If you’re excited about the Surface Pro 3 that Microsoft unveiled yesterday, and you live in the EU, then we have some good news for you. The tablet is available for purchase to virtually all citizens of the European Union.
Despite having little regard for the non-US part of the world, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 will be available in various countries across Europe. But that’s always been the case. The good news this time is that the Microsoft digital store is willing to ship devices across all of the EU, even in countries where Surface isn’t officially available. And the best part is that shipping is currently free.
So if you live in country that doesn’t officially get Surface, you can still buy one from Microsoft’s Store UK, Germany, Netherlands and various others.
Now here’s the bad news: price variation and lack of accessories. Depending on where you’re buying from, VAT is different, and currency conversion has a lot to say in how much you’ll actually end up paying.
For example, if you’re buying the i3 basic model, the cheapest Surface Pro 3, you’ll be better off buying it in the UK store, where it retails for £639.00, equal to 785.16 Euros, and cheaper than anywhere else. Oh, not as cheap as in the US of course, but that goes without saying for us Europeans.
However if you’re going to buy the top of the line device with the i7 CPU, as well as touch covers and other accessories you’re better off looking at Germany or the Netherlands, because with different currency conversion and VAT rates you can end up spending almost 200 Euros more in the UK than in other countries – for the exact same products.
Finally there’s still a problem of accessory availability with Microsoft UK being one of the few shops that currently has some Surface Pro 3 accessories. Others, such as Microsoft NL doesn’t even have the new Type covers. Of course this may change in the following months as we get closer to the shipping date but it’s something worth looking at.
All in all this is still good news for EU folks, but you’ll still need to shop around to make sure you’re getting the best deal. And of course there’s also the disappointing news that Surface Pro 3 models won’t start shipping in Europe until August.