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.