Surface Pro vs. Ipad Pro for Assoc
Hey Everyone,
Thinking of grabbing a tablet after a recent bump up to associate (and my bonus). MD recommends grabbing one with 5G connectivity and personally uses an Ipad Pro. Also about time to replace my aged 2012 Macbook Pro from high school.
Our team does a decent amount of traveling and tablets seem to be helpful resources when your work laptop's needed to screenshare in a meeting, laptop dies, etc.
I'm leaning a bit more towards the Surface Pro 9 at the moment but was wondering if anyone else had experiences that pulled them towards an iPad (resale)?
Surface Pro:
- SQ3 Chip for 5G connectivity (can't get connectivity with the i7)
- Ability to actually jump into Excel if needed
- Can add a microSD to increase storage without paying upfront (like Apple)
- Obviously the Microsoft OS is a must in banking
- 19 hour battery life
IPad Pro
- Apple products always impress, and to me seem to have a heavier application suite to utilize
- Recently released XR offers faceID (nice to have)
- Reviews seem to lean towards apple pencil 2 being superior to the surface
- 25% lighter than the Surface
- Apple Pay, Imessage, WiFi Calling
Excel is useless on a tablet
I have an iPad and it gets everything done just fine. For most associate tasks (reviewing PDF/PPT, screenshare, light email) it does the job very well. I don't think apple pay is a huge plus though - what are you buying on your iPad when you have one or even two phones right there? I also don't think a tablet replaces a personal use laptop unless you are someone who rarely uses a personal laptop at all. It's basically an XL mobile phone.
Comment below on this thread re-apple pay more for checking out / ordering something ahead and not needing to type in the Company Amex all the time.
I don't think my old mac gets turned on more than a handful of times a year.
I also use an iPad Pro w/ keyboard case. You’re never going to use excel on a tablet as it’s clunky on either an iPad or Surface.
The Apple Pay comment did make me laugh envisioning you using a massive iPad at a checkout.
I actually just like the linking feature on my phone for say pre-ordering dinner I can check out using apple pay and link straight to my company amex rather than pulling it out and typing in all my details while ordering delivery or something while traveling.
Ah shit I completely forgot about using Apple pay on websites/apps lol, my bad
I have both … surface is great as a lighter laptop alternative but sucks as a tablet … its too heavy, and isn’t built for tablet like interactions (swiping / shuffling / etc.) IPad wins on compactness, note taking, emails and lap stability. But sucks if you have to do something on excel or edits on the fly. Sorry if its not helpful just trying to give you the view from both worlds
Just recently went through this decision and ended up going with the Surface Pro 9 (i7 version). Main reasons:
Also, if I were you, I would go with the i7 version. I’ve been reading that performance is much better with the i7 vs SQ3 even though battery life is not as good. You can always just use the hotspot on your phone if you want to connect to the internet.
This is also where my head was at regarding the PPT ability if you just need to delete a slide, PDF it and send back out.
Thanks for the input on the i7. How much RAM did you go with given its your personal replacement? I'm under the impression I could plug the surface into my HP dock using a USB-C and leverage it just like my work laptop if I wanted to
If just deleting a slide and re-PDFing then maybe an iPad has enough functionality but in my experience, an associate sometimes has to turn comments, make tweaks to excel outputs etc.
I got the 16GB RAM version. It feels like it’s enough for me to do PPT and excel work on the fly but it is only a week old so. Does the docking station have additional RAM? Was never sure
If you Citrix / remote into a work desktop, I think iPad is the move. I use one right now as an ASO and it’s fine as a supplement to my work laptop.
If you’ll actually be planning to work natively within the device (I.e connecting your work email and actually holding files, which I don’t recommend because now it can be seized at any moment), I’d go with a Surface.
Realistically, none of these options should be used for work, but I think the iPad is a solid replacement as my new personal computer (holding all my life’s documents) since I don’t really need to jump into excel or anything in my personal life.
I would check with your IT before buying that it will work with the internal systems. Generally iPad is no problem because all the MDs/Partners use them but another associate bought a Microsoft Surface assuming it'd be fine and it won't integrate with our systems (lol). It's stupid and infuriating but that's just how it goes.
Also, I've found that the security systems are weirdly wonky. for example, on my ipad pro I can pull a PDF from Apple Mail into a pdf editor (a good one I pay for to make life easy), but it won't work with Microsoft Outlook app (can only use system pdf viewer). It's super weird and I don't know the answer but may be worth asking around about ahead of shelling out $1000+
The real anwer is what would you prefer watching YouTube/Netflix on because that is what you will do with it 90% of the time.
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