One is a water- and dust-resistant, wafer-thin slate of a device running a skinned build of Google’s Android at the troublesome 10.1″ screen size. The other is a magnesium-coated transformer with a folding keyboard and an OS that’s taken its share of heat too: Microsoft’s Windows RT. These tablets don’t have much in common, but they do share space on the retail shelves of the world as the high-end representatives of their respective tablet ecosystems. So it’s time to put Sony up against Microsoft; it’s time for the Xperia Tablet Z vs Surface RT video comparison.

Tune in as we take you on a tour of the differences between these beasts. We’ll run you through construction, in-hand feel, hardware utility, and battery life, stopping to dwell a bit on UI differences before diving into a camera test (spoiler alert: they’re both underwhelming offerings, optically speaking). We’ll talk apps, ecosystems, batteries, and just how many pixels per inch is enough. And we’ll tell you just how highly we think of kickstands.

All that and much more in the video below! So press play, kick back, and apply the knowledge directly into your eyeballs: you’ve got $500 for a tablet, and we’re gonna tell you which one you should spend it on. Sort of. Maybe. To a degree. But ultimately, we’re all winners here, right?

… right?