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 outdoors a retail show setting. As a lover of pill computing, I’ve used a fair proportion of Apple iPads, Android tabs, and even the Blackberry Playbook over time, however the Floor line remained a mysterious and nearly unique product line in my eyes.

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

I have been testing out the Floor Professional 12-inch for just a few days now, and I’ve had the possibility to include the machine into my workflow proper alongside one in every of its direct rivals — the iPad Air (operating the first beta of iPadOS 26, no much less). After pitting the 2 machines towards each other in the actual world, I’ve come to understand a number of key facets of the Floor Professional expertise. Listed below are three issues particularly that my Floor offers me, and that my iPad merely does not.

1

It could actually stand upright by itself

The Floor kickstand is in a league of its personal

Since the very beginning of Surface, Microsoft has held a selected {hardware} conviction that I could not agree extra with: tablets with built-in kickstands are higher than these with out one. Through the years, 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 provides a variety of angle flexibility (as much as 165 levels when totally prolonged).

In contrast, my iPad cannot perch itself in a helpful angle with out the usage of equipment, such because the Magic Keyboard or the Good Folio. These peripherals are glorious, however additionally they price a reasonably penny. Third-party instances and stands can be found at quite a lot of value factors, too, however they’re nonetheless one other factor it’s essential buy and hull round. There’s an class to having a built-in kickstand on a slate-style laptop, 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 choice 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 not less than provide 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 relating to modern-day cell devices, and that is very true within the pill area. USB-C is an extremely versatile I/O customary, and entry to a number of ports on a single machine generally is a game-changer relying on workflow. Pairing an iPad Air with one in every of Apple’s Magic Keyboard instances provides a secondary USB-C port for charging into the combo, 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 principally a blessing

Microsoft’s Floor Professional line has all the time 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 strong Neural Processing Unit (NPU) to be able to operate. In contrast, my iPad is operating iPadOS 26 developer beta 1, with software program roots firmly entrenched throughout the iPhone’s cell OS paradigm.

iPadOS 26 brings a lot of 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 power to play a number of audio sources on the similar time. Windows 11, then again, is a strong PC OS that makes the Floor Professional 12-inch feel and appear identical to a laptop computer or desktop laptop, making for a productiveness machine that Apple nonetheless cannot fairly measure as much as.

In fact, Home windows is not fairly as slick as iPadOS relating to contact interplay and gestures, nevertheless it’s adequate that I could make do each time I am with out a mouse and keyboard. That being mentioned, I’d love to see Microsoft re-implement a few of the glorious touchscreen UX options that had been initially part of 2012’s Home windows 8 — specifically the fantastic left bezel multitasking gesture.

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