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Microsoft's Surface 3 is sweet – but I wouldn't tickle my nads with it
Soviet-style shell hides a slablet for Windows diehards
Finger clicking good
Where it does well is performance. The combo of Intel 1.6GHz quad-core Atom x7-Z8700 processor with bursts up to 2.4GHz and, in terms of RAM, 3GB more than a 9.7-inch iPad. How does this translate in use? Surfing the web is buttery smooth. Continuous scrolling on my site of choice for the weekly home food shop was, well, continuous: no waiting seconds for the screen to refresh and items to appear.
Under the kickstand is the micro SD card slot
Colours are rich and resolution sharp enough you’re wary of slicing a finger – screen is a ClearType Full HD Plus with 1920 x 1280 resolution. This richness shows up in photos, shot via the Surface 3’s front-facing 3.5MP camera. It shows in video, too. If you choose to Skype, there’s an 8MP rear-facing lens – big leap from the 5MP of Surface 2 and 720p video in the inaugural Surface RT.
Apple comes in at 1.2MP for video and 5MP for photos.
Video playback is decent: combo of memory, chip and resolution delivers TV-like performance for films, no judder or pixellation – even when playing a 4K video from an LG G3 smartphone. You can plug in video media via a USB 3.0 port, a micro USB charging port that doubles as USB 2.0 port, or plug into a monitor via the mini DisplayPort.
Photo uses the Nokia Windows Phones set up – camera roll, giving multiple before and after exposures. There’s a dial-wheel to scroll through and save photos, onboard photo-edit tools and, like any real camera, you can set exposure.
However, I couldn’t find a zoom feature and the screen would shy away from the light in brightly lit settings by going dark, making it suddenly difficult to frame and shoot a picture in sunny or bright settings.
Surface 3 runs Windows 8.1, which is Microsoft’s step back from the all-or-nothing of Windows 8. That shows; Microsoft no longer mandates you jettison your entire knowledge of the desktop to use Surface, but the halfway house nature of Windows 8.1 is manifest in many subtle and not-so-subtle ways to different effects.
Web surfing is cleaner in the Windows 8.1 mode than desktop with Internet Explorer 11: when you hit a field mandating character entry Surface’s soft keyboard dutifully pops up. In IE on the desktop environment, you need to make the keyboard appear by tapping a soft key at the bottom of the screen.
Contacts for the Type Cover which doesn't have a battery. It's not Bluetooth but draws power to function and for its backlit keys
But setting up Wi-Fi connection is done via the desktop side, not in Windows 8.1 mode. Click the Windows 8.1 settings tile and while you get a PC settings window with networks, you have to scroll down to Control Panel where you then find the network and sharing centre before you can establish connection to Wi-Fi.
Try sharing photos and you must first set who you plan on sharing in the Windows 8 people hub – or you need an email account ready configured.