Microsoft Surface Pro 6 12.3" 2018, Core i5, 8GB, 256GB, Black

The Surface Pro 6 is a lightweight Windows 2-in-1 with a great screen and solid storage, but the CPU and GPU are near the bottom of our database. It's worth considering only if you find a cheap refurbished unit and need full Windows in a tablet. Otherwise, newer tablets beat it on almost everything.

The Core i5-8250U is a quad-core chip that handles web browsing, Office apps, and streaming without much drama. But our benchmarks put the CPU at the 7th percentile and the GPU at the 13th, so don't expect to edit 4K video or play anything beyond casual games. The 256GB SSD is a bright spot, landing in the 84th percentile for storage, and the screen is also strong at 84th. Battery life sits around average, which for a 5940mAh cell means a full workday is a stretch.

Against the Apple iPad Air M3, the Surface Pro 6 gets smoked on performance and battery. The iPad's M3 chip is in a different league, and iPadOS is smoother for tablet-first use. The Lenovo Yoga Tab Plus and Xiaomi Pad 7 also offer newer processors and better connectivity. But the Surface Pro 6 has one trick none of those match: full Windows 10. If you need desktop apps like full Office or legacy software, this is still the most portable way to get them.

Pricing is all over the place. We saw listings from USD 199 to USD 840 across six US vendors, and that spread matters a lot. At the low end, this is a solid budget Windows tablet for students or casual users. At the high end, you're paying too much for aging hardware. If you're shopping, look for the cheaper renewed or refurbished listings and skip anything near the top of that range.

The Surface Pro 6 is a 2018-era 2-in-1 that still gets the basics right. The 12.3-inch display is sharp, the kickstand and Type Cover combo works well, and the whole thing weighs just 771g. It's a real Windows PC in tablet clothing. But the internals are showing their age. An 8th Gen Core i5 and 8GB of DDR3 RAM put it near the bottom of our database for raw compute, and the integrated graphics are a weak spot for anything beyond light tasks.

Skip this if you need strong performance for video editing, gaming, or heavy multitasking. The CPU and GPU are too weak for that. Also skip it if you want a tablet-first experience with long battery life. An iPad or newer Android tablet will feel much faster and last longer on a charge.

The Surface Pro 6 is for someone who needs a real Windows machine in a tablet form factor and doesn't want to spend much. It's fine for note-taking, web work, and light productivity. Just know you're buying old hardware, and the performance ceiling is low.