Microsoft Surface 3 Tablet Replacement Arrives

July 11, 2018

My use of tablets has almost disappeared. And coincidentally, tablet sales are way down and still dropping. I suppose everyone has their reasons for losing interest in them. Mine was that my business changed and I almost never go to in-person meetings anymore—I used to use Windows tablets to ink my notes in such meetings, and not for much more.

Before I moved away from tablets, I was using a Surface 3 for a few years, and liked it. It was Microsoft’s only iPad competitor in terms of size and weight, so when a year ago Microsoft discontinued the Surface 3, I was puzzled, did Microsoft really want to abandon that market?

With a recent announcement, the answer is apparently NO: Microsoft wants to stay in the iPad-size tablet market. Yesterday Microsoft announced the Surface Go, its replacement to the Surface 3. It’s a $399, 10-inch, 1.15 pound touch-screen tablet (which puts it solidly in the small iPad form factor). But it has features much like the higher-end (and heavier) Surface Pro. It’s based on the Intel Pentium Gold processor, so it has much more power than the previous Atom-based Surface 3 tablet.

Here’s a good article about the Surface Go from one of my favorite Microsoft Industry columnists, Mary Jo Foley:  https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-takes-aim-at-schools-consumers-and-businesses-with-surface-go-tablets-starting-at-399/

And another article comparing the Surface Go to Apple’s iPad:  https://www.zdnet.com/article/can-microsofts-surface-go-unseat-apples-ipad/

Michael