Between yesterday and today, I dad a chance to fondle a few Surface 3's. Summarily, I really liked what I saw. Of course, as with almost any new device, one can find areas to nit pick, but overall I really liked the device. It has a great balance of performance and features at a decent price and I believe it will turn out to be quite popular with many Apex customers. As always, the proof is in the pudding and I will dedicate some hands on time in the field before making a recommendation. This will not happen before the retail units come out in early May. The sample units being supplied by MS to various people are all pre-production units (and just like the early in-store demo SP3 units, the ones in the stores now are locked down so you can't really put them through proper testing) and I never rely on sample units for making purchase recommendations to customers. That said, I am comfortable enough with both what I have seen/experienced myself and including the known specs and info from trusted & reliable sources about what is not yet public to say that I recommend looking at the deices for yourself and IF the general class of device (~10 -inch vs. a smaller ~8 -inch or larger ~12+ -inch) fits YOUR use case scenario, I would wait on purchasing anything else until these are actually shipping. IF it LOOKS like it might fit the bill for you, I would pre-order one (there are likely to be shortages?) with the knowledge that you can cancel the order before shipping if you change your mind. You're basically just reserving a spot in line ;-)
I'll touch more on this later, but for MY use, the $499 (2 GB + 64 GB internal storage) is sufficient for a companion device, but I feel that most appraisers will see the value in getting the $599 version which has twice the RAM and twice the internal storage (4 GB + 128 GB.) On both varieties that I was able to do some very light informal testing (more intense coming soon), the raw performance increase between this device and (say) a 2GB and 4GB TP10 was definitely noticeable - more so between the two 4 GB units for some reason which I have yet to ascertain to my own satisfaction. I suspect there is a "spec" element which is providing this increased performance jump, but since some of the specs are still unverified, I simply do not know at this point. In any case, I had already ordered the 4GB units for internal testing, though I will be sure to obtain a few 2GB units since for a lot of our Enterprise type customers (who DO have properly designed mobile software), the 2 GB units are easily sufficient for their needs. They (like many of you?) will require (or want) LTE, so there is a bit of a wait to purchase still... Both the pre-order and release dates on LTE models are still a matter of NDA - all I can say is that "it won't be long" before one can pre-order those units.
I'll also spend some time covering the various accessories - the official MS ones are suitably high in quality and my general feeling/prediction is that, though there will be 3rd party options, IF you really want/need a particular accessory, the official MS one is worth the few percentage points higher price. Not everyone will NEED the accessories, though, so my recommendation is to only get the essentials and take a wait and see attitude on the the others. In other words, don't get caught up in the excitement and get everything at pre-order. For example, the SP3 is more powerful and is a more likely candidate for NEEDING (or strongly desiring) the desk dock. My recommendation for those who are on a moderate and sensible budget is to make the $99 accidental drop protection policy the FIRST option, THEN see how much you are willing to spend on other accessories. If you live in an area with bright sunshine, budget about $25 for an anti-glare screen protector. For us, the $50 pen makes sense, that getting that really depends on whether your software takes advantage of it, so you can always get that later IMHO. The keyboard cover is nice, but I have a feeling that a different one may be a better choice (I'll explain more later, when I can.) Point is, get the right accessories first and add others later as needed vs. as imagined ;-)
Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any specific questions.
-Randall Garrett-
+Apex Software+
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