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How-To
June 20, 2014

YOUR new Surface Pro 3

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To all who got their new Surface Pro 3 today – awesome, and thank you from our team. The process of customizing it and choosing the apps that will make it uniquely yours starts now. Based on our team’s use of Surface Pro 3, as well as feedback from customers and fans, we have a few recommendations of awesome apps and a few things you can do right out of the box to start enjoying your new device immediately

SUR_SurfacePro3_ANL_Boxshot

Pair the Pen – The pen is part of what makes Surface Pro 3 special and it is really fun to use. Pairing is simple and the setup experience will walk you through it. The Pen draws in apps like Fresh Paint and Sketchbook Express, it takes notes in OneNote, it marks up presentations in PowerPoint or documents in Word, and makes it easy to navigate desktop apps when you’re not using a mouse and keyboard.

Surface Pro 3 with Pen

Install games and apps from the Windows Store – you likely have an idea of the apps that you’ll use to be productive, and your new Surface is a fantastic productivity device. Surface Pro 3 also plays hard, and on the day you bring it home you’re going to have some fun with it. This is a short selection of apps that we recommend for Surface Pro 3. You’ll no doubt find many more and the Windows Store does a great job of serving up new apps all the time, so it’s worth checking the store regularly.

Games

Sudoku from Microsoft Studios –This app is pre-installed on every Surface Pro 3, so just type the word “Sudoku” while you’re on the start screen and you’ll be there. It’s a great version of the game that also takes full advantage of the pen – you write numbers on the Sudoku grid as you would with pen and paper and the game recognizes your handwriting.

Sudoku

Asphalt 8: Airborne – Asphalt is an awesome racing game that uses on-screen touch controls and features in-air stunts.

Asphalt 8 Airborne

Halo: Spartan Assault  – The excitement of Halo combat optimized for a touch-based device. There are 30 missions to battle through, and you’ll earn Xbox achievements and unlock customizations for your Halo 4 career as you play. You can play using touch, using a keyboard and mouse, or even using an Xbox controller plugged into Surface Pro 3s USB 3.0 port.

Halo Spartan Assault

Project Spark – Far more than a simple game, Project Spark lets you build and play your own worlds, stories, and games. You can share your creations with the community and play games the community makes. The possibilities are endless.

Project Spark

GunFinger – A cool zombie-shooting adventure that makes brilliant use of Surface Pro 3’s touchscreen to aim. There is a new challenge every day and an impressive array of upgradable weapons.

Gunfinger Reload

Apps

Adobe Photoshop CC – This update to the world’s most advanced image editing app offers a powerful mobile experience that is optimized for touch and pen, so it’s brilliant on Surface Pro 3

Adobe Photoshop CC

Adobe Photoshop Express – An intuitive app that features simple image editing and great touch controls

Drawboard PDF – A very useful app that lets you annotate, view, and manage PDFs using the pen.

Facebook – Installing the Facebook app from the Windows store not only lets you stay connected to friends, it allows you to easily post photos and share other content with your friends using the share charm – swipe in from the right of your screen, select ‘Share’ and you’ll see Facebook presented as part of a list of options for sharing

Flipboard – Flipboard allows you to create a customized personal magazine from iconic news sources as well as social networks to keep you up to date on the topics you care about. It looks fantastic on the 12” ClearType Full HD display on the Surface Pro 3

Kindle – Keep your personal Kindle library always at hand

Netflix – Catch up on movies and binge-watch your favorite series on Surface Pro 3’s brilliant display

New York Times – free to download with access to up to three free articles per day, or subscribe for unlimited access to award-winning journalism

Sketchbook Express – a fun and intuitive drawing application. Channel your inner artist. Sketchbook Express is another app that uses the Pen brilliantly

Skype – Keep in touch with the people that matter, wherever they may be. Your Surface Pro 3 now features a 5MP front-facing camera and improved speakers so video calls look and sound great

Twitter – News moves very fast, and the Twitter app is a great way to track what’s going on. Snap it to one side of the screen to see a feed of what’s happening while still having plenty of room to work or play in a second app

Install updates. In a world where all things are in a constant static state of perfection, no updates would be issued for technology products – but those same products wouldn’t deliver the benefit of getting better over time as a function of being regularly updated. There is an update for your new device, and if you do nothing to seek it out you’ll be prompted to install it and restart within a few days. If you’d like to install the update immediately, you can do so manually by following the steps below. The entire process should take 10-15 minutes. This initial update delivers general performance improvements for your Surface Pro 3.

  • Swiping in from the right edge of the screen, and then tap Settings. (If you’re using a mouse, point to the lower-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer up, and then click Settings.)
  • Tapping or clicking “Change PC settings”, selecting “Update and recovery” from the menu, then selecting “Windows Update”
  • Tap or click the grey box labelled “Check now”.
  • If there are updates available, tap or click “View details”.
  • Tap or click to select the updates you want to install, and then tap or click Install.
  • Finally, you will need to restart your Surface Pro 3 twice after the updates have been installed. The entire update process should take 10-15 minutes.

 

Enjoy your new device – and we’d love to hear from you on Twitter and Facebook!