Surface Pro 3 or Macbook air?

[Naicheervan Abbas]

I'm starting University this September and I'm looking to get an Ultrabook or something similar. Personally I've had my eyes on the Macbook air 13inch 128gb ssd i5, and the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 12gb ssd i5 which is out on the 28th August in U.K. I'm not sure which to go for as I love what both offer. If it helps I have an iPhone 5S for Apple products, and have an Xbox One, and Windows 8.1 pc on Microsoft end. Any advice/opinions please? Thank you.
http://store.apple.com/uk/buy-mac/macbook-air
http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msuk/en_GB/pdp/Surface-Pro-3/productID.304601100

 

[darkbreeze]

Since you're a student, and unless you have deep pockets and don't mind paying double for every device you want to connect to your computer, I'd go with the surface pro 3. Plus, the MacBook air doesn't have a touch screen option or detachable keyboard which can be a nice feature. Battery life is similar and the Surface Pro is cheaper. Case closed.

 

[TheDoctor7x]

Since you're a student, and unless you have deep pockets and don't mind paying double for every device you want to connect to your computer, I'd go with the surface pro 3. Plus, the MacBook air doesn't have a touch screen option or detachable keyboard which can be a nice feature. Battery life is similar and the Surface Pro is cheaper. Case closed.

What a horrible answer. Nobody wants a touch interface shoed-into a desktop OS.

The Surface Pro 3 has some of the worst battery life of any laptop equivalent on the market, as shown here. The benchmarks show that the Surface has over an hour less batter life than a similarly configured Air.

Sure, the Surface is cheaper if you get the worst mobile i3 Intel offers, 4GB of RAM, and a pitiful 64GB SATA SSD (which is much slower then the PCIe SSD Apple uses), but let's be intellectually honest here. This person most likely needs an i5 with 8GB of RAM, and at least 128GB of storage. To get a Surface Pro 3, you need to spend at least $1169.10 (or $1299 without the education discount), shown here.
To get an 13-inch Air that satisfies the requirements, you pay $1039 (which include the education discount) for a computer that will outperform said Surface, or this 11-inch, which will still outperform the Surface, and also matches the Pro's 256GB drive, while still being $30 cheaper.
And the best part is, you never even have to use Windows.
Case Closed.

But if you want to keep jerking yourself off, you can do that too.

 

[ccampy]

Get a ultrabook from somebody else and sva emoney and get better battery and performance then either of these devices

 

[graffspree]

The Surface has limited connectivity. This may or may not be a problem for you. Think about how many USB ports you will use at one time. If it's more than one, go for the Mac.