For years, Apple’s iPad Pro has dominated the premium tablet segment, setting the golden standard for performance, display quality, and user experience. However, with the release of Microsoft’s Surface Pro 12-inch, Apple has a real competitor that challenges its dominance over the market. In this post, we’ll pit the Surface Pro 12-inch against the 12.9-inch iPad Pro to see which device deserves a spot in your bag.
Display & Design
At a thickness of 6.4 mm, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro features a conventional tablet design with flat edges and back panel. The Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch, in contrast, is slightly thicker at 7.8mm and offers a built-in kickstand with 165-degrees full-friction hinge that can be used to prop it up. While both devices weigh almost the same at 682 grams (1.5 pounds), we found the Surface Pro more comfortable to hold due to slightly rounder edges.
Coming to their displays, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro offers a 2732 x 2048 Liquid Retina XDR mini-LED panel. Whereas the 12-inch Surface Pro offers a 2196 x 1464 LCD panel. Unlike the panel on the Surface Pro 12-inch that maxes out at 90Hz, the iPad’s display is capable of running at 120Hz. Beyond that, the 12-inch Surface Pro’s panel is less bright, which can be disappointing for those who care about display quality.
Performance
The Surface Pro is powered by Qualcomm’s 8-core Snapdragon X Plus chip and 16GB of RAM. It delivers solid performance to handle everyday tasks like web browsing, document editing, and light multitasking with ease. Geekbench 6 benchmarks for the Snapdragon X Plus indicate that it excels in multi-threaded tasks by a larger margin than the 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which pulls ahead in single-threaded performance.
In contrast, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro is equipped with up to 16GB of RAM and Apple’s M2 chip, which offers an 8-core CPU, a 10-core GPU and a 16-core Neural Engine. Although it offers a similar CPU performance to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Plus, the 10-core GPU and a dedicated media engine on the M2 make it more suitable for graphic-intensive tasks like gaming, 4K video editing or encoding and 3D rendering.
Battery Life
While Microsoft still hasn’t revealed the exact battery capacity of the Surface Pro 12-inch, it claims to offer around 12 hours of web browsing on a single charge. Meanwhile, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro features a 10758 mAh battery that offers around 10 hours of medium to light usage on a single charge. As far as charging is concerned, the Surface Pro ditches the Surface Connect port and charges via USB-C just like the iPad.
Accessories
There aren’t many differences between the Surface Pro 12-inch and the 12.9-inch M2 iPad Pro in terms of accessory support. Both devices support a similar set of accessories, including a stylus and a magnetic keyboard. The new Surface Pen Slim for the Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch can be purchased separately for another $130. Meanwhile, the standard Apple Pencil or Apple Pencil (USB-C) will cost you another $80. Beyond that, both tablets support wireless charging for the stylus using a magnetic connection.
As far as typing is concerned, the keyboard for the Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch will set you back by $149. Meanwhile, the Magic Keyboard for the 12.9-inch M2 iPad Pro is available for $187. If we ignore that, both keyboards offer a decent typing experience with a reasonably large trackpad for precise navigation.
Pricing & Availability
As for its pricing and availability, the Surface Pro 12-inch will be available from 20 June at a starting price of $799. The 12.9-inch iPad Pro also lies in a similar price range at around $885. Moreover, if you choose to get more storage, there isn’t much difference between the upgrades on the iPad Pro and Surface Pro.
Final Verdict: Which Tablet Should You Buy?
While it still trails behind the iPad Pro 12.9-inch in several aspects, Microsoft has made significant strides with the 12.9-inch Surface Pro. If you’re a student or a casual user with a limited budget and are fine with using Windows on ARM, the Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch is an excellent tablet for you. From a high-res display to a capable chip, it offers everything you’d expect from a good tablet without breaking the bank.
However, if you are a creative professional and already own other Apple devices, you should go ahead and purchase the 12.9-inch iPad Pro without any second thought. With the iPad, you get a brighter 120Hz display, a more powerful chipset and significantly better software support compared to Windows on ARM.
