Three questions to ask before buying a Surface 3

[Nvictor]

Thanks for the advice

 

[LibbyLA]

I probably should clarify. The parts of SAS in the EAS (Educational Analytic Suite) run on the S3 with Win 8.1 (not Pro or Enterprise). There are some parts of SAS that won't. I haven't tried Enterprise Guide but I don't think it will work. SAS Analytics (text/data mining) almost certainly won't work, the processor just isn't up to it. If you install Win 8.1 Enterprise or Pro, Enterprise Guide should work, but only the components of EAS will run in vanilla Win 8.1.

 

[Rhadamanthus]

Another question: Do I plan to use it for travel. The Surface 3 is built to only work on WiFi channels 1 to 11. If you go to Europe or Asia routers may use channels 1 to 13. Your Surface can not see channels 12 or 13 and you will have no WiFi.

 

[XROne]

I opened command prompt admin and it says "system32". i didn't think to check if this S3 from 2015, after the SP4 came out, I think, is 64bit architecture. some people can astound by the ridiculous things they do. i assume Microsoft launched this 32bit then, but as i recall the transition to 64bit happened years earlier, except for S3, again, i assume. so i may have to sell it if i can't get the latest Linux kernel and firewall features. but so far, it works very well and the micro USB charger system and battery life are amazing. I am not having any issues with it accept learning to navigate things like screen shot and left click is clicking on the center of the left side of the mouse pad.
I am going to see if I can get some modern software to work on it.