The Surface 3 waiting room

[Liam2349]

I like the looks of this new Surface 3. I'm waiting for the reviews to come out over the next few weeks before deciding to buy.
My main concern is going to be performance. Are web browsers going to lag and hang with many tabs open with that processor? Can people keep multiple Office documents open at the same time and multitask between them?
Is the performance of the X8700 X7 Atom going to be the same, better or worse for these uses than the N2840 Celeron processor in the HP Stream laptops that start at only $199?
If performance is not significantly better or is worse, it won't make sense to for us to spend around $670 per user for a Surface 3 commercial edition with keyboard vs less than $300 for an HP Stream 11 Pro for their secondary machines to use in meetings and for remote access. It would be too much or price premium just for much prettier upscale magnesium hardware vs plastic, and 1080p IPS touchscreen vs 720p TN screen if it didn't also have usefully improved performance.

It's above 1080p, but it's nice to have good build quality.

You will have to wait for the Anandtech review. I'm personally quite looking forward to it.

Something Microsoft really needs to do is improve the performance of their tablet browser, as IE Metro feels a bit slow, but now we have to wait for Spartan to hopefully fix that.

 

[GreyFox7]

Issues with the stream 11
Only b/g/n wifi vs. ac on S3
32gb storage max vs 64gb/128gb on S3
Camera 640x480 LOL
Screen 1366 x768 LOL
Thick .78" heavy, hot (101F on case during video test). LOL
2GB Ram max.
mushpad touch pad.
It's a minor league Cheapbook competitor to Chromebook

 

[netuser]

Issues with the stream 11
Only b/g/n wifi vs. ac on S3
32gb storage max vs 64gb/128gb on S3
Camera 640x480 LOL
Screen 1366 x768 LOL
Thick .78" heavy, hot (101F on case during video test). LOL
2GB Ram max.
mushpad touch pad.
It's a minor league Cheapbook competitor to Chromebook

Of course the hardware is nicer for the price, but for the price we would want better performance not cosmetics. Maybe the performance will be much better than the HP Stream. Testing and reviews over the next weeks will show the answer.

Comparing to the cheapest Surface 3 model, the Surface also only has 2GB RAM.
AC wireless, not critical.
Thickness difference not critical. Weight on 11.6 inch laptop is not going to be an issue. Camera resolution not critical. I doubt the touchpad on the Surface's clip on keyboard is going to be amazing. We may give the users mice if they are struggling with the touchpads.
Better screen has value, but not for more than double the cost. For the extra cost, we really want to see a major performance boost vs systems that start at $199.

Because of massive cost difference, there are probably not going to be that many people cross shopping these two devices. However, we are in a unique situation where both of these could possible do what we need them to do.

 

[GreyFox7]

Of course the hardware is nicer for the price, but for the price we would want better performance not cosmetics. Maybe the performance will be much better than the HP Stream. Testing and reviews over the next weeks will show the answer.

Comparing to the cheapest Surface 3 model, the Surface also only has 2GB RAM.
AC wireless, not critical.
Thickness difference not critical. Weight on 11.6 inch laptop is not going to be an issue. Camera resolution not critical. I doubt the touchpad on the Surface's clip on keyboard is going to be amazing. We may give the users mice if they are struggling with the touchpads.
Better screen has value, but not for more than double the cost. For the extra cost, we really want to see a major performance boost vs systems that start at $199.

Because of massive cost difference, there are probably not going to be that many people cross shopping these two devices. However, we are in a unique situation where both of these could possible do what we need them to do.

The low end is your desired domain, the HP Stream is perfect for you. You can have it.

If you're giving users HP Stream and your competitor is giving Surface 3 or iPad which place do they want to work?

IYO none of the features: better screen, better build quality, thinner, lighter, more ram and storage, better video, camera, etc. just aren't important.

In the race to the bottom, the bottom succeeds at being the worst, and attracting the worst.

 

[netuser]

The low end is your desired domain, the HP Stream is perfect for you. You can have it.

If you're giving users HP Stream and your competitor is giving Surface 3 or iPad which place do they want to work?

IYO none of the features: better screen, better build quality, thinner, lighter, more ram and storage, better video, camera, etc. just agent important.

In the race to the bottom, the bottom succeeds at being the worst, and attracting the worst.

If the CPU is no better than the CPU in the HP Stream Pro, the only practical reasons for us to get the Surface is for the better screen as well as if spending the additional $100 to upgrade the Surface to the 4GB Surface model ends up greatly enhancing the performance when multitasking. If the system is constrained by the Atom CPU, upgrading to the 4GB model won't be enough.
The devices will be primarily used in meetings and to use remotely access their more powerful primary workstation. There are not supposed to be storing gigabytes of data locally and therefore having more local storage available to fill up is not really a plus feature for us. They will only need local storage to store specific documents they are actively working on offsite as well as an offline cache of their mailbox.

 

[GreyFox7]

If the CPU is no better than the CPU in the HP Stream Pro, the only practical reasons for us to get the Surface is for the better screen as well as if spending the additional $100 to upgrade the Surface to the 4GB Surface model ends up greatly enhancing the performance when multitasking. If the system is constrained by the Atom CPU, upgrading to the 4GB model won't be enough.
The devices will be primarily used in meetings and to use remotely access their more powerful primary workstation. There are not supposed to be storing gigabytes of data locally and therefore having more local storage available to fill up is not really a plus feature for us. They will only need local storage to store specific documents they are actively working on offsite as well as an offline cache of their mailbox.

Intel says the x7 Z8700 will have twice the graphics performance on some tests as the Bay Trail class chips. Performance metrics will vary.

The total system performance will depend on other components as well. The eMMC disk is said to have performance about half that of the Pro SSD. That sounds like it would be better than the eMMC in the Stream.

We should see some real benchmarks popping up before long unless there's an embargo on until May. Regardless Pen functionality alone makes the Surface 3 a winner.

Surface 3 in Action

Pen in Action (it's the same Pen)

 

[jrioux]

Better screen has value, but not for more than double the cost. For the extra cost, we really want to see a major performance boost vs systems that start at $199.

Over triple the cost when you add the keyboard!

 

[netuser]

The Stream 11 Pro comes with 8.1 Pro and costs more than $199, so the Surface 3 business edition with 8.1 Pro would be closer to 2x than 3x the price.

 

[GreyFox7]

Was researching the Geekbench scores and noticed an anomaly with that reported on CPUBoss.
Here the totality of Hewlett-Packard HP Stream Notebook PC 11 with N2840 CPU on GeekBench.
middle single core score 951
middle multi core score 1652

N2840 is 2 core 2 thread CPU while the z8700 is a 4 core 4 thread CPU.

Z8700 scores
avg single core score 967
avg multi core score 3267

Passmark Scores
N2840 Passmark score 1000
Z3795 Passmark score 1678 which will be close but lower than the z8700

It doesn't look like the HP Stream 11 performance will be close to the Surface 3.

 

[netuser]

Good. Hopefully, real world use will reflect the performance difference expected from those better benchmark scores.

 

[duffyanneal]

I tried one out this past weekend. I came away fairly impressed. I have a SP3, but I'm considering a S3 as direct replacement for an iPad. I really see the S3 as an iPad killer. If you compare specs between the two machines the S3 comes out as a winner. I don't think I would want to replace my SP3 with the S3, but for general use and content consumption the S3 should fit the bill for a lot of consumers.

 

[brocharlieb]

Here's my take on the comparison between any Surface and anything made by Dell (I believe that's where the aforementioned Stream comes from). If it isn't a high end Dell for corporate use I want no part of it. I've found the build quality and especially the battery quality of every consumer model Dell to be very unattractive. I've had my Surface for two and a third years and the battery life is not noticeably different from when it was new. It gets hours of use every day and still works like it did when it was new. I've never had a Dell you could say that about after a year, much less two. No Dell for me, thanks.

On edit: Went back and read further. Stream is by HP, not Dell. HPs that I've had have been better than the consumer model Dells, and still nowhere near as good as my original Surface.