Apple and Microsoft recently announced their latest versions for notebook, namely the Apple MacBook Pro 2016 and the Microsoft Surface Book i7, giving consumers a real big choice on how to interact with these devices. However, reports are emerging that a new Surface Book 2 is ready for launch in early 2017. With the information available, we thought of putting the two notebooks head to head, comparing the designs, the build quality, the features and most importantly the tech specs.

Apple introduced the MacBook 2016 with new 13 and 15 inch variants. The 13-inch variants have two models, one basic entry model which has function keys and the other one similar to 15-inch variant has the new Touch Bar and Touch ID features. Microsoft Surface Book 2 is expected to be launched with just one variant. As per Tech Radar, the Surface, Book 2 should have Windows 10 as operating system whereas all the new MacBook Pros runs MacOS Sierra.

From the rumors, it seems like the Surface Book 2 will be taller, wider, denser, and still sleeker than the 13-inch variant of Apple MacBook Pros. However, the same cannot be assured when compared with 15-inch new MacBook Pro .

Similar to the Surface i7 ,the upcoming Surface Book would have better screen resolution than any of the Apple MacBook variants. It  is very much possible that the Microsoft Surface Book 2 could have better battery life than the Apple's latest MacBook Pros.

Coming to hardware, the New Surface Book2 is expected to be powered by the Kaby Lake processors whereas in case of  new MacBook Pros, 13inch MacBook Pro  with function keys is powered by 2GHz dual-core Intel Core i5/2.4 GHz  dual-core Intel core i7 and 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar & Touch ID is powered by 2.9  GHz dual-core Intel core i5/ 3.1 GHz dual core Intel core i5/3.3 GHz dual-core Intel core  i7 and the 15 inch MacBook Pro is powered by  2.6 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7/2.9 GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 as per MacWorld.

Similar to the Surface i7 , the Surface Book 2 could make use of Intel HD graphics/NVIDIA GeForce graphics  whereas the 13 inch MacBook Pros make use of Intel Iris 540 graphics processor and the 15 inch MacBook Pro makes use of the graphics technology used is the Radeon Pro graphics with AMD Polaris architecture.

The Touch support in Surface Book is anticipated to be the Surface Pen, whereas, in the case of the MacBook Pros, touch support is with the help of the Touch IDs which is not available in the basic 13 inch MacBook Pro model.

Having a memory card feature, which is available for the Surface i7 in all probabilities, should be present in the Surface Book 2, which is something MacBook Pros lack.

It seems like Microsoft is focused on more touch or pen-based inputs, whereas Apple is keen on making smaller yet significant tweaks to existing input techniques. The MacBook Pro is a powerful portable machine and with all what we know, the upcoming Surface Book 2 could issue some serious challenge.