Microsoft just rolled out the latest and greatest version of its Surface tablet/laptop hybrid, branded as the Surface Pro. Here’s a link to the official Surface Pro product page.
Much has been made about the Surface Pro’s price of $799. But what do you get for your money?
The $799 Surface Pro ships with:
– Intel® Core™ m3 processor
– 128GB SSD
– 4GB RAM
– Intel® HD Graphics 615
That’s a pretty bare-bones machine. Apple’s cheapest machine (the $999 MacBook Air) comes with 8GB of RAM. I can’t imagine using a modern version of Windows or macOS with less than 8GB. Let’s tweak that so we can compare apples with Apples.
Bumping the Surface Pro to a minimally livable (in my opinion) 8GB brings the price to $1299. There’s just no cheaper way to get to 8GB without bumping the processor up to the Intel® Core™ i5, which is the same processor in the $999 MacBook Air. To be fair, these are different processor and screen generations, but the price bump from $799 to $1299 to get to 8GB is an important factor.
If you are considering buying a Surface Pro, take a few minutes to step through the configurations and compare the specs with the MacBook Air and 13″ MacBook Pro. And keep in mind the inherent differences between Windows and macOS.
like how w/ Apple, the 16gb RAM and single USB port were signs of the apocalypse. but with MS….innovation!
bloody hypocrites.
I think 4GB is perfectly fine for a lot of people. I don’t think we’ve hit that proverbial point where it’s unusable. I remember when 2GB hit that point, but 4GB is still very usable for most people.
There are definitely a lot of compromises to think about with the Surface Pro, but I don’t think it’s entirely fair to compare it to the MacBook Air. For one, the screen on the cheapest Surface Pro is miles ahead of what the MacBook Air is equipped with, and it’s not even close. Then we get to the internal specs, and while you mention the MacBook Air having the “same” i5 processor as the MacBook Air, the fact of the matter is that the Surface’s internals are two years newer (Kaby Lake vs Broadwell).
A better starting point for comparison is probably the 12.9″ iPad Pro, which also starts at $799. Both have fast mobile processors, excellent displays, allegedly good battery life (to be determined with the Surface), and no keyboard. The Surface Pro, especially in its cheapest configuration, is meant to be a tablet first. There are arguments to be made about the viability of Windows as a tablet OS, but that’s clearly how this product has been positioned; the fact that you can attached the keyboard/trackpad and use it as a Windows laptop is an added bonus.
Passable now… maybe, but the user will still hit periods of waiting and inactivity here and there, which can be frustrating. Plus, what about the future, how future proof is this?
I bought a newer iPad air and lost it in the airport on the way home last week, in Chicago, I doubt I’ll ever see that again since it’s been a week now, it’s wifi only and never came online again.
So in the interim I pulled out my old iPad 2. It’s still perfectly usable for browisng, reading the news, email, etc.
It’s over 6 years old now.
The surface, with 4 GB of ram, in over 6 years? Doubt it.
Maybe not even 3.
And they call this a Pro, mwa·ha·ha·ha.
MS is trying to win the price war, but will customers really be convinced this is the solution to their problems, or just more problems disguised as a solution?
on the other side it’s €1971,15 for the surface pro i7 with 16gb of ram and 512GB of SSD. plus €179,99 for the type cover plus € 109,99 for the stylus. €2151,05 in total.
vs. € 2799 for the 13inch mbp with 16gb of ram and i7 processor (without sd-card-reader)
for an extra €109,99 you get a stylus for the surface from microsoft, and for an extra of €1008 you get a 12,9 inch ipad pro and a stylus from apple.
it’s still apples to oranges, though.
The tech press has got to get over its fascination with mediocre hardware from Microsoft and its relationship to apple products.
The stuff is crap. And you can tell Laporte that the Surface Studio is the top of the crap, with a meager 15K units sold for $3000 worth of underpowered bloatware.
4GB barely lets the operating system function in a 64 bit world.
“And keep in mind the inherent differences between Windows and macOS.” — what Mac user doesn’t automatically do this?
Agreed that the Air is a poor comparison. My understanding is that the Air only exists to fill Apple’s need for a budget option. Microsoft has no such need – if someone is looking for a budget Windows 10 PC, they can go to HP, Dell, ASUS, etc.
The Surface Pro is also competing against the $1299 MacBook (12″), but since it doesn’t include the $160 keyboard, that $1299 i5/8GB/256GB Surface Pro is really $1459. You do get more for the money, at least on paper, as the Surface doubles as a tablet and has a more powerful processor than the MacBook. There’s also the $1299 Surface Laptop for users who want a bigger screen and don’t need tablet mode.
I think the bottom line is that Apple’s and Microsoft’s pricing is fairly comparable. There are tradeoffs whichever way you go, but both are premium lines and neither is a clear winner on price alone.
I’m willing to bet that not a single person who said the MacBook Pro didn’t deserve the “Pro” moniker because of the 16 GB RAM limit will say the same thing about the Surface Pro.
iPads have 2GB of memory, if you’re doing Apples to apples. Only the 12″ Pro gets 4gb, and barely 32gb of disk for the same price.
Cool, now do the same comparison to the iPad Pro instead of the Macbook
But the Surface features Alcantara®. That automatically puts MS in a league of its own and beyond criticism, doesn’t it?
Oh god the MS fanboys here are sickening. BTW it doesn’t really matter what the specs/price of these MS machines are because THEY DON’T RUN MacOS!!! My god I would kill myself if I had to use Windows.
I don’t see that model as compelling – but I do like the high-spec Surface Pros, which are honestly priced for a high-quality, high-end computer.
Just as the MacBooks are.
(I own a Pro 4 i7 – and Apple’s not getting any laptop money from me until a MacBook has a touch screen; even with my old 2G Air I wanted to touch the screen to dismiss modals and the like.
Someone remind Apple that having a touchscreen doesn’t mean you have to have a touch-centric UI; I agree that one of those would be a horrible thing to do to OSX.
So just … don’t do that.
Full-er disclosure: Windows for work and games, but 27″ iMac for everything else and Mac Mini for home server. So I’m not a partisan for either side beyond reason…)
“Pro” line compared to the now-dead “RT” line.
But the way iOS handles memory management, those 4GB feel like 8GB. I guarantee you an iPad Pro runs circles around a 4GB Surface, performance-wise.
The Studio may well be a huge market mistake, and nobody should buy a 4gb Surface.
But they’re all well made (my Pro 4’s build quality is Apple-grade), and as above, the ones with real specs compete with Apple’s products pretty well.
Sounds like a personal problem.
(I mean, FFS, I’ve run Macs since System 6, and I prefer OSX, but … Windows 10 just isn’t suicide-inducing in itself.)
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You couldn’t pay me to run a modern desktop OS on 4GB of RAM. (…Other than one the lightweight Linux distros, of course!) Chrome, bless its heart, probably takes up 1/4 of that with a few tabs open.
The Surface Pro line has a lot going for it, but I haven’t really found the base models all that compelling or particularly useable when coupled with the full, unoptimized Windows environment that most users are going to deal with on a daily basis. Selling that device, as configured at $799, is bad business in my opinion.