Surface 3, Microsoft’s Atom-based tablet that started at $499 when it was introduced in May 2015, was aimed at students, families and other budget-conscious users. That seems to be the case, as the Redmond, Washington-based company recently confirmed that it will no longer manufacture the Windows 10 device by the end of this year.
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Surface 3, the one slate that gave you sliver of hope that Microsoft was capable of producing affordable Windows 10 powered tablets is going to be removed from the production bench during the later months of this year. Current inventory is extremely limited, as Microsoft’s online storefront shows that only the model with 64GB of storage, 2GB of memory, and 4G LTE connectivity costing $500 is now in stock. Newer Surface Pro 5 devices are expected to arrive with Nvidia Pascal or AMD Polaris GPUs so they’ll be quite the gaming devices. As reported by the Times of India, the Surface Pro 5 will have a high-resolution IPS Corning Gorilla glass protected display. Powering the Surface Pro 4 should be a next gen Kaby Lake processor which focuses on battery life and increased performance, 256 GB of flash storage and a whopping 32 GB of RAM.
Even though earlier rumors pointed to an October release for the latest installment in the Surface Pro series, it looks like the launch for the portable has been delayed until next year. It is followed by Surface Pro 4 with 30.9 percent and Surface 3 with 21.5 percent, both of which are the latest-available models in their respective segments.
While the specs may sound great, the only downside is that the Surface Book 2 could be more expensive than its predecessor.
But in a statement provided by Microsoft, the company confirms that the Surface 3 will be retired in December 2016, so no new models will be manufactured beyond this date.
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The point might be moot though: Intel is discontinuing its Atom chip lineup. It also boasts a 1920×1280 pixel display, along with an optional Surface Pen and keyboard cover.
