Surface 3 or wait for 4

I was considering picking up an S3 for $450, but am a little weary of the atom cpu. I had a bay trail tablet that died and was very slow, but I wasn't entirely sure whether the cpu or emmc was to blame. Anyhow, I wanted an 8-9" W10 tablet, but there's not a lot of options. The Sp3 is larger but has some great features. Just not sure if I should wait for an S4 with the next gen Atom since Cherry trail is almost a year old at this point. Didn't know whether it was possible to upgrade the S3's storage or is it emmc? I had an Sp3, but it died a few weeks ago so still a little concerned about MS build quality. Any ideas appreciated.

Thanks

 

The main problem is the lack of memory. CPU second.
I reviewed it last year here: http://www.ultrabookreview.com/7829-microsoft-surface-3-review/

I sold it a few months after. Definitely wait for the Surface 4, the 3 is not worth that price right now.

 

I have owned a Surface 3 since the day they were released on May 5th of 2015. I have the 128GB/4GB model. I have owned a tablet PC since acquiring the HP Slate 500 when they were first released in 2009. The last tablet I owned before the S3 was an Asus AVN8, which I really liked. The Surface 3, however, I love.

My old set up was the AVN8 as a portable tablet with my trusty Thinkpad X301 notebook as my daily driver.


When I got the Surface 3, however, I passed on the X301 to my son. I used the S3 docked at my desk during the day and with the type cover while outside the office. The 2w X7 Atom was actually more powerful than the 10w SU9300 C2D in the X301. Even the eMMC drive in the S3 is faster than the X301's Sata 1 SSD.


I agree that 2GB RAM is too little for a tablet. I was having issues with my old AVN8, which had 2GB RAM. It was redlined all the time. My Atom rarely runs at 100% utilization and the RAM is rarely over 2GB. The S3 is on sale for a decent price ATM. My configuration is on sale for $499. Get the new pen if you get one, as it is a much better writing experience.

Nobody has heard anything about the WillowTrail Atom. But it should be a significant bump in speed, since it is a "toc" generation. I expect that the S4 will have the improved inking due to the pixelsense controller like that in the SP4 and the keyboard will probably have the same improvements that the SP4 does as well., So, it might be worth the wait. On the other hand, the S3 was announced around the time of MWC last year and shipped by May 5th. We have no word on the S4 ATM. So, who knows. There is a rumor that it is being tested and there is a rumor that MS won't make another Atom Surface. It's anybody's guess.

 

I just got a used S3 (128GB & 4GB RAM) with pen for 240 USD. Everything is fine about it except for a tiny scratch at the back. For that price it is pretty much unbeatable, but I use it as a reading/marking device only, and have a "proper" laptop in addition to that, with all relevant files shared via dropbox.

 

The Microsoft store has the 128GB/4GB refurbished with 1 year warranty for $369. https://www.microsoftstore.com/stor...740400?icid=Surface_Refurb_ModE_Surface3_4.24

Still using mine as a daily driver.

 

I think It should be changed a lot of thing

 

I had 2 surface 3's with 64gb and 4gb ram. They were good devices, but Just not quite there in terms of quality. They keyboard was very flexy, and the material wore quickly. It was a little slow, and the storage was not nearly enough for me and my useage. I was a pain always carrying around HD when I was on the move. I did however like the "idea" of the device. I really needed a surface pro 10" model. Microsoft NEEDS to make that device. It would sell like hotcakes I think. A full surface pro spec'ed device, with the surface 3 type dock, etc in 10". That being said, I am LOVING my dell 2 in 1 device. It's awesome.

 

Surface Go just arrived and its a nice upgrade to Surface 3..

 

Yes it is a great replacement.