Microsoft Surface Pro 3 Review

The Surface Pro 3 ships with a 64-bit edition of Windows 8.1 Pro. By now, you should all know what Windows 8.1 is about, so we’re not going to rehash any of the operating systems features here.

What we will say is that Microsoft doesn’t load up the Surface Pro 3 with any bloatware whatsoever, unless you consider the handful of ModernUI apps included with Windows 8.1 to be extraneous. The OS installation is about as clean as they come. Boot the machine up, do some initial configuration (like picking the theme color and signing into a Microsoft account) and you’re ready to go.

There are a couple of new additions to the OS, however, included on the Surface Pro 3. For one, although the OS is 64-bit, it does support connected standby. Up to this point, only 32-bit editions of Windows 8/8.1 had supported connected standby, but that is no longer the case. The Surface Pro 3’s OS installation also has some hooks for the new Surface Pen.

When you press the button on the top of the Surface Pen, One Note immediately launches and gives users the ability to take notes on-screen. Users can also grab portions of a screen to embed in a note or for annotation. And though Microsoft is no longer including additional free OneDrive cloud storage space with the Surface Pro 3, anything saved in OneNote is automatically synced to the cloud.