Well, at least it is better than before, when people bought a Surface tablet expecting it to run regular x86 desktop applications, because Windows. Having nearly the same name (Surface RT vs. Surface Pro) didn't really help.

For what it's worth, I had the fraying problem on my old MacBook Air charter too.

Indeed. With the January update to GPU drivers, the SP3 is able to drive a 4k monitor @ 60Hz while still having the built-in display on, also @ 60Hz.

Not all 4k monitors though, only the older, MST ones.

See https://www.reddit.com/r/Surface/comments/2v7te8/reduce_cpu_...

For gaming, get an USB fan.

Yes, this has been happening to me as well for the past week or so. Also on Chrome latest.

It may not actually be a problem at all. CPUs can run safely up to ~70C or so, which is 160F. This means thin tablets are becoming constrained by what you can safely touch, rather than what is safe for the CPU.

http://www.colorado.edu/engineering/MCEN/MCEN5166/supplement...

This non-pro is Atom-based. I like to say while the i3/5/7 are optimized for price/performance, the Atoms are optimized for low thermal dissipation (which can be painful if you spend your day in Eclipse).

But if the Pro is mediocre, that doesn't speak well of the plain 3...

Pro 2 user here, and to better understand it for work reasons, I made it primary machine for over 8 Hurst / day since last April. Until I guessed I had reached the point no software updates were likely.

I am genuinely disappointed.

Despite the initial impression of execution was positive enough for me to have a eight week or so honeymoon. I think the idea has legs longer term.

For me, of many many issues I encountered, it is IE tablet / touch version which has been become what in hindsight ought to be a showstopper.

There is no alternative for touch use without contortions.

Yet IE left to far too much grief.

I guess here nobody will freak if I had 50 or more tabs open. Not a usual search decision list to keep handy.

But without respite, IE would seize and redraw, reload no matter how cache sized (which pretty much needs a trip to the registry) and commonly crash.

I was heavily reliant on a 3G mifi connection during most of this time.

It is beyond my comprehension how a browser in theory close to OS that knows I am using a metered connection in particular with long latency, can be shipped with a addiction to cache miss reloads.

I would close down tabs carefully and exit IE (touch).

Reboot and ....

The entire past session and even sometimes earlier sessions would reload.

I found that bookmarks did not store or persist.

It just goes on and on from there.

This is merely the highlight commentary.

But within nearly 80 single spaced pages of description, not solely concerning IE behavior, I realized I had been building a "not fit for purpose" complaint.

I did not exclusively encounter the IE problems with only a few tab open, either.

I actually do think that the shipping state of the Pro 2 would, if I had understood beforehand, guaranteed I did not purchase it.

I don't maintain a web presence or have access to a appropriate place to publish my extensive review. But I am thinking what to do about that, right now.

Although I speak very casually about what ought to touch upon different memory models for touch aps from Metro thinking, the process sumps I ran, API monitoring, attempts at querying NTFS to find "lost" writes and a determined effort to seek out any possible corruption of the SSD writes.... all of which were reasons in terms of finding free time which delayed my formal complaint so far beyond when I first became incredibly frustrated, I hope I may be permitted here a modicum of credibility that I did at least have a fair go at figuring out anything that might be otherwise wrong.

I very much like this format.

This new 3 might be just the ticket for lightweight moments needing a x86 device I can carry substitute another tablet.

Yet, the sad ending to this, is that in my private but professionally minded quest to bring a 5th decade brain out of atrophy and into the current device world, this is the punching:

I bought a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact.

For everything I commonly did with my Surface Pro 2, exception anything requiring long concentration, I suddenly found myself using the Z3c for entire days and continue to in cactuses it primarily.

Even when I have a environment up to write and edit, how exactly can it not plain suck to be fighting with a browser when piling through API refs or SO to check out whichever. That was simply a concentration breaker.

I probably will check out the new one as above.

But I have rarely found anything so frustrating in primary use as intended or advertised....\

And I get done faster with my Z3c, for too many tasks.

I almost feel bad at the tome I am about to dump on Microsoft, but I felt strongly enough about the potential utility to me of this device format, I am not writing any consumer report complaint. I very much want my observations, which had me regularly disrupted from my flow even of corridor meetings, to be appreciated. I am to concerned by my experience to plump for a new model without most definitely being certain I can get refund after sufficient time to go the necessary test distance. And absolutely no way will I let myself think a future update will solve anything.

That last point, the confidence that updates will resolve glaring problems, is the kind of issue that would have me shut the entire teams to standstill (per Toyota System) until this was understood.

At present, the market for any Surface is small and tolerant and sophisticated. But this is if unsolved, a PR problem that could shut down regular consumer retail dead.

I may exaggerate, and as well two years ago I thought neither Lumina WP nor Android phones (I tested a variety from mid to flagship) were persuasive, but the change in experience since then has blown my mind. Still yet so much I would do on WP or 'Droid. But the complete experience is entirely impressive. Not only that, but my very elderly family members who are most immune to me thrusting new toys into their hands in ever desperate attempts to connect our diaspora family, are finally impressed. Because above all the response of apps is good enough to prevent a kind of "Senior Valley" in which UX and app latency makes them just pause enough to think they "did it wrong".

The story will continue nevertheless.... it feels like the second or wherever we are counting, Act, is not the dramatic finale but having introduced the Dramatis Personae, we are getting some action sufficient to appreciate full blown characters.

Pro 2 user here, and to better understand it for work reasons, I made it primary machine for over 8 Hurst / day since last April. Until I guessed I had reached the point no software updates were likely.

I am genuinely disappointed.

Despite the initial impression of execution was positive enough for me to have a eight week or so honeymoon. I think the idea has legs longer term.

For me, of many many issues I encountered, it is IE tablet / touch version which has been become what in hindsight ought to be a showstopper.

There is no alternative for touch use without contortions.

Yet IE left to far too much grief.

I guess here nobody will freak if I had 50 or more tabs open. Not a usual search decision list to keep handy.

But without respite, IE would seize and redraw, reload no matter how cache sized (which pretty much needs a trip to the registry) and commonly crash.

I was heavily reliant on a 3G mifi connection during most of this time.

It is beyond my comprehension how a browser in theory close to OS that knows I am using a metered connection in particular with long latency, can be shipped with a addiction to cache miss reloads.

I would close down tabs carefully and exit IE (touch).

Reboot and ....

The entire past session and even sometimes earlier sessions would reload.

I found that bookmarks did not store or persist.

It just goes on and on from there.

This is merely the highlight commentary.

But within nearly 80 single spaced pages of description, not solely concerning IE behavior, I realized I had been building a "not fit for purpose" complaint.

I did not exclusively encounter the IE problems with only a few tab open, either.

I actually do think that the shipping state of the Pro 2 would, if I had understood beforehand, guaranteed I did not purchase it.

I don't maintain a web presence or have access to a appropriate place to publish my extensive review. But I am thinking what to do about that, right now.

Although I speak very casually about what ought to touch upon different memory models for touch aps from Metro thinking, the process sumps I ran, API monitoring, attempts at querying NTFS to find "lost" writes and a determined effort to seek out any possible corruption of the SSD writes.... all of which were reasons in terms of finding free time which delayed my formal complaint so far beyond when I first became incredibly frustrated, I hope I may be permitted here a modicum of credibility that I did at least have a fair go at figuring out anything that might be otherwise wrong.

I very much like this format.

This new 3 might be just the ticket for lightweight moments needing a x86 device I can carry substitute another tablet.

Yet, the sad ending to this, is that in my private but professionally minded quest to bring a 5th decade brain out of atrophy and into the current device world, this is the punching:

I bought a Sony Xperia Z3 Compact.

For everything I commonly did with my Surface Pro 2, exception anything requiring long concentration, I suddenly found myself using the Z3c for entire days and continue to in cactuses it primarily.

Even when I have a environment up to write and edit, how exactly can it not plain suck to be fighting with a browser when piling through API refs or SO to check out whichever. That was simply a concentration breaker.

I probably will check out the new one as above.

But I have rarely found anything so frustrating in primary use as intended or advertised....\

And I get done faster with my Z3c, for too many tasks.

I almost feel bad at the tome I am about to dump on Microsoft,

But given that it only has one USB port, I'm not surprised that Microsoft chose not to ship something that would basically require an adapter.

I imagine they are shaving pennies to keep cost down without giving up quality, but I wonder what the added cost would be to have two USB ports? (And how much extra the new USB parts would cost?)

Until then? It's not a computer. This is.

Seems like it doesn't have a fan, but until someone actually tests the device there is no real way to know if it will overheat or not.

But seriously, Microsoft has some of the worst advertising period. I cannot think of a major company which is worse than Microsoft at advertising in general.

[1] https://youtu.be/1jP4O7rEHQ8

[2] http://www.ispot.tv/ad/75ZE/microsoft-surface-2-teacher

> So the Surface 3 looks about right.

You realize this has much lower performance, and most likely won't give you the same experience, right?

EDIT: Sorry, I get it now, this is the non-Pro version. I'd gone right to Amazon from a link here and it gave me the Surface 2 vs the Pro 3

It's true that Microsoft doesn't allow alternative rendering engines on WinRT, but it is ARM instead of x86, so there is a technical component; Google would have to port Chrome.

http://penny-arcade.com/news/post/2014/05/23/surface-pro-3

Check it out - http://www.wacom.com/en-us/products/pen-displays/cintiq-comp...

http://blogs.windows.com/bloggingwindows/2015/03/16/how-wind...

I've found 2gb to be perfectly usable with Win7 and 8, Chrome's voracious appetite for memory would be a sticking point, except I've noticed that it does a better job of managing itself when RAM is limited. Chrome runs just fine on 1gb Chromebooks despite having just 768-512mb available most of the time. I will say that the Atom processor is a concern with Chrome even though I know the latest versions are roughly 2-3x more powerful than the Pineview dual core I had in my old Dell netbook. Chrome routinely maxed out the processor on every page load while Firefox and IE never needed more than 25% of the available CPU horsepower. Tripling the available power would eliminate the 5 second lockups I experienced but it could still be a slow, stuttery user experience.

Windows installs themselves or with other software installed? The latter makes sense but I've never seen anywhere close in the former. 32GB would be a bad idea but 64GB I think is fine for the majority of people.

That really depends on your use case.

I've been using the Asus Vivotab Note 8 for several months (2gb/64gb), and I haven't even come close to feeling a need to put an SD card in it yet. I use it as a complement to my laptop. Mostly for consumption, communication and note-taking with OneNote. I don't think you'd want to do any heavy lifting on an Atom-based machine -- you'd be better off with a Pro in that case.

I'd love to see Microsoft release a Surface Mini with that Surface Pen. Having a Wacom pen on my Vivotab is great, except at the edges.

I may end up replacing my t100 with the 128 GB surface 3, especially given the small price difference.

If you're a Pro, then buy a Pro or get a MacBook Pro and VM Windows.

But as just a tablet, this is _close_ to a great deal (I think they can do better and probably will drop the price by the holidays).

Huh? Some UEFI trickiness, or some kind of quirky intel cpu? Do you mean that it doesn't work for Ubuntu, or that there's no way to get s2disk/s2ram to work on the thing with a Linux kernel?