15.6 Surface Pro

I have an original Surface Pro and a Surface Pro 3 still in regular use, and during the recent WFH period, we also have a number of traditional laptops (17 and 15.6 variants) going, as well as a multiple monitor desktop.

The reason that the Surface Pro 3 is used so often here is that when it’s hooked up to an external monitor, it is terrific to use for Teams/Zoom/Google virtual meetings for screen sharing and screen marking purposes. That novelty hinge is just what’s needed to act against the inevitable screen-wobble when you are drawing notes on a screen. For all the commentary over the years about the dubious utility of the Surface Pro’s form factor, in my experience the usefulness has actually increased over time. I use the original 8-year-old Surface Pro to run a larger dedicated drawing tablet and the 5-year-old Surface Pro really paid new dividends this passed year when we had multiple people working from home for the first time. As a Microsoft fan, it’s been gratifying to see some of the original flexibility and productivity vision of the line realized.

When you only want to share a single screen, such as Microsoft Whiteboard, the small display is fine. But there are often times when we need to share dual screens virtually. You can do it on the Surface Pro 3 by splitting it’s screen between the Whiteboard window and a second window that displays a browser or document, and then sharing the entire Surface Pro 3 screen with meeting participants. But it would be really nice to have a little extra screen real estate to work with. I know it’s not going to happen from Microsoft, but I’m curious whether they ever considered making a 15.6 or 17.3 model, or if anyone else did or plans to?