The iPad Pro is getting some fresh competition from Microsoft after the company just took the wraps off its newest tablet, the Surface Pro.
It’s been over 16 months since Microsoft’s would-be iPad-killer was last updated. Although its the 5th version of Microsoft’s tablet, this go around the company decided to ditch the number suffixes and pack the Surface Pro with more features than ever before.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwWs2jIy4js
Surface Pro vs iPad Pro
One of the biggest changes on the new Surface Pro is the removal of the internal fan in favor of passive cooling, making the 2-in-1 tablet more quite. If you get the version with an Intel i7 processor though it will still have one fan.
All the extra space vacated by the fans has been used to pack in four more hours of battery life over the previous generation. Instead of embracing USB-C like Apple though, Microsoft is sticking with USB-3.1.
Artists will be stoked to learn that the Surface Pen also received some big upgrades. The fancy stylus now has tilt support, allowing the screen to register the sides of the pen too. Drawing on the screen is also smoother. Microsoft says pen lag is down to just 21 milliseconds, making it twice as fast as the iPad Pro.
Prices of the Surface Pro start at $799 for the model with 128GB of storage, 4GB of RAM and an Intel Core m3 processor. The top-end model comes with 1TB of storage, Intel i7 processor, 16GB of RAM and a fat $2,699 price tag. You can pre-order now with units expected to start shipping on June 15th.
Buster Hein is a freelance writer who lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Twitter: @bst3r.
7 responses to “Microsoft takes aim at iPad with new Surface Pro”
I have the i5 SP3 and the onboard fan is useless. Sure you don’t need it when browsing the web or doing some word editing but for anything else I bought an external USB fan which greatly improved performance.
Call me with the iPad Pro can play CS:GO with a mouse, keyboard and external display though.
Looks good. I give them that.
Are you kidding? Microsoft is not just taking aim at the iPad, it is taking aim of at the MacBook Pro as well. Look at the attention Microsoft is giving creative professionals, the same group Apple is neglecting! The iPad pro is a sad excuse of a professional grade machine. All it is is an oversized iPhone. I mean come on, lets get real hear and stop drinking Apple’s koolaid. A desktop experience for the touch/pen enabled device is absolutely mandatory if Apple wants to ever stay in the game. You don’t even know how many people I know that are switching. Come on Apple, it is your turn. I have been rooting for you for years, I have invested into your entire ecosystem. Now it’s time to deliver, don’t let me down yet again this year!
“A desktop experience for the touch/pen enabled device is absolutely mandatory”.
That seems to be a somewhat delusional statement. Apple is maintaining 8 to 10 million iPads per quarter. MS is selling a million of these worthless machines.
The Surface is a poor laptop and a worse tablet. You sound hysterical.
Microsoft sells about 700,000 Surface devices in a quarter with sells sliding vs 14 millions iPads, so how Microsoft is taking aim at the iPad ?
Not mentioned in the article, the new Surface Pro will have 4G LTE variants, a feature that was last available on the Surface 3.
The pen improvements are welcome, but the IAF (Initial Activation Force) is still a problem, at 9 grams.
On a Wacom Cintiq or an iPad Pro, the IAF is close to zero grams, which means that merely brushing the screen with the stylus registers a stroke. This level of responsiveness is important for artists.
Great to have so much attention given to digital pens by the big guns. No need to be snarky about the competition.