I have owned a Surface Pro 3 with 8GB RAM for several years now and it is a wonderful device. Mine is an odd duck with a 128GB drive and a 128GB micro-SD card in the available slot. Even though this is two generations back it is still a viable machine and I wouldn’t trade it in for any other tablet or laptop at this price point. As a laptop it is extremely portable without sacrificing power and is reasonably expandable via the USB port. As a tablet it is heavier than what you get in a iPad or similarly sized Android tablet but it uses a full-fledged PC operating system so it is much more powerful than either of those. Plus here it appears you are also getting the Type Cover and the Surface Pen for the included price, which is a deal.
In the name of full disclosure, I have had two troubling issues with my SP3 over the years, both of which were problematic at the time but both have been solved. MS has a healthy community where you can find lots of good advice and answers. The first issue was with an unresponsive touch screen (after one of Microsoft’s famous updates). That was corrected by an updated driver from the screen manufacturer and running a reset/calibration program also provided by them. The second issue was loss of connection with the Surface Pen, which I thought was because it was just getting old and was due. However, after I bought a replacement pen (non-OEM) I found that it was a corruption issue with the display adapter and simply disabling it and rebooting the unit (which re-enabled it and allowed the pen to work as normal) solved the problem. And now I have a spare aftermarket pen…
I know these seem like pretty steep prices for what you get these days, but once you experience a Surface (especially the Pro) it’s very hard to go back to a regular laptop.
Same here! Was considering spending $600 to have a spare
Man this is crazy. I’m not up-to-date with current pricing structures, but I can vouch that when the SP3 was released, I paid over $2,000 for the 256GB/8GB model, then had to buy a type cover and pen separately. It was worth the money then, and I’m considering trying to talk my wife into getting this one!
I also purchased this keyboard and man, it was a game changer!
I need a small laptop to code on. Can the ram be expanded beyond 8GB?
Nope, it’s soldered to the board.
+1, Surfaces are awesome. I manage IT where I work and we have 20+ SP3 or SP4. We’re going to all surfaces in time, at this price I would recommend it as a replacement for any PC that is even remotely slow. I operate from my now 3 year old SP3 and have yet to experience any PC slowness. Runs like day 1 and my disk is almost full.
I’m glad you all are tickled pink by your Surface Pros, we’ve had the opposite experience at our workplace. Except for the creative and design people who need/want a machine with good tablet and drawing functionality, most have turned them in and asked for something else. The reason almost everyone cites is the form factor. It’s too big to use effectively as a full time tablet too big to carry around and use the onscreen keyboard and the kickstand type cover combo is useless when not using on a large sturdy flat surface. It can’t be used with the type cover on a plane tray, doesn’t work well on the arm of a couch, laying on a bed or in ones lap. Right now at the Microcenter near me you can get refurbished with 1 year warranty Dell Inspirons with 8th gen i7s, 8 gigs of ram and 250 GB SSD for $550 and have a device with a lot more power and the ram and storage is easily upgradeable.
I’m an IT Guy and we’ve had purchased every single line of Surface Products brand new from a Microsoft Store located in my state. I Really hate to disparage a sale or a specific item but SP3’s are historically faulty for a variety of reasons.
- Sync Issues with Keyboard (Any keyboard)
- Non responsive Touch screen
- Load up issues bricking the device.
- WIFI Service failing entirely on device.
Every other generation of the Surface has been an amazing. The Original Surface Pro’s are indestructible in terms of their durability. The SP4 and the new Surface PRO run extremely well and reliable but our line of dozens of SP3’s encountered nothing but problems.
TL;DR - SP3 bad, all other Surface products (Including the Book)… good.
I have a Surface Pro 4. Haven’t had any problems with it. I can’t say that I type a lot on a plane, but with the built-in adjustable stand, it’s perfect for watching movies. Laptops are usually too deep for the screen to be at the right angle. Unless you are in the “more leg room” seats.
You can use it in your lap or in bed. You can put it into either desktop mode (using the type cover) or put it into tablet mode (touchscreen). It’s definitely not meant to be an iPad or android tablet, it’s meant to be a more portable laptop. Personally, I use mine mostly for traveling + a Kindle eReader.
I do remember when researching the Pro 4 vs the Pro 3 that people had problems with the Surface Pro 3. But I think that firmware updates resolved most of the problems. What most people don’t realize is that the OS updates from Microsoft doesn’t apply firmware updates. You need to go to to the link below and update them manually.
Surface Pro 3 Firmware & Drivers
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=38826
We purchased 60+ of these for school administrators 3+ years ago. They have been nearly issue-free. I personally have used the same one for this entire time. It’s on my desk connected to dual monitors/keyboard/mouse through the MS Surface dock approx 50% of the time, and on the road with me throughout the district for the rest of the time. It’s been rock-solid, absolutely zero lost days due to problems. The only slight issue was the cloth-like covering on the keyboard wearing thin after 3 years. As a plus, it gave me a reason to get the updated keyboard that has nicer keys (the photo here shows the keyboard I’m currently using).
The form factor hasn’t been an issue. I use it on planes - not perfect, but usable. And not many of us are laying around on couches using them, but cheers if that’s your workplace!
EDIT: the photo that shows the tablet w/ keyboard is the newer keyboard. The lower photo that is only keyboard is the older model. Not sure which one is bundled here.