Microsoft Surface 3 - Coming May 5th | $499 Starting Price

Microsoft's Surface 3 is coming, and it's running full x86 Windows 8.1 (soon Windows 10) on an Intel Atom x7 (14nm Cherry Trail) SoC. The fanless 1.37lbs chassis has a 10.8" 1920x1280 (3:2) display which offers support for an active stylus (the same N-TRIG as in the Surface Pro). As usual, you can expect to find a full size USB 3.0, headphone jack, microSD slot and mini displayport. It will charge through a microUSB, and is rated for 10 hours of runtime. Unlike the Surface Pro 3, the kickstand on the Surface 3 can only be set in 3 different positions. At the $499 starting price it comes with 2GB of RAM and 64GB of internal storage. For $599 you can double the RAM to 4GB and the storage to 128GB. 4G LTE can also be added to either of these options for $100. The Type Cover and N-TRIG stylus is not included in the price. There will also be a dock (sold separately) that has additional ports. It goes on sale May 5th Canada/US and May 7th international.

For once, it looks like Microsoft made a lot of the right decisions when designing this device.

Looks really good, I wonder how photoshop will run on it.

I wish I had money to blow on a Surface Pro - I think I'd use it a lot, actually. But I don't.

I have a Gen1 Pro now but I still don't know if I will upgrade any time soon.

This is a great tablet though for the money. Easily can replace a low end laptop that is used for business (Excel, Word, Outlook, Web).

For a small business I don't see why it'd be a better idea to get one of these than a refurbished laptop. You can get an i3/i5, 4gb of RAM, and 128gb SSD laptop for ~$350. Or you can get this much slower, inefficient toy device for $500+ (or $600+ with keyboard). Seems like a rip-off, just like the Ipad. Ipad is good for kids, not much else. I've seen people use their iPad's for business, and boy - is it painful to watch. It's like watching someone use a computer for their first time, every time.

Replacing two devices tablet /laptop and you are getting a new device as well.

The iPad is a toy, this is not.

Go for the surface pro 2/3 model if you want a laptop replacement/great tablet. Surface pros are the best tablets out there.

Intel Atom is for mobile/tablets. Its low power but no where near the performance of a i3/i5/i7. Not worth it for 500 dollars.

A 300-400 dollar laptop would be way better than this.

This is what MS should have done from the start.

Release a Surface with low specs and Windows Home together with the Surface Pro.

you forgot to mention the intel cherry trail is a minor upgrade over the bay trail with lastest windows it will sturggle running even minecraft wow and epsxe at that res it just plain not worth it

The device looks incredibly sexy.

But I have a laptop, desktop and smartphone, I see no gap this can fill in. I really see no point in buying a tablet.

The Cherry Trail's GPU performance (x7-8700) is ~2x the GPU performance of the Z3795 Bay Trail SoC. Not exactly minor.

@NVIDIATI: 2gb of ram on the lastest windows at 1280p will be hell, and at 600$ you might start looking for a laptop at that price.

Windows has even lower ram requirements on more recent versions. Users that need some more RAM can go for the 4GB version.

This is not a laptop. This is a 1.37 lbs fanless tablet in a metal chassis, it has 10 hours of battery life, it can use an active stylus and/or a keyboard cover.

Yep, there are $100 tablets that have 1 gig of ram that run Windows just fine.

Any info on the GPU? I love playing older games and some light emulation.

I love my Surface Pro 3, and am glad that they ditched ARM and Windows RT for the non-pro models. Now the non pro runs full windows and has stylus input, which is great.

Though the 4gb model seems possibly too close to the i3 SP3. $650 vs $800, but with the SP3 you get a more powerful i3 cpu, 12 inch 1440p screen, and a better kickstand

i am gonna miss RT, its an easy sell to older customers of mine, since they won't have to worry about using antivirus and picking up trojan ADware online.

Looking at the price gap, i think i stand to make more money now, as it seems an easy up sell to Pro models!

2x the GPU performance of the Z3795 (Bay Trail).

Based on what I've been reading, the performance gap between the x7-Z8700 and the i3-4020Y might be rather small (the Atom might even win in GPU performance).