Sorry to hear your iPad expired, on the surface that may seem like a bad thing but now you can get something new with a shiny new surface. I agree with dweez, newer tablets have a much better screen resolution as well as a bigger, brighter surface area. Good luck with your search.
BTW, have you thought anymore about a new Surface Tablet? ![Grin ;D](https://www.diasfora.co.uk/Smileys/default/grin.gif)
I have both the iPad Air 2 (personally-owned) and a Surface Pro 4 (work-owned). We can BYOD (bring your own device) at work if we want (and often do) but I use the 2 devices for completely different purposes. The iPad I use for "tablet" stuff, i.e. for ebook/comic reading, email, work collaboration (O365, Teams, etc) and apps/games. I use the Surface as a "laptop" mainly, very useful for meetings instead of a clunky laptop and I use it to RDP into my desktop so I have access to all the tools I need to perform my work from wherever I happen to be.
I can't see me fully replacing one with the other, even if the new iPads are nice. I'm a SysAdmin, primarily Windows domain admin, by trade, and there is just so much you can do with a non-native OS.