Me and a friend are going to the MS Store over lunch to check it out, and I'll report back.
He is a huge MS fanboy, and loves giving me shit for all my Apple idolizing. He went from a Surface to a Surface Pro to a Surface Pro 2; but ended up returning the SP2 for a Razer Blade after 3 exchanges and more than 2 weeks of being without the device while MS rand diagnostics on why all his systems were BSODIng four or five times a day.
Spent a solid 30 minutes with it at the store today with my friend.
First things first... It's *finally* thin enough. The Surface Pro has always been laughably thick... and the keyboard cover, and it was thicker than a modern laptop. The new Pro 3 was as thin as it needs to be... I do wish the keyboard cover was thinner, too; but I'm "happy enough." It was just ever so marginally thicker than the Surface 2, if you've ever held one of those. Maybe a mm.
The keyboard wasn't fantastic; but totally serviceable. Along with the new stand, it was perfectly usable as a laptop; though I still don't know how someone could argue it's "as good," as a standard laptop regarding "lapability." It's close; but there are a few scenerios where it's behind; for example; just the process of opening the stand and getting it just right is more effort than lifting a screen.
The display was beautiful... but it wasn't CRAZY sharp like the Razer Blade or my MBP. Colors and whatnot were pretty good, contrast good, angles good. It was a very, very good display; but not amazing.
Speed was plenty fast for single apps. Opening all of Office and a browser slowed it down a bit. Having two instances of TheVerge.com side by side was clearly affecting performance. No games to try, unfortunately. Adjusting window sizes wasn't quite as smooth as on my desktop or my laptop. I feel like Adobe software could definitely struggle with bigger files. But for Word/Excel/Facebook/Internet/Email, it was zippy as you would need.
The pen was very accurate; way less lag than before. But it's still hard to write "small," if you know what I mean.
Neither my friend or I could trigger the button to accidentally bring us to the desktop when drawing. I think the issue is overblown. I drew for 3 or 4 minutes with my palm on it with no issue.
Clicking the button only opened One Note like 50% of the time, lol. Hopefully a driver issue.
The little $4 thing that holds the pen is stupid.
Build quality was phenomenal. Right up there with the other Surface devices. Very sturdy.
Anyhoo, my final thoughts align with my earlier assumptions:
It's a very good synergy product. It's a good tablet and it's a good laptop.
It excels more as a laptop as a tablet - it's not nearly as "portable" as my iPad Air or the mini.
I don't know if it's the perfect device for me; I'm quite happy with my rMBP and iPad Air - I use them for two different things.
But MS has absolutely gotten 99% toward their vision, IMO. And for that, I'm impressed. Is it the tablet that can replace your laptop? Eh, I'm not certain I'd sell it like that. Instead, while it may sound the same on the outset... I feel this should be the laptop you should buy if looking to buy a new Windows laptop.
