Microsoft Announces Surface Pro 3, Starting At $799

Microsoft has now officially announced the Surface Pro 3, which goes on sale in the US and Canada starting June 20th. It sports a 2160×1440 resolution with a variety of Intel CPU’s, a multi-position kickstand, Surface Pen, weighs in at 800 grams, features a USB 3.0 port, has a 20% longer battery life, is 9.1 mm thin and comes with a 12″ diagonal screen size. The announcement also covers the new Surface Pro Type Cover, which is now even thinner and works to magnetically seal to the tablet for improved stability in a user’s lap. Microsoft sees the Surface Pro 3 as “the tablet that can replace your laptop.” It better, as the price starts at $799 and gets only incrementally more crazy from there.

Most of the focus made by Microsoft executives was to show off the computer-like aspects of the Surface Pro 3, meaning that there wasn’t much an Xbox angle to promote. Regardless, a lot of the aspects of the Surface Pro 3 seemed both innovative, creative and exciting. Executive showed off cool tricks, like taking “acid-washed” photos with the tablet, opening them up in OneNote, tracing over them and sending them to the cloud, allowing for customization and editorial creation for a variety of living aspects.

Additionally, the Surface Pro 3 sports very top-of-the-line specs for a tablet, and was shown to run multiple applications at once without glitches and at a smooth and steady rate. It will be interesting to see all the business aspects of the device operates, as well as what kind of offerings the tablet can provide in regards to gaming.

Unfortunately, at a $799 entry point that doesn’t come with a type cover or a docking station (with the most powerful version featuring those add-ons for almost $2,300), there doesn’t seem to be a lot of promise for the common consumer. Yes, Microsoft may luck themselves into some sort of merged market for upstart creative business that use the tablet as both a computer and as a mobile device, but the cost for the common consumer may be too high to attract a fairly sizeable base. That may not be what they’re after, but seeing how much they’ve lost in the Surface department in the past, maybe they should.

Pre-orders for the Surface Pro 3 begin tomorrow, so if this device interests you as a pseudo tablet/laptop, make sure to take advantage of that.

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