The Surface Pro 3 Is My Kind Of ‘Laptop’

I started using a tablet within a few months of them existing in the market place, I’ve owned many an iPad since they were released, but I’m still a passionate laptop user.  I’m currently using a Thinkpad x230 and an iPad mini and truth be told I’m mostly satisfied.

I still have a few niggles though, that the Surface pro 3 seems to fix:

1. The Thinkpad is just that little bit too heavy – fixed
2. The Thinkpad battery life, at 5 hours, just a fraction too short – fixed
3. The Thinkpad screen resolution just a little too low – fixed
4. The iPad screen much too small for magazines and most business PDFs – fixed
5. I have no way to annotate on presentations and documents – fixed
6. I love to share my screen and sketch freehand during meetings – sorted
7. I never get around to reading analyst reports – no more excuses
8. I never have paper with me when I want it – sorted

Last year I tried out the Surface and original Surface Pro, but they didn’t quite work, the Surface Pro was close but:

1. The Touch cover was rubbish – probably fixed
2. The battery life was terrible – fixed
3. The screen was ‘just wrong’ in portrait mode and A4 PDFs didn’t work at all – fixed
4. I work mainly with the Thinkpad on my lap – probably fixed
5. The kickstand was never at the right angle – fixed

All in all this is a pretty good score!

On paper I’m pretty sure that the pro 3 could replace by beloved Thinkpad and address the tasks that the iPad fails at.  The issue is could it replace the tasks that the iPad excels at, probably not!  So I would still end up carrying the pro 3, iPad and iPhone, but even so that would be progress because 100% of my mobile use cases would be met instead of the 70% that are met today.

The big question remains, could I give up the Thinkpad keyboard and form factor that’s been my constant companion for 17 years!  There’s only one way to answer that someone needs to get me a pro 3.