Did Microsoft Really Out-Apple, Apple Inc, at its Own Game With The Surface Book?

This is not investment communication. The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. WCCF TECH INC has a disclosure and ethics policy.

Apple tree (NASDAQ: AAPL) is one of the strongest brands in the world, with astonishing products designed for, and targeted at, the high finish market. Their products have very competitive operation and astonishing aesthetics, merely are usually priced quite a scrap college than what the off-white value of the hardware and software combination should be. The result of this strategy is that the marketplace perceives them to be the become-to standard for a high quality and seamless user experience. Unfortunately for Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT), they take ofttimes lost out to Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) on the last few points. Only all this stands to change with the Surface Book.

Technical assay of the Surface Book - A curious instance of Apples to Apples

Speaking from a hardware perspective, Microsoft's (NASDAQ: MSFT) offerings have usually been sufficiently powerful to compete against the rival Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) product, but thanks to the market perception of them beingness the lower course production – it has generally never worked out. That is, until the Surface Book came out. While information technology is too early to tell for sure whether the production has been a success or not, we tin immediately see that Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is doing something very different this time – and in a expert way.

The Surface Book not only has killer aesthetics and killer performance, but its pricing is so extravagant that information technology makes Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) look like the "value" production. Which is something I idea I would never see. And the result of this aesthetic, operation and pricing philharmonic is readily visible. Tremors take been felt throughout the ultrabook industry and already the critics are responding in a very beholden about the Surface Volume.

Successfully pursuing the 'Apple tree ideology'

Does the Surface Book have an amazingly sleek and calm blueprint? Yes. Does information technology have killer performance that runs circles around Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) offerings? For the nearly expensive configurations, yes. And does information technology have good value or bang for the buck? Absolutely not. Finer, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) has managed to vanquish Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) at its own game and designed a production more than Apple-like than the Macbook Pro itself. Which is nothing less than a herculean feat in its own right. Y'all can say that company has managed to out-Apple, Apple Inc. itself.

And then lets become down to the nitty gritty shall we? Correct off the bat I can tell you that contrary to what Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) claims - base models in the aforementioned range as rival models from Macbook Pro volition not offer "double" the ability of their counterparts. It doesn't mean they wont offer amazing performance - simply that it wont exist 2 times as much as the equivalent Macbook Pro. Infact, if you really want to realize the ''double the performance of the Macbook Pro'' merits, you will have to opt for the virtually expensive configurations.

The display

Lets start with the display. The Surface Book rocks a 3000x2000 resolution 13.5 inch screen with 267 pixels per inch (which is an extremely high number for this large a screen). The Macbook Pro on the other hand offers a slightly lower resolution of 2560x1600 and has a xiii.3 inch screen with 227 pixels per inch. Ofcourse, its not only about item, one of the most important factors when talking about panels is the viewing angles and color accurateness. The MacBook Pro's retina brandish has brilliant vieweing angles and a color gamut which covers approximately 91% of the sRGB spectrum. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) on the other hand claims to have a screen that supports 100% of the sRGB colour gamut, but excuse me while I reserve judgment until that merits is tested by a 3rd political party. Do note that the screen of the Surface Book supports touch (and the Stylus) while the screen of the MacBook Pro is just that – a screen.

Surface Book 3

The internals

The internals of the device are ofcourse just every bit important and it is hither that the differentiation between the various models starts to become apparent. The base model of the Surface Book tin exist had for $1499, a cool $200 above the starting price of the Macbook Pro (which is $1299). For the extra 200 bucks yous will get yourself an Intel Core i5 processor based on the Skylake series with the Intel Hard disk 520 integrated graphics. The Macbook Pro has a slightly older version of a Broadwell based Intel Cadre i7 and Intel Iris Pro 6100 graphics. If money isn't an consequence than y'all tin can upgrade to the fully tricked out Surface Book at $2699 for an Intel Core i7 processor and a detached GPU from Nvidia.

The Nvidia 'detached GPU pick' detailed

Now merely recently, the full details of the discrete Nvidia unit leaked out and turns out it's a custom Maxwell silicon based on the Maxwell Geforce 940M with 382 CUDA Cores. So this will be quite a few shades faster than the integrated solution offered past Intel, since nosotros are talking about proper entry level graphics here. I would also like to point out that the normal variant of the Geforce 940 utilizes DDR3 memory while every bit this model has GDDR5 memory and consequently much college bandwidth (and significantly faster performance).

Since the custom silicon as well has 384 CUDA cores based on the MX ane.0 architecture, the benchmarks of the Geforce 940M are the perfect metric to get a very accurate thought of what its performance baseline will exist. The full criterion suite can be found over at Notebookcheck.net merely to give you an idea the Geforce 940M with 2GB DDR3 retention scores an average score of 1617 points whereas the Iris Pro 6100 clocks in at effectually 1020 points. Since the performance of the fleck should be afflicted by the upgrade from DDR3 to GDDR5 memory, I wouldn't exist surprised if this difference of approximately 60% actually translates to something near a full 100%.

Miscellaneous

Both products offer 8 GB of RAM (upgrade-able to 16GB) and 128 GB of SSD storage (upgrade-able to 1TB). The MacBook Pro has a tested backup time of approximately 10 hours, while as the Surface Book as a claimed fill-in time of ten hours equally well. If you take the selection with the Nvidia GPU inside and then the Surface Volume will weigh exactly the same as a MacBook Pro – both clocking in at 3.48 Pounds. If you lot chose to go with the base model then the Surface Book is actually lighter than the MacBook Pro at 3.34 Pounds. The Macbook Pro has a 720p front photographic camera just while equally the Surface Book as an 8 Mega Pixel back camera and 5 Mega Pixel front camera (remember, it doubles equally a tablet once the keyboard is detached). Ofcourse, the final hurdle (and one that really cannot be overcome) is that of the Operating System. The MacBook Pro runs the OSX x.11 El Capitan whileas the Surface Book will be on Windows 10. Practise annotation that Windows 10 will also offer the services of the digital voice assistant – Cortana, while as Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has yet to integrate Siri into its desktop OS.

Conclusion

And so we took a look at the fundamentals offered by both products and information technology amuses me greatly to say this: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) devices offer ameliorate (relative) value for the average consumer - unless money is no trouble or you are a professional with very specific needs, in which instance the Surface Book is the slightly improve choice. It is worth noting that the primary edge of the Surface Book currently is one) the tablet form cistron (including the stylus) and two) the inclusion of the custom Maxwell silicon. While the first edge will remain with it for quite some time, the update to Skylake Integrated graphics should dilute the disparity between the Surface Book and the latest Macbook Pro Model. All in all, both devices offer exceptional operation and will serve their owners very well. Ofcourse, this is something that is ever the case with Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL), only probably the showtime (in recent times) where you can safely say the same for a Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) product.