- Hey guys, this is Austin.
This is the new Surface laptop.
Is it worth it?
A big shout out to Microsoft for hooking us up
with this Surface laptop early.
Now this is not a sponsored video,
but they're cool enough to let us take a look
at it before it actually goes on sale.
So this is the mid-spec model.
What I'm really curious to find out
is what is a Surface laptop like to use?
So Microsoft has been making Surfaces for quite a while,
but they've definitely never done a laptop quite like this.
There's the Surface Pro, which is much more like a tablet.
And there's the Surface Book, which is kind of a laptop
but it also is detachable and its a little bit unwieldy
whereas this is a proper, honest-to-goodness laptop.
Did I just say honest-to-goodness?
Inside we get the power adaptor.
So what's cool about this one,
and something that actually I think
that more people should do,
is it actually has a USB port on the adaptor.
So not only can you charge your Surface,
but you can also plug something like your phone in.
This, is the laptop itself.
My first impression of the Surface laptop
is that this feels like a really high end piece of hardware.
So unlike previous Surfaces,
which were made out of magnesium,
this is all aluminum and it feels awesome.
On top of that when you look on the inside,
you'll see that instead of having a metal cover
for the keyboard, it's actually lined
in this Alcantara fabric finish.
What this allows Microsoft to do
is offer some really cool looking colors.
So this is burgundy, and I've gotta say,
it looks like no other laptop I've ever tried.
So on the inside, you still get that same Alcantara,
but in the red, it really does pop.
This Alcantara finish does feel nice,
but I'm curious how it will hold up
over a few months or years of use.
I can definitely imagine with your palms sitting
on the rest all the time that maybe it could
get a little bit stained or dirty.
Now that's not a huge problem
with the Surface Pro 4 keyboard,
which of course you can just take off
and replace with something else,
whereas with something like this, it's pretty much stuck on.
I don't think there's any way of taking that...
Nah, it's definitely not coming off there.
For comparison, I've been spending a lot of time
with the LG gram lately.
Now this is a very lightweight laptop
which is nice in that definitely not the case
with the Surface laptop.
Now that's not exactly a huge downside.
That extra heft does make this feel
like a very premium product,
but also is going to weigh a bit extra in your bag.
One slight issue with the Surface hardware are the ports.
So on the right side, all we have is the magnetic
Surface connector, which is mostly used for charging
or dropping it on the dock.
But on the other side, the only other ports we have
are a headphone jack, mini DisplayPort, as well as USB3.
There's no USBC, there's no thunderbolt,
and there's only that single USB port.
It would be nice if there was a little bit more.
Especially on a high end laptop like this.
The big elephant in the room with the Surface laptop
though is Windows 10 S.
Unlike the full standard version of Windows 10
that most laptops come with,
this guy is running the S edition.
Now what this means is that it cannot run any apps
that are not from inside the Windows Store.
However, say you wanna download some third party app
such as Google Chrome, too bad,
it's not going to be in the store.
To be fair, there are a fair few apps
that are available in the store,
such as Netflix, Facebook and VLC,
but the issue is, say you need to install some
weird piece of hardware that needs a program to set it up.
Well, that wouldn't work on Windows 10 S,
unless that driver's going to automatically install
once you plug the device in, you're out of luck.
Now I get the general idea of
having Windows 10 S as an option.
So say you're going to be buying a budget laptop
and to save a few bucks, they decide
to use the S version instead of Windows 10.
Same thing goes for say if you're at school
and you want to make sure that the kids
aren't installing random malware.exe,
that's fine, that's great.
However, this is a $1300 laptop,
and the idea that I can't even install Google Chrome
on it is a big issue.
The good news is you can upgrade the Surface laptop
to full Windows 10 Pro for free.
The only problem is, you can only do
that until the end of the year.
After that, it will cost you $50 to do.
The good thing is the upgrade from 10 S to Pro
actually only took about three minutes.
And now we have the full copy of Windows on the laptop.
Inside, the Surface laptop has fairly standard specs.
So this is the mid-tier version,
which will run you $1299, and for that,
you get a seventh generation Core i5 processor,
eight gigabytes of memory, as well as a 256 gig SSD.
I feel like I'm going to keep making this comparison,
but that's literally the exact same spec
as you get with the LG gram,
which coincidentally costs a couple hundred dollars less.
This guy is rocking a 13.5 inch display
with a weird resolution of 2256 by 1504.
What that means is, it actually is a really nice display.
Not only is it sharp, it has really nice color,
contrast, viewing angles, all the standard stuff
and to top it all off, it's a touch screen.
Hey guys, this is Austin.
My voice might be gone, but what isn't is the MacBook Air.
What also isn't are the speakers.
This actually sounds pretty good.
The keyboard also is pretty solid.
So it does feel very similar to what you would find
on the Surface Pro 4 Type Cover,
but that's not really a bad thing.
Now with a Windows 10 laptop,
generally I wanna use the touch screen
more than the trackpad, but as far as Windows trackpads go,
I don't really have a lot to complain about at all here.
Alright, so we are up and running with Overwatch.
Now this is definitely not a gaming PC,
but you can play some lighter titles.
And here we're running at 900p on low and it is usable.
However, luckily we have a professional
MLG Overwatch player, named Savage Kenny.
- The frame rate is,
not ideal, I mean we're hitting frame rates
that are definitely usable.
But if you're especially taking Overwatch very seriously,
I find it really hard to like what I'm getting
out of this laptop.
Oh my god.
- Once you upgrade Windows 10 S, the Surface laptop
is a solid piece of hardware.
However the value is just a little bit hard to justify.
Don't get me wrong, this is a terrific laptop,
but for the price, you're definitely paying
a little bit extra for that nice build quality
and for that terrific screen.
So, what do you guys think about the Surface laptop?
Let me know in the comments below
and I will catch you in the next one.