Digital Trends
coincidently or not , the two most significant tablets of 2024 were announced within a couple of weeks of each other . First was the updatedApple iPad Pro , which was herald on May 7 , 2024 , and began ship on May 15 , 2024 . Then , on May 20 , 2024 , a radically newMicrosoft Surface Prowas announce and is gestate to send in June , 2024 , carrying Microsoft ’s new Copilot+ designation .
The iPad Pro received Apple ’s late Silicon chipset , the M4 , along with a new tandem OLED show . The Surface Pro will be ship exclusively with Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon X Elite and Windows on ARM . It , too , pop the question a young OLED display . Which of these two newfangled tablets is proper for you ?
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Specs and configurations
The Surface Pro and iPad Pro both start at $ 1,000 . However , the configurations offered are very different at that price .
There are two versions of the Surface Pro with either a 13.0 - inch LCD display or an OLED panel . The LCD version embark on at $ 1,000 for a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Plus , 16 GB of RAM , and a 256 GB SSD . It can be upgraded to 512 GB for an extra $ 200 . The OLED version is more powerful and starts at $ 1,500 for a Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite , 16 GB of RAM , and a 512 GB SSD . With 32 GB of RAM and a 1 TB SSD , the Surface Pro OLED costs $ 2,100 .
The iPad Pro comes in two versions with either an 11 - in or a 13 - inch tandem bicycle OLED exhibit . Choosing an iPad Pro is a bit complicated , with the 256 GB and 512 GB versions coming with a 9 - pith CPU M4 and 8 GB of RAM and the 1 TB and 2 TB versions coming with a 10 - centre CPU M4 and 16 GB of RAM . The 11 - in iPad Pro starts at $ 999 with 256 G and ramps up to $ 1,999 with 2 TB , while the 13 - inch iPad Pro is $ 1,299 with 256 GB and $ 2,299 with 2 TB .
That puts both tablet at similarly premium Mary Leontyne Price , with the Surface Pro uncommitted with more RAM and less storage and vice versa with the iPad Pro . Each needs to be carefully configure to secure the right chipsets and RAM are selected .
The other thing to regard is the toll of the accessories . The Surface Pro Flex Keyboard costs an astounding $ 350 , while the Surface Slim Pen 2 is $ 100 . The iPad Pro Magic Keyboard , on the other hand , costs $ 299 for the 11 - column inch model and $ 350 for the 13 - inch size . The Apple Pencil cost $ 99 .
Operating systems and design
Perhaps the most important divergence between the two tablet is their operating systems . That alone could sway you to one twist or another .
The Surface Pro melt down Windows 11 on ARM , a variant that ’s presently optimized alone for Qualcomm ’s Snapdragon X ARM chipsets . Windows 11 on ARM works just like Windows 11 for Intel , with the elision that apps demand to either run natively on the Qualcomm chipset or through emulation . It remains to be seen how well apps operate in emulation and how well Windows on ARM supports the variety of peripherals uncommitted for Windows 11 on Intel .
The iPad Pro runs Apple ’s iPadOS operating system , which is more similar to iOS on the iPhone than macOS on Apple ’s MacBooks . It ’s a more lightweight operating system of rules optimize for touch , and it lacks the same data file direction and peripheral support as a full - featured OS while running a completely unlike set of apps . Everything is optimized for Apple Silicon , however , intend there ’s no concern about how well iPad apps will run on the M4 .
Now that we ’ve cover the canonic operating system difference of opinion , we can discuss the Surface Pro and iPad Pro excogitation . Of naturally , they ’re both slates , mean that they ’re plainly metal anatomy fused to glass displays . From the front , the two lozenge are like , with jolly fragile , black display bezels . And to an extent , they ’re exchangeable on the back as well , with all - metal surfaces . They come in multiple colouration — Platinum , Black , Dune , and Sapphire for the Surface Pro and Silver and Space Black for the iPad Pro . Both are solidly ramp up , with some of the expert industrial manufacturing quality available on devices today .
The most authoritative difference is that the Surface Pro includes an integrated kickstand that pulls out from the back and extends from virtually vertical to nearly flat . The iPad Pro does not , make the Surface Pro easier to use on a aerofoil without a keyboard attachment . That also get the iPad Pro importantly thinner and lighter than the Surface Pro at 0.20 in and 1.28 pound for the 13 - inch iPad Pro compare to 0.37 inch and 1.97 pounds for the Surface Pro . The 11 - inch iPad Pro is 0.21 inches and 0.98 pounds .
The Surface Pro has a new detachable keyboard , the Surface Pro Flex , which can now be used either bind to the Surface Pro or as a standalone Bluetooth keyboard . It extend an angled design for more ergonomic typing , along with a touchpad that ’s bigger than previous Type Covers and that apply a tactile railway locomotive . The Apple Magic Keyboard connects magnetically to the iPad Pro and receives power and twin via the Smart Connector . It accommodate the iPad Pro at several angles , and the keyboard lies flat . The young Magic Keyboard , useable for both the 11 - column inch and 13 - in models , has a novel aluminum keyboard deck and a tactual touchpad .
Ports and connectivity
In term of connectivity , neither pad of paper can compare to a distinctive clamshell laptop . The Surface Pro has two USB4 ports with Thunderbolt 4 support , and a Surface Connect port for power and charging . The iPad Pro has one USB - hundred port with Thunderbolt 4 , which is the only mean value for charging the lozenge . The Surface Pro has external show support for up to three 4 K monitors , while the iPad Pro supports just a single attached presentation . It should be noted that the Magic Keyboard adds a 2d USB - C embrasure when associate .
The Surface Pro supports the former Wi - Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4 standards , while the iPad Pro is limit to Wi - Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 . Both have optional 5 G backup , via a nanoSIM slot on the Surface Pro and an eSIM with the iPad Pro .
Finally , the Surface Pro has a 1440p front - facing webcam with an infrared camera for Windows 11 Hello facial recognition and a 10.5MP rear - face photographic camera . The front - face tv camera is wide - slant and supports AI features like auto - framing , eye signal detection , and
The iPad Pro has a 1080p front - facing webcam with Face ID and a 12MP rear - facing camera .
Performance
The Surface Pro is now built exclusively around Qualcomm ’s raw Snapdragon X , an subdivision chipset plan specifically for laptop use . There are two versions , the Snapdragon X Plus with 10 CPU heart and soul running at up to 3.4GHz and the Snapdragon X Elite with 12 mainframe nucleus running up to 4.2GHz . The Snapdragon X chipset include the Adreno GPU . The iPad Pro uses the Apple Silicon M4 chipset , which feature either nine or 10 central processor cores and 10 GPU cores .
We have n’t view benchmarks on product shipping with the Snapdragon X chipset , but it ’s probable that the X Elite will be around the same pep pill as the 10 - core M4 and the X Plus around the same speed as the 9 - heart and soul M4 . GPU performance is altogether up in the air at this compass point , although preliminary testing seems to show the M4 ’s GPU being middling quicker . Because of the differences between the form of apps that go on Windows 11 on ARM versus iPadOS , direct performance comparisons will in all probability be challenging .
Today , it ’s not enough to talk about CPU and GPU performance . With the Second Advent of generative AI and large lyric models ( LLM ) upending computation as we have intercourse it , the Neural Processing Unit ( NPU ) that powers these capabilities has look at on a young grandness . Apple has had its Neural Engine ( NE ) in its chipsets for several generation , and the M4 16 - centre NE bluster 38 trillion operations per 2nd ( acme ) . Qualcomm ’s Hexagon NPU promise 45 TOPS . Those numbers are n’t carefully delineate , however , and so we do n’t yet know the factual tangible - humankind performance we can gestate to see .
Display
The Surface Pro can be configure with either a 13.0 - in 3:2 2.8 potassium ( 2880 x 1920 ) IPS display or a 13.0 - inch 3:2 2.8 K ( 2880 x 1920 ) OLED panel , both run at up to 120Hz . The iPad Pro comes with one display in either 11 or 13 inches , and it ’s a bicycle-built-for-two OLED panel running at 4:3 2420 x 1668 for the 11 - column inch mannequin and 4:3 2752 x 2064 for the 13 - inch simulation . That relieve oneself all display around the same bite , with the iPad Pro accept a slightly more square expression proportion .
We ’re sure that the OLED display will have the same wide and exact colors as is typical of the technology , along with the common inky blacks . The most important conflict will be brightness , where the Surface Pro ’s OLED panel promises up to 800 nit in high dynamic range ( HDR ) content equate to the iPad Pro ’s remarkable 1,600 nits . The iPad Pro ’s OLED display is a new tandem design that stacks two OLED dialog box , using one to provide extra backlighting to the other .
The Surface Pro ’s IPS display option is probable to render better barrage life , which would be its principal advantage . It ca n’t do HDR , though , as it maxes out at 600 nit of brightness . The iPad Pro is likely to be one of the unspoilt devices available today for HDR content .
Portability
As discussed above , the iPad Pro is signally tenuous and significantly lighter than the Surface Pro . It ’s also useable in a more succinct 11 - inch model . That makes the iPad Pro a destiny more portable when view the tablets alone . Adding either tablet ’s keyboard accessory will course add some thickness and weight . Both are very portable devices that should be gentle to habituate as pill .
The next important circumstance is battery life . Here , we ’ll have to go with each manufacturer ’s estimates until we have a hazard to run our own tests . Notably , both tablets use extremely effective ARM chipsets and so are more equal in this attentiveness than some past comparisons .
consort to Microsoft , the Surface Pro will achieve up to 14 hour of local video iteration . For the iPad Pro , Apple foretell up to 10 hours . The Surface Pro has a well turgid barrage fire than the iPad Pro , specially in the OLED version , which contributes to the Surface Pro ’s bring thickness and weight . Therefore , it ’s not surprising that it would get better barrage liveliness .
We’ll wait to render a verdict
These tablets are both very similar and very unlike . The Surface Pro runs Windows 11 on ARM , a full - featured OS that ’s essentially the same as the one that run on Windows clamshells and other form divisor . The freehanded difference will be app compatibility , which remain to be run into . The iPad Pro runs iPadOS , a uncomplicated operating scheme fully optimized for trace .
The biggest inquiry go around around real - humanity performance and battery life , including when running whatever on - gimmick AI functionality Microsoft and Apple total to their platforms . In the meantime , we ’ll look to see what shakes out before do a firm passport .
