The iPad 3 and 4 screens are factually better than the Nexus 10 in a number of areas.

Each device has actual strengths and weakness. The iPad 4 kills the Nexus 10 on battery life, tablet app availability, build quality, graphics perfornance, and others, for example.

My wife has both an iPad 4 and nexus 7 (she couldnt make up her mind which to get) and our kids use them quite often and both are good.

Personally I wouldn't go near the Surface as its a platform that looks better on paper than in reality. Microsoft really don't seem to have had a clear idea of what they wanted to do, especially with the pro and its resulted in a bit of a mess.

That's a meaningless comment to make since, as I said, there are big actual differences between the two.

As others have said with an iPad you get a much better balance. The Android market is like the PC market in that al too often the manufacturers will hang their hat on one key aspect which they can market but the rest of the device is often lacking.

The nexus is the closest you get on Android to getting the balance right as Google aren't that concerned with making a profit on the device but even then its easy to see a few areas that have been skimped on to get it to the price point.



I have to say I felt the same initially. I only ended up buying one as it was between that or buying a new iPod touch as mine was having issues. As I had been using the touch more and more for quick web searches, email and the likes I decided to take a punt and then quickly found I was using it way more than I expected.

And its the same for a friend of mine. He was sent on a business trip for a week and he borrowed the work ipad to take with him. He was a hard core Android supporter who hated Apple and also kept stating he didn't see the point in tablets but half way through the week he wouldn't stop tweeting about how great the device was and within a week of returning and giving the device back he had bought one.


With Android I just wish personally Google would withdraw it from other hardware manufacturers. My annoyances with the Android devices remind me of the issues with PC's and that's its not the core OS that's the issues but its the wide range of hardware it has to support and also the hardware manufacturers trying to push the OS. Its no surprise imho that the Nexus is by far the best performer of the Android devices (although Samsung do a good job when you consider that their hardware really isnt that impressive). A smaller hardware base to support and a more streamlined OS because of that and it would imho see an overall user experience that was right up there

The problem with the Surface Pro is that it is trying to be an ultrabook and a tablet at the same time. If you compare it to the top tablet, the iPad, it is too heavy, bulky, and has poor battery life. If you compare it to an ultrabook it performs poorly since it can only be used on a firm surface if one doesn't want to use the onscreen keyboard and has very limited custom options.

The Surface runs Windows RT which runs new "metro" apps plus it runs only MS Office on the "desktop".

The Surface Pro runs Windows 8 which can run any windows software plus the new "metro" apps.

First, a story. Once upon a time, I studied economics at university. One topic I studied was social choice theory and various voting systems. One system was a series of run-off votes. i.e. you vote between A vs B and then (say B wins) B v C and then (say C wins) C v D.

Now one might say that out of four choices of A, B, C, D; C was the best because it beat D and B, and B beat A. But it is non-transitive so you can have the situation above (where C won) but if you did the votes in a different order, A might have won (currently, seemingly the worst).

What if you first did C v B? C wins. Then C v D, C wins again then C v A? A wins.

My point is this: whilst comparing a Surface Pro to an iPad is valid if you're in the market for a pure tablet, and Surface Pro vs Macbook Air 11 inch is valid if you're in the market for a premium netbook device. Surface Pro coming off worst against both individually is not the whole story and it is far too simplistic to call it the worst of both worlds.

EVERY device has its own compromises.

In being a pure tablet, the iPad has sacrificed a great many things such as lacking non-finger input capabilities. Mouse: no mouse support, Keyboard: no good for much more than text entry, Pen: no better with a pen than your finger acting as a pen. In the name of simplicity, it sacrifices flexibility.

A Macbook Air is also compromised: can really only be used in two scenarios: on a table and on a lap. You always have a keyboard and touchpad between you and the screen. The TN screen is only good at a few angles.

The Surface Pro has its own compromises: not laptoppy enough to sit on your lap that well (it is awkwardly possible), not tablet-y enough to use for very long in one arm standing up.

But it is also MORE laptoppy than an iPad for all those times you were frustrated by the limitations of the iPad e.g. in browsing, in being able to hover/mouseover elements, in having a filesystem, in having a browser than can integrate with AdBlock and Lastpass.

It is MORE tablet-y than the laptop, for all those times you're sitting on a train with limited seat pitch and wanting to watch a movie and can't push the screen of your laptop back far enough, you can use this at any angle as a tablet.

For my own use case, the Surface Pro is ideal in many ways. I could have it as my single do-it-all device. At home plug it into a large monitor, comfy external keyboard and mouse. On the go, use it as a tablet and as a netbook with type cover when in the hotel.

Yes, in each of those scenarios taken individually I would probably prefer either an iPad or an ultrabook/MBA depending on the situation. But to do so, I would have to carry both, carry chargers for both and prepare my iPad at home (business hotel broadband is often limited or terrible or both) which often sounds like a worse proposition. Or I could have a single device that is ALWAYS to hand that gets me 90% of the way there in each scenario.

Yours is meaningless as they were just saying that they were both good - which is true.

I play Angry Birds, it's meaningless but I have fun doing it.

Just because you happen to disagree with a statement doesn't make it meaningless.

It is meaningless in the context of discussing specific benefits of either.

No, it's not.

Why do you believe that?

For the obvious reason of not addressing any actual differences!

alan I sense we have found a perfect replacement for Hugh_

I think you could be right!

Buy Buy Buy
In the whole of my life so far, my iPad3 is my best purchase ever.
It is always with me.
There are free Wi-Fi points nearly everywhere now.
Think camera, documents, the Internet, Skype etc. etc. etc.

I am back home now and I have decided to wait for the next upgrade . If I had got the mini I was worried about no retina on it and hopefully with the next upgrade they will fix that .

Thank you for all the advice given