Microsoft Surface Pro 9 vs. Apple iPad Pro: High-End Tablets Face Off

Microsoft's rolling out updates to the entire Surface family of tablets, laptops, and even desktops, headlined by the newly updated Surface Pro 9. The latest version of the iconic Surface tablet PC is getting an expectedly great upgrade, with Intel 12th Gen processors and a new 5G variant that is powered by the updated Microsoft SQ3 ARM processor, a Microsoft exclusive made by Qualcomm. (See our hands-on with the Surface Pro 9.)

For years, Surface has been the undeniable leader in tablet PCs running Windows, and it's shaping up to continue the trend in 2022. But what about that other iconic, powerful tablet, the Apple iPad? The amped-up iPad Pro, in particular, is vying to replace your mobile computer with its powerful, laptop-grade processing and support for laptop-emulating accessories.

So, which is better for you? To help you make the choice, we've compared the new Microsoft Surface Pro 9 to the 12.9-inch Apple iPad Pro on both specs and value.

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Pricing and Availability

The new Microsoft Surface Pro 9 is available starting at $999, and will be available for pre-order this month. This model comes equipped with an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD for storage.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

A second configuration sells for $1,899, which gets you a more powerful Core i7 processor, 16GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. The top configuration of the Intel-based Surface Pro 9 is outfitted with that same Core i7 processor, but pairs it with 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage, selling for $2,599.

However, there is also a second variation of the Surface Pro 9 tablet, which comes outfitted with 5G mobile broadband and an Arm-based Microsoft SQ3 processor, the product of a close collaboration between Microsoft and chipmaker Qualcomm. The Surface Pro 9 (5G) starts at $1,299 for the basic model with 8GB of memory and 128GB of storage. The top configuration of the 5G model tops out at $1,899 and comes with 16GB of RAM and 512GB of storage.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

Compare this to last year's 12.9-inch Apple iPad Pro. The powerful tablet starts at $1,099 for the base model, which nets you the Apple M1 chip, 8GB of memory, and 128GB of SSD storage. You can scale up the storage for a higher price—up to 2TB, for a whopping $2,199—and you can add 5G mobile connectivity for an extra $200.

With this small difference in pricing, you can get a more complete Surface Pro 9 (buying the keyboard cover separately) for less cash up front than with an iPad Pro, which also lacks a keyboard in the box.

ADVANTAGE: Microsoft

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Build and Color Options

The Surface Pro 9 sticks with Microsoft's successful tablet PC design, putting the slim system into an anodized aluminum body with a built-in kickstand for hands free use on tables and desks. The kickstand offers a range of positions, extending out to 165 degrees, with every position in between available for whatever screen angle is most comfortable.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

The aluminum  chassis can be had in a bare-metal Platinum finish, or you can get the Surface Pro 9 in other colors, like Graphite Gray, Sapphire Blue, and Forest Green.

There's also a special edition that features the blue color, but adds laser etchings and a pattern design on the accompanying keyboard, offered as part of Microsoft's celebration of 10 years of Surface.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

One thing to note is that the Surface Pro 9 (5G), with the Microsoft SQ3 processor, is available only in the Platinum color. The other colors are offered only on the Intel models.

The iPad Pro 12.9‑inch, on the other hand, is offered only in two colors: Silver and Space Gray. It's difficult to declare a clear winner here based on something so subjective, but Microsoft does offer more colors, hands-down.

ADVANTAGE: Microsoft

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Components

The Microsoft Surface Pro 9 is available with a number of configuration options, with both consumer and commercial models, as well as your choice of Intel processors or the Arm-powered 5G Surface Pro 9. (The Arm-based model adds a Qualcomm chip to the mix, along with mobile broadband.)

But the configurations don't end with your choice of silicon. The split between Intel and Qualcomm processors also means a difference in graphics processing, with most models boasting Intel Iris Xe graphics, but the 5G model using Qualcomm Adreno 8CX Gen 3 graphics.

The Surface Pro 9 can also be configured with your choice of memory: 8GB, 16GB, or 32GB of LPDDR5 RAM on the Intel models, while the 5G version gives you the option of 8GB or 16GB of older LPDDR4x RAM.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

In the same price range, Apple's iPad Pro comes with the M1 chip, the same Apple Silicon that powers the 2020 MacBook Air. That laptop-grade power is a first for the iPad, and you can choose between 8GB and 16GB of RAM.

Apple leverages the M1's eight GPU cores for graphics processing, delivering a capable machine for media editing and even some gaming. You can also go all out with the storage, opting for the basic 128GB of SSD storage, or stepping up to 256GB, 512GB, 1TB or even 2TB.

All in all, the two tablets are very evenly matched in terms of raw power, but one detail might make the Surface more attractive: removable drives. Unlike the iPad Pro, which has soldered-down storage, the Surface Pro has removable drives, opening up the possibility of repairs and upgrades months or years down the road, instead of requiring you to max out your drive options at purchase—a win for the Surface Pro 9.

ADVANTAGE: Microsoft

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Connectivity

When it comes to network connectivity and wireless connections for peripherals, both the Surface Pro 9 and iPad Pro 12.9-inch have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which makes them nearly identical in most uses. 

However, the Surface Pro 9 is outfitted with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.1, while the iPad Pro only has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0 technology. You can read up on the fine points of Wi-Fi standards in our explainer What Is Wi-Fi 6E? But for our purposes, the biggest difference is that 6E delivers lower latency and can handle more devices at once, provided you have a Wi-Fi 6E router.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

On the Bluetooth side, it also means that the Surface Pro 9 has more Bluetooth antennas to work with, which in turn allow it to locate the device and optimize signal for that device's position, and can save device attributes for faster pairing with regularly used accessories.

These are admittedly small differences, but the more you use these wireless connections, the more likely that those minute differences will give you a better wireless experience with the Surface Pro 9—the marginal winner here.

ADVANTAGE: Microsoft

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Ports

When it comes to port selection, it's no surprise that a Microsoft machine would offer more physical connections than an Apple competitor, given Apple's obsession with ever sleeker and thinner designs leading it to jettison even popular connections like the headphone jack.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

But Microsoft isn't immune from purging ports—and you won't find a wired audio connection on the Surface Pro 9, either. That makes the port selection very similar across the two models. However, the Surface Pro 9 boasts an extra USB-C port for added functionality, especially when paired with an external dock.

On the Surface Pro 9, you'll find a pair of USB-C ports with Thunderbolt 4 capability, along with a Surface Connect port and a proprietary connection for Microsoft's accessory keyboard. The Surface Pro 9 5G version also boasts two USB-C ports, but limits the overall capability to standard USB 3.2, likely due to limitations of the SQ3 processor.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

The iPad Pro, on the other hand, uses a single USB-C/Thunderbolt port for charging and connecting to external monitors, along with a magnetic connector for the Apple Pencil accessory, and a Smart Connector for adding the Apple Smart Folio keyboard—Apple's take on the keyboard cover pioneered by Microsoft on the Surface. By simply having more ports, the Surface Pro 9 wins out this round of comparisons.

ADVANTAGE: Microsoft

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Display 

Both Microsoft and Apple have adopted branded high-end display technologies for their respective tablets, with the Surface Pro 9 offering a PixelSense Flow Display and Apple's iPad boasting a Liquid Retina XDR screen. But what do those labels mean?

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

On the Surface Pro 9, the PixelSense Flow Display is a 13-inch touch screen with 2,880-by-1,920-pixel resolution. It also has a 3:2 aspect ratio, which is a little more squared-off than you'll see on most Windows laptops, or the Apple iPad. It offers an impressive 120Hz dynamic refresh rate, so it can adjust to other frame rates for viewing media or playing games that might use a different flicker rate. Microsoft boasts that the display offers a 1,200:1 contrast ratio and Dolby Vision HDR support, so we expect the Surface Pro to look quite pleasing when we finally get it in to test.

However, Apple has its own proprietary display tech, with the Liquid Retina XDR panel on the iPad Pro. With 2,732 by 2,048 pixels of crisp resolution, it looks excellent itself, complete with P3 wide color gamut reproduction and excellent brightness.

(Credit: Molly Flores)

At 12.9 inches, it's ever-so-slightly smaller than the 13-inch Surface Pro, but it also has Apple's unique rounded corners, which (depending upon the apps or content you're viewing) may actually cut off a few pixels in the corners, or render at a slightly smaller size on screen. Whether that matters to you is a personal call, but most media editing tools you would use on the iPad will correct for this automatically.

In terms of resolution, the screen-specific resolutions may differ, but they will look extremely similar, with the iPad delivering 264 pixels per inch (ppi) to the Surface Pro 9's 267ppi. That 3-pixel difference will be indistinguishable to the naked eye, so the resolution differences between the two aren't worth fussing over.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

What does set the iPad Pro apart, however, is the use of mini LED backlighting. Both display use IPS LCD panels for the display, but the iPad backs its screen with around 10,000 mini LEDs, grouped into more than 2,500 addressable dimming zones. It's a small tweak in terms of technology, but it means that the iPad can deliver tighter backlighting control for deeper blacks and better perceived contrast. It's a difference that our review calls “staggeringly good,” and unless the Surface Pro 9 delivers an unexpectedly great display in our review, it looks like Apple wins this one.

ADVANTAGE: Apple

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Cameras

The Surface Pro 9 and the iPad Pro have both front- and rear-facing cameras, which is common on mobile devices, but less so on PCs. Here, it gives the iPad an edge.

The Surface Pro 9 offers a 1080p front-facing camera, with Windows Hello and all of the best Microsoft video processing and chatting options. It even matches the iPad Pro with a webcam feature that follows the user in a video chat as they move in the frame. But on the back, it has just a single 10-megapixel (MP) camera for shooting images and videos on the tablet.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

The Apple iPad Pro also boasts a front-facing camera with Apple ID for facial recognition based security, and a 10MP camera on back. But this tablet also has a second 12MP camera and a LiDAR depth sensor. The combination not only makes the iPad the better camera for simple photos and videos, but puts it miles ahead for advanced AR functions.

ADVANTAGE: Apple

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Battery Life

While we haven't tested the Microsoft Surface Pro 9 yet, we can look at the estimated battery life of the Surface against both the estimated and tested battery life of the iPad Pro.

Microsoft claims that the Intel-powered Surface Pro 9 will last up to 15.5 hours under normal usage, and that the Qualcomm-driven 5G model will stretch even longer, to 19 hours of typical use. Meanwhile, the iPad Pro, according to Apple's claims, offers 10 hours of web surfing or video watching in the Wi-Fi model, and 9 hours in the 5G-equipped model.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

That seems like a clear win for Microsoft, but it bears repeating that we haven't tested the battery life ourselves. And when we tested the iPad Pro back in 2021, those 10 hours of claimed battery life translated into 5 hours and 28 minutes in our video rundown tests, and likely shorter times in actual use, where the modem and processor would be placed under a different and more varied load than our video playback test can adequately simulate.

ADVANTAGE: Microsoft

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Accessories

The Surface Pro 9 is unabashedly built to function as a Windows PC, and that's complete with keyboard input and touch-screen or mouse interaction. To that end, the Surface Pro 9 is offered with a range of accessories, including the Surface Slim Pen ($129) and the Surface Pro Signature Keyboard ($179), a combination that makes the sleek tablet into a powerful PC that happens to be handily portable.

The Apple iPad Pro comes at it from the other direction. Apple makes the iPad as a standalone tablet first, but the Pro line has gotten accessories and functionality that push it ever closer to being a proper laptop replacement. These include the Apple Pencil ($129) and the Smart Keyboard Folio ($199), which offer the same sort of pen-on-screen and keyboard-as-screen-cover capabilities that were the early differentiators of the Surface line.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

Apple also lets you use the iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard ($399) from its Mac lineup, but that's not much of a draw, especially since the Surface can also be used with pretty much any Bluetooth keyboard out there. On the accessory front, the Surface and iPad options are in a dead heat, without a clear leader.

ADVANTAGE: Tie

Surface Pro 9 vs. iPad Pro: Software

Finally, the biggest difference between the Surface and the iPad is one of software and ecosystem. The Surface Pro 9 is set up with Windows 11 Home—commercial variants are also offered with Windows 11 Pro, but we've stuck to the consumer models for this comparison. And it's not a hobbled version of Windows 11, it's the real deal, with full support for any piece of software, and all of your preferred apps and functions. It's all there.

Apple, on the other hand, outfits the iPad Pro with iPadOS 16. This is Apple's most powerful version of the mobile OS to date, and one tailored to the increasingly powerful iPad, but it's still not macOS—not completely. The addition of keyboard and mouse support are huge steps in that direction, and iPadOS meshes incredibly well with macOS if you already have a Mac on your desk.

(Credit: Kyle Cobian)

However, there are some things you just can't quite do on the iPad yet, like use Apple's own Logic Pro X software, or get the full range of features offered in programs like the Adobe Creative Cloud apps (Photoshop, Lightroom, Premiere, and so on). It's great to have a more powerful iPad, but for top performance and capability, you still need a Mac.

ADVANTAGE: Microsoft

Early Verdict: iPad Pro Is Incredible, But Surface Pro Just Offers More

Make no doubt about it, both Windows 11 and iPadOS are top-notch operating systems, earning some of our highest ratings and Editors' Choice awards. The iPad Pro has grown into an incredible, ultraportable computing platform, but the Surface Pro 9 is just able to tick more boxes that make it a more complete mobile computer. If you want the full PC experience in a tablet form factor, Microsoft Surface will still be the best option.