Microsoft Surface Pro 3: The potential iPad killer

Every year some new tablet comes out with killer specs, killer hardware or both. Yet none of them seem to actually “kill” the iPad. Why is that exactly? Well its because Apple does care about the spec race at all. They care more about what the crowd wants and how it ties in with there current plans. Lets take the iPad 3rd generation for example. Released back in 2012. Everyone wanted an iPad yet no one wanted to pay for one with its large price tag. Meanwhile Google was holding hands with Asus and brought the Google Nexus 7 to light. It was the must have android tablet of the year with specs didn’t match the the price tag at all, and hardware to match the software. It was called the “iPad Killer” back then yet the iPad remains. Well that’s something Microsoft is here to fix.

The new pro pen is innovative yet elegant like a pen
The new Surface Pen is innovative yet elegant like the pen itself.

Microsoft’s next iteration of the Surface Pro lineup is stellar. It comes with a 12 inch diagonal IPS LCD display with a pixel count of 216 ppi. But the screen is not what keeps is so fantastic. It’s the new Intel chipset that is inside. The Surface Pro 3 comes packing the new Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 dual core chip clocked at 1.6GHz and 2.9 GHz in turbo mode. Now compare that to Apple’s dual core A7 chip clocked at 1.4 GHz. Even though Apple’s A7 chip is 64bit it honestly does not matter if the software does not take advantage of the architecture. To further the Surface Pro’s details it comes with an abundant 8GB of RAM compared to the iPad’s measly 1GB of RAM. With that kind of power you might call it a laptop in a tablet’s body. It also features a microSD card slot for memory expansion, USB 3.0 port, a Surface Pen or stylus, and a keyboard dock to transform it into a laptop computer. All of which Apple’s current model does not offer. Now enough the geeky internals, lets get to what the average Joe would want.

Weighing at 798 grams it is quite hefty in weight for a tablet compared to the . However when you consider the all the Microsoft packs in it you wouldn’t mind. The exterior of the Surface Pro 3 is made of magnesium compared to Apple’s iPad Air aluminum, making it no cheap plastic Samsung hardware and very durable. The magnesium feels great in the hand and cool to the touch in the morning when you pick it up and it doesn’t over heat when doing anything graphic intense unlike the iPad which overheats while watching a movie or charging overnight. The last thing I should mention is the price tag. Now on release it does cost a whopping $800, and the dock costs an extra $130 compared to Apple’s $500 for there latest and greatest. That may sound outlandishly expensive but when you consider all the pro’s and cons of the Surface Pro 3, you would say that it is truly worth the money. The surface pro 3 is currently for preorder at microsoft.com/surface for $799 and the Apple iPad Air is for sale for $499 at apple.com/ipad

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Nancy Young

When I was younger I used to spend almost all of my free time playing computer games. My mom and dad would go mental over this. “You’re never going to do anything with your life if you are going to play games all day” they used to say. What was even more unusual was the fact that I played more games than most of the guys in my friend group. Looking back, I have to admit that I probably played a bit too much, but I also learned a lot of great things. When I turned 20 I decided that it was high-time to make some money of my own, but the only jobs I could get were that of waitress or cashier. How exciting. After several excruciating months of serving tables I had a great idea: since I love gaming so much, why don’t I write about it? That’s when I started doing small writing projects on Elance. Eventually, I got an offer for a part-time job. During that time I learned all about content marketing strategies and how search engines work. I started writing about various topics such as technology, health and lifestyle and discovered that I was actually good at it. On November 24, 2014, I became part of the ArgyllFreePress team.