Cheap Surface Pro 3 Upgrades Arrive

Microsoft is kicking off a new trade-in program designed to let users get their hands on a cheap Surface Pro 3, provided that they own a previous generation Surface.

The company, which began selling the Surface Pro 3 last summer, revealed the trade-in program last week. It’s promising as much as $650 for users who want to get rid of their old Surface and upgrade to the latest in its line of MacBook Air and iPad rivals. There are a few media outlets indicating that users can get that full $650 when they upgrade, but that’s not the entire story.

Every Surface ever made is included in the new trade-in program designed to provide cheap Surface Pro 3 upgrades. The Surface RT with a Touch Cover and 32GB of storage earns users an $84 code that they can use for the Surface Pro 3 purchase. The Surface 2 with a Touch Cover and 32GB of storage gets users $105 redemption code. Surface Pro users with a Type Cover don’t exactly do a lot better. They’re worth $122 in the program.

To successfully get the credit, users need to have a Surface device in complete working order. Microsoft defines that as not having a crack in the screen or any dead pixels. Additionally, the company says the entire case of the Surface can’t have any laser etching. Microsoft is checking to make sure devices submitted for the offer can make it to the Windows desktop successfully too. It’s even checking to make sure the device’s kickstand works flawless. As such, this isn’t an offer you want to take on if you know your Surface device is in pretty rough shape.

That being said, it is a great way to save on an upgrade that was already planned. The Surface Pro 3 is Microsoft’s greatest Surface device yet.

The original Surface Pro and Surface suffered from some issues. None of them were particularly, serious but they alluded to how immature the devices really were. Both the Surface Pro and Surface had kickstands and detachable keyboards so that they could act as laptop replacements. Unfortunately, both devices only supported a single angle. Buyers ended up buying new cases with their own kickstands to get around the issue. Their 10-inch displays were great for watching video, but they didn’t have a standard aspect ratio, making them slightly uncomfortable.

The Surface Pro 3 solves all of these issues. A new kickstand design lets buyers freely adjust the viewing angle on the 12-inch high-definition display. A revamped pen provides a more comfortable writing experience and an easy way to quickly begin taking notes with Microsoft’s OneNote app. The Surface Pro 3 is thinner than any other Surface Pro before it, which is important because older Surface Pros felt like dense bricks in the hand.

GottaBeMobile found the Surface Pro 3 to be a pretty good notebook and tablet replacement in its recent review.

Read: Surface Pro 3 Review

The entry model Surface Pro 3 costs $799 and includes an Intel Core i3 processor, 64GB of storage and 4GB of RAM. $999 gets users a more powerful Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Other Surface Pro 3 models include even more storage, processing power and RAM for better gaming and media performance.

Beyond this cheap Surface Pro 3 deal, Microsoft is also slashing the prices of every single Surface Pro 3 model by $100 and including a free sleeve. That means, for a limited time users can purchase the Surface Pro 3 beginning at $699 before a device trade in. Microsoft doesn’t include the Type Cover with any of its Surface devices.