So with those issues sorted, what about the device itself?
Well, it is thin, and light, and big. At just 800g and 9.1mm thick, the SPro3 is easier to handle than its predecessor. The slightly textured surface of its magnesium casing is also a little more pleasant and higher grip in the hand than the gloss finish of the previous models, which is important when using it in pure tablet mode. The biggest change though is the overall device size to accommodate the new screen, which measures 305mm (12”) in diagonal. It boasts an impressive 2160 x 1440 resolution in a 3 x 2 aspect ratio, with a pixel size, that Ward notes, cannot been seen with the naked eye. Driven by the Intel 4400 HD graphics, this yields sumptuous colour and very accurate pen input due to a new glass and screen bond that reduces parallax to a minimum.
Three by two
The move to a larger, 3 x 2 aspect ratio screen again furthers the aim to make this a replacement rather than a companion device. Ward said that the aspect ratio puts the screen size closer to that of an A4 or legal pad, and when combined with the new pen input system (developed by a team in Leopardstown), aims to make the SPro3 as close in productivity to paper as possible.
The device layout has changed significantly too. The power button moves from top right to top left, the speakers, with Dolby enhancement, move to top left and right of the screen from the device edges and the much vaunted kickstand now has friction hinges which means it can range at any angle between nearly flat (105 degrees) to completely stowed. Despite the wide range of SSD storage options, the MicroSD card slot remains and now supports up to 128GB of extra space.
There is an all new Type keyboard too, with the Touch version being discontinued. The new Type model has greater rigidity for use on the move, and a handy pen loop that adheres wherever desired to attach the new Bluetooth-enabled active pen.
A-frame
A neat trick for the keyboard is that it has an extra articulation which allows it to magnetically stick to the front of the screen, as well as the normal connection, which creates an A-frame, increasing stability for use on the move, especially when perched on the knees. Older keyboards are backward compatible, but only the new one is correctly proportioned for the larger device.
The new pen has two batteries, one AAAA for primary power and two watch-type batteries for longevity. This makes the pen an active input device, as opposed to the previous ones which were passive and not compatible with the SPro3.
As mentioned, the low parallax and highly accurate input of the pen has meant that note taking, annotating and general pen input is vastly improved and tweaks to the optical character recognition have combined to make this style of input pretty close to paper. That said, it can’t be folded up to fly. A click of the top button on the pen will wake the tablet, even when locked, and immediately bring it into OneNote for note taking. The other two buttons can be configured for highlighting, erasure, selection or various other functions.
The two cameras, forward and rear, while both capable of shooting HD video for conferencing and calls, are both just 5MP, which is a little disappointing given the range of camera hardware now available for even smaller formats. But this is a minor gripe.
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