Microsoft to sell unique 32GB version of Surface 3 just for schools

Your ideal tablet already exists!  Thinkpad 8 Only catches are (a) it's made by Lenovo, not Microsoft (b) it's not available in most markets (only UK and Hong Kong that I know of) and (c) it is a bit more than US$500 (£609.19 or US$913)!!! .  

No, tp8 caught my attention since its first appearance but it's far from ideal. The display is not very good, there's no pen support (crucial to small win8 tablets IMO), the quality seems to be lower than Lenovo's normal standard (according to customers' reviews), and it's a bit too small...

Good points. Maybe it'd be OK at ~$300, but at $900 those are glaring flaws.

Looking forward to getting this

I need this...my employer is cheap...although I am paid more than what it seems I contribute...funny, they think I'm great..smmfh

You are fired... ( your Boss here :p )

:(

I used a student discount offered by Microsoft Stores to get my SP3 10% off. I didn't feel like driving an hour each way to the MS Store, so I printed it out and price matched at Worst Buy.

Well that's a clever idea, thank you...

Noice

I had a lot of trouble using a 32GB win 8.1 machine.  Was CONSTANTLY running out of space on my dell venue 8 pro.  Running disk cleanups constantly, moved my libraries to the SD card, installed programs to SD, Temp folder to SD drive, turned off sys restore points, but kept running out of space.  I think 32GB tablets will give MS a bad name, because it took me a lot of advanced work to keep that thing actually running. 

Very true.

I suspect they've thought about this.

32GB should be okay for school restricted use. But for home, 64GB is minimum. Which is probably why they didn't announce this until past preorder starting date for Surface 3 (64 and 128GB only versions).

Yep if its AD(Novell) based then theres no need for local storage

Yeah 32GB is a joke when you end up with 12GB free after all the updates and MS support ignores the issue!

12 GB is a lot of space. I have Surfac 2 32GB version for over a year, never feel a need for more space.

Because there are not a lot of apps/games to choose from? Lol.

Why shouldn't MS support ignore the issue? If you buy a 32GB device, then you bought a device with less storage and this is expected. Devices for schools are locked down and do not let students install everything they want. Most lessons are done through the web and huge amounts of storage is not necessary. Plus, there are tools built into Windows to remove the update packages when they are no longer needed, so you will get that space back.

Schools will probably image the devices themselves leaving more like 20 gigs of free space =). Not enough for me still but this is a specific school enviornment. 

Absolute worse experience for me. Should be standard 64GB at the very least. Posted via the Windows Phone Central App for Android

ok, worst, and 32gb more than enough for elementary to high schools students. They can't install software. Most work will be web dependent with exception of local docs that are measured in KB. 32 will be fine....and there is an SD slot and full USB support.

Isn't there an SD slot?

Yep. And Windows 10 lets you put pictures and movies etc by default to the SD Card. Put in a 32-128GB in a 32Gb Surface 3 and the default 32GB is plenty.   

There, that's my point...thank you Hoeckie.

You guys are missing the point.  As I said in the original comment, I moved all the libraries (documents, music, videos, pictures) to the SD card already.  I moved everything I could to the SD card.  FULL Windows 8.1 (NON RT) just takes up a lot of drive space, and it keeps growing, and managing it all under 32GB is really difficult.  It really limits how many modern apps you can install, and the system becomes very unhappy when the drive gets so full.  

Why is it such a monster...something seems amiss..

I found this Surface 3 with 32gb at a very low price (just 330 euros, less than 300 US$) and for that price i think to buy it.
I already have a very fast 64 GB micro-SD that i could use as extra disk space.
Do you know how many GB are available after a clean installation of Windows 10 on that tablet?
5 - 6? Thanks

I completely agree with u on this my wife has a hp stream 11 that I fresh installed win10tp on because win 8 was bigger. Even still I had to relocate her docs and videos and such to our nas. Alot of work and it still runs out of space.

Yep, but I think most schools save the majority of things to their own network, or the cloud. My school saves almost everything to the cloud instead of the on board storage. It would be a hassle for personal use though.

Few things can be tried to overcome this: 1) OneDrive for data storage. 1TB with Office365 @ USD 6.99 per month. 2) Flickr for Photos - 1TB free 2) External Hard disk (SSD) for Program files. But all said and done, 32GB is really tiny :)

I already pre-ordered the 4GB/128GB version from BestBuy. This is the replacement tablet for my Surface RT. If Microsoft had released the same size tablet, but in a pro version, I would have bought that.

Perfect! Now ipad has a lot on its table!!

Doesn't matter. Most schools now probably go with chromebooks. And kids won't like Surface when it lacks all the apps and games they already have on their iPads at home.

Shitty iOS games cznr be compared to full windows

I don't get your point?  Schools are not buying iPads so kids can play games.  Chromebooks won't have games either.

First, no body uses ChromeBook. People like to laugh at how Win8.x is not selling well (even though there are over 300+ million in use) or Windows Phone is not selling well, but ChromeBook has such a low use that it does not even show up on the web sites that monitor OS usage. Even the media is starting to abandon their "ChromeBook is the next big thing" chant. Second, people will be upset that the Surface does not have all the apps available on iPads, but they will be fine with a ChromeBook? ChromeBook only has HTML based apps, so there will be more apps available to Surface than to ChromeBook's handful of users since the Surface has a store with 100,000s of apps, multi-millions of desktop apps, and all the web apps that are available to ChromeBook.

Chromebooks are doing very well in schools, actually. Even the town where I live uses them. In fact, I ran into the IT guy in charge of the distribution here. Schools like Chromebooks because of the control. Admins can control everything aspect about what is on those devices and how they are used. Plus, cheap. True, in the general consumer world, they are a tiny minority. But make no mistake they are making inroads in public education.

Yeah my nieces' school system in Rhode Island switched to chromebooks last year. Cheaper for them I guess.

You Americans always amaze me. Just because few schools bought a few chromebooks you think it counts? The point is it's cheaper to even run Surface 3 with the power of full windows than some experiment in chromebooks. Sooner or later these same schools will see the obvious benefit of the tied on Office 365 deals compare to what ipad or chromebooks can offer. It's a good strategy Microsoft chose to offer the Surface 3 for the ipad and maybe the MacBook Air; and the Surface Pro for the MacBook Pro and other high end laptops. Ye Americans, open your eyes and see what the world is turning to.... Android stalling, IOS stagnating and Windows on the rise!!

Agreed, but most Americans (not me), are sick of Windows anything. And American sales people that sell us our tech gadgets still think anything google & apple are the greatest things ever created and will buy/push them any chance they get. Oh boy look a new galaxy phone every friggan 6 months. The next big thing must be here! Most don't even know what the specs are. And they buy millions of them. Sadly that perception not stalling here anytime soon.

BS!!! If Americans were sick about Windows you wouldn't see everywhere. Unless you are in college and Starbucks, you'd almost never see Macs. I haven't seen a chromebook yet.

At the workplace yes Windows is everywhere because employees are forced to use but they don't like it. At home they have switched to tablets (iPads & android) and not desktop PC's because they are easier to use and don't have the dumb user IE crashes, security issues and bluescreens that they are used to with old Windows. And they hated Windows 8. So yeah most are sick of it. Unless Windows 10 changes that perception and people think it's cool for them again, then that won't change!

@JohnStrk On which planet do you live? Have you seen sales. Look again. They tell you a different story. Also look how many people with a tablet also have a Windows laptop. And no they are not forced to use a Windows laptop at home.

So what you are saying is that sales people, who get paid by how much they get you to buy, push the devices (Apple/Google) that are updated every year or a couple times a year while the ones that are updated every 3 years or so (Windows) they only push you to buy those every 3 years? Who would have thought? People at home are still using real computers. They may have a tablet to augment what they use, but they still have a computer and are buying computers. You may have missed it, but iPad sales have been dropping 10%/quarter for quite a while now. iPad sales have decreased dramatically, while Windows tablets, while still a fraction of iPad and Android tablet sales, have been growing.

Depends where you live obviously. Of the 3 big schools I know non of them use Chromebooks. They use Windows laptops/desktops and some have Surface/iPads. But only for first grades.  

But we are not seeing the dramatic growth that the media (and I do not mean this web site) in ChromeBooks that was predicted. The way they were talking, Windows was about to be overtaken by Google, we would all toss out our Windows computers breaking those chains that have tied us down for so long, and joyously convert to ChromeBooks. Of course this is nothing new. Oracle's Network Computer was all the rage, and was going to displace Windows. They talked up how many schools were anxious to switch over. Plus it was powered by Java, which made everything better. It died and took Sun with it. Then it was finally going to be the year of Linux with NetBook running Linux was supposed to bring down Windows. People bought them, but when they found they could not run Windows software and were promptly returned. Retailers stopped selling the Linux version because so many were returned. And I could go on with so many other devices that were supposed to turn the computing industry on its headbut not one of them made any difference. Doesn't mean that MS should not stay on their toes, but Chromium OS has been out for nearly 6 years and has not made any real impact. If Win8 is a "failure" for selling 300+ million, what does that make ChromeBooks?

Well said

Well said. Media hypes should be ignored. Most of the students ( 99.9% ? ) will eventually have to work somewhere to earn money and they will probably see Windows eco-system in the corporate environment eventually, from HP blade servers to windows 7 and 8.1 desktop clients and services from Azure. Most importantly they will be using one or few of those millions of Windows desktop applications or Web based applications. Big markets like China and India will drive Windows desktop growth. The pirated sales of it will bolster its market too. Check these links on Desktop Operating System Usage share and Desktop Sales : Usage : http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=1... Usage : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems Sales : http://www.dailytech.com/IDC+2014+Sales+Show+PC+Isnt+Dead+But+Desktop+Ma... Windows Desktops / Laptops / Hybrids are not going anywhere, they will be used in the Corporate sector for real work for a long long time.    

They can control what they can control ;) And that's not much. If he's fine with that, that's fine. You've been fooled, so anyone can be fooled. That's why it gets good publicity. In real life, with proper control, a school needs more. Go check out his backup plan, on premise or in the cloud. Where is the data stored? Device broken? Replacement device? How fast is the student back up and running? Go ask him. He can't answer ;)

Why are kids running apps and games at school?  These tablets will probably be locked down. 

They won't be at school but when they learn what the device lacks (apps and games that they are used to), they won't want one at home. That was the point.

*Locked down* Read again.  

There are some Math games which makes it fun for the little ones to learn the basics, its not always a angry bird or a candy crush app.. like i found the 2048 game on my kids website and addicted to it now :)    

That's why the iPad Pro is coming out later this year... Hypocrites, though Ballmer said the iPad would fail too...

1) Does an extra 2Gb of memory really cost so much, that it is worth offering performance issues to future customers? 2) WindowsCentral - how come Engadget and The Verge review the Surface 3 last week, yet you, THE windows site, still can't get your review done?

"WindowsCentral - how come Engadget and The Verge review the Surface 3 last week, yet you, THE windows site, still can't get your review done?"

Assumptions are a bad thing. It's not "still can't get your review done". Microsoft just sent us one YESTERDAY EVENING. Not our fault that Microsoft PR does not consider this community important enough to warrant the device earlier. We tried. Relax, it's not even in stores yet.

Most windows phones are reviewed by windows central weeks AFTER they are in stores. When iron is cold. I suppose windows central has their reasons for it whatever they are (so many low end Lumia launches?)

This is something that both infuriates and concerns me, Microsoft has GOT to tear down the walls inside that company. Its understandable that PR would want to get the review devices out to the biggests sites first, but someone from the surface team leadership should have the balls, ability or common sense to speak up and say lets get the units to the sites that have and will give our products a FAIR review first.

Nadella can trust to get negative reviews of everything MS and especially WP from that Tom fellow of Verge.

Next time ask Sam Sabri to send a one for you guys before others...

That's quite an indictment of Microsoft though.  Why are they sending units a full week in advance for reviews to sites that have a track record of being hard on their products, and yet to their community of supporters they wait to send a review.  This is definitely something to be brough up next time you interview them.   To me it smacks of continued incompetence at Microsoft.  The first batch of reviews are always the ones reported on in the mainstream press.  Thus, sites like Engadget and The Verge have a disproportiante impact on how an MS product is represented in the market, and your site doesn't have the opportunity to provide a balanced representation.

What are you talking about regarding 2GB?  The base model has 2GB of RAM and 64GB of memory.  For $100 more, you are getting 4GB of RAM, plus 128GB of memory.  The school version cuts the memory in half, but not the RAM.  I would expect they are selling that version for between $350 and $400.  Maybe $60 off for the reduced memory, plus another 10% off;  $499 - $60 = $439, plus a 10% discount gets you down under $400.

I don't take The Verge reviews seriously anymore. Last year on Surface 3 Pro they gave 9 to ecosystem and this year for Surface 3 they lowered it to 7, just because they try to hide the fact that Surface 3 is not a RT device, it runs full Windows, but The Verge has become a biased website lately that tries to hide the truth for Microsoft Windows products.

I'm actually starting to agree with the Verge on this one.  As wide ranging as true Windows applications are, most consumers are doing more and more of their day-to-day tasks using fit for purpose apps.  Whether or not a device like the Surface 3 has photoshop in it's ecosystem is irrelevant - you're not going to run it on a Surface 3. The counterpoint, of course, is that none of the reviews really consider the benefits of the Surface as a single computer.  I can do all my real work at home on my i7 Surface Pro 3 using it like a laptop.  If I want to get some photoshop done, with 2 cables I have it plugged into my 26 inch monitor and it is like a desktop.  When I travel, I use it like a tablet.  And when I get to my destination, I have all my data with me, as though I'd brought a laptop with me.  Basically it replaces three computing devices: Desktop, Laptop and tablet for me, with a single highly portable form factor.  The only thing I am compromising on is those above apps.

10.6 or 10.8?

10.8

Ironically the new Microsoft store opens in Sarasota on June 10th or 11th.

Wow Sarasota is getting a MS store? Must be nice. Meanwhile here in the capital city of Tallacrappy will probably never see one!

I happen to like Tallahassee! Lived there for many years. Agree, though, shopping is terrible. Sarasota just opened a high end mall. A smaller version of Tampa's international mall.

Well considering 32gb hard drive is like $20 less than 64gb, will this be $479? What a joke. If they drop it anything below $449 I would be shocked

I mean this sincerely and not to be condescending: you do not understand how mass production and mass purchasing is affected by these changes. Accounting for school budgets, that $20 x hundreds (or thousand) adds up quickly. If you want to be competitive against Chrome books, yes, every dollar counts especially when you are spending tax payer money.

While that is true. And a good point. Their budgets are much larger. And can shift then around a bit. Just like a person can get lower quality things in life in certain areas, so can the university. They could always just raise every students technology $20 to give them a device with actual storage.

Yes, but if you are up against Chrome books or iPads, you need to have your device come in lower. It's not just an argument about features. If Microsoft can sell a school district 800 of these at a few hundred dollars lower than their competition (or at least parity), that works in their favor. Also, I doubt school students actually need more than 32GB if they are using them for academics. Either way, I am certain Microsoft would still sell them 64GB versions if they want them. Options for schools is a good thing.

Yeah I guess I assumed it would be for college level students, but for high school it makes more sense. While they are at it, they could have just replaced the awesome metal exterior with something more plain and cheaper. Surely style doesnt matter in education settings. But storage could matter, especially after all the BS, a 32 GB drive would come out to what, 20GB actual? Do schools actually give out tablets and laptops nowadays? I think I went to the wrong school haha

"Do schools actually give out tablets and laptops nowadays? I think I went to the wrong school haha"

Yup. Where I live, Chromebooks are given out to students, not Surfaces. It's a BIG deal as you are talking getting children familiar with one company's tech instead of another. Microsoft is being hurt by Chromebook and iPad school competition.

" While they are at it, they could have just replaced the awesome metal exterior with something more plain and cheaper. Surely style doesnt matter in education settings. "

That require a huge production change-up, lots of money invested to do that. Much easier to just put in less memory and leave production the same.

Also you can contribute to your local schools in the US by using bing search and donating the points to the school. I told the teacher but they don't pass info the kids or other parents. https://www.bing.com/rewards/redeem/000200000008  

Those kids will be bored with ipads and chrome books when they are grown.. And they are gonna need something new something different.. Obvious choice will be Windows ;)

@ daniel and all the others above for the last two mini-discussions: Yes, lots of schools give out, or rent iPads or chromebooks, or laptops. Also, being in education I can say first hand that Chromebooks are making huge inroads in the education market. Admins, like Daniel said earlier, recognize that even $20 less per device makes HUGE differences when you are talking about buying thousands of them across a district. In education, much like politics, buzz words tend to spread like a geriatric slow burning wild-fire. Regardless of their validity/use people end up on the bandwagon, and stay there far too long. Right now, Google is THE buzz word in education. Again, admins love the "free apps" and "cheap hardware" aspect. In our district, we invested in them and are just starting to realize (far too late imo) that their drawbacks outweigh their benefits. Namely, 1) internet REQUIRED & 2) not the industry standard. This is a problem because my poor urban school has a rather unreliable network. When it's down, no internet. This happens in short term bursts regularly, and goes out for longer durations every month or two. Not to mention the fact that our wifi only exists in the library...kinda limiting, huh. And the goal of education should be to produce well rounded individuals who are ready to join the economy and workforce in whatever capacity they want and are able to. Training on anything but the industry standard is irresponsible in that respect. I for one am very vocal in my district about the benefits of office 365 and Microsoft's ecosystem versus the Google ecosystem. I have forwarded this article to the person who does our device testing prior to district volume purchasing agreements. I really really hope that this device becomes the norm in our schools. I also think that 32Gb is fine, but if they offer a 64 model i'd recommend that one. The vast majority of purposes of any computing device in a school setting is to create documents, slideshows and perform research. You can do all of that on any of the devices out there, but being able to do that on a device that runs the industry standard version, at a price similar to that of a Chromebook, but doesn't REQUIRE an extensive and robust WiFi upgrade, and ADDS the handwriting capabilities of the Surface line, has tremendous value to a school district.

Okay, I delibrately waited until I could get my hands on my nephews laptop to comment. On a windows machine, 32GB only works if you micromanage your storage and supplement it with flashdrives. 32GB, of which only about 18GB would be available, is not even close to being enough for modern students especially if their school is going for digital textbooks. Maybe for a young gradeschooler. My nephew is a freshman in highschool. They don't get paper handouts anymore and for a lot of his science classes, they download software for interactive lessons. The school year is almost out and he has 5.8 GB of docs, ppt, pdfs; 3.8 is taken up by a project (read: one) they had to do for art class; and about a woping 7.9 GB is taken up by digital texts and handouts from his teachers.  32GB is not enough, let's not kid ourselves. The only way that 32GB is enough is if you get the whole 32GB or if you don't rely on it, in which case even 8GB is enough. In his summer checklist, the school recommended his parents buy him a flash drive (which makes sense anyway since they have to hand the laptop in at the end of the school year).

OneDrive offers 15GB free, right?

Or an SD card.  

wrong section.

Does this beast support Micro SD? If so thats fine then. I have a 128GB card in my 128GB SP3. No complains. Except games can be a problem.

If the school decided that it need more storage, it can always buys microSD cards later.

First, the best selling Chromebooks usually only come with 16GB.  Second, I've been using a 32GB Surface RT as my primary work computer for 2 years now.  32GB is plenty if you use it right.  I have all of my documents stored on the cloud, I have my music and pictures on an SD card always in the system.  Plus, this is schools where they aren't going to be putting much on the device. 

Plus, this is schools where they aren't going to be putting much on the device. 

My example would bed to differ. But anedotes, right? Chrome OS is more tightly integrated into the cloud than Windows, not the least because a lot of it requires a cloud component to work. I can buy a Windows laptop and never use OneDrive. If my nephew loaded all his art and music projects alone onto his laptop, he would be out of space. He relies on flash drives. My point, is that saying 32GB, of which about 18GB is available to the user, is sufficient is the same as people who declare 16GB is more than enough for cellphones. It's only enough when the user has easy and fast access to another means of storage, be it external or cloud.

Let's remember that this is an option for schools. Where a device does not need more than 32GB, schools save money with this model. Where they need more, they pick a model with more storage. You guys are arguing as if this is the only option to pick.  

Is there some reason your nephew cannot put his art and music projects on a microSD card?

An 8 inch Surface Mini with Pen and LTE for $399 would be nice.

Bundle that with a 6 inch Surface phone for $249 and you have a deal!

I'd pay $600 for a Surface phone with a high end quad-core CPU, 2GB RAM, Pen, 32GB storage, PureView camera.

Same here. I meant $249 on contract for people that still think 2 year contracts are cool, but I probably won't buy on contract ever again.

I will pay $500 for an 8 inch Surface Mini with Pen, 4gb ram, and 128 gb of storage. I do not want LTE becuase I do not want carriers to control when the OS is updated.

Anyone want to have a guess at how to pronounce Wymondham? As a local to Norfolk, this should be fun.

Probably as funny as hearing people pronounce Worcester up here in Massachusetts.

Why-mon-dum?

Nope, it's actually Wind-um! Norfolk is full of weird ones, Costessey (pronounced Cossy) and Happisburgh (pronounced Hazeborough) are two that spring to mind.

MS should give some of these to Delta to replace all their Surface 2's. Maybe then Delta will finally pull the Fly Delta app! - this message was approved by Suckma Nutella

Cool sig joke. Sounds like something my kid would say. He is 5. He would be grounded for something like that.

And unlike iPads, these can be locked by IT so students won't actually install things they shouldn't be installing. 

Don't be surprised. Sometimes even school board IT can be clueless. My computer teacher in highschool didn't even know we had access to better web authoring tools ie. FrontPage

Shut up and make available in India

I guess these will replace the crappy iPads that Apple screwed over the LA school district with.

Crazy! My kids (3 and 1) are never going to know the pain of school with spiral notebooks and actual paper copy books like i did.

Good, my back is still screwed up from my 4th grade teacher's homework assignments.  Work in EVERY subject EVERY night.  My backpack was so GD heavy, and at the time I was the smallest kid in my class.  I was always sore when I got home.  If my kid only has to carry around a tablet for school, that would be great.  He can get his exercise in gym class like you're supposed to.   I actually use a Note 10.1 for all of my meeting notes and design sketches at work.  Saves a bunch of clutter, and I can pull up everything I could possibly want in a meeting if someone asks.  Tablets with an active stylus are the greatest!  Just make sure you back everything up, lol

Meanwhile in Canada... not a single school board decided to go in this whole tablet craze and demand parents to pay a whole lot of school supplies for their children... Like a whole lot of not used stuff....

Just wait until our government changes... Then we will finally be seeing those much needed changes.  

Well, that's like most schools al over the world. And for most part it's prooven to be the most sensible thing to do. Comprehensive reading from paper is a lot better/easier. Some schools over here in the Netherlands are already gettting rid of tablets for the lower grades. The higher grades use laptops anyway. Surfaces are an excellent in between for the 'middle' grades.  

Nice! Although our image wouldn't fit on just 32gb unfortunately.

And I thought Canada is a cool place !!

I've been using one for a week now. The S3 is great for Ed. Nice solid device.

People here complaining about the 32G storage of Surface 3, then comparing it to iPad & Chromebook? Just how did these people survive with this kind of brain? MicroSD, cloud storage everywhere, external HD, wifi storage access. As if these things I mention above doesn't exist.

"and pen storage solutions from Cleanstylus" I wish they would have built stylus storage into the tablet itself.  I'm going to replace my Note 10.1 in the next year, and was thinking about the Surface 3.  My Note has the storage for the pen built right in, so that it's always there, and you're less likely to misplace it.  It even inductively charges the battery in the pen, so I never have to worry about it.  I really wish MS had thought about this, I may end up going with a Note Pro 12.2 when it comes time.  I'll have to get some hands on time with both.

The pen is thicker than the Surface, so I don't know how you expect to store the pen on the tablet itself.

Make the pen thinner, or the tablet thicker.  It should have been part of the design process.  Samsung does it, why can't MS?