Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Surface Pro 7 vs iPad Air – Best Laptop Replacements?”.
This video is brought to you by pdf element pro by isky soft check out the description for more details. What’S up folks how’s it going, this watch hope you guys are all doing well and today we’re going to be taking a look at the surface pro 7 from microsoft. This is the latest iteration of the surface. Pro tablet that microsoft has been delivering for the past few years, we’re going to take a look at what’s different from the pro 7 to the pro 6..
We’Re also going to quickly compare it against one of the most popular tablets. That’S currently available right now: the ipad air third generation from apple now, coming from the surface pro 6, there’s not really a big difference. Uh to the surface pro 7 from an external design perspective. Internally, they are using a 10 nanometer, 10th generation intel uh cpus as well as we now have usb c integration. So you can hook up usb c devices and hook up external displays that interface through thunderbolt. Now this isn’t technically a thunderbolt 3 enabled device, but i did manage to hook it up to a thunderbolt enabled monitor from lenovo. It also supplied power to the tablet, as well as a 4k video, but it was limited, unfortunately, to 30 hertz now, in terms of the price point, the surface pro 7 that we have over here is actually the baseline configuration which starts at 749 comes with a Dual core core: i 3, a 10 generation intel cpu, 4 gigabytes of ram built-in uhd graphics and a 128 gigabyte ssd drive. Now some of the essential accessories are definitely the surface pro signature type cover which goes for about a hundred and sixty dollars, and you probably want to get the magnetically attaching surface pen, which is another hundred dollars. So you’re probably going to add in another 260 dollars worth of accessories in order to make this thing a full laptop replacement, and we could have certainly compared the surface pro 7 to the ipad pro. But we’re going to save that for the new surface pro x. Comparison coming out very very soon, but from a price perspective, the ipad third generation starts at around 499 and it’s about the same price to get the apple, pencil and smart keyboard attachment about another 260 dollars. So you’re, looking at a 150 difference between the two and each setup, inherently have their own advantages and disadvantages that we’ll get into. But before we do, we have to mention our sponsor for this video that made this video possible pdf element pro by isky software.
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If you take a look at the design elements of the surface, pro 7 you’ll see that we still have the large thicker bezels and it’s a fairly hefty device weighing over 770 grams versus the ipad. Air is a lot more sleeker, thinner, overall bezels and weighs only 456 grams for the wi-fi model and from a display perspective, you can see that we do have a larger display on the surface. Pro 7 12.3 inch pixel sense technology, so it can actually recognize certain objects like the surface style, surface pen and the ipad air has a 10 and a half inch display from a resolution standpoint.
The surface pro 7 has a larger native resolution, but in terms of pixel density they’re, actually pretty similar 260 ppi on the surface pro 7 versus 265 ppi on the air. The air is a little bit brighter and uh certainly can push some more lumens out of that display compared to what i found with the surface pro 7 display, although both are excellent in terms of overall color rendition, sharpness and overall clarity. Now, one of the reasons why the ipad air is becoming more and more of a compelling laptop replacement device is certainly the addition and installation of the new ipad 13 operating system. It’S becoming more like mac os 10 in the fact that it has enhanced multitasking capabilities.
Where now you can use the same application in multiple different views on the same ipad screen with the integration of the ipad’s uh filing app, you can connect uh different external hard drive sources, whether that’s usb ssd, to make it more like a real computer. You can even hook up a mouse to it and use a cursor for the first time on ios and obviously with a smart keyboard. You have a more complete laptop, a solution like package but, of course, compared to the surface tablet, which is running the full windows. 10 operating system, there is absolutely no limitation and really, it is already a fully functional laptop replacement device and has been for the past couple of years. That being said, from an internal perspective, the processor that we have on the surface pro 7, the i3 specifically for the baseline model, is actually quite uh low in performance. In fact, the apple a12 bionic, that’s in the air, is slightly faster. Now, although we’re using uh different operating systems and slightly different metrics, if you take a look at the geekbench benchmark from a single core perspective, we’re getting a similar performance around 1100 points on both platforms, but in terms of the multi-core performance. Since we’re using a six core, uh cpu configuration on the apple a12, we’re getting just under 3000 points compared to 2300 points with our dual core configuration i3 processor on the surface pro 7.
And although the surface pro 7 is certainly can be upgraded to a higher performing core i5 core i7 configuration, the price is going to jump up significantly to the point where it’s really not any different from a high performance laptop that you’re going to get from other Pc laptop manufacturers, or indeed apples with the macbook series of pcs in terms of the camera configuration the surface pro 7 doesn’t really bring anything new to the table, we’re pretty much using the exact same cameras that we’ve been seeing for the past few generations. So five megapixel front-facing camera eight megapixel rear-facing camera with the capability of doing 1080p at 30fps, which is really not that impressive uh. The ipad air third generation is similar in terms configuration uh, seven megapixel, front-facing camera and a megapixel rear-facing camera with the ability to also do 1080p video now. Lastly, let’s talk about uh, one of the biggest drawbacks on the surface pro 7, and that is the battery performance funny enough uh compared to the previous version surface pro 6., based on our experience, we’re actually suffering in terms of battery performance, even though we have the Same capacity about 45 watt hour battery on of the 7, which is the same as the previous version, but last year we did a video playback test and we got a total run time about 13 hours and 21 minutes versus this year.
On this exact uh model. With the exact same scenario, we only got about eight hours and 19 minutes. In the same exact scenario: the ipad air, comparable. We got 9 hours and 52 minutes so in terms of battery performance uh.
For whatever reason, the new generation is not as good as the previous one, and certainly not as good as the ipad air and perhaps uh, there’s some hardware efficiencies that microsoft may address with firmware software updates, but most likely that’s not going to be the case. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, this new generation is not that great in terms of battery performance, but besides that guys, that’s really it now, in terms of the general comparison between the ipad air versus the surface pro 7 from a price perspective, i think definitely the ipad air Is bringing a lot to the table in terms of value? It’S still not a full laptop replacement, that’s going to replace a macbook or a windows, pc laptop like the surface pro 7 wheel, and certainly if you get the upper and specification core i5 core i7 models. You’Ll pretty much address all the hardware concerns that we had with this baseline configuration. Of course, you’re going to be have to be paying another two three four five hundred dollars for those upgrades, but maybe worth it in the long run now currently we’re testing the new microsoft surface pro x, which is gon na, be mainly uh competing against the ipad.
Pro so we’re going to do a upcoming comparison, which is going to be super, exciting, very excited to bring that content out to you guys in the meantime, please, like this article, make sure you have notifications turned on, and i want to give a huge shout out To our sponsor, i sky soft check out the description to get 50 off of a pdf element pro and if you want the ultimate pdf editor right at your fingertips, it’s an awesome solution. Without them, this video wouldn’t be possible, and indeed your support. Thanks again for watching and we’ll see, you later take care. .