On October 26, Microsoft will be taking the wraps of its Surface RT tablet, giving the Redmond company its own answer to Apple’s third-generation “new” iPad with Retina Display. As we already know the specifications of the Surface RT, we shall examine both tablets and see whether Microsoft does stand a chance against the market-dominating iPad.

In terms of processing power, the Surface RT has the new iPad beaten – the former tablet has a quad-core Nvidia Tegra 3 processor and the latter an A5X dual-core. The A5X is faster than the previous A5 processor, but it still doesn’t hold a candle to the ever-reliable and powerful Tegra 3 of the Surface.

The Surface RT also has more RAM at 2 GB compared to the iPad’s 1 GB. And being a tablet mainly for the business crowd, the Surface RT has an edge over the iPad’s internal storage – expandable 32 GB and 64 GB versions are available. The new iPad comes in 16, 32 and 64 GB variants, but none of them can be expanded should more storage be needed.

Microsoft offers more colors than Apple for its Surface RT – cyan, red, black, white and magenta flavors are available as opposed to plain old black and white for the iPad.

If there are areas where the iPad may reign supreme, it would be display quality and dimensions. The new iPad’s 9.7-inch Retina Display has pixel resolution of 2,048 x 1536 while the Surface RT’s 10.6-inch screen’s resolution is only 1,366 x 768. Microsoft recently claimed that it will still have the better display, but this was quickly refuted by known display expert Raymond Soneira of DisplayMate.

The new iPad is lighter than the Surface at 1.44 pounds, but not that much – the Surface RT weighs in at 1.5 pounds.

In conclusion, it’s fairly even between both tablets, but we can see through this comparison that Microsoft has a potentially superior product ready to be launched just one week from now.