The Galaxy Tab S 10.5 from Samsung has triumphantly soared in 2014 and has also succesfully taken on powerful tablets like the iPad Air2, but now, it has to deal with the new tablet/laptop hybrid Microsoft released, called the Surface 3. Here is how the two devices compare.

Design

The Galaxy Tab S 10.5 is much lighter than the Surface 3 and the main reason for this is because the device from Samsung has a plastic body while its competitor has been crafted from Magnesium. The Surface 3, on the other hand, is taller, broader and thicker than the Galaxy Tab S 10.5. In terms of color options, the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 comes in bronze and white while the Surface 3 only comes in silver. The Surface 3 has a dedicated Type Cover keyboard and pen, although they have to be bought separately. A big difference between the two devices is that the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 has a finger print scanner which is not present on the Surface 3. Moreover, the device from Microsoft has a kickstand which can be adjusted into three positions.

Display

The IPS LCD display on the Surface 3 measures 10.8 inches and has a resolution of 1920 x 1280 pixels and a density of 214 pixels per inch while the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 uses a super AMOLED display measuring 10.5 inches with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels and a density of 288 pixels per inch.

Specs

The Surface 3 has better hardware as it was designed to be a laptop/tablet hybrid. It comes with an Intel Atom x7-Z8700 processor with four cores that is clocked at 1.6 GHz. As for the Galaxy Tab S 10.5, it makes use of an Exynos 5 Octa 5420 chipset, an octa-core CPU comprised of four Cortex-A15 cores clocked at 1.9 GHz, four Cortex-A7 cores clocked at 1.3 GHz and a Mali-T628 MP6 GPU.

Memory

Both devices come with memory slots which allow for the expansion of external storage. As for internal memory, the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 either has 16 or 32 GB, while the Surface 3 has 64 or 128 GB. In terms of RAM, the Surface 3 has either 2 GB or 4 GB and the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 has 3 GB.

Price

The 16 GB model of the Galaxy Tab S 10.5 is priced at $500 while the 64 GB Surface 3 costs the same without the type cover and pen.