I have had the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 for a week now and on Friday I picked up the new iPad Air.
The Surface Pro 2 and the iPad Air are two outstanding devices , yes , you have read correctly , outstanding.
Microsoft Surface Pro 2
Microsoft have done a great job with the second version of a Microsoft built computer.
I have the 128Gb Surface Pro 2 and for a tablet / laptop it is very fast , well made , great screen ( 1920 x 1080 ) , not loaded up with trial software or software that no one will ever use that so many laptops come with from the major manufacturers.
The Surface Pro 2 runs Windows 8.1 , which is the version of Windows 8 that all should be running now.
The first version of the Surface Pro was renowned for poor battery life but this has been addressed in the Surface Pro 2 and in fact Microsoft pushed out an update which has increased the battery life to 8 hours ( dependant on usage ).
I easily get a day out of the Surface Pro 2.
You can install all your traditional software on the Surface Pro 2 along with the touch based apps from the Windows Store.
It also comes with 200GB of storage on Skydrive for 2 years and 1 year unlimited calling to landlines on Skype.
Add on Office 2013 , I subscribe to Office 365 so that I get Microsoft Office on all my machines ( 5 licenses windows or mac ) and access to online Office apps , and it is a real productivity machine.
So where does it lack ?
It could be lighter , but I think that is being picky to a great well made device.
iPad Air
Apples latest addition to the iPad range is the iPad Air and it is the quickest tablet I have used which is backed up by the online speed tests.
CNET iPad Air Benchmarks Show 80% Speedbump Over iPad
It’s light , you immediately notice the difference in weight between the iPad Air and it appears smaller while the screensize is exactly the same due to the reduction in the size of the bezel.
It is remarkably thin.
It just feels better in your hands.
The iPad Air also comes with all the software you need to write documents ( Pages ), do presentations ( Keynote ) , spreadsheets ( Numbers ) , audio ( Garageband ), edit pictures ( iPhoto ) and edit video ( iMovie ) . All at no charge.
The software for documents , presentations , spreadsheets is not as powerful as Microsoft Office but will be fine for many.
In Conclusion
I can be productive with the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 and the iPad Air but many will say what about the vast array of Android tablets that are out in the market?
I think with these it does get back to the subject of content consumption versus content creation and I still consider Android sits well and truly on the content consumption side. I have two Android tablets both Samsung’s because they were well made against a sea of poorly made devices. You can buy an Android tablet for as low as $50 and higher but many issues ( screen , responsiveness , old operating system software ) arise. Yes they are popular but it is what you do that counts with these devices.
