Microsoft Surface Pro 4 vs Apple iPad Mini: Pen or Pencil?

| Updated: Tuesday, October 20, 2015, 19:18 [IST]

Amidst much speculations Microsoft finally unveiled their Surface Pro 4 alongside three Lumia devices, Surface Pro Book and the Microsoft Band 2 at the event in San Francisco.

As expected Microsoft made a no of improvements in the Surface Pro 4 from the existing Surface Pro 3. However it seems like Microsoft hasn't cut many a quarter to come out with this year edition of the Enterprise targeted tablet.

Nevertheless sensing a market opportunity in a 2 in 1 segment the Cupertino giant Apple too launched their offering dubbed the iPad Pro at their annual event. Sporting a slightly larger 12.9 inch display and an Apple A9X SoC the iPad Pro is no slouch.

Add to that the presence of a so called Apple Pencil. But is any better than the Pen coming with the Surface Pro 4?

Build and Design:

The externals of the Surface Pro 4 have mostly been carried forward from the last gen. However unlike last time the Redmond giant have significantly reduced the bezels on the side. Additionally they have included a slightly larger 12.3 inch screen up from the 12 inch.

Despite the narrow bezels the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 fails to beat the iPad Pro in terms of thinness and weight. At 6.9mm and 713 grams it beats the Surface Pro 4 by a big margin. In fact it is one of the based designed tablets available in the market.

Display:

Considering the gigantic displays of the two devices, it would be unjust to refer to them as a tablet. Nevertheless the iPad Pro comes with a 12.9 inch with a sharp Retina display (2732x2078), whereas the Surface Pro 4 sports a slightly smaller 12.3 inch panel. The panel of the Surface Pro 4 is equally sharp at 2736x1824 pixels.

Performance:

As expected the iPad Pro uses its homegrown A series of SoC. Unlike the iPhones the Apple iPad Pro comes with an A9X SoC. However much isn't known about the chipset as of yet.

On the other hand the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 uses Intel made SoC under the hood. It comes with Intel i3/i5/i7 6th generation of Skylake SoC depending on variants. However the Surface Pro 4 comes with either an 8/16GB of RAM as compared to the 4GB found on the iPad Pro.

Camera:

The iPad Pro comes with an 8MP f/2.4 rear camera which supports 1080p recording at 30fps. Additionally the rear camera comes with support for 120fps slomo videos along with a no of software enhancements including a Face Detection and Exposure Control.

The 8MP camera is also equipped with OIS (Optical Image Stabilization). On the front is a 1.2MP f/2.2 unit for selfies with support for HD (720p) videos.

On the other hand the Surface Pro 4 comes with an 8MP rear and a 5MP selfie snapper.

OS:

While the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 comes with a full blown Windows 10 on the top, the iPad Pro runs on the latest iteration of iOS. Bear in mind that the iOS isn't meant to be the most powerful Apple OS out there. Rather that feather rests with the Mac OS X El Capitan. Hence it wouldn't be just to pit it head on head with the Windows 10.

Pen vs Pencil:

As expected this one of the most debated issues out there. The most probable question out there is - Pen or Pencil; which is better?

Basically both the devices performs similar tasks, hence it would be unjust to recommend one over the other. However if you are still confused, then give a think which one would you buy for writing in the real world. Pen or Pencil?!
Nevertheless the Pencil doesn't come bundled in the box with the iPad Pro and has to be bought separately. This isn't the case with the Microsoft Surface Pro 4 though.

Pricing:

Being an Apple products it implies that the iPad Pro won't come "too" cheap. Price for 32GB version starts from $799/Rs 52,000 and goes up as high as $1079/Rs 70,000 depending on variants - $949/Rs62,000 (128GB) and $1079/Rs 70,000 (128GB+4G LTE).

On the other hand the Surface Pro 4 comes at a slightly cheaper $899 for the 128GB variant. From there it goes up to as high as 1TB. In fact it uses different models of the Intel chips (i3/i5/i7) depending upon variants. However Microsoft is yet to come out with the pricing details of each and every variant.