On October 6th, 2015, Microsoft announced two new Windows 10 members with the Surface Book and the Surface Pro 4. Clearly, these new portable PCs are designed to compete with Apple's portable MacBook Pro, but this how the products compare, as far as the technical specifications and price are concerned.
Let's start with the MacBook Pro. According to the official Apple site, the MacBook Pro comes in two forms: the 13.3 inch (2560 x 1600 resolution) and 15.4 inch (2880 x 1800 resolution). Each of them have the same Apple Retina display, but differ in terms of processors.
The 13.3 inch has a 2.7 GHz or 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo boost up to 3.1 GHz or 3.3 GHz) with 3MB shared L3 cache, while the 15.4 inch model has a 2.2 GHz or 2.5 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz or 3.7 GHz) with 6MB share L3 cache.
The screen size is affected by the amount of memory. The 13.3 inch versions have 8 GB of 1866MHz LPDDR3 onboard memory that is configurable to 16 GB, while the 15.4 inch versions have 16 GB of 1600MHz DDR3L onboard memory. They also differ in the amount of PCle-based flash storage, which affects the price. The 13.3 inch has options of 128 GB, 256 GB, and 512GB, with respective prices on the Apple site at $1299, $1499, and $1799. The 15.4 has 256 GB for $1999 and 512 GB for $2499.
As for the Surface Pro 4 and Surface Book, they are separate products, so the technical specifications will be examined separately.
The Surface Pro 4 has a 12.3 inch PixelSense touchscreen display. The price varies depending on the model. 128 GB with Intel Core m3 and 4GB of RAM costs $899, 256 GB with Intel Core i5 and 8GB RAM costs $1,299, 256 GB with Intel Core i5 and 16 GB of RAM costs $1499, and 256 GB with Intel Core i7 and 8GB of RAM costs $1599. There are options of customization as well on the Surface Pro site.
The Surface Pro 4 has weight going for it as it is light at 1.73 pounds (786g). The 13.3 inch MacBook Pro weighs 3.48 pounds (1.58 kg) and the 15.4 inch version weighs at 4.49 pounds (2.04 kg). The Surface Pro 4 also has that detachable keyboard and a Surface Pen. The battery life is about 9 hours, while the MacBook Pros boast up to 10 hours of wireless web on the 13.3 inch model only, while the 15.4 inch version is about the same amount.
As for the Surface Book, it has a 13.5 inch PixelSense touchscreen display good for 3000 x 2000 resolution. The price difference is dependent on the model: $1499 for 128 GB/Core Intel i5 with 8 GB, $1699 for 256GB/Core Intel i5 with 8GB, $1899 for 256 GB/Core Intel i5 with 8 GB/dGPU, $2099 for 256 GB/Core Intel i7 with 8 GB/dGPU, and $2699 for 512 GB/Core Intel i7 with 16 GB/dGPU. It also has the detachable pen and keyboard, but is a bit heavier at 3.48 pounds (1576 g), and more information can be found on the Surface Book site.
This should be enough for any consumer to decide to go Mac or PC as far as the technical specs are concerned. The issue is that the Surface Pro 4 won't be available for shipping until November 20, and the Surface Book not available until October 26th.
