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Who has an SP3 and S3 and considers it acceptable to have both?

I have both and they are like my kids. I love each in different ways, they each have their positives ad negatives, and if you ever tried to mess with either of them, you would be poking the bear in his cave.

I too love my S3 and in some ways over my SP3. Really like the size & thickness, no fan noise, very little heat (if any) and the battery life is awesome. I have even been doing some light duty Photoshop & Illustrator so there is not much I am missing other than that extra oomph when changing slides with videos, etc.
 
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hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Well it only cost me £9 so why not. Will make a kick ass replacement for my nexus 10 :) when I'm back in London and have my htpc at hand then sure, one of these will sit gathering dust, but who cares :) there is always a justification for a new toy.
 

InspectHerGadget

Active Member
I have a desktop with a nice six core i7-5820. SP3 for work and mobile and iPad Air 2 for a tablet.

I tried with the Surface 2 to use it as a tablet but gave it to my wife and went back to the ipad. The dimensions just seem wrong for two thumb operation.

The Surface 3 is therefore unlikely to replace either device but my wife will love it and I will take it out for a few test flights.
 

GreyFox7

Super Moderator
Staff member
I have a desktop with a nice six core i7-5820. SP3 for work and mobile and iPad Air 2 for a tablet.

I tried with the Surface 2 to use it as a tablet but gave it to my wife and went back to the ipad. The dimensions just seem wrong for two thumb operation.

The Surface 3 is therefore unlikely to replace either device but my wife will love it and I will take it out for a few test flights.
The iPad any's diminutive screen makes it a complete nonstarter and any keyboard that would fit such a screen equally a nonstarter, couple that with lack of cursor control, mouse support, file system support, etc. etc. etc. you are not left with much, and there isn't an app for that.
 
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hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
The iPad any's diminutive screen makes it a complete nonstarter and any keyboard that would fit such a screen equally a nonstarter, couple that with lack of cursor control, mouse support, file system support, etc. etc. etc. you are not left with much, and there isn't an app for that.

This is pretty much why I never use any tablet in portrait for anything but scrolling. Typing on a portrait keyboard just flat out sucks. I found the ipad keyboard to be horrible.

Spent 2 days trying to get 10130 onto the S3, every install route failed with the same issue so have given up and and begrudgingly using 8.1, cannot stand it following my use of 10. that aside though, very happy with the purchase. Much more ergonomic as a tablet, even if it does only have the 3 position kickstand. still think it's pretty slow though. Giong to treat it as a tablet though, and try and force myself to make use of MUI stuff. also going to get something colourful for it to differentiate it from my serious looking SP3.
 

InspectHerGadget

Active Member
The iPad any's diminutive screen makes it a complete nonstarter and any keyboard that would fit such a screen equally a nonstarter, couple that with lack of cursor control, mouse support, file system support, etc. etc. etc. you are not left with much, and there isn't an app for that.

Surely that is the whole point about how people use devices differently?

The iPad screen is optimised to the size it is for a reason. People who then want to attach a bluetooth keyboard end up with a heavier device with a tiny keyboard, a waste of time. If you changed the size of the iPad then it would lose the effectiveness it has as a tablet somewhat. If you look at pretty well any purpose built tablet, the width is smaller than the Surface 2/3. The Surface 3 in fact is 1/2 inch narrower than the Surface 2 but still wider than most any tablet I know of. The reason is simple optimum tablet size is great for using as a tablet as you can thumb any part of the screen but sucks if you want a decent keyboard attached, the same reason the Surface is wider so that you can. Whether you want an iPad or Android both are still better for tablet use than Windows 8.1. I haven't used Windows 10 yet but I can't imagine it will change things much on that score.

I just use mine for web browsing, the occasional email, video and so on and it is perfect. I spent two months trying to use the Surface 2 to replace an iPad and actually sold the iPad but ended up buying another iPad.

Most people have enough money these days that gadgets are not really that expensive. You compare the cost of these things to say a car where people spend an absolute fortune on just special wheels for their cars and the like. It makes sense therefore just to have different devices perfected for particular uses, so I have tablet (iPad), work laptop (SP3 i7) and desktop (i7-5820 (overclocked to 4GHz) with 16G RAM and 2 SSD and three HDD drives in it). Each does what it is supposed to do. It all gets backed up onto a NAS. I also have an Asus F202E and a 2013 MBA 11 which gets used for work occasionally (but not much since I got the SP3).

My wife just wants an ultraportable device so she uses the Surface 2 (for another few days until the Surface 3 arrives) and something with a decent keyboard on it (hence the iPad is a waste of time). I am interested in the Surface 3 and was considering trying it for a week in place of my SP3 but I probably won't. I had to do without it very recently when I sent it back to Microsoft because of the yellow line down the left of the screen. I ended up using my Asus F202E W8.1 Celeron powered laptop for over a week. It wasn't a great experience, but it did the job, and I was very happy to have the SP3 back. It made me realise that you do take performance for granted once you have it. The screen was also lower resolution and smaller which made more difference than I thought

One thing that does annoy me is the way IE always wants to completely refresh each page you move BACK to unlike iPad Safari. I'm hoping with the new browser on Windows 10 that they've fixed this. I suppose on the Surface 3 you can use chrome which I couldn't do on the Surface 2.

I notice my wife when she does use her Surface 2 on the couch always keeps the keyboard attached. I did find removing the keyboard awkward in the sense it has to be stowed somewhere so my SP3 is almost always used with the keyboard attached. I think my wife is the ideal candidate for the Surface 2/3. Someone who definitely wants a keyboard, isn't too fussy about performance and wants to use office and view documents and the like on a reasonable size screen.

The question of the thread is about having both the Surface 3 and the Surface Pro 3. For me I doubt it as I think the Surface 3 would annoy me due to lack of performance as a work computer while the main reason I'd consider the Surface 3 would be to replace an iPad. I don't think it would do that either. I have been known to change my mind so I am going to have a play with the Surface 3 and will be interested to use Windows 10 as well (but I will wait until it is released, I hate buggy software).
 
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adgjr4

New Member
This might not be the right place to post this, but I guess people in this thread have experience with both. I've been comparing the Surface 3 (4 gb RAM) and Surface Pro 3 (i5) for the past few days, and I really don't know which one to get. I need it for school, so I'm going to use it for taking notes, PDF viewing, Excel, Word and some web browsing.

Surface 3 pros:
- Size
- Fanless (I really hate fan noise)
- 1 year free Office
- Cheaper

Cons:
- Significantly slower than the SP3
- Charging problems (?)
- Windows 10 preview seems to run badly (I'm not a huge fan of W8)

I'm also wondering if the Surface 3 can handle moderately big Excel files decently. Right now I'm using a fairly sluggish, 5 year old Dell laptop with a dual core cpu and an HDD at school, so anything should be an improvement. What do you guys think I should get?
 

InspectHerGadget

Active Member
I would look at it this way.

The Surface 3 is a study in just enough oomph to do basic stuff but in an amazingly compact case with fantastic build quality and a great screen.

If you have any doubts about performance just go for the SP3. It includes a pen too.
 

Telstar1948

Active Member
This might not be the right place to post this, but I guess people in this thread have experience with both. I've been comparing the Surface 3 (4 gb RAM) and Surface Pro 3 (i5) for the past few days, and I really don't know which one to get. I need it for school, so I'm going to use it for taking notes, PDF viewing, Excel, Word and some web browsing.

Surface 3 pros:
- Size
- Fanless (I really hate fan noise)
- 1 year free Office
- Cheaper

Cons:
- Significantly slower than the SP3
- Charging problems (?)
- Windows 10 preview seems to run badly (I'm not a huge fan of W8)

I'm also wondering if the Surface 3 can handle moderately big Excel files decently. Right now I'm using a fairly sluggish, 5 year old Dell laptop with a dual core cpu and an HDD at school, so anything should be an improvement. What do you guys think I should get?

I used an Asus T100 (Atom powered) for several months between losing my desktop machine and gaining an SP3. The T100 performed very well for the tasks you listed and then some. I was truly impressed with the T100's performance. The S3 is better in every respect than the T100, so I have no doubts whatever that you would be pleased with it.
 
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hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
This might not be the right place to post this, but I guess people in this thread have experience with both. I've been comparing the Surface 3 (4 gb RAM) and Surface Pro 3 (i5) for the past few days, and I really don't know which one to get. I need it for school, so I'm going to use it for taking notes, PDF viewing, Excel, Word and some web browsing.

Surface 3 pros:
- Size
- Fanless (I really hate fan noise)
- 1 year free Office
- Cheaper

Cons:
- Significantly slower than the SP3
- Charging problems (?)
- Windows 10 preview seems to run badly (I'm not a huge fan of W8)

I'm also wondering if the Surface 3 can handle moderately big Excel files decently. Right now I'm using a fairly sluggish, 5 year old Dell laptop with a dual core cpu and an HDD at school, so anything should be an improvement. What do you guys think I should get?

My sp3 was bought for university. Same use case as you really. While I like the size of the S3 I just got, if it were one or the other I would pony up for the SP3 every time. Sure the S3 is a big improvement over the android tablet I used, in both hardware, speed, and operating system (a GUI designed for touch does not outweigh the fact that android/ios tablets are useless for pretty much anything beyond a youtube video, crap game, or short email imo), but as a personal computer, I still think it is a pig in terms of speed and responsiveness. I just prefer the speed of the SP£ and the knowledge that if I need the power, it's there for me.
 

adgjr4

New Member
Thanks for the feedback guys. You've convinced me not to buy the Surface 3, hughlle. I think I'll actually wait for the SP4 to be released and get that one. Hopefully it'll be out by the start of September when university starts.
 
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hughlle

Super Moderator
Staff member
Thanks for the feedback guys. You've convinced me not to buy the Surface 3, hughlle. I think I'll actually wait for the SP4 to be released and get that one. Hopefully it'll be out by the start of September when university starts.

Yeah, id definitely wait for the sp4, even if to then just get an sp3 for cheaper. Not much point in picking one up until the beginning of term is nigh if money is a factor. I only bought the S3 because I had scholarship money to spend.
 
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