Question Surface Laptop or Surface Laptop 2?

[jb2349]

Hi, I’ve been looking around for a laptop for college and I’ve settled on either the Surface Laptop or Surface Laptop 2. Obviously, the newer one has better specs. However, I’m wondering if it’s worth the money. I’m looking to buy the lowest cheapest configuration of each laptop and use it for school work, video/movie watching, and other general purposes, not gaming though. So, I don’t think I need any extra horsepower for that type of use. I couldn’t find that many upgrades worth the extra money for the Surface Laptop 2. With the student discount on Microsoft’s store, each laptop comes out to the same price: $900, before $75 sales tax. I found the Surface Laptop on Amazon with an i5 at 3.1, 128 GB SSD, and 4 GB of ram for $719 after tax. That sounds like a good deal since the same on Microsoft’s store is almost $300 more. I also found a Surface Laptop on Amazon for $600 with an i3 at 1.0 and everything else the same. I would’ve jumped at that but I wasn’t sure about a 1 GHz processor. I’ve only ever built PCs for gaming so I don’t know if this is enough for what I described above. If it is I would absolutely buy that. However, if the Surface 2 is really worth the money, I would be willing to spend the money. (The cheapest place I saw the Surface 2 was on Microsoft's store for @974 after tax.) Sorry for the long post. Any advice is appreciated.

 

[jojesa]

I would go with the Surface laptop 2 with the Core i5, since the previous one is 2 years old.
Make sure you get the Surface you need at the moment and also take in consideration how long you will be using it.
Unlike the PCs you built, you won't be able to upgrade a Surface laptop 2.
A 128GB might not be sufficient, since the space you might have available is 89-92GB.
You must leave at least 12GB available in case Microsoft drops some automatics updates on you without warning.
If you get the 128GB get a nice SD card to storage your files.

 

[jb2349]

Thanks. I was thinking after I posted this about expanding my search to other laptops in a similar price range. I was looking at the XPS 13, the cheapest variation I could find was around the same as a new Surface laptop with a 128GB. However, with a 1080p display and an optional touchscreen for an extra $100. The Surface has, I think 1504p or something like that and touchscreen as standard. However, the lack of ports on the Surfaces made me question buying it. Should I look at an XPS or an entirely different brand? FYI the absolute most I would be willing to spend is $1000 because I want the laptop to last at least through college. (I started a new thread that is a bit more overarching https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/best-laptop-for-college-under-1000.3472954/ )