14 DAY TRIAL // Many claim that Microsoft’s Surface Book and Apple’s MacBook Pro are completely different beasts and they often point to the different form factor as the living proof.
The Surface Book, currently at its third generation, comes with a 2-in-1 design which allows it to be used as a tablet (without the keyboard) or as a traditional laptop when the laptop is attached. And thanks to the touch screen, the Surface Book also supports touch input, pens, and the Surface Dial.
Apple’s MacBook Pro, on the other hand, sticks with the traditional laptop form factor, as the Cupertino-based tech giant still thinks that bringing touch to this design doesn’t make much sense. So the 2-in-1 form factor will remain exclusive to the iPad for now in the Apple ecosystem.
But despite this difference, those who want to purchase a high-end laptop often come down to these two models, and the addition or the lack of a touchscreen isn’t always the one that makes customers choose one or another.
It’s actually the hardware that’s available on these two devices.
Microsoft has recently launched the third-generation Surface Book with welcome hardware upgrades, and while all these improvements obviously come in handy for those who want the latest series of Intel chips, more RAM and storage, there’s still room for even more upgrades.
At first glance, this sounds ridiculous, isn’t it? But if you still don’t believe me, check out this top Surface Book vs. MacBook Pro comparison where we put the two devices side by side and looked at what each other has to offer in terms of hardware configurations on the maxed out models.
The price is the first thing that’s living proof there’s a major difference between the two (yes, I know MacBooks are super-expensive devices, but the top configuration costs nearly twice more than the top Surface Book 3).
While I’m not going to discuss the hardware differences again because you can just have a look at the article I linked to above, the MacBook Pro isn’t only the more expensive option, but also the one that offers so much more than the Surface Book 3. Hardware upgrades come at a price, after all, but at least, they are available on the MacBook and anyone who wants to pay for them can just do this.
The top Surface Book 3, on the other hand, comes with very limited options, so for example, customers can’t go higher than 32GB of RAM and 2 TB of storage. As a quick comparison, the MacBook Pro can be equipped with 64 GB of RAM and no less than 8 TB of storage.
So what Microsoft needs is a Surface Book Pro for customers willing to pay for it.
The company needs a model that gets more expensive as more powerful hardware is being added, just like it happens on the MacBook Pro. It’s not a secret that there are people out there who just want to the best configuration available at a possible time, so what’s the point of sending them to another vendor when you can actually provide them with the options they’re looking for at an extra price?
At the end of the day, it’s very clear the top-of-the-range MacBook Pro has almost no rival in the laptop market from a hardware perspective, and this is another reason Microsoft should launch a Surface Book Pro.
The company just needs a hardware monster that comes with more configuration options and let users add more storage, more RAM, more of everything. The price shouldn’t necessarily be a concern as along as it’s not a rip-off, but if customers can upgrade their devices with the best hardware at a certain time, it’s all a win-win for everybody.