Microsoft Offers Surface 3 to Education at a Discount

Talk about getting off on the right foot. Microsoft on Wednesday announced that it will sell Surface 3 in a bundle with Type Cover and Surface Pen at a 10 percent discount to educational institutions. Additionally, the software giant is offering a special, lower-cost 32 GB Surface 3 configuration to help educational institutions save even more money.

Surface 3 is currently available for pre-order, with normal retail prices starting at $499 for a configuration with 2 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage. It will become broadly available to paying customers starting on May 5 with availability in 26 markets by May 7.

My Surface 3 review should be up later this week. But Microsoft’s assertion that Surface 3 brings all the benefits of the Surface Pro 3—best-in-class digital inking, touch-screen tablet, and fully productive laptop running full Windows 8.1—at a more affordable price point is absolutely correct. This is a wonderful device, and one that should be embraced by students, parents of students, and educators of all kinds.

To help achieve this aim, Microsoft is offering a discount. Or, two discounts, potentially.

First, it is offering a 10 percent discount—available from Microsoft Store or commercial resellers—to educational institutions that purchase Surface 3, Type Cover and Surface Pen. (It also offers a 10 percent educational discount on Surface Pro 3, by the way.)

Second, Microsoft will offer a unique Surface 3 configuration exclusively for educational institutions. This configuration ships with 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage (compared to 2 GB of RAM and 64 GB of storage in the base retail configuration). I don’t see pricing for this anywhere, but assume it will lower the entry price of Surface 3 to $449 before the educational discount.

In addition to these deals, Microsoft says it has worked with various accessory makers to help create Surface 3 accessories that will help prevent the tablets against accidental damage and help to keep Type Covers and Surface Pens readily accessible for student use. These include rugged and protective cases from Incipio, M-edge, STM and UAG, charging/securing/storing carts from Anthro, and pen storage solutions from Cleanstylus.

You can learn more on the Surface for Education web site.