A little bit of hello, but mostly two generations of die shrink and architecture improvement are the things stopping me buying another one after lusting over my wife's.
Who uses a surface pro along with an iPad or desktop PC? the surface is pretty damn big and heavy Vs an iPad Air 2, and for general consumption I don't know whether I could sell the iPad or I'd still need it.
Also slightly reticent because there are so many iPad apps that are properly tuned around touch. While surface can use any Windows apps, that could also mean some devs don't bother optimising for tablet mode or touch because you can use the normal app, even if it is a bit clunky. Although Lightroom is tempting if I can sync between two computers easily.
The lack of good touch apps are definitely a concern for me, although I'd mainly buy one for the inking support. Which brings me back to the performance. I don't see myself using the Surface for more than doing sketches and editing some illustrations, but I guess I'd really like to have the option to do more heavy tasks, if needed. I still have my iPad 4 and I guess I'd still continue to use it in my bed over the Surface. But the iPad would be useless at work (which is why I don't bring it with me), whereas the Surface would be a great extension.
with MS talking about the atom version being 80% as fast as the i3, it could be a possibility. And when you price up the top atom plus pen, it isn't a million miles away in cost from a baseline i3. I hope not, because that would make the entire pro line very expensive. You already have most tech sites recommending the i5 so hopefully that is enough for MS to keep the i3 on for those that cannot justify the extra cost.
I'd be curious to see if they do anything with the core-m chips though. Should outperform atom and they're fanless. Might make a nice mid-range pro line, with the low TDP broadwell/skylake above them.
I'm sorry that I overlooked this post. You made a really good point with the Core-M. I read the Anandtech review of the Surface 3 and it's the first time I saw real benchmarks of the Atom x7 and comparisons between that chip and the Core-M and i3. While it's true that the Atom comes close to the i3 in some cases, it's still no match at heavy tasks and the slow eMMC storage seems to limit the device even more, compared to the SSD in the Surface Pro. Looking at the benchmarks more closely, it looks like the Core-M might be the better option, even when compared to the i3 model. All in all, I'd say that the 80% performance claim is highly theoretical. It's a good marketing line and supports my theory that they're going to dump the i3 model, but when it really matters, it's nowhere hear close to that.
http://anandtech.com/show/9219/the-surface-3-review/5
(the Dell Venue 11 uses the Core-M)
It's also interesting that the lack of a turbo mode is what limits the performance of the i3 model over the Atom.
