Surface Pro 3: 12-inch 3:2 screen, starts at $799, pre-orders start May 21 (hands-on)

Microsoft announced today the Surface Pro 3, a new high-performance Windows 8.1 tablet designed to get rid of the “conflict” between owning a tablet and a laptop.

Thanks to a close partnership with Intel, it’s 9.1mm (0.36 inch) thick, which is the thinnest Intel Core PC evermade and weighs 800 grams (1.8 pounds) and has 10 percent more “performance” than Surface Pro 2.

To get the body so thin, but still allow the power of an Intel Core i7 processor, cooling fans were redesigned for the Pro 3 so that it seems fanless, and each body component is custom machined for the tablet.

Despite the thin body you’ll still find a full-size USB 3.0 port, microSD card reader, and Mini DisplayPort as well as 5-megapixel and 1080p HD front- and rear-facing cameras as well as stereo speakers with Dolby Audio-enhanced sound.

The display is 12-inches, a 3:2 aspect ratio with a 2,160 x 1,440 resolution that Microsoft calls “Pixel Free”.

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CNET Section Editor Dan Ackerman got some hands-on time with the Surface Pro 3, today. Here are his impressions:

The Surface Pro 3 still doesn’t feel quite as thin and ethereal as, for example, the iPad Air, but its slightly thinner body, coupled with the larger screen, give it a more upscale feel than the Pro and Pro 2, both of which we criticized for a certain boxiness.

The immediate difference in the lap is the new kickstand, which can adjust to nearly any angle between 22 degrees and 150 degrees. As the owner of normal-sized legs for a six-foot-tall male, I still had a hard time getting the Surface Pro 3 to sit comfortably on my lap. The kickstand either kept the screen angle too severe to see clearly while seated, or else the end of the kickstand was sliding off my knees when I tilted the screen further back.

Taking the type cover and kicking in its additional top-edge magnetic hinge, raising the back edge of the keyboard to a better angle and also shortening it, helped a bit, and the raised angle feels much more natural for typing (which is why nearly every PC keyboard has tiny feet at the back edge).

The better-than-HD display, 12-inches diagonally at 2,160×1,440 resolution, looks clear and bright, and follows a growing trend towards better-than-HD displays. Do you need more pixels on a 12-inch screen? That’s debatable, but some 13-inch models are already hitting 3,200×1,800.

Using the stylus accessory, which Microsoft calls a Pen, felt fast and responsive when sketching in OneNote, a cloud-enabled Microsoft app. The Bluetooth pen is metallic, and thicker than the skinny plastic versions I’ve seen bundled with other tablets. Unlike the Asus VivoTab 8-inch tablet we recently reviewed, there’s no internal slot for the pen to fit into. Instead a plastic loop on the side of the type cover can hold it. That part of the design feels frankly insubstantial.

Does the Surface Pro 3 really do something so different than its predecessors that it will replace the sea of glowing MacBook Airs seen in the audience during Microsoft’s NYC launch event? No, it’s still the same basic concept, a Core i-series slate, coupled with a very good keyboard accessory — but it’s certainly different enough from the Surface Pro 2 that I can call this a very substantial generation-over-generation leap.

We’ll be testing the Surface Pro 3’s application performance and battery life, so stay tuned for a full review and benchmark results.

With the Pro 3, Microsoft seems to be trying to woo creative professionals. Adobe has developed Photoshop CC optimized for touch on the Surface Pro 3. There is full pen input support with a better touch experience than before.

The tablet’s built in kickstand has been redesigned with a friction hinge to allow for the classic 22-degree angle and all the way down to 150 degrees.

There’s an updated $130 Type Cover with backlit keys and an improved touchpad and a design that adds stability, forms a better typing angle, and puts the keys slightly closer to the screen. (It’s compatible with the Surface Pro 2, Surface Pro, and Surface 2, also.)

There is a $50 Surface Pen, too, that is designed to feel — both on screen and in the hand — like a real pen. With 256 points of pressure writing on the Surface Pro 3 promises to react just as if you’re writing on paper. From taking notes to doing the New York Times Crossword or writing and editing a screenplay in the app Final Draft, pen input is a major part of the Pro 3 and it looks like Microsoft may have nailed it.

For example, just click once on the Pen’s top to open OneNote, even if your Surface is asleep, and notes are automatically saved. A future update will let you double-click the top of Surface Pen to instantly capture and save a screenshot.

Along with those accessories there is a new Docking Station for Surface Pro 3 and a Surface Ethernet Adapter to help you further transform the tablet into a laptop.

It will come in three processor configurations with Core i3, Core i5, and Core i7 options and prices starting at $800 — a $100 less than the Pro 2 starting price, but with a lower-end processor than that model. Other hardware specs include SSD storage from 64GB to 512GB; 4GB or 8GB of memory; 802.11ac or 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi; and TPM 2.0 for enterprise security.

Microsoft is promising up to nine hours of Web-browsing battery life.

Preorders start May 21. Microsoft has not announced prices outside the US yet — $799 converts to about £475 and AU$860.