Surface Pro 3 camera quality

Anonymous
2014-06-23T00:43:23+00:00

i posted this as a question so that the Microsoft techs can have some visibility of this issue

Frankly, I am lividand disappointed at the quality in this product. at first I assumed it was a firmware issue and/or a hardware issue but after performing all of the steps the tech support people have instructedand having been instructed to go the store and exchange for new hardware, I get the same issue.

so this leads me to believe it may just be the quality of the cameras microsoftshipped out on all of the devices

now these were releasednot too long ago and maybe there is a firmware fix out there but until then I am going to share the photos I am able to capture with everyone here 

now I am a student and I bought the pro 3 to be able to take a picture of a document or whiteboard and be able to write on it in onenote. the picture above is of a small target, a barcode, but even taking pictures of a full sized paper with standard size text, it is still almost illegible!

to compare the photos with another device I brought out another moble device: my ipod. the quality of the camera on the device I use to listen to music should surely be about the same quality of camera in the $1600 ten times the size of an ipod device I just bought right? NOT EVEN CLOSE

the first super clear picture is not from the pro 3 but from my ipod WHICH ALSO has a 5 MP camera. as you can see you can easily define everything in t he picture not only to include the sticker underneath the barcode , but the number in that 2D barcode as well. very good job!

the next horrible picture is the BEST PICTURE I could get from the rear camera on the Surface Pro 3. as you can see this is horrible, you can see it’s a bar code, you cannot tell those are numbers underneath. you could guess but you wouldn’t be able to identify any single number

the last picture is the BEST PICTURE I could get from the front camera, which is strangely odd since it is markedly better than the rear camera, although still severely sub-par. you can at least identify some numbers and see that there is a sticker underneath the barcode.

So there you have it. this is the horrible picture quality we can expect from the surface pro 3's cameras and how it compares to equivalent-megapixel MP3 players

Microsoft, If you can address this with a firmware update to make the cameras auto-focus, I will be a happy customer;even half the quality of my ipod I can work with. but this? this is unacceptable.

Surface | Surface Pro | Sound and camera

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2014-12-08T09:51:06+00:00

On Sun, 7 Dec 2014 21:06:04 +0000, OAKNOVA wrote:

>>I am quite disappointed with the camera on the Surface Pro 3 and its inability to focus and take sharp pictures of documents. These days even the most rudimentary and basic phone or camera can take sharp images that can be save, printed. I have to now take a photo with my Samsung phone and then email it to my account and download it as a saved image. Microsoft learn from Apple and create flawless products the first time around. I think I have wasted my money on the Surface Pro 3. Any fixes out there or should I just sell this product?

there is no software fix for this. the camera is fixed focus. here's what I did

as a kludge

http://digitalmediaphile.com/index.php/2014/09/23/get-glasses-for-surface-pro-3-for-clear-documents-take-2/

__________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barb

Windows Entertainment and Connected Home MVP

My Blog - http://digitalmediaphile.com/

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Anonymous
2014-11-02T17:11:37+00:00

There is no zoom. It is a fixed focus camera.

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  1. Anonymous
    2014-09-18T03:50:27+00:00

    Notice that a new hardware driver was released yesterday but had date of 9/9 dont know if its camera related... it wont fix the zoom but looks like it added panoramic view to the camera app. Never seen this before.

    Please fix the focus.

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-09-18T03:12:59+00:00

    This really suck. I notice this issue today. I've spend a lot of money on this tablet and doesn't work to take a picture of a single piece of paper?...are you kidding me?. I even bought the docking station for it. I cant return because 30 days already passed. I even bought the extended warranty for it. I'm just glad i didn't bought an Xbox one from them. Failing on that simple issue is unacceptable. This will be my last Microsoft product I'm going to buy. They need to fix their mess. To keep the early adopters happy they need to fix this like a warranty issue.(ex. Xbox 360 ring of death). I'm too disappointed in Microsoft. I'm pretty sure they know about the problem they just don't want to commit on fixing it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2014-09-16T12:08:33+00:00

    Hello All,

    I have the same problem, BUT the behavior is different between the both cameras (front/back).

    I only have the problem with the camera on the back.

    Front:

    Back:

    With the front camera it works fine :-o

    According to the technical specifications should both cameras have the same resolution of 5MP.

    best regards,

    Herbert

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