Double the CPU - no actual user experience improvement - I don't do any serious number crunching, iMovie, iPhoto or anything like that. Only Safari loading is faster but not dramatically.
Double GPU - I think there's only a 40% improvement in GPU actually. And there is 0 user experience improvement here. Games won't really take advantage of it forever and iOS 7 is still laggy.
Weight and size are not a huge reduction with a case on it. It still weighs enough and it's still too big. The bezels should be more in line with the Mini.
So you don't do any serious work yet you're considering a Surface Pro 2? Read zhenya's post because it's spot on. I had and ultimately returned my Surface Pro 2 because of pretty much everything he states. It's a mediocre laptop replacement and terrible tablet--a device full of compromise with an identity crisis. And if you thought the reduction in size from the iPad 4 to the iPad Air was insignificant, you love the brick-like weight/shape of the SP2.
I have a Surface Pro for work, an ipad 4 and ipad Air at home. I really struggle to find a good use for the Surface. It's just not a good laptop replacement (I have perfect vision, and I struggle with the screen in desktop mode). It's an even worse tablet replacement. It's incredibly heavy. 16:9 is just an awkward resolution for a tablet. Battery life is mediocre, and while it resumes from sleep very fast for a Windows device, it's still dog slow by ipad standards.
All that extra horsepower doesn't come into use for the tablet, and despite it, most of the touch apps are buggy and missing features. There is no good browser for touch world. IE can't sync settings from anywhere else, so it's the only device I have where the web browser doesn't keep my settings and bookmarks. Scrolling is nowhere near as smooth as on my ipad, nor is app switching. The only good app I've found so far is One Note, and it's only by the grace of God I haven't lost that stylus yet.
Personally, a great laptop plus an ipad is a far better option. That's why I've ordered a Thinkpad T440s as a replacement.
I'm kind of in the same boat. I returned my iPad Air in favor of keeping my 4 or replacing it a Surface 2 or the Galaxy Note 2014. I think it's an absolute crock that apple would limit the amount of RAM to 1GB.
As I mentioned, I tried out a Surface Pro 2 and returned it. I also test drove a Note 10.1 (2014) for 3 weeks and ultimately returned it as well, in favor of an iPad Air. The Note 10.1 is much better at it's job than the SP2 but still suffers in a few key areas. The hardware, while not a thin, light, and solid feeling as the Air, is a pretty close 2nd. It only weighs about 60 grams more, has an great high-res display and the 'faux leather' actually has a nice soft touch feel that makes it comfortable to hold.
The problems with the Note 10.1 pretty much all involve software. TouchWiz, while an improvement over what I used on the Note II, is still the cartoonish, bloated, laggy mess it's alway been. The My Magazine feature, which has the potential to be great, is the worst culprit of lag, though I found it to varying degrees though out the device. And it's also the poster child for why more RAM isn't alway better. You'd think with 3GB of RAM you'd kiss lag goodbye but TouchWiz is so over bloated and lacking optimization--just turning on the device and opening the App management in Settings would show 1.7-1.8 GB of RAM already in use, before I even got started using anything.
And it may not matter to you but the Note 10.1 also suffers from a bluetooth keyboard connectivity issue--tried 2 different keyboards and both would repeated lose connection every 30-60 seconds. When it did stay connected, would lag horribly. Browse over at XDA or Android Central and you'll see it's unfortunately a common problem in need of a software fix.
App quality is also still an issue on Android tablet. I know it's almost cliche to say so but all it takes is real world comparison to see it. And I'm not talking about obscure apps from small-time developers--Dropbox, Yahoo and ESPN sports, ESPN and Yahoo Fantasy football, Zinio, DirecTV, Weather Channel, Urbanspoon, Open Table, Bank of America, even GMail all offer varying degrees of differences on the iPad vs. Android tablets.
IMO, the Note 10.1 is a generation away from being a great device. If Samsung could just dial back the urge to throw any feature they can think of into their devices and actually focus on optimizing their software, they could have a real hit on their hands.
