Many students and teachers rely on technology every day. Teachers frequently prepare lesson plans; students use apps and multimedia for learning; and both groups regularly share messages and files. With so many aspects of education riding on modern technology, devices need to be held accountable for performance in the same way that the students and teachers who use them are.

To find out which device offers the better learning experience for middle-school and high-school students, our team at Prowess Consulting put two devices to the test: the Intel® processor–powered Microsoft® Surface™ 3, running Windows® 10, and the Apple® iPad® 2, powered by an Apple® A5 processor. Additionally, in order to discover which tablet delivered a richer experience for teachers, we tested a Microsoft Surface Pro 4, running Windows 10, against the Apple® iPad Pro™.

We ran the student devices through two typical classroom scenarios, one for middle school and another for high school. For the teacher devices, we devised a typical lesson-planning scenario. In each scenario, and in nearly every task, the 2-in-1 Microsoft Surface devices outperformed the iPad devices by offering the following benefits to both students and teachers:

• Faster load times to increase learning time
• Smooth group collaboration with tools that work together
• Seamless workows that save time for teachers