Apple iPad Air vs. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1: Battle of the Big Tablets

At the Yerba Buena Ceneter for the Arts today, Apple popped the top on a slew of new products. For the desktop ecosystem, Apple released its latest operating system, OS X Mavericks, for free on the Mac App Store. It also updated its Macbook Pro line with Retina display models using Intel's fourth-generation Haswell processors, allowing for increased battery life without sacrificing performance. But on the mobile front, Apple let loose its upgraded duo of iOS-powered tablets: the iPad Air and iPad mini with Retina display.

The 4th-gen iPad will be replaced with the iPad Air, a Retina display-equipped tablet with the same 2,048-by-1,536 resolution as its predecessor. The iPad Air's design has a thinner aluminum unibody chassis, identical to the iPad mini. It measures 9.4 by 6.6 by 0.29 (HWD) inches, shaving more than 0.6 inches off the width and 0.07 inches off the thickness of the previous iPad. It comes in space gray and black or white and silver, the same colors as the recently released iPhone 5s, and is priced at $499 for the 16GB Wi-Fi model, same as before. The iPad Air will be available starting Nov. 1 online and in Apple's retail stores. Unfortunately, gold is not an option.

The brain of the iPad Air is Apple's new A7 chip, which made its debut in the iPhone 5s. That means the 64-bit architecture will be available in the tablet, allowing for twice the speed compared to the previous iPad according to Apple. It also borrows the M7 motion coprocessor, allowing for the collection of motion data while the A7 processor saves power. For more on that, check out Why Launch a 64-Bit iPhone 5S? Think iPads and Macs.

The new iPad Air isn't without competition, however. Samsung's newest large-screen tablet, the Galaxy Note 10.1 ($549) was released in September. It has a slightly larger display, and its built-in stylus has increased in functionality from last year's version of the Note 10.1. But which tablet will give you more bang for your buck? Check out the comparison chart above to see how they stack up.

Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1, true to its name, has a 10.1-inch IPS LCD. It is bigger and has a higher resolution than the iPad Air, with a 2,560-by-1,600-resolution display and 298 pixels per inch, besting Apple's 264 pixels per inch. Samsung also has a built-in IR blaster, capable of controlling cable boxes and HDTVs, even those not made by Samsung.

Apple's iPad Air has a 5-megapixel rear camera in addition to its 1.2-megapixel front-facing FaceTime HD camera. Compare that to Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 and its 8-megapixel rear camera and 2-megapixel front-facing camera. Both capture 1080p and 720p video with their rear- and front-facing cameras, respectively. Megapixel count isn't always an indicator of photo quality, and only testing will determine whose shooter is best.

The Galaxy Note 10.1 ships with 16GB of onboard storage, but has a microSD slot for storage expandability up to 64GB, which bucks Apple's simplistic trend of non-expandable storage. Apple's claim of up to 10 hours of battery life on the iPad Air is a bold one; in our last battery test of the fourth-generation iPad it only lasted 5 hours, 36 minutes at full brightness. With brightness halved it lasted 11 hours. Samsung's Galaxy Note 10.1 trudged on for 7 hours, 31 minutes at full brightness. We'll see how Apple's newest tablet fares compared to Samsung's note-taking one.

Apple's new mobile operating system, iOS 7, may have gotten a visual overhaul and a few new tricks up its sleeve, but Samsung's slew of options for multitasking and its built-in stylus give it the edge in terms of number of features. The Note runs Android 4.3 with Samsung's generous coating of its TouchWiz interface tweaks. The Note's stylus allows for writing and easy note taking on the screen. With Pen Window, Samsung has nailed multitasking, at least compared to the iPad Air.

The case for Apple's dominance may not be increasing, but it certainly isn't going anywhere. The iPad still has the most robust selection of tablet-optimized apps compared to any ecosystem today, and third-party manufacturers are still making more cases accessories for Apple's products than anyone else. But that isn't to say Apple is in the clear. If the competition keeps throwing fresh ideas, a few are bound to stick and chip away at Apple's tablet dominance.

For more, check out PCMag's Hands On With the Apple iPad Air and PCMag Live in the video below, which discusses today's Apple announcements.