There has been a steady series of commercials Microsoft has been rolling out to market its Surface Pro laptops. And in its latest attempt, it has managed to call the MacBook as useful as “a hat for your cat”.
Remember those old commercials of Apple that featured Apple as being a young, hip, cooler dude going through life like it was a breeze, and then they showed Microsoft as an older, stumbling man. Apple released quite a few of them back then, and it was widely appreciated. Well, this is kind of a payback. And Microsoft took all liberties with it in order to one-up itself against Apple.
A new ad from Microsoft’s pits its new Surface Pro 4 tablet against Apple’s MacBook (photo: Microsoft)
In its latest ad, Microsoft shows off the Surface Pro 4’s touch-based features and suggests that the MacBook can’t possibly do the same things the Surface can – like write on the screen, doodle, fold the device, detach it from the keyboard and so on, while the MacBook is simply “slower, heavier and a bit square”. Earlier in the month, Microsoft released another ad, featuring Cortana v/s Siri, claiming that Cortana is far more superior than its Apple counterpart.
The musical number that accompanies the ad does away with the comparison of the two devices. But on paper, the Surface Pro 4 and the MacBook Air are almost identical, with both offering 128 GB variants, 4 GB RAM and a slightly similar Intel Core chipset inside. The Surface Pro 4 does come with additional features like touchscreen technology and is a detachable system as mentioned above. One will also get a stylus with their Surface Pro 4. The MacBook Air isn’t quite far behind on performance either, but doesn’t manage to pull off the extra bit of portability and functionality that the Surface Pro 4 has going for itself. Even both their price-points aren’t that different.
That aside, quality in software and hardware does lend itself to Apple. And when it comes to real-world usage, the MacBook Air can take quite the load on itself. If portability and functionality is a factor, then the Windows-powered Surface Pro 4 should be the right buy. In terms of usability and reliability, the MacBook Air has proven to be a favourite.
It is evident as to who Microsoft is trying to target – the student audience, and that’s a big chunk of the market. When the new Surface 2 will be announced, it promises a new hinge design, with hopefully newer, refreshed internals.
As far as the scoreboard is concerned, considering Apple’s past campaigns against Microsoft, it’s safe to say that the scores are tied 1 – 1.