Microsoft Surface Pro 3 has topped tablet speed race conducted by Which? beating one of the best selling tablets – Apple iPad Air 2. This, Which? says, is contrary to Apple’s claims that its flagship full-sized tablet is “as powerful as many personal computers”.
Which? tested tablets’ speed using industry-recognised Geekbench software, which is known to put tablets’ processors through their paces by seeing how quickly they can complete simulations of real-world tasks. As with any other performance measuring software, Geekbench tags a a final numeric score to each of the tablets – the bigger the score, the faster the tablet.
According to the tests performed by Which? using Geekbench, Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3 is 20 per cent faster than any of its rivals with a score of 5069, which include flagship tablets from the likes of Apple, Google and Amazon.
Apple iPad Air 2 scored 4046 followed by Google Nexus 9, which was placed third, with a score of 3537. Amazon Kindle Fire HDX 8.9 2014 came in fourth while the top 5 tally was completed by Apple iPad Air 32GB Wi-Fi.
Elsewhere, Samsung’s tablets are way off the pace – the Galaxy Tab Pro 10.1 is down in sixth place with a score of 2650, and only around half the speed of the Surface Pro 3.
Which? noted that its results in the compact tablet market segment weren’t much better for Apple as its £319 iPad mini 3 proved slower than Tesco’s budget-friendly Hudl 2, which costs only £99.
The Apple iPad mini 3 brings up the rear – it’s almost three times slower than the Surface Pro 3. That’s not necessarily surprising for a compact tablet. But it’s more shocking to discover that it can’t even keep up with two of its 7-inch competitors, the Asus MEMO Pad 7 ME572C and Tesco Hudl 2.
According to Which? Microsoft Surface Pro 3 is the closest that any tablet currently comes to a PC as far as power is concerned and the primary reason behind this is the tablet’s ultra-powerful Intel Core i5 processor.
However, Which? is quick to point out that speed of tablets isn’t everything as even cheaper devices like the Hudl 2 have enough oomph to ably flit between BBC iPlayer and your web browsing app. Which? noted that for their tests, they also checked whether a tablet can apply its Geekbench score in practical scenarios such as video streaming from YouTube and transferring large amounts of data.
In its opinion, the very best tablets combine rapid processing with a long-lasting battery, simplicity of use and a dazzling screen.
