I’m sorry but my Surface Pro still beats the iPad in 3 key ways

Before getting my hands on the new Microsoft Surface Pro 12-inch, I had never so much as held a Surface tablet outside a retail display setting. As a lover of tablet computing, I’ve used a fair share of Apple iPads, Android tabs, and even the Blackberry Playbook over the years, but the Surface line remained a mysterious and almost exotic product line in my eyes.

The Surface Pro’s kickstand, attachable keyboard cover, I/O selection, 3:2 aspect ratio, and Windows-based PC operating system are attributes that have always intrigued me, and apparently they’ve piqued the interest of big tech companies, too: Apple, Samsung, Google and other giants have been steadily moving in the direction of tablet PCificastion in recent years, supercharging their slates with more capable hardware and software.

I’ve been testing out the Surface Pro 12-inch for a few days now, and I’ve had the chance to incorporate the device into my workflow right alongside one of its direct competitors — the iPad Air (running the first beta of iPadOS 26, no less). After pitting the two machines against one another in the real world, I’ve come to appreciate several key aspects of the Surface Pro experience. Here are three things in particular that my Surface provides me, and that my iPad simply doesn’t.

1

It can stand upright on its own

The Surface kickstand is in a league of its own

Since the very beginning of Surface, Microsoft has held a particular hardware conviction that I couldn’t agree more with: tablets with built-in kickstands are better than those without one. Over the years, the company has perfected the art of friction hinges, and the new Surface Pro 12-inch inherits this engineering prowess. Its full-width kickstand feels incredibly sturdy, articulates smoothly, and offers a lot of angle flexibility (up to 165 degrees when fully extended).

By contrast, my iPad can’t perch itself in a useful angle without the use of accessories, such as the Magic Keyboard or the Smart Folio. These peripherals are excellent, but they also cost a pretty penny. Third-party cases and stands are available at a variety of price points, too, but they’re still another thing you need to purchase and hull around. There’s an elegance to having a built-in kickstand on a slate-style computer, and it makes interacting with and consuming media on a large display all the more convenient and effortless.

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2

It has more I/O

Two USB-C ports are better than one

Another staple of the Surface Pro experience is its laptop-class selection of I/O ports. Gone are the days of USB-A, Mini DisplayPort, a 3.5 mm headphone jack, a microSD card slot, and a Surface Connect port, but Microsoft’s latest slab does at least offer x2 USB-C ports. Meanwhile, every iPad model ships with only a single USB-C port — even the highest-end iPad Pro with an M4 chipset and 16 GB of RAM is constrained to only one lowly port for charging, data transfer, and external display connectivity.

It goes without saying that more USB-C ports are better than less when it comes to modern-day mobile gadgets, and this is especially true in the tablet space. USB-C is an incredibly flexible I/O standard, and access to multiple ports on a single device can be a game-changer depending on workflow. Pairing an iPad Air with one of Apple’s Magic Keyboard cases adds a secondary USB-C port for charging into the mix, but this is hardly a suitable alternative to having a second full-fledged port right on the slab itself.

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3

It runs full-fat Windows

A blessing and a curse — but mostly a blessing

Microsoft’s Surface Pro line has always been unique within the tablet space, as it’s powered by a full-fat desktop operating system. The new Surface Pro 12-inch runs Windows 11, with access to all the AI-based Copilot+ PC software features that require a powerful Neural Processing Unit (NPU) in order to function. By contrast, my iPad is running iPadOS 26 developer beta 1, with software roots firmly entrenched within the iPhone’s mobile OS paradigm.

iPadOS 26 brings a number of Mac-like additions to the iPad experience, including background tasks, an improved cursor, better window management, and a proper Menu Bar, but the system still lacks many essentials, like the ability to play multiple audio sources at the same time. Windows 11, on the other hand, is a powerful PC OS that makes the Surface Pro 12-inch look and feel just like a laptop or desktop computer, making for a productivity machine that Apple still can’t quite measure up to.

Of course, Windows isn’t quite as slick as iPadOS when it comes to touch interaction and gestures, but it’s good enough that I can make do whenever I’m without a mouse and keyboard. That being said, I’d love to see Microsoft re-implement some of the excellent touchscreen UX features that were initially a part of 2012’s Windows 8 — namely the wonderful left bezel multitasking gesture.

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