As a PC enthusiast, this comment had me ROLLING! There are some people out there [and I happily admit to being one of them] that absolutely *HAVE* to have the latest greatest shiny. THAT said, the SP3 IMO is a complete waste of time. Here are the highlights:
I am a computer enthusiasts as well. I am not saying what other people are doing. I don't care what other do and doing. I am saying what you should be doing
2560 x 1440 screen. Oh boy, jumping on the UHD bandwagon, while having failed YET to fix scaling issues on your EXISTING products. This will make complete sense with Broadwell, when Iris integrated is standard. . .but not now.
Price point/performance. You want me to pay *HOW* much money for an i7 equipped notebook, plus an extra $150 for keyboard, $200 for dock. . . . I can get a 2014 Razer Blade 14" FOR $2200. Comes with an 870m and a 3800 x 1800 touch screen, and a HIGH END i7. Last year's model, if you can find one, is on clearance for $1500.
As much as the Razor is an awesome machine, it is louder, shorter battery life, and significantly heavier than the Surface Pro 3, and it does not feature multitouch nor has a digitize pen technology, which are both costly additions, if you want the technology that you don't want to fight with.
The resolution of the SP3 is: 2160x1440, as it is 3:2 aspect ratio not 16:9.
The Core i7 is a VERY bad decision. The CPU is a DUAL core CPU, with hyper-threading (exactly like the Core i5 model), base clock is 1.7GHz, while the Core i5 model is 1.9GHz (yes faster).
Turbo Boost is 3.3GHz, while the i5 is 2.9GHz. And as you know, Turbo Boost is the theoretical max speed of the CPU. It only goes there if the CPU sees that the heat can be handle. On my Pro 2, it peeks on rare occasion at 2.9Ghz, most of the time when pushed, it is at 2.8GHz, and if pushed for longer, it is 2.6GHz. So that 3.3GHz probably won't get used much.
All you get is the HD5000 graphics, which I would be exited for, IF Intel was actually serious about their graphic solution, and FULLY support OpenGL, DirectX, OpenCL, and DirectCompute. Sadly, it does not, and is responsible for game crashes, and you are forced to drop visual settings to avoid the advance API calls to avoid the crash, despite having the performance get enjoy the games at "playable" frame rates. In addition, the performance of teh HD4400 and teh HD5000 isn't big.
Core i5 is the best choice. If you have the Pro 2, well you already have that CPU. So it is a bit ridicoulus to upgrade, unless you have something you absolutely need and worth over 1k$ to get it. Wait for Pro 4 with Broadwell, as a minimum (I expect the performance boost to be ~10% like previous generation version to the newer one, but the Pro 4 can potentially have USB 3.1, SATA-Express SSD, and far improved battery life, not to mention even further improvement on the device).
Unfortunately, that's 95% of the SP3 right there. You can call my comparison to the new Blade apples to oranges, but let's face it: There are still dozens of better price/performance ultrabooks in the 12-14" category. Several have already been mentioned.
So then don't buy the Surface Pro 3. And enjoy system subsidized with junk-ware, which leaks in the recovery image, lower build quality for many system, lower after sale service for many of them, and not the best Windows experience possible, and louder and heavier. Benchmark has showed that the Surface Pro 2 rev 1 beats the same specs ultrabooks.
If you see no value for these additional features, then simply the Surface Pro 3 is not for you. No one said that this is the device that fits everyone need.
