Second, moving the Windows logo button to the short edge points users toward using the device in portrait mode.

First, the new keyboard covers cover the area where the original Windows button was located when you use the second tilt-up hinge. There are two reasons for that, to my mind. The kickstand either kept the screen angle too severe to see clearly while seated, or else the end of the kickstand was sliding off my knees when I tilted the screen further back. That's especially useful for tilting the screen way back, as an artist using a drafting table might, but as the owner of normal-size legs for a 6-foot-tall man, I still had a hard time getting the Surface Pro 3 to sit comfortably on my lap. One major difference in the new design is the kickstand, which can be adjusted to nearly any angle between 22 degrees and 150 degrees. To call the experience fanless-like would not be accurate. Our Surface Pro 3, a midrange model with an Intel Core i5 CPU, certainly felt cool during our hands-on testing, but an audible fan also kicked in at times. That's because the new system internals, designed in partnership with Intel, allow the system run run not only ultra-low-voltage Core i3 or i5 CPUs, but also Core i7 ones, with a slim, quiet fan moving air as needed, allegedly without that telltale whirring sound, or a fan exhaust blowing on your hands. With a wink and a nod, Microsoft says this new Surface Pro design isn't exactly fanless, but it might as well be. Again, when you consider the larger screen, that's a worthy achievement. The Pro 3 is also a tad lighter than its predecessor: 800 grams versus 900.

This new 12-inch version is 11.5 inches by 7.9 inches, but its thickness drops to an impressive 9.1mm. But its thinner body, coupled with a larger 12-inch screen, give it a more upscale feel than either the Pro or Pro 2, which were criticized for a certain boxiness.īoth of the previous Surface Pro models had 10.6-inch screens and were 13mm thick, with a footprint of 10.8 inches by 6.8 inches. Despite the talk of this being the thinnest Intel Core i-series device to date, it still doesn't feel quite as thin and ethereal as, for example, the iPad Air.

Windows 10 surface pro 3