screen, it will handle 1080p fullscreen apps perfectly well. In this instance, the Surface 3 simply puts small black bars above and below the screen area.
-
Russian hackers are weaponizing CRMs, Ukraine’s former foreign minister warnsNews Dr Dmytro Kuleba told IT leaders in London that everyday business software is being actively exploited by nation-states
-
Enterprises are shipping huge volumes of untested AI-generated code – experts warn it will cause major security issues and have huge financial repercussionsNews With speed routinely prioritized over quality, organizations often respond by taking shortcuts
-
Microsoft says its Majorana 2 chip was built using AI – and it helped deliver huge performance gainsNews The Majorana 2 quantum chip was developed with the help of the Microsoft Discovery platform
