While the Surface Pro 3 was a drastic upgrade from the Surface Pro 2, the recently announced fourth generation builds on the third iterations success with only minor tweaks and thoughtful additions. At Microsoft’s device night, the Surface Pro 4s were at almost every station, except for the one for the Surface Book.
Many fans and retails pros at the event owned some generation Surface Pro, which one guest admitting that he still has and uses his first generation almost daily. Microsoft demonstrated a number of use cases for the device highlighting the improved pen and Photoshop capability (which you can check out in the video above) as well as the newly designed keyboard.
Guests also got a look at the new Surface Dock which was on display with an external monitor. The dock lets users to increase number of available ports, allowing them to connect two additional monitors, up to four - USB 3.0 devices, audio out, and a wired Ethernet connection.
Of all the features, people had the most fun with the pen. Of the hundreds of people I observed using the device, they almost always immediately went for the pen, with the remaining first checking out the keyboard. The photo demos and the pen drew many “oohs” and “ahhs” from the crowd, with many impressed by the versatility of the hardware when paired with the latest version of Photoshop CC, which is optimized for the Surface hardware.
The Surface line, especially the Pro variant, has been steadily growing in popularity especially among students and businesses. While Microsoft wants to convince as many people as possible that this tablet can replace their laptop, the demos give us a better idea as to who they are focusing their marketing on. The Surface Pro 4 starts at $899 and will be released along side the Surface Book October 26th.
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