"Microsoft's Surface 2 became available for purchase at retail earlier this week and we've had an eval unit in-hand for testing since the day before launch. Powered by NVIDIA's new quad-core Tegra 4 SoC, and driven by Windows 8.1 RT, the Surface 2 offers stiff competition to the recently announced iPad Air. From a total package perspective, Microsoft throws in a 200GB of SkyDrive cloud storage, free Skype landline calling for 2 years and 1 year of all you can eat Skype WiFi at available hot spots. So you get all that, for $150 less (comparable 32GB Surface 2 pricing at $449) than an iPad Air at $599. The new iPad has its super high res Retina display (and a 64-bit A7 processor), which no doubt packs the pixels versus the Surface 2's 1920X1080 ClearType HD panel, but in a 10-inch tablet are you really going to notice it that much? Regardless, between Surface 2, the Nexus 7 and the new iPad Air, there are a plethora of great tablet options available this Q4 shopping season."
