Hey, guys, you are at the Top2Gadget and today we’re going to be comparing Microsoft’s new Surface Go 2 against apple’s 10.2-inch iPad and seeing which one of these deserves your money. We’re not only going to be talking about things like the performance of the CPU and graphics, the displays, the cameras, keyboards, and trackpad we’re also going to be talking about things like battery life, software support, the actual real-world performance, and much more.
Key Specification
| iPad Air | Surface Go 2 | |
| $ | CHECK PRICE | CHECK PRICE |
| Chipset | A12 Bionic Chip | 8th Gen Intel® Core |
| Display | 10.5 inches | 10.5 inches |
| Memory | 3 GB 64 GB | 4 GB/8 GB 64 GB/128 GB |
| Camera | 8 MP | 5 MP |
| Fingerprint Sensor | Front | No |
Design
| iPad Air | Surface Go 2 | |
| Dimensions | 250.6 x 174.1 x 6.1 mm | 198 x 269 x 4.6 cm |
| Weight | 456 grams | 544 grams |
| Screen Size | 10.5 inches | 10.5 inches |
| Technology | Full HD | PixelSense Display |
| Colors | Space Gray, Gold | Oxford Gray |
Now, when you buy either one of these devices, they come basically in just a tablet form. Let’s start and just talking about the differences holding these in the hand the iPad is a little bit more comfortable because it is thinner but is slightly larger than the surface go 2. It’s a little bit wider and slightly taller even though it does have a 10.2-inch display compared to this one’s 10.5-inch display the surface has a 3×2 aspect ratio whereas the iPad has a 4×3 meaning that you get a little bit more vertical space. If you’re using them sideways because of the aspect ratio but overall the screen size is fairly similar now the iPad does have these massive bezels on the sides of the forehead and chin. If you’re going to be holding it vertically it does feature apple’s touch ID so they need space for that whereas the surface is a lot more even overall surprisingly we don’t have that big of a difference in weight. You can’t tell in the hand and one reason why the surface is thicker is that it has a built-in kickstand that is very well made the iPad doesn’t have one of these. So if you do want to set it up like this be able to watch a movie or something else you’re gonna have to use that keyboard case whereas with the surface it’s all built-in and it works well.
On the bottoms, we have our proprietary connectors for the keyboards and then on the right-hand side, the iPad just has a lightning port whereas a surface has a USB type-c port which is great. Also, Microsoft’s proprietary surface connector which you can use for charging with a dedicated included 28-watt charger for fast charging and you can also plug in Microsoft’s proprietary different accessories. Both have headphone jacks which are great the iPad has it on the other side. Then the surface has one extra bonus connection which you will be so glad about if you pop open this little cover you will actually have a micro-sd card slot so you can expand the storage really easily and cheaply which the iPad doesn’t offer. Another really cool thing about the surface is that we have a dual stereo front-firing speaker whereas the iPad just has the one mono speaker on the bottom and then if you’re holding it horizontally or if it’s in the keyboard case it is facing the right-hand side which kind of weird.
Performance
| iPad Air | Surface Go 2 | |
| Processor | M12 Co-processor | Intel Core m3 |
| GPU | Integrated | Integrated |
| RAM | 3 GB | 4 GB/8 GB |
| Internal storage | 64 GB | 64 GB/128 GB |
| Storage expansion | – | – |
| OS | iOS | Windows 10 Home |
Now it’s time to talk about performance, and this is where it gets a little bit tricky, before we go into some real-world performance differences and some benchmarks, we want to mention that the surface goes to comes with windows 10 s, and that is a version that only allows apps from Microsoft Store, and those apps are very very limited and, that’s because they want to maximize battery life they want to make sure it’s secure and have it run faster. But you’re most likely going to have to get out of that if you want to be able to compete with app selection with IOS, so that’s the first thing you will going to do is you will going to get out of ‘Windows S’ mode because without that you can’t even run some of the apps.
Both of these devices have pretty old processors, we have the a10 fusion in the iPad 10.2 inch it’s an old processor and in Surface Go 2 you will have an Intel Pentium gold old processor here as well that’s not very fast you will have 4 GB of RAM on the surface compared to 3 GB on the iPad. But iPad OS is much more efficient and can use that RAM much better than windows which is heavier and it needs more resources. As you’ll see in just a bit and since the surface is running on windows you will have to make sure that you may change the power settings to full performance or best performance. Typically it’s set to balance and it is just way too slow in that balanced mode.
As far as single-core the iPad is over very faster and in multi-core, it’s about slightly less fast with the Surface in the best performance mode. The iPad is optimized to work as quickly. The Surface Go 2 felt slow even when put into the best performance mode that helped but not enough for opening apps and things like that slow and even using the web browser felt kind of sluggish.
Camera
| iPad Air | Surface Go 2 | |
| Rear | 8 MP | 8 MP with autofocus |
| Front | 7 MP FaceTime | 5 MP Primary Camera |
| Video recording | 1080p HD video | 1080p HD video |
Both of these have dual cameras you have a camera on the front and a camera on the back. The ones on the back we don’t recommend people taking pictures with them but they are both 8 megapixels and they are useful for doing things like scanning documents. As far as the image quality now for the front-facing cameras the iPad has a 1.2-megapixel camera compared to 5 megapixels on the surface. talking about the webcam and microphone quality that you could expect good quality with the surface go 2 Microsoft is using a 1080p webcam and dual front-facing microphones. The video and microphone quality that you can expect from the 10.2-inch iPad it is a 720p webcam or front-facing camera and as you guys could tell it is cropped in a lot more than the Surface and the other thing the camera which is right here on the left-hand side it’s also lower down if you look at the screen it looks so awkward. It looks like you’re not paying attention to whoever you’re talking to so if you’re trying to take notes and do say a zoom call it just looks weird.
Multimedia
| iPad Air | Surface Go 2 | |
| Headphone jack | Yes | Yes 3.5 Jack |
| Loudspeaker | – | Yes |
| Audio Feture | Dolby Digital Plus | 2W stereo speakers with Dolby |
The cool thing about the surface is that we have dual stereo front-firing speakers. Whereas the iPad just has the one mono speaker on the bottom and then if you’re holding it horizontally or if it’s in the keyboard case it is facing the right-hand side which kind of weird. The Surface Go 2 doesn’t sound bad the speaker quality is good but it is so quiet you will think that there was something wrong. The iPad you definitely can tell that the sound is coming from this direction if you go vertically which the video experience is much worse audio is much more balanced between both ears but it is so much louder on average probably about eight to nine decibels louder that is a massive difference. Both devices get a 3.5mm of headphone jack for the other media devices connection.
Battery Life
| iPad Air | Surface Go 2 | |
| Battery Life | Upto 10 hrs | Upto 10 hrs |
| Cell | – | 4 |
| Fast Charging | Yes | 26.8 Watt Hours |
With the iPad Air, you will get a Lithium Polymer battery which gives you a claimed battery life of up to 10 hours. On the other hand, the Surface Go 2 has 4 cell batteries from which you will get a claimed battery life of the same 10 hours. Both devices support fast charging which a convenient feature.
Connectivity
| iPad Air | Surface Go 2 | |
| Sim | Nano-SIM | Single Sim, GSM |
| Bluetooth | v5.0 | v5.0 |
| Wifi | 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac | IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac/ax |
| Sensors | Touch ID, 3-axis Gyro, Accelerometer, Barometer, Ambient Light Sensor | Ambient light sensor, Accelerometer Gyroscope, Magnetometer |
Both devices will give you an option to insert nano sim cards into them for in-built network connectivity and also both support the 4G LTE network. Also, both of these devices get Bluetooth version 5.0 which gives you a strong and stable Bluetooth connectivity of 10m which is good.
Which is better!
The iPad is great all around and if you’re somebody that is looking for a tablet as number one and then you might wanna add in the keyboard case if you wanna do a lot of typing and then the trackpad comes in handy you’re gonna have a great time you’re gonna have all the optimized apps. But you’re still gonna have certain downsides like the camera being lower and on the left-hand side whereas the Surface is more of a windows computer that can be used as a tablet even though it is just sold as a tablet. If you’re somebody that knows that you need some dedicated apps that will only run on windows and you’re going to want to use it for web conferencing say with the zoom you’re going to be using the keyboard in trackpad more often and then less often you’ll detach it and you’ll use it as a tablet the surface is going to be a better choice for you.
