Microsoft closed May 2014 with a pair of large announcements, the first of which was the unveiling of its Surface Pro 3. This computer arrived amid much fanfare and an aggressive marketing slogan that claims that it is supposed to “replace your laptop.” Of course, we’ve heard this before.
We have not yet gotten our hands on a Surface Pro 3 as of yet, but we are intrigued. This entertaining but informative review by the Wall Street Journal delivers insight on the pros and cons of this new product. The Surface Pro 1 and 2 exhibited some of the characteristics of a product that was good but probably not quite ready for the big time. The Type Cover was a key feature, as was the USB port, but the reliability of the touch-screen left a bit to be desired. These products seemed to be in an identity crisis: They wanted to be iPads in some respects and laptops in others. They ended up being neither, stuck in an awkward position of somewhere in the middle.
The Surface Pro 3, at least according to the rhetoric by Microsoft, has declared itself not as an iPad competitor, but instead as an ultrabook or MacBook Air competitor. As a reseller of many hardware components, we hope this device is more polished and fully cooked than its two predecessors, but from what we’ve seen so far, it looks pretty good.
It is another of several big moves made under Microsoft’s new Satya Nadella-led leadership. It will be interesting to see whether this is a temporary boost or whether Microsoft is indeed finally keeping pace with its competitors’ innovation again.