Just bought the SP3 i3 for €680. For the same price, I could've bought the 128 GB SP2, of if I were lucky, even the 256 GB model.
The reason I chose the SP3 is simply because of its form factor. I cant stand small 10" display on a laptop, yet its awkward to use in portrait as a tablet either, due to its 16:9 aspect ratio. Moreover, the SP3 is noticeably lighter, so its a better 'tablet' overall. Might be because of my usage though, I use it 80% as a tablet, but as I mentioned, the SP2 isn't large enough as a laptop either.
I also have an Acer W700 with i5-3317U. To put it short, its pretty much the SP1 with no pen and longer battery life. I would say the performance difference is not noticeable. Anything that my SP3 cant do (for example, real gaming), the Acer cant do it either. If the Acer can do something, the SP3 can do it as well, maybe a little slower, but its not noticeable to me.
Therefore, if you value the (slight) CPU performance more, get the SP2. If you value the form factor more, get the SP3.
One more thing, hard to break it with you guys, but Broadwell (Core M) isnt terribly efficient than Haswell anyway. Early reviews of the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro (5Y70) and ASUS Transformer Book (5Y10) proved this.
The perfect example is the ASUS Transformer Book, since it has the slower, less power hungry version of the Core M. It runs for about 4.5 hours in light browsing test. However, it has smaller 30Wh battery, compared to 42Wh on the SP3. Even if the TFB had 42 Wh battery, it would run for about 6.3 hours ((42/30)*4.5), still much less than the SP3. To make matter worse, the TFB has 1366x768 res which requires much less resource to begin with.
That's why I pulled the trigger on the SP3 actually. Broadwell is hopeless IMO.
The reason I chose the SP3 is simply because of its form factor. I cant stand small 10" display on a laptop, yet its awkward to use in portrait as a tablet either, due to its 16:9 aspect ratio. Moreover, the SP3 is noticeably lighter, so its a better 'tablet' overall. Might be because of my usage though, I use it 80% as a tablet, but as I mentioned, the SP2 isn't large enough as a laptop either.
I also have an Acer W700 with i5-3317U. To put it short, its pretty much the SP1 with no pen and longer battery life. I would say the performance difference is not noticeable. Anything that my SP3 cant do (for example, real gaming), the Acer cant do it either. If the Acer can do something, the SP3 can do it as well, maybe a little slower, but its not noticeable to me.
Therefore, if you value the (slight) CPU performance more, get the SP2. If you value the form factor more, get the SP3.
One more thing, hard to break it with you guys, but Broadwell (Core M) isnt terribly efficient than Haswell anyway. Early reviews of the Lenovo Yoga 3 Pro (5Y70) and ASUS Transformer Book (5Y10) proved this.
The perfect example is the ASUS Transformer Book, since it has the slower, less power hungry version of the Core M. It runs for about 4.5 hours in light browsing test. However, it has smaller 30Wh battery, compared to 42Wh on the SP3. Even if the TFB had 42 Wh battery, it would run for about 6.3 hours ((42/30)*4.5), still much less than the SP3. To make matter worse, the TFB has 1366x768 res which requires much less resource to begin with.
That's why I pulled the trigger on the SP3 actually. Broadwell is hopeless IMO.
