MacBook Air vs. Microsoft Surface Book: Apple’s MacBook Air cheaper than Surface Book; Microsoft offers better display, graphics, memory

By Staff Writer

Nov 16, 2015 06:15 PM EST

The Microsoft Surface Book has better display, graphics, and memory compared to the cheaper 2015 MacBook Air. Apple's new iPad Pro beat the latest MacBooks and the Surface Pro 4 specs-wise in benchmark tests.

Apple's 2015 MacBook Air is priced at a $1000 price tag, cheaper than the Microsoft Surface Book. However, the more expensive Microsoft Surface Book hybrid reportedly has superior display, graphics, and memory storage than the MacBook Air.

Realty Today compared the 2015 MacBook Air and the Microsoft Surface Book in a report. Overall, the Microsoft Surface Book offered better specifications and features than the MacBook Air at the price of $1499. Design-wise, the Surface Book is made of a magnesium build with a Surface stylus pen and a fulcrum hinge, allowing the keyboard to be separated from the touch screen.

On the other hand, the MacBook Air is not a laptop-tablet hybrid. It sports an aluminum build but it lacks touch screen and stylus pen support. Its 13-inch LED screen has 1440 x 900 pixel resolution while the Surface Book boasts a bigger 13.5-inch display with a resolution of 3000 x 2000 pixels.

Microsoft's Surface Book gives more storage options of 128GB to 1TB and a 4GB RAM upgradable to 16GB. Meanwhile, the MacBook Air comes with either 128GB or 256GB memory and 4GB RAM only. The two devices have built-in memory slots.

The Surface Book's keyboard can be installed with the NVIDIA GeForce GPU to boost its graphics, which cannot be done in the MacBook Air. In terms of processor, the Microsoft Surface Book comes with either a core i5 or an i7 Intel processor, while the MacBook Air runs with a core i5 Intel chip as well.

A more powerful A9 processor lies inside the 2015 Apple iPad Pro, beating the processors inside the latest MacBooks and the Microsoft Surface Pro 4. The iPad Pro's dual-core chipset is clocked at 2.25GHz which is said to be faster than the iPhone 6s brain as per BGR.

The iPad Pro outshined the MacBook Air and the Apple Retina MacBook in terms of speed in multi-core tests. The benchmark tests by Ars Technica revealed that the Apple iPad Pro equally performs with the Surface Pro 4 and the 13-inch MacBook Pro in single-core tests.

The iPad Pro's A9 processors are rumored to become the chips powering Apple's future MacBooks. Venture Capital Post previously reported that a 2016 MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are underway. These new Apple MacBooks could sport the new A9 chips or the latest Intel Skylake processors.

There are rumors tipping that the 2016 MacBook Air could launch on Black Friday 2015 while the 2016 MacBook Pro could be available before 2015 ends. Big discounts on Apple products are expected to be offered by retailers in the Big Black Friday sale.

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