I am sorry however my Floor Professional nonetheless beats the iPad in 3 key methods

Earlier than getting my palms on the new Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch, I had by no means a lot as held a Floor pill exterior a retail show setting. As a lover of pill computing, I’ve used a justifiable share of Apple iPads, Android tabs, and even the Blackberry Playbook through the years, however the Floor line remained a mysterious and virtually unique product line in my eyes.

The Floor Professional’s kickstand, attachable keyboard cowl, I/O choice, 3:2 side ratio, and Windows-based PC working system are attributes which have at all times intrigued me, and apparently they’ve piqued the curiosity of huge tech corporations, too: Apple, Samsung, Google and different giants have been steadily transferring within the route of pill PCificastion in recent times, supercharging their slates with extra succesful {hardware} and software program.

I have been testing out the Floor Professional 12-inch for a couple of days now, and I’ve had the prospect to include the system into my workflow proper alongside one among its direct rivals — the iPad Air (operating the first beta of iPadOS 26, no much less). After pitting the 2 machines in opposition to each other in the true world, I’ve come to understand a number of key points of the Floor Professional expertise. Listed here are three issues particularly that my Floor gives me, and that my iPad merely does not.

1

It may stand upright by itself

The Floor kickstand is in a league of its personal

Since the very beginning of Surface, Microsoft has held a specific {hardware} conviction that I could not agree extra with: tablets with built-in kickstands are higher than these with out one. Over time, the corporate has perfected the artwork of friction hinges, and the brand new Floor Professional 12-inch inherits this engineering prowess. Its full-width kickstand feels extremely sturdy, articulates easily, and presents a number of angle flexibility (as much as 165 levels when absolutely prolonged).

In contrast, my iPad cannot perch itself in a helpful angle with out using equipment, such because the Magic Keyboard or the Sensible Folio. These peripherals are glorious, however in addition they value a fairly penny. Third-party circumstances and stands can be found at a wide range of worth factors, too, however they’re nonetheless one other factor that you must buy and hull round. There’s an class to having a built-in kickstand on a slate-style pc, and it makes interacting with and consuming media on a big show all of the extra handy and easy.

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2

It has extra I/O

Two USB-C ports are higher than one

One other staple of the Floor Professional expertise is its laptop-class collection of I/O ports. Gone are the times of USB-A, Mini DisplayPort, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot, and a Surface Connect port, however Microsoft’s newest slab does at the very least supply x2 USB-C ports. In the meantime, each iPad mannequin ships with solely a single USB-C port — even the highest-end iPad Professional with an M4 chipset and 16 GB of RAM is constrained to just one lowly port for charging, information switch, and exterior show connectivity.

It goes with out saying that more USB-C ports are better than less in terms of modern-day cellular devices, and that is very true within the pill area. USB-C is an extremely versatile I/O commonplace, and entry to a number of ports on a single system could be a game-changer relying on workflow. Pairing an iPad Air with one among Apple’s Magic Keyboard circumstances provides a secondary USB-C port for charging into the combination, however that is hardly an acceptable different to having a second full-fledged port proper on the slab itself.

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3

It runs full-fat Home windows

A blessing and a curse — however largely a blessing

Microsoft’s Floor Professional line has at all times been distinctive throughout the pill area, because it’s powered by a full-fat desktop working system. The brand new Floor Professional 12-inch runs Home windows 11, with entry to all of the AI-based Copilot+ PC software features that require a robust Neural Processing Unit (NPU) so as to perform. In contrast, my iPad is operating iPadOS 26 developer beta 1, with software program roots firmly entrenched throughout the iPhone’s cellular OS paradigm.

iPadOS 26 brings various Mac-like additions to the iPad expertise, together with background duties, an improved cursor, higher window administration, and a correct Menu Bar, however the system nonetheless lacks many necessities, like the flexibility to play a number of audio sources on the identical time. Windows 11, alternatively, is a robust PC OS that makes the Floor Professional 12-inch feel and appear identical to a laptop computer or desktop pc, making for a productiveness machine that Apple nonetheless cannot fairly measure as much as.

After all, Home windows is not fairly as slick as iPadOS in terms of contact interplay and gestures, nevertheless it’s ok that I could make do every time I am and not using a mouse and keyboard. That being mentioned, I’d love to see Microsoft re-implement a number of the glorious touchscreen UX options that had been initially part of 2012’s Home windows 8 — specifically the great left bezel multitasking gesture.

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