Why you should get a Core i5 Surface Pro 3

The Surface Pro 3 is available today…sort of.

Actually, only two of the five Surface Pro 3 models are available today. The other three won’t be available until August. The good news, though, is that the two models that offer the best overall value are the Core i5 models, and those are the models you can get as of  today.

Why do the Core i5 models provide the best bang for the buck? Well, the $800 Core i3 model only has a 64GB SSD, and that is simply not enough storage. Even considering extensive use of cloud-based options for storing and streaming content, 64GB will fill up quickly and prove very frustrating. The 128GB model is the bare minimum I would recommend, and the 256GB SSD models are an ideal middle ground between cost and storage capacity. On the high end, there is a Core i7 model with a 512GB SSD, but it costs $400 more than its 256GB equivalent, and that extra 256GB of space is not worth the $400 premium.

As far as I’m concerned, the $1,000 Core i5 Surface Pro with 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD is OK, and the $1,300 Core i5 Surface Pro 3 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD is the perfect balance of cost, performance, and storage. These are the two Surface Pro 3 models you should focus on.

For more on the Surface Pro 3, and why the Core i5 models are the way to go, check out this article I wrote on Forbes: The Surface Pro 3 You Want Is Available Today.