Surface Pro 9 5G vs. M2 MacBook Air: Which is better?
Here is a side by side comparison between Surface Pro 9 5G and M2 MacBook Air specs including CPU, RAM, storage, battery, display, and more.
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Surface Pro 9 5G Pros
Reasons that Surface Pro 9 5G is better than M2 MacBook Air.
Surface Pro 9 5G comes with a single removable M.2 SSD slot that you can replace and upgrade in the future.
Slots | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
---|---|---|
M.2 | Yes x1 | Onboard |
Surface Pro 9 5G weighed 1.95 pounds, 28% lighter than the 2.7 pounds M2 MacBook Air.
Weight | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
---|---|---|
Pound | 1.95 lbs. | 2.7 lbs. |
Kilogram | 0.88 kg | 1.22 kg |
Surface Pro 9 5G has more ports and slots count than the M2 MacBook Air. It has six versus four amount of ports and slots on the M2 MacBook Air.
Ports | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
---|---|---|
headphone jack | No | Yes |
MagSafe 3 | No | Yes |
nanoSIM card slot | Yes | No |
SSD slot | Yes | No |
Surface Connect | Yes | No |
Surface Type Cover | Yes | No |
Thunderbolt 3 | No | Yes x2 |
Thunderbolt 4 | Yes x2 | No |
Total | 6 | 4 |
M2 MacBook Air Pros
Reasons that M2 MacBook Air is better than Surface Pro 9 5G.
Apple M2 (8C, 10G) inside M2 MacBook Air has a 85% better multi-core CPU performance score than the Microsoft SQ3 inside Surface Pro 9 5G.
M2 MacBook Air supports a larger memory capacity than the Surface Pro 9 5G. It supports up to 24GB versus 16GB of system memory on the Surface Pro 9 5G.
M2 MacBook Air has better versatile I/O connectivity than the Surface Pro 9 5G. It has two versus one commonly used port and slot on the Surface Pro 9 5G.
Ports | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
---|---|---|
headphone jack | No | Yes |
Thunderbolt 3 | No | Yes |
Thunderbolt 4 | Yes | No |
Prices
Here are the latest price updates and offers for both devices.
Availability | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Released | 2022 | 2022 |
Release Date |
| Announced on June 6, 2022 (WWDC 2022) |
Pricing | Starting at $2,999.99 |
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Applicable Models |
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Generations |
Exterior | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Dimensions | 11.3” x 8.2” x 0.37” (287 mm x 208 mm x 9.3 mm) | 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 in (304.1 x 215 x 11.3 mm) |
Weight | 1.95 lb (883 g) | Starting at 2.7 pounds (1.24 kg) |
Colors | Platinum | Midnight Starlight Space Gray Silver |
Keyboard and Trackpad |
| Backlit Magic Keyboard with:
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Display | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Size | 13 Inches | 13.6 Inches |
Info |
| Liquid Retina display
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Ports | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Left (2)
Right (1)
Bottom (1)
Under Kickstand (2)
| Left (3)
Right (1)
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Internal Specs | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Processor |
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Integrated Graphics |
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Memory | 8GB 16GB 4266 MHz LPDDR4X RAM | 8GB 16GB 24GB unified memory. |
Storage | 128GB 256GB 512GB 1TB Removable SSD. |
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Fans Number | - | - |
Cooling Info | - | Passive |
Connectivity | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Wi-Fi | Wi-Fi 6E: IEEE 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ax compatible. |
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Bluetooth | Bluetooth Wireless 5.1 technology | Bluetooth 5.0 wireless technology |
Wireless WAN |
| - |
Battery | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Size |
| 52.6 Wh lithium‑polymer battery |
Battery Life | Up to 19 hours of typical device usage |
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Power Supply |
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Software | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
OS | Consumer models
| Shipped with macOS Monterey |
Built-in Apps |
| Photos iMovie GarageBand Pages Numbers Keynote Siri Safari Mail FaceTime Messages Maps News Stocks Home Voice Memos Notes Calendar Contacts Reminders Photo Booth Preview Music Podcasts TV Books App Store Time Machine Find My QuickTime Player |
Camera & Audio | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Camera |
| 1080p FaceTime HD camera. Advanced image signal processor with computational video. |
Audio |
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Misc | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
Inking |
| - |
Sensors |
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Security |
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In the box |
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Warranty | 1-year limited hardware warranty | One-year limited warranty. |
More | - | Video Support
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Key Features | Surface Pro 9 5G | M2 MacBook Air |
At Glance |
Comparison Summary
Microsoft has released the Surface Pro 9 5G, a 13-inch machine, in late-2022. It is powered by an octa-core Microsoft SQ3. The laptop has an integrated graphics option up to Microsoft® SQ3™ Adreno™ 8cx Gen 3 GPU (N/A).
On the other hand, we have the 13.6-inch M2 MacBook Air was introduced by Apple around the same year in mid-2022. It comes with up to an octa-core Apple M2 (8C, 10G) with a boost clock speed up to 3.48 GHz. It has an integrated graphics option up to Apple M2 iGPU (10 GPU Cores, 16 Neural Engine Cores).
Geekbench 5 Single Core
Geekbench 5 Multi Core
The Surface Pro 9 5G has a 13-inch display which is slightly smaller than the 13.6-inch M2 MacBook Air. In addition, The Surface Pro 9 5G weighs 1.95 lbs. about 38% lighter than the 2.7 lbs. M2 MacBook Air. Moreover, measured at 11.3” x 8.2” x 0.37”, the Surface Pro 9 5G is considerably more portable than the M2 MacBook Air at 11.97” x 8.46” x 0.44”.
There are a toal number of 6 ports and slots available on Surface Pro 9 5G. That includes a Thunderbolt 4 port, a Surface Connect, a Surface Type Cover, a nanoSIM card slot, and an SSD slot. With that said, it has two ports and slots more than the M2 MacBook Air that has two Thunderbolt 3 ports, a MagSafe 3, and a headphone jack.
Moving over to upgradability, Microsoft claims that the Surface Pro 9 5G supports up to 16GB 4266 MHz LPDDR4X memory. However, it has an onboard memory module that is not upgradable by the users. Fortunately, it comes with a single removable M.2 SSD slot that users can replace and upgrade in the future.
For M2 MacBook Air, it supports up to 24GB Unified memory. Like Surface Pro 9 5G, it has an onboard memory module that is not upgradable by the users. Furthermore, it also has an integrated storage module and has no M.2 slots for replacement.
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