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UK launch of Surface Pro 3 soon

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Gonna order tonight if that quidco is still available. Pcworld will only be 100 cash back regardless of the size of order (meaning if your surface and official accessories go over £1000 then MS will be cheaper)

Played around with the device today in pcworld, and it is really really nice. Although quite interesting that Microsoft student store was blocked on the stores WiFi. Really liked the device, although it'll take a bit of getting used to the pen. It requires a LOT more pressure than I'm used to using when writing. So as such it was coming out completely jaggy and unreadable, and I have good writing. But over all I LOVED it. It felt fantastic in the hand, 12" had been a concern but is great, plenty large enough, and it also convinced me to get the black type cover. Its more like a dark grey, and made it look like a very fancy executive (paper) notebook. Amazing. Word from the Microsoft employee who was helping me with it, was if you buy from Harrods you'll quite possibly be getting it a day early. Not that one day matters now its already released and its not for bragging rights.

Oh, and the gf, a huge Mac fan, she got a little bit giddy after the salesman knew that I had done a lot of research, turned his attention to her and brought up a bunch of painting tools and she rather fell in love a bit. (As a non artist who has never used anything beyond paint, I really really loved the whole idea in fresh paint of actually mixing colours on the canvas, and then being able to press one button and "dry it" but that's not really a surface feature.

All in all I'm stoked. And fingers crossed I'll save myself £200 :)
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
So that took an hour to buy using quidco and painfully slow internet (0.2mbps) but don't have a credit card so had to redirect to paypal and then back to MS, fingers crossed. That would mean an i5 sp3 for 660 :) can't complain about that.
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Quidco are currently offering £100 cashback on Pro 3 orders from the UK Microsoft online store. I've used Quidco quite a lot of times so they are reputable. Think the offer ends on 23rd August.

You are the man! Quidco is seeing a 100 quid trackback thingy something or other. Now I guess I just need them to debit the account and the cash back is guaranteed. Works out at almost 25% off including edu discount :) ecstatic
 
I was in the US last week, so picked up an SP3 there. However, I decided not to buy the keyboard as I wanted to make sure there was no difference between the UK and US versions not realising the SP3 isn't out here yet! So... Now I have to wait for my keyboard. D'oh!
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
I was in the US last week, so picked up an SP3 there. However, I decided not to buy the keyboard as I wanted to make sure there was no difference between the UK and US versions not realising the SP3 isn't out here yet! So... Now I have to wait for my keyboard. D'oh!

There is a difference. As there has always been on US keyboards. For some reason the @ and " symbols swap places. This doesn't actually lead to any issues as a key is just a button, and you select your key layout in wondows, but it can still prove frustrating here and there. Wouldn't be nearly as bad as trying to use this spanish keyboard i've got in front of me though :/
 

malberttoo

Well-Known Member
I was in the US last week, so picked up an SP3 there. However, I decided not to buy the keyboard as I wanted to make sure there was no difference between the UK and US versions not realising the SP3 isn't out here yet! So... Now I have to wait for my keyboard. D'oh!

Welcome to the forum!

Indeed there are a few small differences between the US and UK layouts. If you're used to typing on the UK layout, you should wait for it.

In the meantime though if you wanted, you could of course use a USB keyboard until the TypeCover is available.
 

Reds2011

New Member
Work had me in the US last week so popped over to Best Buy in Little Rock AR picked up the i5 256 $1299=£780

Have you had any issues with wifi?

I did much the same thing, and mine won't pick up wifi channels 12 & 13, which is a US specific configuration.

Hopefully there will be a work around when the UK/Australian versions are released.
 

everalm

Member
Have you had any issues with wifi?

I did much the same thing, and mine won't pick up wifi channels 12 & 13, which is a US specific configuration.

Hopefully there will be a work around when the UK/Australian versions are released.

So far no issues, no problems, I got the US keyboard as, due to my work and having lived in NYC for 12 years, I'm used to switching between septic and brit.......

WiFi good, I did do a fresh clean install from recovery media which seems to have helped a little with battery life and general overall stability. I believe if you change the locale/country settings it will set the appropriate channel settings for your region automatically.
A general niggle is that the driver settings for Wifi in control panel are extremely sparse, I m used to seeing a whole pile of configuration sets available, preferred channel, power settings, frequency preferences etch that re not available with this Marvell set.
 

hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
I posted this elsewhere, but for those who've yet to purchase for whatever reason, John Lewis might be the place to go. They price match, and are offering a 3 year warranty for free, and for £85 you can get 3 years of additional care, not a bad deal. They're also a great company for accepting refunds no questions asked.
 
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