Well, the surface has microSD, USB 2.0, Micro HD Video, plus 2×2 MIMO antennae, (none of which the iPad has), which should have added up to make it a bit thicker, instead the RT surface is actually thinner than the iPad.
As for the screen, the Surface has a cleartype HD screen screen (that measures 10.6 inches diagonally, compared to 9.7 inches for the iPad), that comes in the 16:9 aspect ratio, which is more suited to watching video in the widescreen format, compared to an aspect ratio of only 4:3 for the iPad.
If I ever need SD, USB or video out I'll buy the adapters (wife's months of having one has never produced that need). Otherwise I prefer to buy something without the extra baggage. Antenna? Don't know. The WiFi on the iPad is pretty good, better than the Android phones and the iPhone in the house.
instead the RT surface is actually thinner than the iPad.
They managed .01 centimeters thinner, and that only because they don't have to cram in that high-res screen. Any news source that has compared the specs in inches lists the same size rounded to the hundredth because that's a four-thousandth inch difference which gets rounded down.
As for the screen, the Surface has a cleartype HD screen screen (that measures 10.6 inches diagonally, compared to 9.7 inches for the iPad)
ClearType HD is a marketing term, just like Retina. Here's where you probably say "the Surface has ClearType and the iPad doesn't." That's because ClearType is Microsoft's name for an old antialiasing technique for text called subpixes rendering. The iPad doesn't need to anti-alias text because the pixels are already smaller than your eye can resolve at normal viewing distances.
that comes in the 16:9 aspect ratio, which is more suited to watching video in the widescreen format, compared to an aspect ratio of only 4:3 for the iPad.
Great, if that's all you do, but the iPad does a lot more than movies. I've found 16/9 a bit squished otherwise.