Depends what you mean by "short commute". The Gold Coast resident bus here goes to Wan Chai (with one stop prior in Central) in a minimum of 35mins, max could be up to an hour. But you'd get all the space you are looking for with that budget and probably change to spare.
Closer in, less space for more money. At the end of the day you have to make the trade-off between space, price and what else you want in your neighbourhood. Many of the "further out" places have more amenities because they have more room (we have here, for example, a football field, which is pretty darn rare in HK! as well as gym, squash and tennis courts, pools, parking etc etc) Whereas you could probably get more room closer to town by taking a walk-up (up to 10 floors without a lift) which would give you the space but possibly not the amenities you are looking for.
You have to look around and decide what makes sense for you. HK is a VERY expensive place to get accomodation. Firstly internalise that notion, then look.