Surface Pro 2 i5 128GB or Surface Pro 3 i3 64GB ?

[Zumomaki]

If you could get any of these at the same price wich one would you take?
I would mainly use it for school, some media, and maybe some basic gaming, but not sure if the pros of the surface pro 3 are worth 64GB of storage and the i5

 

[Qtweeder]

just so you are aware, incase it was of any importance to you....the sp3 does "connected standby" which means it can 'wake' and display notifications / toasts while in low power mode, like our smartphones, the sp2 cannot.

which is handy if you like to see everything as it comes through, rather than having to wake it up and check manually

 

[onlysublime]

there's no way you should get an i3 64GB over the i5 128 GB. if you plan on doing a lot with a computer, you can't go with only 64GB and with a far inferior CPU.

Plus, the SP3 has more pixels to drive which means with the same CPU, it's slower. So an SP2 with i5 is faster than an SP3 with i5. So now if you're giving the SP3 the i3, that just makes it worse.

the only reason to go with the SP3 in this case is if you really want the larger screen. but if you can handle the SP2 screen size, it's would be much more beneficial to go with that. You want room to grow with a machine. I already think 128 GB is barely doable because remember Windows apps only install on drive C:. And even if you install something like Adobe Creative Suite on your memory card on drive D:, some parts of the program still gets installed in various places on drive C:.

As for connected standby, I wish the SP2 had it. It's wonderful on my Surface RT. I just plop down the keyboard and it wakes up instantly.

 

[carlos12001]

there's no way you should get an i3 64GB over the i5 128 GB. if you plan on doing a lot with a computer, you can't go with only 64GB and with a far inferior CPU.

Plus, the SP3 has more pixels to drive which means with the same CPU, it's slower. So an SP2 with i5 is faster than an SP3 with i5. So now if you're giving the SP3 the i3, that just makes it worse.

the only reason to go with the SP3 in this case is if you really want the larger screen. but if you can handle the SP2 screen size, it's would be much more beneficial to go with that. You want room to grow with a machine. I already think 128 GB is barely doable because remember Windows apps only install on drive C:. And even if you install something like Adobe Creative Suite on your memory card on drive D:, some parts of the program still gets installed in various places on drive C:.

As for connected standby, I wish the SP2 had it. It's wonderful on my Surface RT. I just plop down the keyboard and it wakes up instantly.

I3 inferior?

 

[onlysublime]

yes, i3 is inferior. benchmarks will tell the story. also, we have quite a few i3 machines at work and they're all pretty horrible. maybe if you're used to an Atom, the i3 will feel okay. Or maybe if you're accustomed to Celeron machines which are terrible as well.

 

[carlos12001]

yes, i3 is inferior. benchmarks will tell the story. also, we have quite a few i3 machines at work and they're all pretty horrible. maybe if you're used to an Atom, the i3 will feel okay. Or maybe if you're accustomed to Celeron machines which are terrible as well.

Nope, sp2 here, i5 64gb. Not my storage choice, got it on a trade.

 

[SwimSwim]

yes, i3 is inferior. benchmarks will tell the story. also, we have quite a few i3 machines at work and they're all pretty horrible. maybe if you're used to an Atom, the i3 will feel okay. Or maybe if you're accustomed to Celeron machines which are terrible as well.

Benchmarks aren't everything, and my school has machines with i5 that still manage to be slow as ****.

My friend, you must remember that while specs help: They aren't everything. Android vs. iOS/Windows Phone is proof enough of that.

 

[carlos12001]

Benchmarks aren't everything, and my school has machines with i5 that still manage to be slow as ****.

My friend, you must remember that while specs help: They aren't everything. Android vs. iOS/Windows Phone is proof enough of that.

An i5 machine that slow has something wrong with it, my sp2 flies....

 

[fc000]

Benchmarks aren't everything, and my school has machines with i5 that still manage to be slow as ****.

My friend, you must remember that while specs help: They aren't everything. Android vs. iOS/Windows Phone is proof enough of that.

The SP3 with i3 doesn't have Turbo, so your clock speed is stuck at 1.5GHz, whereas the i5 is clocked at 1.9 GHz, and Turbos to 2.9 GHz. That alone will make a difference in any intensive tasks.

If you're just browsing the web, taking notes, and making use of light apps, an i3 will do... but a tablet at $849 (Canadian), you may as well splurge a little bit more, and get a much more capable processor with a big increase in storage space on a tablet that you'd like to think would last a few years.

 

[onlysublime]

Android/Windows Phone is a terrible analogy. They are different operating systems.

You will not find a situation where i3 will run close to an i5 (ON THE SAME OPERATING SYSTEM) unless you only have 2 GB of RAM and you give the i3 an SSD and the i5 a HDD or you're doing really lightweight work like notepad, web browsing, playing music, etc. We reserve the i3 machines for the secretaries who do the word processing and calendar scheduling. Anyone higher get at least i5 machines (the bosses and upper management get the i7).

Benchmarks aren't everything, and my school has machines with i5 that still manage to be slow as ****.

My friend, you must remember that while specs help: They aren't everything. Android vs. iOS/Windows Phone is proof enough of that.

 

[SwimSwim]

An i5 machine that slow has something wrong with it, my sp2 flies....

Mine does too. I'm just making the point that specs, while very helpful, aren't everything.