I am sorry however my Floor Professional nonethele...

Earlier than getting my arms 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 justifiable share of Apple iPads, Android tabs, and even the Blackberry Playbook through the years, 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 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 just a few days now, and I’ve had the prospect to include the machine into my workflow proper alongside one in every of its direct rivals — the iPad Air (working the first beta of iPadOS 26, no much less). After pitting the 2 machines in opposition to each other in the actual world, I’ve come to understand a number of key elements of the Floor Professional expertise. Listed here are three issues specifically that my Floor gives me, and that my iPad merely does not.

1

It might 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 lots of angle flexibility (as much as 165 levels when totally prolonged).

Against this, 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 price a fairly penny. Third-party circumstances and stands can be found at quite a lot of value factors, too, however they’re nonetheless one other factor you must buy and hull round. There’s an magnificence 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 number 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 least 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 in terms of modern-day cell 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 machine generally is a game-changer relying on workflow. Pairing an iPad Air with one in every of Apple’s Magic Keyboard circumstances provides a secondary USB-C port for charging into the combo, however that is hardly an appropriate various 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 inside 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) to be able to operate. Against this, my iPad is working iPadOS 26 developer beta 1, with software program roots firmly entrenched inside the iPhone’s cell OS paradigm.

iPadOS 26 brings a variety 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 identical time. Windows 11, alternatively, is a robust PC OS that makes the Floor Professional 12-inch feel and appear similar 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, however it’s ok that I could make do each time I am and not using 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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