Microsoft Surface Pro 4 vs. MacBook Air: How Do They Compare?

Microsoft raised a fair amount of eyebrows yesterday when it claimed that the new Surface Pro 4 is 50 percent faster than Apple's latest 13-inch MacBook Air.

We'll have to wait for a judgment on that until we get the new Surface Pro 4 into PC Labs for testing, but until then, let's see how they compare, spec-wise.

When it comes to the display, Apple's MacBook Air is no slouch. It has a 13.3-inch non-touch and non-Retina display, with a 1,440-by-900 resolution. In contrast, the Surface Pro 4 has a beastly 2,736-by-1,824-resolution touch display that's protected by the latest Corning Gorilla Glass 4.

The two systems have pretty similar dimensions. The MacBook Air 13-inch is incredibly thin, tapering from 0.68 inches at the back to 0.11 at the front of the system. The Surface Pro 4 is 0.33 inches thick, which bests the Surface Pro 3. Otherwise, an open MacBook Air has a height of 8.94 inches and a width of 12.8 inches, whereas the Surface Pro 4 in Portrait mode measures 11.5 inches high and 7.93 inches wide.

The Surface Pro 4 is outfitted with several ports, including a USB 3.0 port, a microSD card reader, and a Mini Display Port. The MacBook Air 13-inch has a few more ports, with two USB 3.0 connections, an SDXC card slot, and a Thunderbolt 2 port.

On the inside, the MacBook has Intel's Core i5-5250U processor, but that's the last generation. The Surface Pro 4 has Intel's new Skylake CPUs, and they're blazing fast, with Core m3, Core i5, and Core i7 configurations available. We have yet to test the Surface Pro 4's graphics and processing capabilities, but with what we saw at the Microsoft event, we wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft's claim of beating the MacBook Air's speed by 50 percent is true. Both the MacBook Air 13-inch and the Surface Pro 4 run their respective company's latest software: OS X El Capitan and Windows 10, respectively.

The Surface Pro 4 comes in many configurations, from the different processors to the storage options (128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB). The MacBook Air, true to Apple form, comes in two: 128GB and 256GB options (though you can configure the MacBook Air with other options when you order).

One area where the MacBook Air might potentially have the edge over the Surface Pro 4 is battery life. Microsoft claims that the Surface Pro 4 can get up to 9 hours of battery life. In our testing, the MacBook Air 13-inch smoked the competition with 17 hours.

Beyond internals and performance, the Surface Pro 4 and the MacBook Air 13-inch is sort of an apples-to-oranges comparison. The Surface Pro 4 is a full-functioning hybrid tablet with detachable keyboard, touch screen, and updated stylus running the latest Windows software. The MacBook Air 13-inch is an incredibly reliable personal Apple computer. If we were betting on which would be better for enterprise purposes, the Surface Pro 4 may have an edge, but stay tuned for our full review.