iPad Pro M2 vs Surface Pro 9 - Don’t Make a MISTAKE! [2023]

iPad Pro M2 12.9 or Surface Pro 9 both have Pro in their names both are similarly priced ish and also both offer pretty good laptop and tablet experiences but which should you buy well both of these have had a pretty mild spec bump in late 2022 with the 6th gen iPad Pros getting the new M2 processor an apple pencil hover feature which is as underwhelming as it sounds prores video capture and also Wi-Fi 6E while the new Surface Pro 9 gets 12th generation Intel new series i5 and i7 CPUs we also get faster Ram a removable and therefore upgradable SSD studio quality mics improved repairability Wi-Fi 6E as well and a couple of new colors like this very nice sapphire blue either way though Prices range from pretty reasonable at the lower end all the way up to mortgage deposit level I mean top spec add a keyboard add a pen maybe three grand it's pretty ridiculous but wait wait I know what you're thinking Tommy you've got the wrong Surface Pro 9 this is the Intel one but if you're going to compare it to the arm powered N2 iPad then really you should compare it to the arm powered sq3 version the non-intel a Surface Pro 9 which is a fair point and there are advantages to the sq3 version including much longer battery life 5G connectivity and some webcam noise reduction and effects via the AI chip which sounds like the better option but I don't think it is because like the previous Surface Pro X which really the sq3 version of this Pro 9 replaces because it's not running x86 Intel chips all the applications have to be emulated on Windows and emulation has improved since the Surface Pro X it's got better but we still have a long way to go it just doesn't compete with apple and the M2 MacBooks right now hopefully one day soon but right now if you are going to buy a Surface Pro 9 and use it like a laptop unless you know for a fact that the applications you want to use are optimized for arm on Windows I would get the Intel version which is also a couple of hundred dollars cheaper I will caveat that saying I haven't reviewed the sq3 version yet I am Keen to try that and test it side by side and actually if you do fancy seeing a comparison between these two with the sq3 pro 9 then I'll leave a link to Max text video in the description below moving on and while these two may look pretty similar boot them up and it's clear they're from completely different universes Windows 11 on the surface is as functional and unstylish as ever but once you add a surface pen or a signature keyboard this becomes a full-on laptop PC experience in fact the surface really is much more at home as a laptop than a tablet regular Windows apps run fine multitasking is easy everyday tasks feel slick and lag free and that 120 hertz refresh rate definitely helps and you can even get away with some light gaming or more realistically perhaps stream them via nvidia's GeForce now or Xbox Cloud which of course you can also do on the iPad now iPad OS 16 here definitely focuses on the tablet experience and as a tablet this blows windows out of the water it's not even close it's Slicker far easier to use the app store is fantastic and everything just works we also have a smooth 120hz refresh rate and mobile gaming is great especially with the Apple arcade which actually offers some decent games but the thing is and the question we've been asking ourselves since the original iPad launched 12 years ago ish 2010 is can this replace my laptop and 90 of the time yes probably but honestly as someone who has all these devices around them all the time I never really want to take my iPad and use it as a laptop unless I'm just doing some emails or some writing or something fairly basic yes you can train yourself to get better and use this efficiently and you also do have stage manager now with resizable and overlapping apps and app switching and together with a fantastic magic keyboard it's not far off but then for simpler tasks you may as well just go with the iPad Air and maybe a magic keyboard and save a bunch of money and maybe the surface laptop or service laptop go on this side but the problem is this is the iPad Pro it's for professionals and while they've got some definite professional use cases particularly for Designing and drawing and except for a handful of apps including the upcoming DaVinci Resolve which I'm very excited for we just don't have desktop level apps on the iPad so at the end of the day picking between these two really is all about the software and the apps that you use and the flexibility and the user experience you need or prefer everything else including the hardware comes a distant second and so also when it comes to Performance the comparison here is a bit moot really they're completely different operating systems completely different chips and also the use cases mostly are also pretty different and they're both really nice to use just in slightly different ways the other issue and really the biggest frustration with the iPad is just that untapped potential if we had desktop level apps if we had you know a slim down Mac OS on here instead of iPad OS and we could really take advantage of that M2 Chip in Premiere Pro or blender or other desktop apps then this would just hands down completely destroy this but the fact that we are limited to mobile or iPad apps on here means that the vast majority of the time we're just not utilizing that crazy performance of the M2 which is a real shame I do understand why I mean if they gave this desktop apps that no one would buy a MacBook Air anymore and the same with MacBooks if you put a touch screen on there then it would eat into iPad sales they want them to be two distinct products and they want you to buy both so the M2 is just a bit restricted although it does mean that it'll keep everything feeling fast for a long time but whichever laptop or tablet or phone you have it's always smart to use a VPN and this video is very kindly sponsored by the lovely folks over at Surf shark I work with these guys a lot and they're genuinely the only VPN my wife and I use whether we're at I'm streaming us Netflix or Hulu or else in the bell and I want to keep my data safe when browsing and checking my emails my bank or even logging into my YouTube account as surfshark's clean web tool helps to block ads tracking malware and other nasty things and there's an app for nearly everything out there plus just one account lets you use an unlimited number of devices which as you can imagine comes in very handy for me but the best bit is if you click the link below or enter the code Tech chap at the checkout you can get 85 off and three months extra for free plus you can get your money back within 30 days if you're not super duper satisfied so why not give surfsharkvpn a try and stay safe online design wise they're both basically identical to their previous generations and that's no bad thing they both still feel fresh we have narrow bezels fantastic build quality and lovely screens the surface is a fair bit thicker though to make room for the cooling and the vents for the CPU and it's also around 29 heavier meaning the iPad is a lot more comfortable to use as a tablet and even hold one-handed but the surface has a bit of an ASAP sleeve in the form of this kickstand because unlike the iPad even with the magic keyboard which only gives you a little bit of flexibility with the awesome kickstand on the surface you can basically have any angle you like all the way down to nearly flat and actually this is a great angle for doing some drawing or typing because you've got just a little bit of an incline so it's quite comfortable and so it also means while this does jab into your leg a little bit if you are using it on your lap you do have a bit more flexibility with this although if you're happy with this level of flexibility then I would probably say this is more comfortable to use on your lap because it doesn't dig in like the sharp edge of the Microsoft Surface stand but on a desk I think the surface wins because of that flexibility and also I do appreciate that these surface keyboards can pop up and give you a more comfortable typing position as well and this keyboard also hides the surface pen inside which I think is actually an even better storage option than the magnetic apple pencil 2 that we have on the iPad although that's very good as well as for the screens they're both very nice sharp and smooth thanks for the high refresh rates and while the surface is 13 inch pixel sense flow IPS touch display does look great and we also get W Vision IQ HDR it's color accurate enough for most workloads and it's also reasonably bright at 440 nits the problem is the iPad screen is just so much better this gets Apple's top drawer mini LED liquid retina xdr IPS panel which will give you up to 600 nits in SDR and a whopping 1600 in HDR it's more color accurate and the contrast is way better the two and a half thousand or so local dimming zones mean that dark areas of the screen look so much darker and you get those Inky blacks as the cliche goes in terms of cameras I think it's a pretty clear win for the iPad although credit to the surface we do have the webcam on the top horizontal bezel which we have on the new 10th gen iPad for the pros for some reason so we'll have it on the left side so when you are studying Central to the iPad you are off center but generally the camera quality the fact that you can shoot in 4k have stage manager and also the triple setup on the back with the main the ultra wide and the lidar sensor which is great for AR and well mainly just using the measuring app the Surface Pro 9 is fine and we do also have that rear 10 megapixel camera but generally the cameras on the iPad are much better now in terms of ports and connectivity I'm going to give the win to the Surface Pro 9 because we get two Thunderbolt 4 ports now and also the surface connector on the other side which you really want to use for charging although you can charge via USB but then it frees these up but the fact that we do now have Thunderbolt phone here opens up a lot more options for docs whereas on the iPad we have just a single USBC also Thunderbolt 4 so you can also plug in your external storage drives and your SD cards well viral adapters and you can use it on iPad OS like that and the magic keyboard does add an extra USBC which is really handy for charging both the iPad and the keyboard both Wi-Fi 6E although this does get the option of 5G whereas that's only available on the sq3 version so it depends what you want really but for me also with the windows OS versus iPad OS I think connectivity is a little bit better on the surface now the thing is you can buy these tablets as just tablets if you want but you shouldn't no one should do that if you're going to buy a pro surface or a pro iPad get the keyboard with it yes it does add quite a lot more money particularly the magic keyboard but it gives you so much more functionality and versatility for these tablets it does turn them into proper two-in-ones the surface slim pen 2 and also the apple pencil Gen 2 are both lovely to use as well especially if you are a doodler drawer or a designer although I think I do prefer the apple pencil just because of how it feels in the hand and also there are some great iPad drawing and note-taking apps including Apple's brand new freeform app which is basically Microsoft OneNote as for battery life well it's a pretty clear win for the iPad Apple say you'll get about 10 hours on this and that's pretty much bang on in my everyday varied use I get more like eight to nine hours but you know if you are just going to watch videos and you'll easily get 12 hours on this whereas on the Surface Pro 9 I'm getting more like 7.5 half hours which is still pretty good considering we have a full fat Intel CPU in here and it's Windows 11 which of course is not as optimized as an M2 Chip on iPad OS and also I guess if battery is really important to you and you don't mind some of the other limitations then you could consider the sq3 version of this which actually bumps the battery by like three or four more hours so apart from the keyboard which if you are buying either of these Pro devices you should definitely get how should you spec these well I reckon the 256 gig and 512 iPad Pros are the best value and also I would avoid the cellular 5G model as it's almost 200 pounds more and you can always just use your phone as a hotspot instead although I guess if your company's paying for it then go nuts as for the Surface Pro the 1 000 base spec Intel i5 is a bit of a bargain compared with the rest of the range bumping the storage adds hundreds so I would probably opt for an external SSD instead like a crucial X8 to a Samsung t7 as 256 gigs is pretty limited if you're going to use this as your main work laptop and also last but not least if you are attempt did by one of these but don't quite have the budget then I would definitely consider the last gen versions yes these are a little bit faster but they're not that much different than the Surface Pro 8 or the M1 iPad Pro and if you can find those still in stock and on sale then I would probably go for that instead so let's wrap this up and it's an interesting comparison because I suspect from the start you already knew which one you would go for it's really going to come down to Windows or ipados and it's pretty simple really if you want the best tablet go for the iPad if you want the best laptop go for the pro 9 but they both just have these frustrating limitations the lack of desktop apps to take advantage of the M2 on the iPad and the fact that even with the sq3 emulated ARM version of this we're still just not there compared to apple in terms of the performance which one would I go for well if we're assuming I don't have another laptop then I would probably go with the pro 9. if I can bring my MacBook Pro with me I generally edit and work on the Bradford Pro 16 then I would also go with the iPad it keeps me in that lovely and warm apple ecosystem but what do you think which one would you go for between the two or none of the above let me know in the comments below if you've got any questions at all about these also let me know in the comments and if you did enjoy the video I want to see more from me which hopefully you did because you watch the whole thing then a cheeky like And subscribe would be very much appreciated thanks for watching guys I'll see you next time right here on the texture oh and don't forget to give surf shark VPN a try 85 off and three months extra for free with my code Tech chap or by clicking the link below

Channel: The Tech Chap

Views: 605,459

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Id: 5kfCpv8eudA

Length: 12min 58sec (778 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 23 2022