Review: Microsoft's Surface Pro 3 Merges Power and Productivity

Take Note: The Surface Pro 3 Is a Class Act

The Surface Pen and OneNote integration make this tablet a worthy teaching and learning tool.

John Breeden II

Beyond the Surface Pro 3's obvious improvements, the new tablet has been optimized for note-taking, making it a perfect fit for the educational environment. Microsoft has achieved this by reengineering the Surface Pen, which comes standard with every unit, and tightly integrating OneNote, its note-taking software.

The enhanced pen is paired with the Surface Pro 3 as part of the initial setup process. Thereafter, it acts as both an input and as a capacitive-touch device. Manufactured from aluminum, the pen is quite heavy and feels like a traditional fountain pen. There are several buttons along the side, but the most important one is at the top, where a user would click to extend the ink pointer on a regular pen.

Pressing and holding that button for several seconds automatically activates OneNote on the tablet — regardless of what's going on with the device at the time. The feature even works if the tablet is in sleep mode. The idea is that whenever inspiration hits, or a user needs to jot down an important note or idea, the Surface Pro 3 is ready to go. Even from sleep, it only takes a few seconds to activate OneNote.

The pen's N-trig technology helps simulate the feel of writing on actual paper. The projected capacitive touch technology has 256 levels of sensitivity; when a user bears down hard, a thicker line is formed, whereas lighter touches yield lighter lines. As such, users can emphasize certain notes without any extra effort beyond the normal note-taking process.

The OneNote program allows for ink color changes (black, blue, green or red) and erasing at the touch of a button. The pen is accurate down to 0.25 millimeters, trumping most paper drawings. OneNote also distinguishes between a purposeful touch and an accidental brush, rejecting most instances in which a hand or palm accidentally comes in contact with the screen.

Complete pages are automatically saved to the cloud, so users won't ever lose their notes and can easily share them with others or use them as a collaboration platform. Traditional tablet operations such as dragging and dropping, scrolling and selecting text work well, and OneNote knows the difference between those processes and actual note-taking most of the time.

In the past, note-taking with any electronic device was a less-than-perfect process — and almost never as good as just using pen and paper. With the new Surface Pro 3, the Surface Pen and the integrated OneNote program, that could change.