Microsoft Surface Pro 3 vs iPad Air 2 comparison: Which is the best next-gen tablet?

The battle between the best tablets in the market is getting hotter.

Microsoft recently released its Surface Pro 3 tablet, while Apple Inc. is said to unveil its newest iPad Air 2 sometime later this year. With two improved tablet offerings from the top tech giants in the world, which will reign supreme?

Here is a quick comparison between the two latest tablets in the market.

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Microsoft Surface Pro 3

The tech firm is proud to describe it as "the tablet that can replace your laptop." Users can enjoy working on a full Windows 8 operating system but in an easy-to-carry format. This, by far, is the largest, thinnest, and most functional tablet offered by Microsoft.

The Surface Pro 3 comes in an 11.5-inch x 7.93-inch x 0.36-inch body and weighs at 1.75 pounds. It also has a 12-inch display with 2160 x 1440 ClearTypeHD at 216 ppi. Under the hood, you can see that Microsoft's tablet has a powerful Haswell Core i5-4300U chipset and works with a 1.9GHz speed, together with Intel HD 4400 GPU as well as an 8GB RAM.

Surface Pro 3 also supports a 5MP 1080p HD front camera as well as a 5MP 1080p HD rear camera.

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Apple iPad Air 2

The newest member of the iPad family is the improved version of last year's iPad Air. Although it is not expected to be available in the market until later this year – and there has yet to be an official announcement from Apple about the device – gadget watchers are saying that it will come out with the latest A8 processor chip and a bigger RAM compared to its predecessors.

Some of the rumored specs of the upcoming iPad Air 2 include the same 9.4-inch x 6.67-inch x 0.30-inch display that the current iPad Air has, but it will have an improved 2048 x 1535 resolution.

Since it will reportedly come in late 2014, the iPad Air 2 will be running with the latest iOS 8 system that supports Apple TouchID features. It will also have a 1.2 MP 720p HD front camera and a 5MP 1080p HD rear camera.

Though it is still too early to say who will be victorious in this tablet battle, it is safe to say that the public wins this time because of the superb options that they have when choosing what device to purchase.

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