The Nexus 10, Surface RT and fourth-gen iPad represent the best of each
tablet operating system, but how do they stack up against each other?
Smartphone and tablet users tend to fall into two categories: those who
are diehard Apple fans and seemingly willing to pay any price for its
fashionable hardware, and those who prefer the semi-open approach of
Google's Android operating system and the less costly hardware on which it
runs. Now there's a third category, which champions Windows RT.
In most cases, people choose an operating system and stick with it. The OS
feels familiar, you already know your media collection is supported, and if you
have more than one such device you can expect them to play well together. So,
if you have an iPhone you'll probably want an iPad; if you have a Galaxy S III or
Nexus 4 you'll likely want the Nexus 10; and if you're a Windows Phone user,
perhaps the most loyal of the lot, you'll almost certainly be eyeing up the Surface.
But what if you don't have a particular preference in terms of the operating
system? Here, we put head-to-head the best each platform has to offer.
Price
Microsoft's Surface RT starts at £399 with 32GB of storage, whereas this amount
of cash will net you only a 16GB iPad. Add a Touch Cover,
though, and the Surface RT matches Apple's 32GB slate at
£479. The Nexus 10 offers great value, with a 16GB model
costing £319, and 32GB £389.
Dimensions
Somewhat surprisingly, the iPad is the chunkiest tablet
in this trio. The Nexus 10 is the slimmest, at 8.9mm;
the Surface RT is also slightly thinner than the iPad at
9.3mm versus 9.4mm. The Nexus is a relative
lightweight, at 603g, although
the 662g iPad and 678g
Surface don't tip the scales
much further.
Screen
Every full-size iPad released by Apple has had a 9.7in screen, which is ever so
slightly smaller than that of the 10.1in Nexus and 10.6in Surface. Until the Nexus
10 launched, the iPad had by far the best tablet screen resolution on the market.
The Surface RT's 1366x768, 148ppi ClearType display looks comparatively low-res
in the face of the iPad's beautiful 2048x1536, 264ppi Retina-quality screen, but the
Nexus 10 is the real star of the show here, with a 2560x1600, 300ppi display.
Processor and memory
It's difficult to compare the Surface's nVidia Tegra 3 quad-core chip with the
dual-core 1.39GHz A6X CPU selected by Apple and 1.7GHz ARM Cortex
A-15 preferred by Google, since our usual benchmarks are incompatible with
Microsoft's tablet.
In Geekbench, the iPad scored 1,769 points, and the Nexus 10 recorded a
massive 2,505 – the best we've seen yet. In real-world use, the Surface felt like
the slower tablet – not that it's by any means slow. Animations are smooth and
demanding tasks, such as pinch-zooming in Internet
Explorer and Bing Maps, is responsive. This is no
doubt helped by the 2GB of RAM.
On the iPad and Nexus 10 we also ran the
SunSpider JavaScript benchmark and GLBenchmark
graphics test. The iPad fared better in both, recording
854ms against the Nexus 10's 1,329ms in SunSpider,
and 39fps versus 27fps in GLBenchmark. The latter
result is perhaps to be expected, given that the
iPad sports quad-core graphics. However, it's
equipped with just 1GB of RAM, whereas the
Nexus 10 has 2GB.
Storage
Neither iPad nor Nexus allow you to add to the storage capacity through
removable media, so it’s important to carefully calculate what capacity you’re
likely to need – the iPad is available from 16- to 64GB, the Nexus is 16- or 32GB.
The Surface RT, by comparison, has a microSDXC slot, which lets you add up to
64GB to its 32- or 64GB of internal storage.
Cameras
On the photography side of things the Nexus 10 and iPad 4 have a similar setup,
and both are better than that of the Surface RT in our subjective tests. Both iPad
and Nexus have a 5Mp rear-facing camera capable of 1080p video, and front-facing
webcams – the Nexus' offers a slightly higher megapixel rating, at 1.9Mp versus
1.2Mp. Meanwhile, the Surface supports only 720p video, but when propped up
with its kickstand the front-facing cam is cleverly angled such that it's level.
Connectivity
Apple's latest iPad replaces the 30-pin docking port with a Lightning connector.
This means existing iPad accessories will work only with a £25 adaptor. Both the
Nexus 10 and Microsoft Surface RT are more user-friendly in this regard: the
Nexus 10 charges via Micro USB and offers a Micro HDMI slot, while the Surface
RT has a full-size USB 2.0 port, a microSDXC slot and an HD video-out port.
All three tablets support Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11n Wi-Fi, although the Nexus
10 and iPad can cope with both 2.4- and 5GHz frequency bands. The Nexus also
caters for NFC, while the iPad supports 3G and 4G LTE in the UK.
Battery
The iPad has a 42.5Wh battery, while the Nexus 10 has a lower-capacity 33.3Wh
pack and the Surface’s is lower still, at 31.5Wh. The results are as you would
expect: the iPad can keep going for around 10 hours, while the Nexus can manage
nine and the Surface eight.
Source.Tablet World UK.Edition.3.2013
