Aiden Pearce is a complicated guy. Tormented by his past and his actions as a skilled hacker, the Watch Dogs protagonist has lost family and his identity to a world that hides its secrets behind firewalls. But he does this by using the systems he questions as his own destructive weapon, given the opportunity to wreak havoc on the lives of people in ways the establishment perhaps never would. He can steal people's money or use their secrets against them for information or access, all under the guise of combatting a security system that threatens the world's privacy.

Though the security state setting of Watch Dogs is dystopian, it does not venture into the dour imagery found in the pages of a Phillip K. Dick story. Its world is contemporary, taking place in an alt-history Chicago that looks similar to its real world counterpart and holds the title of America's first "Smart City, "one controlled by a powerful monitoring system infrastructure.

For players this offers a gateway of access, transforming simple button presses into a world of possibilities and making infiltration and information-gathering the most important element in Ubisoft's newest open world.

Hacking is the core component in Watch Dogs; the act of hacking, however, is simplistic. You're not stopping the action to play a round of Pipe Dream or stopping to tweak computer code, you press or hold a button and you're in. "Not to take away from games that do it that way," Lead Story Designer Kevin Shortt told me, referencing hacking mini-games, "it just doesn't work for Watch Dogs."

The quick methods Pearce employs to access information are fictionalized, but speak to the terrifying ease with which real world hackers can stumble upon crucial pieces of information.

My hands-on with Watch Dogs takes place ten missions into the game; Pearce's skill tree has grown multiple branches, allowing him access to infrastructure in the city that controls traffic lights and security gates. These components used to control traffic flow make it easier to escape pursuit, something I learn quickly.

In the middle of a crowded street I pull out an assault rifle, sending civilians staggering in all directions. My cell phone buzzes immediately, notifying me that a civilian within the dispersing crowd is notifying police of a madman carrying a weapon in public. An icon above his head reveals the informant and I run toward him, take his phone before my location is revealed and threaten his life, effectively killing the alarm.

Smashing a window of a nearby parked car, I jump in and begin driving around the city toward my first objective: A meeting with Badboy17, a mysterious local hacker who has promised me access to a system that holds information I need. In order to gain access to the system, however, I need to infiltrate a building and tap into a computer directly to grab some necessary information. Typically, I'm able to use my trusty cell phone to access information remotely. I can intercept the video feed of cameras in areas that I have gained access to and bounce between monitoring systems easily: If you can see another camera, for example, you can simply jump to its feed. Infiltrating with guns blazing proves to be too daunting a task; a few shots and I'm quickly taken out of commission. A stealthier approach makes more sense.

Utilizing a lure device that distracts one guard, I sneak up behind him and take him out with a quick button press. I move slowly through a parking garage, carefully taking guards out one at a time. Suddenly I'm spotted and the remaining guards immediately know my location, an issue with AI awareness that came up often during the demo and one I hope can be tweaked before launch. Once I've infiltrated the area and get to the computer system the guards are alerted to the presence of an intruder. I bang my head against this moment for a few attempts, engaging in firefights – and dying often – before finally escaping to the street where the police pursue me. As I drive down the busy streets of Chicago, I employ the use of my super-powered cell phone to tweak traffic lights, giving me the ability to control the flow of civilian movement. With a single police car in pursuit, I hack a barricade in the middle of the street as I pass the intersection, which raises bollards from the ground causing the cop car to crash spectacularly. It's only later that I realized I could have simply engaged a craftable item I unlocked in my skill tree: The ability to power down an entire city grid. Using this method, I could have blacked out the building and strolled out without ever being detected, completely bypassing the firefight.

Cell in hand, players can detect and hack the cell phones of unaware civilians that roam the streets of Chicago. Though Senior Producer Dominic Guay tells me that I can learn information and unlock side quests by hacking some phones, many of the people's lives I invade simply give me access to their ATM information. Once I've discovered their details, I can stop by a bank machine and withdraw their savings. Sometimes it gives me their car registration information, which I can use to have a vehicle delivered to my location. It doesn't appear that the casual hacking of NPCs factors into the main narrative, however. It's a distraction, often as a means to unlocking collectibles throughout the world. Guay says this is a choice players can make, deciding whether or not they want to use Pearce's access to affect the people in the world. There is no morality slider to consider, though, so it's simply up to me to rob unsuspecting people or not.

"When you play the game it's more about the wickedness of how you can exploit those things. You define your morality," Guay says. "You're going to have to live with the game, with some consequences of your choices." These choices include killing, with Watch Dogsproviding players the opportunity to play much of the game without engaging in combat, though there are some forced scenarios meaning the game won't be entirely without body count.

The world is riddled with distractions. There are gang hideouts for Pearce to clear, specific NPCs that he can target for assassination or information, and even AR Games that project mobile-game graphics into the world. One AR Game I stumbled across places 8-bit gold coins and skulls in the world, and it scored me based on my quickness to collect one while avoiding the other. There are drinking games, card games, multiple ways to spy on people outside of simply hacking their phone. One random encounter allowed me to tap into a building from a outlet box outside, giving me access to a camera tracking two women as they exercised in their living room.

"There's a lot of things that are linked to Aiden's obsession with information. But what we're having fun with is, obviously Aiden is a guy on a mission, but he's going to get distracted because now he's seeing everything in the city," Guay explains. "It's funny to have the player do the same thing. You set them off on a mission and they're exactly like Aiden, they become distracted with all those other things. So, we're kind of mirroring Aiden's arch with the player's own behavior in the game."

It's difficult to gauge the success of these distractions so far removed from their introduction. Only able to play an hour and a half, ten missions into the game made these elements feel completely disconnected from the narrative – a story that includes Aiden finding himself personally responsible for the death of his niece. Being told that information and then given the option to collect coins in an AR game makes it hard to identify the purpose or connective tissue of these distractions. Though getting hours into the game and completing those ten missions myself could ease those issues.

My demo was specific to the PS4 version, which looked and performed well. The controls are similar to an Assassin's Creed game, complete with a more limited free flow movement system. You won't be climbing buildings, but you can volley over fences and cover quickly. A contextual cover system similar to the one found in Splinter Cell: Blacklist is also in Aiden's repertoire, making sneaking a breeze. The major difference between Watch Dogson PC and current-gen systems and the versions for last generation consoles is density, Guay told me. Crowds are thinner on PS3 and Xbox 360 (and presumably Wii U, though no information about that version was given), I'm told, which could affect the way the environment feels. I didn't find the crowds to be especially dense on the PS4, so fewer NPCs could make the alt-world Chicago seem lifeless on older platforms.

Ubisoft took a risky gamble when it delayed Watch Dogs. Though it could have arrived and perhaps made a major splash alongside the PS4 and Xbox One's respective launches, the publisher decided to give its developer more time. Guay says Ubisoft Montreal didn't feel the game met the goals it had in mind for the project when it was first designed, some five and a half years ago. Watch Dogs is an unbelievably slick world with unique elements and if its distractions can fit seamlessly into the narrative without feeling shoehorned in for the sake of 'another thing to do,' it may have been a risk worth taking.

Watch Dogs launches on PC, PS4, PS3, Xbox One and Xbox 360 on May 27. A Wii U version is coming at a later date.

It didn't last long, but there was a moment earlier this week when I was sure Microsoft would unveil its own laptop. At a press event, Surface chief Panos Panay took the stage to remind the reporters in attendance how they once said tablets would make laptops obsolete. A quick scan around the room revealed rows of journalists, all typing on Ultrabooks -- including the MacBook Air, no less. For a moment, it seemed like Panay was conceding defeat.

Indeed, Microsoft has had multiple chances to prove it can bridge the divide between slates and laptops: Both the first- and second-gen Surface tablets were intended as do-it-all devices. And both times, the company fell short of its mission. The Surface Pro in particular was powerful enough to rival Ultrabooks, but suffered from several usability flaws: It was awkward to use in the lap, and also unwieldy as a tablet. For most people, a touchscreen laptop was still the better choice.

Even so, that wasn't Panay conceding defeat up there on stage -- that was him being persistent. When he finally did get to the point, he unveiled not a laptop, but a tablet, the Surface Pro 3. Most notably, this third-gen device steps up to a larger, 12-inch screen, bringing it in line with contemporary Ultrabooks. The keyboard has been born again too, this time with a larger, more responsive touchpad and the ability to prop it up at a more comfortable angle. As a tablet, meanwhile, the Surface Pro 3 is thinner and lighter than the Surface Pro 2, despite having a bigger display. Just as important, the device will start at $799 when it goes on sale next month -- that's a hundred dollars less than last year's model. All told, the Surface Pro 3 is Microsoft's biggest, fastest, thinnest, lightest, best tablet yet. Panay even went so far as to say, "Today we take the conflict away." Did they, though?

HARDWARE

Physically speaking, the Surface Pro 3 has more in common with the Surface 2, which runs Windows RT, than with previous Surface Pros. This year, Microsoft ditched the old carbon-black color in favor of a more playful silver, though the chassis itself is still made of sturdy magnesium alloy, with chamfered edges making it easy to wrap your fingers around. It's not just the color, though, that makes me think of the Surface 2: The Surface Pro 3 measures just 0.36 inch thick, making it only a tad fatter than the Windows RT model; that guy comes in at 0.35 inch wide. This is stunning when you remember the Surface 2 is a traditional tablet, comparable to the iPad, whereas the Surface Pro is basically an Ultrabook without a built-in keyboard. In fact, Microsoft says this is the thinnest machine with an Intel Core i7 processor. It may also be the lightest too, at 1.76 pounds. And even if it's not, it's still a meaningful improvement -- both the first- and second-generation Surface Pros weighed two pounds.

The Surface Pro's thinness seems even more impressive when you compare it to its peers: full-fledged Ultrabooks. Most 13-inch Ultras come in at around three pounds and half an inch thick (if they're lucky). Even the 11-inch MacBook Air, which benefits from a smaller footprint, tips the scales at 2.38 pounds. Next to those systems, the Surface Pro 3 is impossibly compact. In fact, I was loath to go back to my 13-inch MacBook Air after my review was over; the new Surface is just so much lighter. Truly, why can't all Ultrabooks be this easy to carry?

As a tablet, of course, the Surface Pro still doesn't feel particularly light; you don't justforget what it feels like to use a lighter device like the iPad Air. That said, it's definitely lighter than a 12-inch tablet has any right to be. Also, there's this: Despite that bigger screen -- or maybe because of it -- the Surface Pro 3 handles better than its predecessors. For one thing, blowing up the screen size actually allowed Microsoft to slim down the proportions. Think about it: With more internal space to work with, the engineers were able to rearrange the components, laying some items side by side instead of stacking them on top of each other. The result is a substantially thinner device that might not have been possible had Microsoft stuck with a 10.6-inch screen size.

Additionally, the new Surface Pro has a different aspect ratio: 3:2, instead of the usual 16:9. During his keynote, Panay said the company was actively trying to mimic the dimensions of a legal pad, the sort of object humans are already used to holding, and working with. It was a smart move, I think: With this new shape, the tablet feels less top-heavy in portrait mode, and it's easier to reach things with your thumbs in landscape. Goes to show that weight reduction isn't everything (though it definitely helps).

As it is, the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2 have dual-stage kickstands that can be arranged in one of two positions. The Surface Pro 3 goes a step further -- literally -- with an option to pull out the kickstand at a near-flat 150-degree angle. This is useful if you're playing a board game or using a drawing app, and an upright angle won't do. All in all, too, the kickstand feels well-built, if a little rigid. Granted, I wouldn't want the hinge to move so easily that it verges on snapping off. But the kickstand here is so tightly wound that I actually feel a bit naughty every time I push it back into that 150-degree position; there's so much friction that when I push the stand back, I feel like I'm doing something I'm not supposed to. It's also still a bit awkward to pull the kickstand out, since there's only a notch on one side of the tablet. Again, though, it feels durable, and still makes that soft "click" sound every time you snap it shut.

Despite the bigger size, the port selection is the same as ever. That means: a power button on the top landscape edge; a Mini DisplayPort and USB 3.0 connection on the right; and a volume rocker and headphone jack on the left. The bottom, of course, is home to the magnetic guides that allow it to click into the optional Type Cover keyboard (more on that in a moment). There's also a microSD slot tucked under the kickstand, supporting cards as large as 128GB. Microsoft also upgraded the cameras so that both go up to 5-megapixel resolution. Meanwhile, there's a proprietary charging port on the right side, just below the USB socket. Though the charger stays put, it's still awkward to insert -- a minor annoyance you'll surely get used to, should you choose to buy this. As for the front-facing speakers, said to be 45 percent louder than last year's model, they pass my "Dolly Parton rundown test" with flying colors. (They make other kinds of music sound good, too.)

DISPLAY AND PEN INPUT

The Surface tablets have always had lovely displays, and the third-gen Pro is no exception. What we have here is a 12-inch, 2,160 x 1,440 IPS panel, with text so sharp you'd have to put your nose up against the screen to see any pixels. Colors are punchy, but balanced, and the viewing angles are good too, though even a low-glare screen like this isn't immune to reflections from overhead light. In general, I had little trouble reading the screen, but using the Surface in my lap was sometimes challenging; the most stable kickstand position doesn't necessarily mean the best viewing angles.

Under the hood, Microsoft used some different pen technology this time around: an active digitizer made by N-trig, as opposed to Wacom. While it might sound like I'm harping on specs there, hear me out: You'll be making some trade-offs. On the one hand, Wacom's digitizer offered more nuanced pressure sensitivity: 1,024 degrees, versus 256 from N-trig. On the other hand, N-trig's setup allows for a thinner glass display and thus, a slimmer overall design. Additionally, N-trig's pen was designed to feel more like a proper, ink-based pen, and is therefore more natural to hold. Likewise, the screen has just enough friction that drawing on it feels more like dragging a pen across a pad of paper -- or as close as you can get, anyway. Personally, I'd choose a thinner, lighter device over more precise pressure sensitivity, but hey, don't let me set your priorities for you.

As you're using the pen, you'll notice it does some old tricks, along with some new ones too. It supports hovering, for instance, and you can use the top button as an eraser in select apps. On a more surprising note, you can press that top button to wake the tablet from sleep, at which point OneNote will open above the lock screen. Kind of like how you can already use the camera app from the Windows 8.1 lock screen. Also, OneNote now sends your scribbles to the cloud as you're writing them -- not unlike how you'd expect Google Drive to immediately save your work.

As with previous Surface devices, there's no place on the tablet to stow the pen. Rather, you're supposed to slip it inside a loop that attaches to either the Surface or the optional Type Cover keyboard. Unfortunately, the thing fell off after just a few days of use, which means you're probably on your own when it comes to making sure you don't lose your writing implement.

TYPING EXPERIENCE

Just so you know, I'm typing this sentence from a Surface Pro 3. The thing is sitting in my lap, even. And you know what? I'm doing alright. This isn't my favorite laptop keyboard -- not by a long shot -- but I'm doing OK. And I think you will too. But before I get ahead of myself, let me explain what you're getting here. The first thing you should know, perhaps, is that there's just one keyboard option: a backlit Type Cover keyboard built specifically for the Surface Pro 3's bigger frame. For now, at least, the flat Touch Cover keyboard is not an option. Frankly, I always preferred the physical buttons anyway, just because the learning curve is so much smaller. The only thing you'll miss, maybe, is the Touch Cover's lighter-weight design. But given the choice, I'll take a more natural typing experience over a lighter keyboard any day. And hey, the tablet's already pretty light; you can deal with a few extra ounces.

What I like best about this new keyboard is that I don't have to type on a completely flat surface if I don't want to. Unlike previous Type Covers, this one has a magnetic strip on the top, allowing you to fold up the upper piece of the keyboard so that it attaches firmly to the tablet's lower bezel. The end result is sort of a wedge profile, similar to what you'd find on a proper laptop. And it goes a long way in making the thing more comfortable to use. Mind you, nobody's forcing you to pick the propped-up option; you can go flat if you want to. I just don't understand why anyone would.

The problem is that the keyboard is flimsy, and it's nowhere as sturdy or comfortable as "real" keyboards. As I type this, I can see the keyboard cover giving a bit under the weight of my fingers; it's enough to make me not want to use it in my lap (though I do it anyway, out of necessity). With every keystroke, I make a loud "clack," letting anyone around me know I'm getting stuff done. The keys are also bunched close together -- the opposite of your standard chiclet layout. That means it's a little too easy to hit the wrong key. Luckily for me, I have a copy editor, so you can't tell how many typos I actually made while writing this review. Suffice to say, it was enough that I eventually started to type more gingerly, in the hopes I wouldn't make quite as many mistakes.

The Surface Pro 3's Type Cover also brings an improved touchpad. And that's good timing, because the latest Windows 8.1 update made the OS much more mouse-and-keyboard friendly. In brief, the trackpad here is bigger, with a built-in touch button you can press down on. It's also said to be more responsive, but I'll be the judge of that, not Microsoft. Even if the trackpad is more precise than it used to be, it's still many steps behind the sort of glass touchpad you'd find on the MacBook Air or many Windows Ultrabooks. It sometimes takes multiple tries to get two-finger scrolling to work. Ditto for clicking and dragging windows and other objects around the screen. Other times, I accidentally navigated backward out of a web page when I was really trying to do some other sort of gesture. If you're serious about having a mouse, especially in desktop mode, you might be better off using a Bluetooth one, especially if you intend the Surface Pro to be your daily driver.

PERFORMANCE AND BATTERY LIFE

	PCMARK7	3DMARK06	3DMARK11	ATTO (TOP DISK SPEEDS)
Microsoft Surface Pro 3 (1.9GHz Core i5-4300U, Intel HD 4400)	5,010	5,053	N/A	555 MB/s (reads); 252 MB/s (writes)
Microsoft Surface Pro 2 (1.6GHz Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400)	4,922	6,236	E1,906 / P997 / X303	534 MB/s (reads); 167 MB/s (writes)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2014, 1.6GHz Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400)	4,773	5,881	E1,727 / P930 / X284	555 MB/s (reads); 137 MB/s (writes)
HP Spectre 13 Ultrabook (1.6GHz Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400)	4,786	6,005	E1,837 / P962 / X293	527 MB/s (reads); 327 MB/s (writes)
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro (1.6GHz Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400)	4,676	5,688	E1,713 / P914 / X281	546 MB/s (reads); 139 MB/s (writes)
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite (1.4GHz "quad-core" processor, AMD Radeon HD 8250)	2,060	2,814	E749 / P530	550 MB/s (reads); 139 MB/s (writes)
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus (1.6GHz Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400)	4,973	5,611	E1,675 / P867 / X277	547 MB/s (reads); 508 MB/s (writes)
Acer Aspire S7-392 (1.6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400)	5,108	5,158	E1,724 / P952 / X298	975 MB/s (reads); 1.1 GB/s (writes)
Sony VAIO Pro 13 (1.6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400)	4,502	4,413	E1,177 / P636 / X203	1.04 GB/s (reads); 479 MB/s (writes)
Sony VAIO Pro 11 (1.8GHz Core i7-4500U, Intel HD 4400)	4,634	N/A	E1,067 / P600 / X183	558 MB/s (reads); 255 MB/s (writes)

Make no mistake: When it comes to performance, the Surface Pro has always been able to go head to head with traditional laptops. Still, it's nice to know that as other Ultrabooks have experienced modest performance gains, Microsoft has kept pace. Armed with a Haswell processor (a 1.9GHz Core i5-4300U chip), 8GB of RAM, a Samsung-made solid-state drive and the usual Intel HD 4400 graphics, the Surface Pro 3 holds its own in synthetic benchmark tests, with scores that fall in line with the competition. It also boots quickly, taking just 10 seconds to get to the lock screen and then one more to load the Start Screen. My WiFi connection was consistently fast too, thanks to the 802.11ac radio inside (there's also Bluetooth 4.0, if you need it).

Accordingly, the Surface Pro 3 can do everything an Ultrabook can do. One of my favorite things about working on a Windows machine is the Snap feature, so I routinely have two programs laid out side by side -- usually Chrome and HipChat. In particular, I often have a dozen tabs open at once, including Gmail, my calendar, Engadget, Facebook, Twitter and the publishing software we use to write stories, not to mention the odd Wikipedia page and music-streaming service. In addition to the usual multitasking, you could also edit photos if you wanted, or maybe even cut together some video.

Throughout, the metal surfaces stayed relatively cool, and I didn't hear much noise coming out of the thin vent that surrounds the perimeter of the device. As with every other Ultrabook, though, the new Surface wheezes a bit during gameplay. Load up a game and the thing gets quite warm -- almost hot -- to the touch. Hot and noisy, too. At one point, the fans started exhaling so loudly that I heard them even in a loft space with various coworkers milling around nearby. If I can hear it over all that ambient noise, well, that's not good. Fortunately, it takes a lot to make the system pipe up like that. And if you do, it could be that you're doing something Ultrabooks weren't actually designed for.

	BATTERY LIFE
Microsoft Surface Pro 3	7:08
MacBook Air (13-inch, 2013)	12:51
MacBook Pro with Retina display (13-inch, 2013)	11:18
Sony VAIO Duo 13	9:40
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus	8:44
HP Spectre 13	8:30
Sony VAIO Pro 13	8:24
Lenovo IdeaPad U430 Touch	7:53
Acer Aspire S7-392	7:33
Acer Iconia W700	7:13
Sony VAIO Pro 11	6:41
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 2 Pro	6:32
Microsoft Surface Pro 2	6:27
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2014)	6:18
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13	5:32
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon (2013)	5:07
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch (2013)	5:00
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite	4:33

Microsoft describes the Surface Pro 3's battery life in two ways: You can get up to nine hours of web surfing (WiFi on, auto-brightness turned off), or you can simply expect a 15 to 20 percent increase over previous models. Translation: Your mileage will vary, but battery life will be improved either way. And improved it is. In our video-looping test (also with WiFi on and auto-brightness disabled), the tablet managed seven hours and eight minutes. Compare that with the Surface Pro 2, which couldn't crack six and a half hours.

Now, let's put that seven-hour battery life in context. In short, it's not great, but it's not bad, either. Other ultraportables that are either small in size or super lightweight have tended to last a similar amount of time (see: the Acer Aspire S7-392 or the Sony VAIO Pro 11). Even some larger Ultrabooks, like Lenovo's Yoga 2 Pro and ThinkPad X1 Carbon, deliver less runtime despite having room for bigger batteries. The thing is, of course, there are many Ultrabooks that last much, much longer on a charge. The HP Spectre 13, Sony VAIO Pro 13,Sony Duo 13 and Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus all last around eight and half hours, if not closer to 10. (The MacBook Air can go even longer, though I've never tested the 11-inch model.)

Though the Surface Pro 3 is lacking in battery life compared to larger Ultrabooks, it at least charges quickly. After pushing the battery to its limits, I got back up to 72 percent in around 90 minutes. So, even if you only have a short time to recharge, you should still recover enough juice to last you through a couple hours of work. And by the time that runs out, you probably will have found another outlet.

CONFIGURATION OPTIONS AND THE COMPETITION

The Surface Pro 3 can be either sorta expensive or really expensive, depending on the specs you choose. At the low end, there's a Core i3 model with 64GB of storage, priced at $799. The next step up is a Core i5 configuration with 128GB of storage; that'll sell for $999. To get that same Core i5 unit with 256GB of storage instead, you'll pay $1,299. Rounding out the list are two Core i7 models: one with 256GB of storage and the other with 512GB. Those will cost you $1,549 and $1,949, respectively. As of this writing, the two Core i5 models were slated to ship on June 20th. The Core i3 and Core i7 configurations, meanwhile, aren't shipping until August 31st, according to Microsoft's online store. Either way, you can pre-order any of them now, if you like.

Unfortunately, whichever you pick, the $130 Type Cover keyboard is sold separately, which means the Surface Pro 3 immediately suffers in comparisons with proper Ultrabooks, like the Yoga 2 Pro ($1,199), Dell XPS 12 ($1,000), Acer Aspire S7-392 ($1,300) and the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus ($1,400). For instance, if you wanted the Surface Pro 3 with a Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD, you'd pay $1,299 for the laptop and $130 for the keyboard, for a total of about $1,430. The Yoga 2 Pro with comparable specs is currently going for $1,399, with an online price of $1,199.

And there's the rub: With a subpar keyboard, how can the Surface Pro truly be a laptop killer? And if the idea is for the Surface Pro to go head to head with Ultrabooks, the keyboard should also be included gratis. But it's especially bad if that $130 keyboard isn't even that comfortable to type on. So what do you end up with, then? A device that's slightly more expensive than comparable laptops, with an inferior typing experience. When you put it that way, it's tough to give this a glowing recommendation.

WRAP-UP

With each generation of Surface devices, Microsoft gets closer to building a device that can replace both your tablet and laptop. Unfortunately, though, the company's progress has been gradual, and even after three attempts, it still hasn't addressed some serious usability flaws. This time around, the biggest problem is the keyboard. It's tough to say who should buy the Surface Pro 3 as a laptop alternative when the very thing that makes it a notebook replacement -- its optional keyboard -- offers a subpar typing experience and a frustrating trackpad. Adding insult to injury, it's not even included in the box; it's an optional $130 accessory that helps drive up the cost compared to similar PCs.

The good news is that despite its larger screen size, the Surface Pro is easier than ever to use as a tablet, thanks to a thinner, lighter design and more sensible aspect ratio. If Microsoft could just figure out the keyboard thing (and start throwing it in for free), I'd be more inclined to recommend this as a laptop replacement. For now, unless you want a tablet and laptop in equal measure, and sincerely enjoy using Windows Store apps, a touchscreen Ultrabook is still your best bet.

When Lytro first unveiled its light-field photography concept — whose most useful feature is the ability to refocus photographs around any object within them — there was a lot of excitement. But once the startup released its first camera in spring 2012, the criticism began. The product got mixed reviews, with some saying the expensive, low-res camera didn't quite live up to the vision.

Now Lytro is ready for its second act. It unveils Tuesday a camera aimed at "creative pioneers," which takes light-field photography to a new level. Called the Illum (i-LOOM), the camera overcomes many of the limitations of the first model: It's higher-resolution, doesn't just shoot square photos, and it gives the photographer much more flexibility in customizing exactly how the camera captures the "light field."

It's also enormous. I got a little hands-on time with a prototype Illum, and as cameras go, it's a chunky monkey. (It weighs 2.07 pounds.) At first glance it looks simply like a hefty DSLR camera, but there are a couple of important differences, aside from sheer size.

First is the lens, which is fixed to the camera body. As with the first Lytro model, a big chunk of the magic is in the optics, and the Illum's lens contributes greatly to the weight. Just like the smaller Lytro, the lens in the larger Illum has a fixed f/2.0 aperture, which is needed to let in enough light to capture the whole "light field."

Another odd part of the design: The back LCD is angled downward. Lytro designed it that way because the camera doesn't have a viewfinder. The company found that when people take photos using just an LCD screen, they tend to hold the camera below their eye level, so slanting the back came naturally. Helpfully, the display is also on an articulating arm.

"The Lytro Illum is the first hardware and software platform built from the ground up for creative pioneers," Lytro CEO Jason Rosenthal told Mashable. "The first time around, it was like, 'Lytro is exciting and super promising... we just want more power.' We've come back and given people a lot more power."

Light field 2.0

Quick refresher on light-field photography: Lytro's camera technology captures not just the color and intensity of light, but also its direction. That allows for all sorts of tricks once you snap the picture, including the ability to refocus the image as well as create a parallax effect, where you can shift the perspective slightly — similar to how a 3D camera works.

One of the ways the Illum takes that experience further is by displaying the focus range in a histogram to the right of the image on the LCD. Although the software on the models that I used was an early version, it did the trick: I could choose point in the image that would serve as the "center of focus," the point around which the picture will refocus best. There doesn't even have to be an object at the depth of field you're choosing — something the smaller Lytro can't do. The histogram is yellow in this focusing range, fading to brown at the edges of it.

To help you even further, you can turn on a assistive feature that will overlay green outlines on all the objects that are within this focusing range; if objects lack the lines, they'll be permanently out of focus. I found the outlining to be even more useful than the historgram, although it made everything look funny on the LCD.

"One of the things that can be challenging about light-field photography is... composing in 3D," says Rosenthal. "The histogram shows you in the image itself the different points of depth."

The physical controls are very simple. You can twist the lens to zoom, and there's a button to call up those outlines. From there, you can twist the smaller ring on the lens to choose your center of focus, or just tap the screen on the object you want to focus around. A pair of dials, one in front and one in back, let you adjust shutter speed (down to 1/4,000 second), ISO and other manual controls. Once you're ready, hit the shutter.

Image upgrade

The camera captures images with 40 "megarays" — a near-meaningless term that's only relevant in the context of Lytro (the smaller camera captures 11-megaray images). The spec translates to images of about 4 megapixels, once they're flattened out.

That should address most of the criticism directed at Lytro over its first product's low-res images, but in any case the Lytro images are interesting because of their nature, not their resolution. A software upgrade that will launch in conjunction with the camera will help on that 

Whether you see it as a weakness or a strength, Lytro images are dependent on the viewer to do something — either tap to refocus or shift the perspective. But the new Lytro software will unlock their magic to passive viewers by letting users export the images as videos. Instead of a static image the viewer needs to touch, it'll instead refocus or move before their eyes.

The Illum seems poised to move Lytro and its light-field tech forward... until you look at its price. The camera goes on sale in July for $1,599. Buyers can begin pre-ordering the Illum today, and if you pre-order before July 15, the price goes down to $1,499.

That's still a large chunk of change to lay down on a camera that probably still won't serve as your primary imaging device. The Lytro Illum will likely find an even smaller niche than the original Lytro carved out for itself, but the company is aware of this, and promises its strategy will address all types of photographers, at all skill and income levels.

"This thing is totally state-of-the-art," says Ren Ng, Lytro's chairman and founder. "It's unprecedented — you'll never see a lens like this out there. I think the real value is the quality of the pictures and how differentiated a visual experience these creative pioneers will be able to share with their audiences."

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At Gizmag, we often review brand spankin' new devices that sit on the cutting edge of technology. Other products we review are little more than incremental updates over their predecessors. And then there's the 2014 MacBook Air, a device that gives new meaning to the word "incremental." Read on, as we share our quick impressions of the ever-so-slightly updated 11-in MacBook Air.

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Last August, Gizmag reviewed the mid-2013 version of the 11-in MacBook Air, and I'd recommend that you hit that up after we're done here. Why? Well, because the only differences with this new model are a slightly faster processor (1.4 GHz to last year's 1.3 GHz) and a very welcome price drop.

The MacBook Air's design hasn't changed a lick from last year's model – or, for that matter, from any MBA since late 2010. So if you've used any recent 11-in Air, then you know exactly what this new version is going to look like. No surprises here.

But that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The MacBook Air's design isn't as unique as it was three years ago (an army of curiously familiar-looking Ultrabooks made quick work of that), but this is still one damn sexy laptop. It's wafer thin: 17 mm at its thickest point, and tapering off quickly to a razor-like edge. It's also extremely light, at just 1,080 g (the equivalent of 2.3 iPad Airs). This is now an old form factor, but it's also one that has aged very well.

The MacBook Air's screen hasn't aged quite as well. Apple's MacBook Pros, along with quite a few Windows laptops and 2-in-1s, have moved to higher-resolution displays in the last couple of years. But the 11-in MacBook Air still has a fairly mid-ranged (at least by today's standards) 1,366 x 768 resolution.

The Air's 135 pixels per inch looks better than it would on something like a tablet (laptop screens sit farther away, and need fewer pixels per inch to look sharp). But, to my eyes, the Air's screen still looks just a little fuzzy. And, as we said last year, you definitely don't want to look at a MacBook Air screen right after checking out a MacBook Pro with Retina Display. You'll be in for a huge letdown: not because the Air's screen really looks terrible, but because the Retina MacBook Pro's display looks simply amazing.

If you haven't already settled on a favorite laptop screen size, then you might want to head to an Apple Store (or somewhere else with Macs on display) and sample the goods. This model has an 11.6-in display with a 16:9 aspect ratio. There's also a 13.3" Air with a 16:10 aspect ratio. The 11-in Air's more oblong screen has it coming out at 89 percent as wide as the 13-in Air's display, but only 81 percent as tall.

I used to insist on using nothing smaller than a 13-in laptop, but a funny thing happened. I spent the last few months using a Surface Pro 2 as my main laptop, along with the occasional iPad with keyboard cover – all of which have 10-in or smaller screens. After adjusting to their displays, the 11-in MacBook Air now looks just about right to me. Go figure. Again, though, you'll probably want to experiment to find your own sweet spot.

If you're expecting the new MacBook Air's 100MHz CPU boost to dramatically speed things up, then you're in for some disappointment. Fortunately, though, the 2013 MBA was already pretty damn fast. For casual consumer use – and even lighter professional use, such as Photoshop, Garage Band, and so on – this baby should provide plenty of zip. I spent much of 2013 using a 13-in Retina MacBook Pro as my main device, and the new MacBook Air doesn't feel like it's slower in any of those key areas.

Turning to benchmarks, Geekbench shows the new MacBook Air scoring about 4 percent higher than the 2013 MacBook Air. In the multicore 64-bit benchmark, our new model tallied 5354, next to the 2013 MBA's 5172. Forsingle core 64-bit, the new MBA scored 2753, a little above the 2013 Air's 2659.

As always, you'll want to take benchmark geekery with a few grains of salt. The new model may have 4 percent higher scores than last year's Air, but I'd say the odds are slim that you'll notice a 4 percent – or any percent – difference. Both are very zippy for ultra-portable laptops.

The 2013 MacBook Air's big upgrade came in the battery department. Not the actual battery hardware, mind you, but the power-sipping Haswell processor that lives under its hood. And as you'd expect, the 2014 Air still gives you the same long battery life that we saw from that model.

In my time with the new Air, I've been impressed with how gradually it drains power. Even while switching back and forth between Photoshop, Safari, and a writing app (with a few other low-resource apps running in the background), with brightness set at 80-90 percent, the battery only dropped between 8 and 15 percent per hour. For many people, the Haswell MacBook Air will be an all-day machine. If you've spent years suffering through pre-Haswell laptops, and the three-hour battery life that they typically brought to the table, then this is a thing of beauty.

If you already own the mid-2013 MacBook Air, then there's really no reason to consider this new model. The speed differences are far too subtle for you to even consider upgrading. And if you can find last year's model on the cheap, then I'd also recommend going that route. Save the money, and enjoy your shiny new 99 percent as good as this year's model MacBook Air.

But if you're looking to buy your first MacBook Air, or if you're upgrading from a pre-2013 model, then you'll probably be very happy with this 2014 MBA. Not only does it give you great performance, long battery life, and that oh-so light and thin build, but you'll also pay $100 less than you would have just a few weeks ago. Starting at $900 (or $1,000 for the 13-in version), this is the cheapest price we've ever seen on a MacBook Air. If you're willing to throw down that much for a laptop, then know that you're getting a pretty powerful – and extremely portable – machine in return. Aged, yes. But aging extremely well.

Just remember that we kept this review short and sweet since, again, this new model is almost identical to last year's MBA.