Surface 3 is Now 30 Percent Off in Education

Citing the success of the entry-level Surface 3 in education, Microsoft today announced special bundles that are priced at 30 percent off through June 30.

“Given the positive response to Surface 3 from schools, and to help even more schools experience the benefits of Surface in the classroom, we are offering the Surface 3 Education Bundles at a 30% discount for Education customers until June 30th,” Microsoft’s Jacqueline Russell wrote in a new post to the Windows Devices Blog. “The Surface 3 Education Bundles include the device, keyboard and pen, and beginning February 1st, orders will ship with the new Surface Pen.”

As you might imagine, the Surface 3 bundles combine everything you need for a complete experience. Which is to say, the Surface 3 itself, plus a (black) Type Cover and a (silver) Surface Pen. So you save money, but you also loss the ability to mix and match.

The bundles line up with the retail models, too, though there are no LTE versions:

Surface 3 2 GB/32 GB Wi-Fi only, black Type Cover and silver Surface Pen.

Surface 3 4 GB/64 GB Wi-Fi only, black Type Cover and silver Surface Pen.

Surface 3 4 GB/128 GB Wi-Fi only, black Type Cover and silver Surface Pen.

And yes, any talk about Surface 3 naturally leads to questions about it’s successor. Again, I do think Surface 4 happens at roughly the same time of year as did Surface 3 last year. And Brad and I have heard from the first external customer who is allegedly testing the device now. (Single source.) Ultimately, the issue I have with Surface 3 is performance, and that is tied to the slowness of eMMC storage, not the processor. I hope that gets changed in Surface 4.