The Formidable Lapability of Surface Pro 3

A lap is generally agreed to be the real estate on top of your legs between your hips and knees, and it is a passable temporary replacement for a desk or table when neither of those things is available because it gives you somewhere to set things while you work with them. Kids sit on laps, seatbelts connect across laps, and work gets done on laps. Lapability – a word we coined and have had fun using and seeing used – describes the ability of something to be used effectively on your lap. Surface Pro 3 has great lapability.

When people first encounter Surface Pro 3, one of the first things they often do is put it on their lap. They want to know if they’ll be able to use it in the settings where they use their laptops today. This test is generally done sitting on a chair, with both feet flat on the floor. This is understandable, since this is the position that provides the biggest and most stable lap for most people.

What this simple test misses is the flexibility of Surface Pro 3 – the many different ways it can be used on your lap. Both feet flat on the floor is great, but what if you’re putting your feet up on a coffee table while you watch a game? What if you don’t have a chair? What if you’re in a very unusual chair? What if you cross your legs? People are flexible and so are their working styles, and Surface Pro 3 can be used on your lap in a lot of different ways.

Close attention paid to a lot of aspects of the device ensure that Surface Pro 3 works great on your lap in a variety of settings, but three really stand out as essential:

The kickstand

Surface Pro 3 features a ‘continuous’ kickstand that uses friction to easily adjust to any angle up to 150 degrees. This obviously allows for a lot of viewing angles on tables and desks of different heights, but it also allows the kickstand to accommodate a lot of different lap positions. A relatively narrow angle is great for a flat lap, while sitting on a couch with legs up on a coffee table is easy with a much wider angle. It’s easy to experiment and find the angle that works best in any setting. With one leg crossed wide across the other, I open the kickstand pretty wide and hang it over the crossed leg.

Surface Pro Type Cover

The new Surface Pro Type Cover still offers the great typing experience of past Type Covers as well as backlighting and a larger trackpad with reduced friction. It still does a great job of protecting your screen. It also features magnetic stability – the ability to magnetically lock to the lower bezel of Surface Pro 3 across the full width of the device. This creates a remarkable amount of stability in a lot of positions – whether you’re working on a desk or on your lap.

Weight and balance

Surface Pro 3 is thin and light, and the balance of the device is important as you use it on your lap. In a traditional laptop, a lot of stability comes from the fact that the majority of the weight is in the base of the machine, under the keyboard. In a tablet, the weight is distributed behind the screen, and if the device were too heavy, or too top-heavy, it would be frustrating to use on your lap because the natural tendency would be for it to tip. Surface Pro 3 packs an amazing amount of computing power into a tablet that weighs only 1.76 pounds and is 0.36 inches thin. It is also balanced to feel great in your hands and to work brilliantly as a laptop replacement.

To experience all of this in real life, get to a store or talk to your authorized reseller and check out the new Surface Pro 3. Think about the places and ways that you use your laptop today and put it through technology today and try using it that way.