Customers wishing to shop for a tablet before the holiday season begins, have many tablets to choose from. Here is a specs face off between the newly launched Microsoft Surface 2 and the Apple flagship tablet - iPad4.

Display:

In terms of display, the Microsoft Surface 2 is a slightly bigger tablet; it comes with 10.6 inch ClearType Full HD screen with 1920 x 1080p resolution. The screen is 5 point multi-touch. The iPad 4 on the other hand comes with a 9.7 inch capacitive touch screen with 1536 x 2048 pixels resolution.

Design:

In terms of body design and size the Microsoft Surface 2 has the following dimensions 274 x 171 x 8.9 mm. It weighs less than 680 grams. The iPad 4 has the following dimensions 241.2 x 185.7 x 9.4 mm. It weighs about 662 grams.

Computing Power:

The Surface 2 comes with NVIDIA Tegra 4 (T40) 1.74 GHz Quad core processor with 2 GB RAM. The iPad 4 comes with a Dual core 1.4 GHz processor with the A6X chipset; it comes with a 1 GB RAM.

Operating System:

The Surface 2 runs on the Windows RT 8.1 operating system, where as the Apple iPad 4 runs on the iOS 6, which can be upgraded to the iOS 6.1.3 or the recently launched iOS 7. Apps for both the devices can be downloaded from Windows Store and the Apple iTunes Store respectively.

Camera:

The primary camera on the Surface 2 is 5 MP and the front facing secondary camera is 3.5 MP; the camera allows 1080p video capture and the device comes with stereo speakers and two microphones. The iPad 4 comes with a 5 MP primary camera and a 1.2 MP secondary camera; the features include auto focus and face detection.

Battery:

The battery on the Surface 2 allows video playback of up to 10 hours or 7 to 15 days idle life. The iPad 4 comes with a non-removable Li-Po 11.560 mAh battery which has a standby of up to 720 hours and the cellular version offers a talk time of up to 9 hours.

Variants and Price:

The Surface 2 is offered in 32 GB and 64 GB variants. The iPad 4 comes in 16, 32, 64 and 128 GB variants. The Surface 2 32 GB variant and 64 GB variant will be available for about $449 and $549 respectively. The iPad 4 32 GB is priced at about $599 in the U.S. The Surface 2 will go on sale from Oct 22.

For those who are fans of Apple, and do not wish to consider the Surface 2, the iPad 5 is just around the corner. Click here to read the latest rumours about the iPad 5.