- The new Microsoft Surface Go pitted against
the slightly more affordable Apple iPad 9.7.
It's a fascinating comparison.
While there is some overlap,
each excels in their own way.
Which is the best depends on what you expect it to do.
With that in mind,
today we're gonna do a quick showdown with both.
Stay tuned.
When it comes to size comparisons between these two devices,
well they're very similar, technically though,
Surface Go will be a little bit larger
and a little bit heavier, specifically,
Surface Go comes in at 1.15 pounds,
that's 520 kilograms, whereas the iPad 9.7,
it's gonna be 1.03 pounds and 469 grams.
In terms of thinness,
well they're both extremely thin
in fact, you'd need to bust out some calipers
but actually the iPad is gonna be slightly thinner
at 7 1/2 millimeter versus 8.3 millimeter for Surface Go.
In the hand though they both feel very similar,
that weight and size difference
is really negligible at this size.
When it comes to biometrics you do get
Windows Hello facial recognition on the Surface Go
and it works very well including in portrait mode,
as you can see here or any orientation you want.
iPad 9.7 meanwhile has a fingerprint reader
on the home button on the display.
Now one of the more interesting distinctions
between these two devices will be the displays.
Apples always kills it with their displays, very good stuff.
This is a 9.7 inch LED backlit, it is multi-touch
and it does support their Pencil
which is a new feature this year.
Now that display is 2048 x 1536,
which gives you a pixel per inch of 264,
it's an amazing display.
Not as quite as good as the iPad Pros
but still you gotta envy Apple, they really nail it.
Turning to the Surface Go, we have a true 10-inch display
which is a change from Surface 3,
which is 10.8 inch, a little bit smaller.
3:2 aspect ratio versus the 4:3 that Apple uses.
1800 x 1200 resolution, so a slightly less resolution
and that's gonna give you a pixel per inch
of 216 versus the 264 found on Apple.
Very good display though, really no complaint,
and it does work with the Surface Pen
and that's exactly what we want.
Brightness on these devices are both very similar too.
I would rate these displays both as very good.
Apple though does have a little bit better anti-reflection
but it is really a minor difference.
All right now looking at the front of the device,
a lot have been made about the Surface Go's bezels
as being large, as you can see,
compared to my thumb, and maybe I have fat fingers,
I don't know, don't judge me,
but it fits perfectly and that's kind of
what's meant for for holding it like this,
so you don't touch the display accidentally.
It's also very even across, right,
so it's a very symmetrical bezel
and it gives you a really nice aspect ratio.
I'm perfectly fine with it
considering how small this device is.
Now when it comes to the bezels,
iPad does things a little bit differently,
yes, you have very thin bezels on the top and bottom
but that's offset by these large bezels on the side.
So that's gonna be a trade off,
plus you have this weird aspect ratio,
well I don't wanna say weird,
it's a really nice aspect ratio for tablets
but if you're gonna be watching movies that are widescreen,
well you're gonna get a big cutoff here for black bars
and so that's gonna affect the viewing experience.
Now I want to talk a little bit
about holding the iPad in this orientation.
I think most people will hold it like this
but increasingly more users are using this orientation
as people try to make this device more productive
and there are trade-offs especially
when you attach a keyboard to this
which is you have the home button
and fingerprint reader on this side
which is a little strange
and you have the web camera, the front facing one,
which is 1.2 megapixel over here on this side
which is a little weird for Skype calls.
I should also mention,
although you have two stereo speakers on the side here,
or on the bottom I should say,
they're very good speakers
but they're only gonna fire from this side
which does not give you a front-facing stereo effect.
Now the other issue with the iPad is,
well I'm holding it and if I don't wanna hold it and use it,
the device falls flat, literally.
There's no kickstand built into this
so you have to buy an accessory to make that happen,
otherwise you have to look at it this way
or you're gonna go to a pure hands experience.
Now when using Surface Go in this orientation,
it actually works pretty well,
you have the Pencil on top.
Now on this version,
you do have the camera on this side for here,
power and volume buttons on the side which is kinda nice
and your speakers are now top and bottom.
However Surface Gos mostly gonna be used in this orientation
which makes everything front-facing and really nice.
You have your web camera now this way
which you're gonna be using this as a laptop, primarily,
well it's gonna be better experience.
You also get that nice Surface Pen experience
where it sticks to the side,
with very strong magnets I might add
and that's kind of cool too.
Now although the Surface Go may be slightly thicker
and slightly heavier than the iPad,
you do get this nifty kickstand
which really does change the experience
for a lot of users including using in tablet mode,
as you'd no longer need to hold a device
and you can use it at all angles.
All right so far we've been comparing
and contrasting the different hardware experiences
between the Surface Go and the iPad 9.7.
And they're pretty similar in some ways
they just do it differently.
Where the iPad though will excel will be
in that tablet OS experience.
Let's face it Apple's OS is just a better tablet.
That's because it's in a mobile operating system,
it's very fast, it's very fluid,
and those gestures just work very well.
Adding a keyboard to these devices greatly changes things.
As you can see Surface Go has this Alcantara keyboard option
that is extra $130, though there is a $99 option as well.
And it just attaches to the device
through magnetic connectors at the bottom
and you can see it just folds out
and you get that kickstand.
Very fast, very fluid, and it's very clean,
it's just a really nice experience.
When it comes to the iPad 9.7, not the Pro,
you do not get those Pogo connectors on the bottom
which means you have a Bluetooth keyboard experience.
Here we're using the Logitech Keyboard
which is one of the more popular ones.
It's pretty clever as you can see,
when you do this it connects up to it and turns on
and it mostly works pretty well
but it is definitely a lot more clumsy.
You also have this giant clamshell case
which while offering protection,
especially good for students,
is not very elegant looking and really distracts
from the elegance that is the iPad 9.7.
All right when it comes to the typing experience,
as you can see Surface Go has this
nicely articulated keyboard
that gives you a nice angle to type on,
whereas well the iPad doesn't quite have
that at all, it just lays flat.
You also don't get an area for your wrist.
I can't stress this enough how important this is
for putting your hands on while typing
versus having them hang off the edge,
it's just not nearly as comfortable.
Do I need to point out there's also a missing trackpad?
The iPad does not support trackpad or a mouse
which is really unfortunate 'cause you do have
to constantly touch the screen
in order to basically operate anything on it,
whereas the Surface Go gives you both options,
you can touch the screen, or you can you rely
on a trackpad, or bring a Bluetooth mouse.
Working in favor of the Surface Go
is it doesn't require power to work,
that is it does need its own battery,
it's also backlit which is really nice to have
versus the iPad's Logitech Keyboard here
which is not backlit and requires batteries
which could run out because it is Bluetooth.
If you're into inking and writing on your computer
well both of these devices will satisfy you,
just in different ways.
iPad of course has its iPad Pencil
which is pretty huge compared to the Surface Pro Pen.
It's very long and let's just tease Apple
with this goofy solution for keeping it charged.
And yes you do need to charge this every once in a while
as it does use battery and you stick that
to the bottom of it, hopefully you won't snap it off.
There is no buttons on it, it's just a single device.
The writing experience on it is actually pretty decent.
I don't really have that many complaints about it,
but I am gonna go in favor of the Surface Pen
at least the newer $99 one,
which has a few buttons on it which is really nice.
You can also use the eraser or assign that as a pen click
to whatever option you want.
It comes in various colors,
it's fully magnetic, and sticks to the side,
and its battery will last you at least a whole year.
You can also replace the nibs with ease
and you have a few buttons here on the side as well.
In terms of which one is better,
well I'm no artist so that's kinda hard to judge
but in our lab tests here we did at Windows Central,
we found the Surface Pro's Pen just had
a little bit less lag than the Apple Pencil.
It was more comfortable to use, your mileage may vary,
let's just say they're both good pens though.
Let's talk power performance, battery life, and pricing.
So both of these devices are priced similarly
although the iPad is gonna be cheaper.
So it starts at $329 versus $399 for a Surface Go.
Neither one of those include a keyboard
or the Pen or Pencil, so it's gonna be extra cost as well.
Now if you need to match them in specs for storage,
both 128 gigs while the iPad now jumps to $429
but the Surface Go jumps to $550,
that makes the iPad technically a better value
although that depends on what you're planning
on doing with it.
If you're just gonna use a tablet experience,
the iPad is obviously gonna be the better choice.
If however you ever want to use a full Office,
you're gonna want to use the Surface Go.
And for performance wise it's gonna be difficult to measure,
Apple has that A10 processor,
which let's give them some credit here,
is a very powerful processor
and they've been doing great in that area.
The Surface Go meanwhile is powered
by the Pentium and it's an okay processor.
It is literally twice as fast
as a Surface 3's Atom Processor
and gets very good graphics performance
but still not gonna be a super powerful one.
It handles the OS nicely,
but in terms of just the overall experience,
well iOS is gonna be a little bit more fluid
when you compare it to running Windows 10.
For battery life and instant-on,
again the iPad is gonna win here.
It gets very good battery life
and you can turn it off, and like your cell phone,
leave it off for weeks at a time
and still come back to a fully charged battery.
Well when it comes to Surface Go,
it's not quite as optimized
so you will need to charge this probably
at least once a week if you're not using it at all.
In terms of actual battery life,
we're talking between eight and 10 hours
although we need to do more testing
but so far Microsoft's expectation's
at around nine hours does seem accurate.
Okay so which one of these devices is better?
Well it depends on your expectations.
Microsoft and Apple are both starting
from different endpoints
but trying to reach the same center,
that is a one device that can kinda do it all.
Now Apple starts from a mobile operating system
and a tablet experience,
and they're trying to make it into a PC,
while Microsoft is starting
from a desktop situation and try to go mobile,
and they both have compromises because of that.
Now which one you prefer,
well depends on what you want to do with it.
If you're a student in school, well the Surface Go
may be a little bit better if you plan on using full Office.
I should also mention that being a real PC here,
the Surface Go could just do more stuff.
Sure both these devices can game
and you can actually get some very good games on the iPad
but if you want to use an Xbox controller,
well it's gonna be this device, the Surface Go.
There's also just plugging in stuff
so because the Surface Go has a Type-C port,
you can plug in a lot of peripherals to it,
including hubs and docks, which then expand things.
You can add an Ethernet port, you can add SD card,
all without spending extra money.
When it comes to the iPad,
you're going to get a converter dongle first
for the Lightning port 'cause that's the only port on board,
and then you gotta carry around a bunch
of other stuff with you.
It's a little more troublesome with the iPad,
you're gonna get more support when it comes to a real PC.
I should also mention that the iPad has LTE right now
whereas Surface Go is getting in a couple months
so that's gonna be a decision factor
for some of you as well.
So when it comes to these devices,
they are both the best from Apple and Microsoft
and they're very good devices
for their respective categories
but they're gonna have different usage scenarios
for each individual.
I prefer a Surface Go as I tend to write on it
and use emails and that's gonna be a bigger factor for me,
plus I really like having trackpad support,
mouse support, being able to connect up my peripherals to it
whereas the iPad, let's face it,
it's just a really good tablet, it just falls down
as soon as you want to try and make it a PC.
It's really not a good experience in my opinion
but your standards may be different.
Hopefully this video though will help
show you the differences between the two
and help you in your buying decision.
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if you want more tips on the Surface Go,
make sure you watch this channel
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Thanks for watching, take care, everybody.