You still have yours? I overclocked mine. Not by a lot, but enough that it eventually became unstable. I still have it, and it does work if I underclock it a bit. But the fact that I can never think of a reason to even charge it, means that I see no reason to buy a tablet at all.
Probably explains why mine still works, kept it mildly overclocked to 1.5ghz (the stock speed of the white model Touchpad, by the way) and modified the kernel scheduler to reduce background priority. Really the only problem I have with it is cosmetic. The speaker grills are suffering the infamous cracking bezel issue.
Overall it's interesting a 5 year old tablet is still so relevant. Other tablets don't seem much faster, even with octa core "dual quad/big little) configurations because Android and it's app ecosystem don't seem to care for more than 2 cores. The single threaded performance of the Snapdragon S3 is pretty good at 1.5ghz.
Dear god how can you stand using adroid on a tablet its such a terrible tablet experience feels like every app is a blown up phone port. Plus that thing is so slow now. webOS was so much better. I actually replaced mine with the surface 3 couldn't have been happier Windows 10 is fantastic on it.
I don't think there's any debate webos was better than android but where are the apps? At least android and iOS took the better parts of webos interface such as the card based task manager and synergy comm center in the form of pull down menu's.
WebOS was no doubt a competitor, HP just fucked it all up so bad. Stupid Apothiker. Poor Palm. HP created the duopoly we have in the mobile market. Even if they hadn't bought Palm, someone else would have and provided the cash infusion they needed. It's really pocket change in the grand scheme of things...HP got Palm for like what, a billion dollars or so? That's nothing for what could have been a $20-$30 billion ecosystem.
I use my Nexus 7 (2013) daily still, if I didn't have it I might've bought a Surface 3 (or an NV Shield)... Some people don't need two dozen apps, 90% of my use is Chrome, that's it.
I wonder if Intel would be willing to make a Pentium M, based on skylake to fill in for Atom? I have a Surface 3, and it's darn near perfect for my needs. Thinner, USB-C and a faster system would be great.
They already have Skylake based M processors. It remains to be seen if they're willing to scale one down in power and price enough to supplant Cherry Trail. Especially price... they're quite expensive compared to the Atoms... I would bet Intel won't play ball until (and if) a future low-power Zen chip challenges their control of high-end tablets.
You said: Especially price... they're quite expensive compared to the Atoms...
No they are not, not really, sure atom is cheaper but not by much anymore. The die size of 22nm Baytrail T aka the z3770 was 101.87 mm2 with dimensions of 9.723 by 10.477. According to an official intel datasheet that was released after launch and intel purposefully burried this information where they rather be coy on die sizes.
See page 307 the two numbers labeled c1 and c2. Note they put that info as table inside an image and never did OCR on that page to make it harder for people to find yet they had to reveal this info to their partners to some extent http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/...
In other words if yields on 14nm are the same as 22nm back in the day then core m on 14nm is cheaper to make than atom baytrail was to make on 22nm. This is due to the awesome power of moores law which may have slowed a bit but still applies where stuff should get cheaper over time.
For your sake I hope you're kidding. First of all, we're talking about Cherry Trail in the Surface 3 (X7 Z8700). Not Baytrail. Cherry Trail is made on the same 14nm process. It's a bit smaller and it's lower power than even the smallest, lowest power Core m3 Skylake design. Second, pricing and cost to produce are two separate things. What Intel *CAN* sell it for and what they *WILL* sell it for are two completely different matters.
Pay close attention to pricing. I understand that this isn't necessarily the price MS would pay per unit, but the difference is staggering. Unless Intel decides to be really nice and start selling a neutered variant of the current m3 Skylake chip (perhaps with reduced clocks) for a LOT cheaper, there's simply no way it's going to be anywhere near Atom pricing. A Surface 4 with Skylake would cost as much as a Pro... which is why it's getting discontinued, for now.
Wasn't this Intel's goal all along anyway? They kind of achieved it by mistake, but they brought Atom to life begrudgingly so VIA and others wouldn't stake a foothold in the netbook market... Then they sandbagged Atom for years because they didn't care to innovate in a low margins market that was stagnating anyway.
Tablets and WinRT briefly made Atom relevant again, but now it's dead and no one seems to care. Maybe MS gave up on RT too soon, it was largely viewed as a power play for leverage, that worked... For all of two years, and now what?
Yeah they wanted to boost their profit margins back up. Windows on ARM did help stay their hand in the execution of the low-cost Atoms for a few years but the app issue killed Windows on ARM... for now.
But that does bring up a good point, they could bring it back. Think about it, all of the Win8 and Win10 apps are written for the new Windows runtime. UWP apps can even support multiple UIs / form factors with the same app. All of these apps can be recompiled in the cloud for a different architecture so long as the runtime and APIs are ported. So as more software is ported to the Windows Store, the likelihood of another ARM-based tablet increases. So if Intel or AMD doesn't release something cheap and low power soon that can compete, they may very well make another go at an ARM device in a year or two.
I wish Microsoft had built in a seamless x86 emulator or something. I bought a Surface 1 for a relative, and it's still a really nice tablet...and still getting OS updates for that matter (but not 10).
The recommended customer price on Intel's Ark is nothing like the final price OEMs pay. That is the starting negotiating price of Intel but due to things like rebates and such the OEMs pay far less than that.
You might as well put 3 zeroes behind the price of every chip with intel ark's price for it is misleading data. Thinking that number has anything to do with the final price means you do not understand how negotiating strategy works, or you are unaware of what the real world average selling price which is released in intel's quarterly documents is.
It could even sell for 1/4 of what they're asking and still would cost roughly double what the Atom sells for! ASP is dragged down by the Atom line. Not up. The Core m3 is FAR more expensive than the highest end X7 Atoms. You can play the "final selling price" game all you want but at the end of the day the lack of a newer gen Atom killed off the Surface non-Pro (for now). If they stick an m3 in there, now they have to price it closer to Surface Pro levels. Unless Intel cuts them a really serious break just to smooth things over. But I kind of doubt it.
Doesn't seem brilliant to not have a chip for Microsoft for a Surface 4... I'm entirely convinced Nvidia's CPU (that seems to have been abandoned after being used in 1 product) was meant as an Atom competitor with better GPU...had they been able to license x86.
They have a Pentium 4405Y which is Skylake-Y tech aka 6w processor with a cTDP down that can do 4.5w.
It runs at 1.5ghz skylake dual core but with no hyperthreading and slower integrated graphics.
I have not seen any proper benchmarks for this chip for barely anything uses it. If I were to guess it would be at .75 single thread cinebench 11.5, and 1.50 multithread cinebench 11.5 due to how skylake scales. The core m3 that is just above it scores differently depending on the tablet it is in. In the Surface Pro 4 it is 0.98 single thread cinebench 11.5 and 2.27 multithread cinebech 11.5 but the surface 4 pro has a fan, other fanless devices can score 0.8 single thread 2.0 multithread and ranges in between
Contrast this to the atom x7 in the current surface 3 which scores 0.46 single thread and 1.3 multithread. Thus moving to the pentium 4.5w or 6w skylake cpu will result in almost a double thread in single thread and a little faster multithread.
That's way more power and heat than the Atom. The only Skylake currently suited to the smaller passive-only design (built with 14nm Cherry Trail in mind) would be the m3. See above.
They'd have to wait for one of the very low power Zen APUs. I suspect the mainstream Zen APUs will roll out before highly mobile APUs. So while not out of the question, it would not be ready in time for early 2017. There would be a large gap. They can't use current AMD processors because the big cores are too power hungry and the Cat cores aren't competitive when downclocked for such a low power draw (especially compared to 14nm Cherry Trail designs they're already using).
At this point they just have to either discontinue Surface non-Pro, or release a stop-gap "Surface 4" with an X7 Z8750. Which is basically what they have now but with 160Mhz higher turbo. They could add USB Type C and faster NVMe storage to make the device better and more responsive, but at the end of the day it wouldn't be a substantial improvement over what they have now.
The version to get is the 128GB version... which comes with 4GB. Which is PLENTY for a tablet. After having used one, the current CPU is "good enough" but not great. Replace the eMMC with a proper SSD, sure, but that's not enough of an upgrade to sell a Surface 4. A new-gen unit needs a better processor.
I really wish they would had updated a few months back ( was a whole year since the release of the 3), was waiting for the new version but it never came and purchased an iPad Pro 9.7 instead
MS just announce their decision when the time is right, for them.
I just bought a Surface 3 not a month ago, now that's a real bummer. However, stop of production is okay, just as long as it's not end of support for Surface 3, I'm fine with that. If MS announced a newer, more powerful and still priced reasonably Surface 4, then I'll go berserk.
If what you have works, then that's all that should matter. Sure, it would be nice if my Surface 3 was a little faster or had this or that, but it serves me quite well as it is. It's a very mature device, and hasn't suffered the initial problems SP4 and SB had. The only time mine needs a reboot is to install updates. I do hope MS brings us a replacement to keep the affordable model alive. I suppose if they want to bring the base SP4 down in price instead, that would be fine. Might be better for MS anyway, as they might get people to upgrade to faster models.
I'm sure they will bring it back, eventually. Although how long that takes may depend on Zen's ability to scale down and either A) Fit within the non-Pro's power and thermal requirements or B) Drive Intel's pricing down on a suitable replacement for the Atoms to sub-$50 levels.
Yeah I don't see how Pro ever moves down from $700 minimum, it's never gonna reach $500 or less. They either wait for the hardware to make another non-Pro possible materializes, or they forget about it, I can't believe the market allowed for such a gap, ugh.
Think of it as a glimpse into having no competition in x86. AMD has nothing competitive in the ultra-low-power tablet market right now, and there's little direct pressure from ARM, so Intel starts killing off development of affordable Atoms. Leaving only high-margin chips that drive costs up, and outdated Atoms (who knows for how long). They may be forced to change their tune again, but who knows when exactly? The factors involved are murky.
It's running real Windows so it'll get support for YEARS. Heck, the Surface 1 is being supported I guess until Windows 8.1 quits being supported some years from now, and an x86 based Surface 3 should fare better than that.
I have the Asus Note 8 as well, but couldn't see myself going for a 10"+ device. The 8" form factor is just too useful. Maybe a 7.9" with a 2048 × 1536 resolution or 8.9" with 1200p. But that's the biggest it can get for me.
Core M has a configurable TDP but only down to 3.8 W. But if they disabled HT and lowered max clock couldn they achieve a TDP suitable for a Surface 3? And as it would be relatively crippled Intel could reduce the price and make it one of their custom chips with no official RRP so no effect on regular Core M pricing. One issue is that it's an MCM package so larger than the Atoms which are 'true' SoCs.
"Core M has a configurable TDP but only down to 3.8 W." All I've read about it, mobile phone SOCs have had 5W has a TDP, so 3.8W is totally fine for a tablet device.
damn it, I love my Surface 3. no joke. it's the lightest AND smallest full keyboard pc there is! (I'm sure I might be wrong with this statement, but I'm not far off.).
I appreciate that the Surface 3 is a very good Atom tablet but at three times the price of a typical Atom convertible it must be a hard sell. I could understand if Microsoft doesn't replace it.
Well the build quality, size, display, and general usability blow away said typical Atom tablets, among other things. Read the review of the Surface 3 display here on AT. Also the really cheap Atom convertibles tend to be the 8" class, which is far cheaper of a category to begin with. 10.8" Surface 3 competes with other devices in it's class, and the decent ones tend to start life around $400 and quickly head up from there.
That's nearly $200 USD (not counting hopefully short term turmoil, panic, fear, and potential EU market bullying which I hope never materializes). Surface 3 over here starts life at $399, and the better model with twice the storage and twice the RAM is $499. I guess the price will be like that until they sell out.
Most of the 10" tablets I see in the ~$150 range are junk, no-name scrap with Bay Trail chips that just aren't very good. I've used cheap tablets before and I am just done with them. The build quality sucks, the camera might as well not exist, the display is awful, etc. Just my opinion. The ones that are $200 or so are better in terms of brand/build, and the displays aren't bottom-of-the-barrel not-quite-defective panels. Once you hit $300 ish you see some decent models but... still Bay Trail.
I'm not even certain you can get anything brand name with a comparable Cherry Trail chip under $400. Especially not an X7 with decent clocks. Why would I spend that kind of cash and NOT get a Surface 3? The only reason I can think of is perhaps you are OK with a larger form factor, and so you buy one of the Pro variants (maybe a gen or two old, for price reasons).
You got Atom slowness at near Core-M pricing. Yeah I cant fathom why they are not scrambling to replace it.
Intel needs to fix pricing. Just dump Atom and make a feature crippled Core-M with pricing that makes sense. The jump from atom ~$30 price to ~$300 is STUPID.
Is Atom dead? This is so weird... They canned their ARM chips I guess over a decade ago, which doesn't seem to have been a great idea. They introduce Atom, with the idea that eventually it'll be able to go into phones and the like. Atom was barely updated for almost a decade. Then FINALLY we get a second gen version and what seems like priority on it...and then it's canned.
And of course we were told that you couldn't have one design that scaled from smartphones to servers...and well okay, their 'big' design is 'only' scaling to tablets, but still.
Oh well, I'm glad x86 is at least in tablets and consoles! (And even one streaming box!)
As for the Surface 3...I like it a lot. I STILL like it a lot. Only reason I don't have one (or two of some combination of Surface 3 and Pro 4) is the lack of a Marvel Unlimited app for Windows.
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ImSpartacus - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
So if production ends in december, then that hits retail channels a couple months later, right?By then, we're nearly in Spring, which queues MS up to release a "Surface 5" (erm, 4?) replacement.
I'm definitely feeling the "I'm not shocked" vibe.
bill.rookard - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
Well, it might actually be time soon to replace my HP Touchpad...chrisb2e9 - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
You still have yours? I overclocked mine. Not by a lot, but enough that it eventually became unstable. I still have it, and it does work if I underclock it a bit. But the fact that I can never think of a reason to even charge it, means that I see no reason to buy a tablet at all.piroroadkill - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
I'm replying right now from my TouchPad, still works a treat. Have Android Marshmallow installed on it, and it runs way smoother than with webOS.Spunjji - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
This has been the fate of every single HP Touchpad that I'm aware of. Overclocked, sat half-dead on a table somewhere.Samus - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Probably explains why mine still works, kept it mildly overclocked to 1.5ghz (the stock speed of the white model Touchpad, by the way) and modified the kernel scheduler to reduce background priority. Really the only problem I have with it is cosmetic. The speaker grills are suffering the infamous cracking bezel issue.Overall it's interesting a 5 year old tablet is still so relevant. Other tablets don't seem much faster, even with octa core "dual quad/big little) configurations because Android and it's app ecosystem don't seem to care for more than 2 cores. The single threaded performance of the Snapdragon S3 is pretty good at 1.5ghz.
mkozakewich - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I'd just missed the fire sale, and this is making me jealous. That would have been years of use.A5 - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
I actually traded mine and my wife's in to Amazon a few years ago for like $40 a pop.piroroadkill - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Oh, and it gets used pretty much every day, and sits on the dock to charge..SpartanJet - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Dear god how can you stand using adroid on a tablet its such a terrible tablet experience feels like every app is a blown up phone port. Plus that thing is so slow now. webOS was so much better. I actually replaced mine with the surface 3 couldn't have been happier Windows 10 is fantastic on it.Samus - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
I don't think there's any debate webos was better than android but where are the apps? At least android and iOS took the better parts of webos interface such as the card based task manager and synergy comm center in the form of pull down menu's.WebOS was no doubt a competitor, HP just fucked it all up so bad. Stupid Apothiker. Poor Palm. HP created the duopoly we have in the mobile market. Even if they hadn't bought Palm, someone else would have and provided the cash infusion they needed. It's really pocket change in the grand scheme of things...HP got Palm for like what, a billion dollars or so? That's nothing for what could have been a $20-$30 billion ecosystem.
Wolfpup - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I LOVED Palm OS. Don't know if WebOS was really a replacement, but I thought HP's first tablet was a lot better than the Android devices of the time.Impulses - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
I use my Nexus 7 (2013) daily still, if I didn't have it I might've bought a Surface 3 (or an NV Shield)... Some people don't need two dozen apps, 90% of my use is Chrome, that's it.Speedfriend - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
And an iPad with its ridiculous blown up iphone home screen is somehow better?KPOM - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
At least iPad apps are not just blown up iPhone apps.MonkeyPaw - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
I wonder if Intel would be willing to make a Pentium M, based on skylake to fill in for Atom? I have a Surface 3, and it's darn near perfect for my needs. Thinner, USB-C and a faster system would be great.Alexvrb - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
They already have Skylake based M processors. It remains to be seen if they're willing to scale one down in power and price enough to supplant Cherry Trail. Especially price... they're quite expensive compared to the Atoms... I would bet Intel won't play ball until (and if) a future low-power Zen chip challenges their control of high-end tablets.Roland00Address - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
You said: Especially price... they're quite expensive compared to the Atoms...No they are not, not really, sure atom is cheaper but not by much anymore. The die size of 22nm Baytrail T aka the z3770 was 101.87 mm2 with dimensions of 9.723 by 10.477. According to an official intel datasheet that was released after launch and intel purposefully burried this information where they rather be coy on die sizes.
Core M on 14nm Skylake has a die size of 98.5mm2
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9582/intel-skylake-m...
See page 307 the two numbers labeled c1 and c2. Note they put that info as table inside an image and never did OCR on that page to make it harder for people to find yet they had to reveal this info to their partners to some extent
http://www.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/...
In other words if yields on 14nm are the same as 22nm back in the day then core m on 14nm is cheaper to make than atom baytrail was to make on 22nm. This is due to the awesome power of moores law which may have slowed a bit but still applies where stuff should get cheaper over time.
Alexvrb - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
For your sake I hope you're kidding. First of all, we're talking about Cherry Trail in the Surface 3 (X7 Z8700). Not Baytrail. Cherry Trail is made on the same 14nm process. It's a bit smaller and it's lower power than even the smallest, lowest power Core m3 Skylake design. Second, pricing and cost to produce are two separate things. What Intel *CAN* sell it for and what they *WILL* sell it for are two completely different matters.Look at this straight from Intel.
http://ark.intel.com/products/88198/Intel-Core-m3-...
http://ark.intel.com/products/85475/Intel-Atom-x7-...
Pay close attention to pricing. I understand that this isn't necessarily the price MS would pay per unit, but the difference is staggering. Unless Intel decides to be really nice and start selling a neutered variant of the current m3 Skylake chip (perhaps with reduced clocks) for a LOT cheaper, there's simply no way it's going to be anywhere near Atom pricing. A Surface 4 with Skylake would cost as much as a Pro... which is why it's getting discontinued, for now.
Impulses - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Wasn't this Intel's goal all along anyway? They kind of achieved it by mistake, but they brought Atom to life begrudgingly so VIA and others wouldn't stake a foothold in the netbook market... Then they sandbagged Atom for years because they didn't care to innovate in a low margins market that was stagnating anyway.Tablets and WinRT briefly made Atom relevant again, but now it's dead and no one seems to care. Maybe MS gave up on RT too soon, it was largely viewed as a power play for leverage, that worked... For all of two years, and now what?
Alexvrb - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Yeah they wanted to boost their profit margins back up. Windows on ARM did help stay their hand in the execution of the low-cost Atoms for a few years but the app issue killed Windows on ARM... for now.But that does bring up a good point, they could bring it back. Think about it, all of the Win8 and Win10 apps are written for the new Windows runtime. UWP apps can even support multiple UIs / form factors with the same app. All of these apps can be recompiled in the cloud for a different architecture so long as the runtime and APIs are ported. So as more software is ported to the Windows Store, the likelihood of another ARM-based tablet increases. So if Intel or AMD doesn't release something cheap and low power soon that can compete, they may very well make another go at an ARM device in a year or two.
Wolfpup - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I wish Microsoft had built in a seamless x86 emulator or something. I bought a Surface 1 for a relative, and it's still a really nice tablet...and still getting OS updates for that matter (but not 10).TheinsanegamerN - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
I hope we see one.If I have a windows tablet, 99% of the apps will be coming from the store. There just isnt anything x86 based besides CIV V that I want on a tablet.
ARM offers a lot more in that 3-5 watt space that x86 just doesnt offer. a snapdragon 820 or 830 powered surface would be neat.
Roland00Address - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
The recommended customer price on Intel's Ark is nothing like the final price OEMs pay. That is the starting negotiating price of Intel but due to things like rebates and such the OEMs pay far less than that.You might as well put 3 zeroes behind the price of every chip with intel ark's price for it is misleading data. Thinking that number has anything to do with the final price means you do not understand how negotiating strategy works, or you are unaware of what the real world average selling price which is released in intel's quarterly documents is.
Alexvrb - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
It could even sell for 1/4 of what they're asking and still would cost roughly double what the Atom sells for! ASP is dragged down by the Atom line. Not up. The Core m3 is FAR more expensive than the highest end X7 Atoms. You can play the "final selling price" game all you want but at the end of the day the lack of a newer gen Atom killed off the Surface non-Pro (for now). If they stick an m3 in there, now they have to price it closer to Surface Pro levels. Unless Intel cuts them a really serious break just to smooth things over. But I kind of doubt it.Wolfpup - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Doesn't seem brilliant to not have a chip for Microsoft for a Surface 4... I'm entirely convinced Nvidia's CPU (that seems to have been abandoned after being used in 1 product) was meant as an Atom competitor with better GPU...had they been able to license x86.Wolfpup - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Hmm...yeah, AMD's parts aren't as competitive here, Intel apparently locks Nvidia out of the market, and then oh yeah, we just can our part. HMM lolRoland00Address - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
They have a Pentium 4405Y which is Skylake-Y tech aka 6w processor with a cTDP down that can do 4.5w.It runs at 1.5ghz skylake dual core but with no hyperthreading and slower integrated graphics.
I have not seen any proper benchmarks for this chip for barely anything uses it. If I were to guess it would be at .75 single thread cinebench 11.5, and 1.50 multithread cinebench 11.5 due to how skylake scales. The core m3 that is just above it scores differently depending on the tablet it is in. In the Surface Pro 4 it is 0.98 single thread cinebench 11.5 and 2.27 multithread cinebech 11.5 but the surface 4 pro has a fan, other fanless devices can score 0.8 single thread 2.0 multithread and ranges in between
Contrast this to the atom x7 in the current surface 3 which scores 0.46 single thread and 1.3 multithread. Thus moving to the pentium 4.5w or 6w skylake cpu will result in almost a double thread in single thread and a little faster multithread.
Alexvrb - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
That's way more power and heat than the Atom. The only Skylake currently suited to the smaller passive-only design (built with 14nm Cherry Trail in mind) would be the m3. See above.Roland00Address - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
Intel m3 tdp is 4.5wPentium 4405y tdp can be 4.5 watts or 6 watts. The OEM gets to choose.
Alexvrb - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
m3 TDP can be 7W, 4.5W, or even 3.8W. The OEM gets to choose.mkozakewich - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
m3 Surface Pro 4 doesn't have a fan.PrayForDeath - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
What if they go with an AMD processor for the Surface 4? Is that out of the question?Alexvrb - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
They'd have to wait for one of the very low power Zen APUs. I suspect the mainstream Zen APUs will roll out before highly mobile APUs. So while not out of the question, it would not be ready in time for early 2017. There would be a large gap. They can't use current AMD processors because the big cores are too power hungry and the Cat cores aren't competitive when downclocked for such a low power draw (especially compared to 14nm Cherry Trail designs they're already using).At this point they just have to either discontinue Surface non-Pro, or release a stop-gap "Surface 4" with an X7 Z8750. Which is basically what they have now but with 160Mhz higher turbo. They could add USB Type C and faster NVMe storage to make the device better and more responsive, but at the end of the day it wouldn't be a substantial improvement over what they have now.
TheinsanegamerN - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
OTOH, the CPU really isnt the problem with the surface 3. The lack of RAM and the slow eMMC4 storage is what kills it.Alexvrb - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
The version to get is the 128GB version... which comes with 4GB. Which is PLENTY for a tablet. After having used one, the current CPU is "good enough" but not great. Replace the eMMC with a proper SSD, sure, but that's not enough of an upgrade to sell a Surface 4. A new-gen unit needs a better processor.babadivad - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
The Surface 4 already released. Almost a year ago.255BB - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
you mean Surface PRO 4?Alexvrb - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
You'll have to forgive baba, he's actually from two years in the future. Darn it baba, I told you to bring back winning lottery numbers!babadivad - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
*sigh* I keep forgetting. Next time, I promise.Impulses - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
Passed on it initially and I almost regret it now, has it not sold well enough for them to work out a favorable deal with Intel or switch to AMD?CoreyWat - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
I really wish they would had updated a few months back ( was a whole year since the release of the 3), was waiting for the new version but it never came and purchased an iPad Pro 9.7 insteadgeekman1024 - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
C'est la vie, pal.MS just announce their decision when the time is right, for them.
I just bought a Surface 3 not a month ago, now that's a real bummer. However, stop of production is okay, just as long as it's not end of support for Surface 3, I'm fine with that. If MS announced a newer, more powerful and still priced reasonably Surface 4, then I'll go berserk.
MonkeyPaw - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
If what you have works, then that's all that should matter. Sure, it would be nice if my Surface 3 was a little faster or had this or that, but it serves me quite well as it is. It's a very mature device, and hasn't suffered the initial problems SP4 and SB had. The only time mine needs a reboot is to install updates. I do hope MS brings us a replacement to keep the affordable model alive. I suppose if they want to bring the base SP4 down in price instead, that would be fine. Might be better for MS anyway, as they might get people to upgrade to faster models.Alexvrb - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
I'm sure they will bring it back, eventually. Although how long that takes may depend on Zen's ability to scale down and either A) Fit within the non-Pro's power and thermal requirements or B) Drive Intel's pricing down on a suitable replacement for the Atoms to sub-$50 levels.Impulses - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Yeah I don't see how Pro ever moves down from $700 minimum, it's never gonna reach $500 or less. They either wait for the hardware to make another non-Pro possible materializes, or they forget about it, I can't believe the market allowed for such a gap, ugh.Alexvrb - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Think of it as a glimpse into having no competition in x86. AMD has nothing competitive in the ultra-low-power tablet market right now, and there's little direct pressure from ARM, so Intel starts killing off development of affordable Atoms. Leaving only high-margin chips that drive costs up, and outdated Atoms (who knows for how long). They may be forced to change their tune again, but who knows when exactly? The factors involved are murky.Wolfpup - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
It's running real Windows so it'll get support for YEARS. Heck, the Surface 1 is being supported I guess until Windows 8.1 quits being supported some years from now, and an x86 based Surface 3 should fare better than that.Michael Bay - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Well damn, and I was thinking to replace my M80ta with it.Sure hope there will be something else in this formfactor from them.
Death666Angel - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
I have the Asus Note 8 as well, but couldn't see myself going for a 10"+ device. The 8" form factor is just too useful. Maybe a 7.9" with a 2048 × 1536 resolution or 8.9" with 1200p. But that's the biggest it can get for me.Michael Bay - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
Maybe next year.Pro is definitely too big and too expensive for me.
smilingcrow - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Core M has a configurable TDP but only down to 3.8 W.But if they disabled HT and lowered max clock couldn they achieve a TDP suitable for a Surface 3?
And as it would be relatively crippled Intel could reduce the price and make it one of their custom chips with no official RRP so no effect on regular Core M pricing.
One issue is that it's an MCM package so larger than the Atoms which are 'true' SoCs.
Death666Angel - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
"Core M has a configurable TDP but only down to 3.8 W."All I've read about it, mobile phone SOCs have had 5W has a TDP, so 3.8W is totally fine for a tablet device.
jordanl17 - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
damn it, I love my Surface 3. no joke. it's the lightest AND smallest full keyboard pc there is! (I'm sure I might be wrong with this statement, but I'm not far off.).Michael Bay - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
I`m pretty sure those old horrible netbooks had smaller ones.BedfordTim - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
I appreciate that the Surface 3 is a very good Atom tablet but at three times the price of a typical Atom convertible it must be a hard sell. I could understand if Microsoft doesn't replace it.Alexvrb - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
Well the build quality, size, display, and general usability blow away said typical Atom tablets, among other things. Read the review of the Surface 3 display here on AT. Also the really cheap Atom convertibles tend to be the 8" class, which is far cheaper of a category to begin with. 10.8" Surface 3 competes with other devices in it's class, and the decent ones tend to start life around $400 and quickly head up from there.BedfordTim - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
The cheap tablets are available in 10" format as well. Mine cost £140.You are right in that they are not as good, but they are perfectly serviceable.
Alexvrb - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
That's nearly $200 USD (not counting hopefully short term turmoil, panic, fear, and potential EU market bullying which I hope never materializes). Surface 3 over here starts life at $399, and the better model with twice the storage and twice the RAM is $499. I guess the price will be like that until they sell out.Most of the 10" tablets I see in the ~$150 range are junk, no-name scrap with Bay Trail chips that just aren't very good. I've used cheap tablets before and I am just done with them. The build quality sucks, the camera might as well not exist, the display is awful, etc. Just my opinion. The ones that are $200 or so are better in terms of brand/build, and the displays aren't bottom-of-the-barrel not-quite-defective panels. Once you hit $300 ish you see some decent models but... still Bay Trail.
I'm not even certain you can get anything brand name with a comparable Cherry Trail chip under $400. Especially not an X7 with decent clocks. Why would I spend that kind of cash and NOT get a Surface 3? The only reason I can think of is perhaps you are OK with a larger form factor, and so you buy one of the Pro variants (maybe a gen or two old, for price reasons).
Gunbuster - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
You got Atom slowness at near Core-M pricing. Yeah I cant fathom why they are not scrambling to replace it.Intel needs to fix pricing. Just dump Atom and make a feature crippled Core-M with pricing that makes sense. The jump from atom ~$30 price to ~$300 is STUPID.
damianrobertjones - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
"Just dump Atom"They have.
Wolfpup - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
Is Atom dead? This is so weird... They canned their ARM chips I guess over a decade ago, which doesn't seem to have been a great idea. They introduce Atom, with the idea that eventually it'll be able to go into phones and the like. Atom was barely updated for almost a decade. Then FINALLY we get a second gen version and what seems like priority on it...and then it's canned.And of course we were told that you couldn't have one design that scaled from smartphones to servers...and well okay, their 'big' design is 'only' scaling to tablets, but still.
Oh well, I'm glad x86 is at least in tablets and consoles! (And even one streaming box!)
As for the Surface 3...I like it a lot. I STILL like it a lot. Only reason I don't have one (or two of some combination of Surface 3 and Pro 4) is the lack of a Marvel Unlimited app for Windows.
Michael Bay - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
Intel sold its ARM division to Marvell.