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- The Microsoft Surface line up is really starting
to come into it's own in my opinion.
No longer making giant changes,
they're focusing more on refining the products
and paying more attention to the little details.
And I, for one, am excited about that fact.
The new Surface Pro is no exception to this new ideology.
So much so, that you'd be hard pressed
to tell the difference between it
and the Surface Pro 4 that it's succeeding.
On the outside, they look identical, basically.
But don't be fooled by this.
The Surface Pro, which no longer has numbers by the way,
it's not the five, it's just the Surface Pro,
is not that similar to the Surface Pro 4.
There's a lot of little changes that in my opinion,
make a big difference.
Now I recently did a video
where I interrogated a Microsoft rep
to tell me all of the subtle changes
that were made to the Surface Pro 5,
comparing it to the Surface Pro 4.
If you want that video,
you can click the link below
to be taken to that.
But in this, let's talk about the Surface Pro as a whole.
First up, the design,
which again, hasn't changed much at a glance.
It still has the same basic form factor,
with a large display that connects via magnets
to a thin type cover, not included by the way.
And with a kickstand around the back.
It's with this kickstand that the subtle changes start.
This time it folds a lot further down,
which makes drawing on the screen with a pen,
also not included, way more natural.
Then we have the edges,
which are a bit more curved
and small things like the cooling vents
on the inside are painted to match the rest of the shell,
making them just a bit less noticeable.
Speaking of the cooling vents,
Microsoft's added a lot of copper into this little guy.
So much so that they actually redesigned
basically the entire interior of the device.
All of that means the device runs a lot cooler.
To the point where the i5 models
don't actually have fans at all.
And the i7 model which I have here,
has fans, but I've never once heard them turn on.
On the front of the device
we have the same three by two aspect ratio,
12.3 inch pixel sense touchscreen
with a resolution of 2736 by 1824,
and a few more subtle changes to the coloring.
Namely, the front facing cameras
are now colored black to blend in with the bezel.
Those cameras by the way,
allow you to use Window's Hello's facial recognition,
which I find works pretty well for the most part.
And at least even more so,
once you do the improve recognition option
a couple of times.
The device has two stereo speakers,
one on either side of the screen,
and they sound good.
Nothing mind-blowingly great,
but pretty good.
Watching movies and listening music is all pretty decent.
It just is not quite as rich as some of the other speakers
that I've used on similar laptops.
(movie plays on speaker)
Microsoft is now marketing this guy as a laptop.
Gone are the days of the tablet that can replace your laptop
and more so we're doing the most versatile laptop
as the new mantra.
Which, if we're being honest, is the way
that most people are gonna use this device anyway.
Windows, even in tablet mode,
still feels very much to me like you can only use it
for basic things before wanting
to just take out the keyboard and mouse anyway.
It's this concept of it being
a super portable touchscreen laptop
that I actually appreciate it for
and actually think it's smarter
for Microsoft to view it that way as well.
The only issue I have with this new marketing pivot
is the fact that this laptop
doesn't include a keyboard and trackpad,
making it, well,
not a laptop until you buy that separately.
The type pad is available in a standard model for 129
or the Alcantara fabric covered signature model for 159.
I have the signature type cover
in the Alcantara blue that I like so much,
but it also comes in burgundy and platinum.
And I have to admit,
they do add a nice touch to the very minimalistic laptop
that I appreciate.
The typing on these covers is pretty great.
The keys have a good click to them,
and albeit are a little louder
than most keyboards I've used.
Especially because you know,
I type with purpose.
The trackpad is nice glass one
and a precision trackpad thankfully,
which I went over in my Huawei MateBook X review
as to why you want that and why it's so important.
But suffice it to say,
that it's just a much more responsive trackpad
and it can use gestures built in to Windows,
which trust me, you want.
The keyboard is also backlit,
and can fold back against the device
which causes it to automatically disable itself,
which is clever,
so you don't have to worry about it
typing random letters while you draw.
Speaking of drawing on the device,
one of the biggest draws of this new device
is that you can use the new Surface Pen.
The new pen, launched alongside the Surface Pro,
has four times as many pressure points as the old pen
and the ability to tilt to the side to get shading
like you would from a real pencil, for example.
Now I'm not much of an artist,
but I can tell you that using this pen
compared to the old one,
it is a lot more responsive.
Now, like the keyboard, the pen is an optional accessory.
Now, unlike the keyboard and the trackpad,
which I feel like if you're gonna call this a laptop,
you kinda have to give with it or something,
the pen is something that I don't use that often,
although I like it a lot.
So it makes a little more sense
for that to actually be an optional accessory.
It is 99 dollars by the way,
and I do recommend maybe trying it out,
because it is pretty novel and fun.
The portable device might seem a little dated
compared to all the new devices coming out.
There's no USB-C, there's a proprietary charging port, etc.
But, for Microsoft, for better or for worse,
they are a bit beholden to their legacy users
and they don't want to come out with a device
that will then alienate those people
that have all of the peripherals already.
So on the device we have the same ports
as the last two Surface Pro devices.
A USB 3.0 port, a mini display port,
and a micro SD card slot.
Now, let's talk performance.
The Surface Pro comes in a few different configurations
with different SSD sizes,
but the power differences are either
the m3 Intel processor with 4 gigs of RAM
and an Intel HD 615 GPU,
the i5 with four or eight gigs of RAM
and an Intel 620,
or the i7 with eight or 16 gigs of RAM,
and an Intel Iris Plus 640.
Now none of these configurations would I call
a gaming or editing laptop by any means.
But it does handle basic photo editing
and some footage in Premiere if it's not too taxing.
And of course, it can handle a ton of Chrome tabs
and other normal usage just fine.
Since we all love benchmarks,
here's a quick look at how my i7, 16 gig model
did on Geekbench for you to compare
against other laptops in the price range.
Which then brings us to one of the big changes,
battery life.
In my opinion, if you want a super light portable laptop
that doesn't have a crazy GPU inside,
it better last all day.
Thanks to those internal changes
Microsoft made to the laptop,
a bigger battery, and the more power efficient CPU
made this model do just that for me.
Not quite as long as the Huawei Matebook X I just reviewed,
but plenty of power to be out all day working
without having to worry about needing a plug.
The Surface Pro comes in six configuration options,
from the lowest tier to m3 processor
with four gigs of ram, 128 gig SSD,
an Intel HD 615 GPU for 799,
to the top tier i7 processor,
16 gigs of ram, one terabyte SSD,
an Intel Iris Plus 640 for 2699.
Now personally, I would probably knock off the two models
on either end of the spectrum.
The m3 core option
is just not gonna have that much performance
even compared to the very next level up.
So I would probably recommend just skipping that
and at least going for the next tier up.
And then the very top model
with the one terabyte SSD
is an extra $500 just for the 512 gigs extra storage
than the next model down.
And honestly for that, that's a lot of money
just for the convenience of being internally integrated.
You could, for example,
get a pretty fast external RAID Zero Rugged LaCie
four terabyte hard drive for $370
if you just need more storage
and don't care about it being inside the laptop.
And again, your best bet is probably
somewhere in the middle.
Just keep in mind the extra money
for the keyboard, and also the pen if you want that as well.
Overall, it's not a cheap laptop.
But it's also not like a super powerful gaming one either.
It's just pretty squarely in this
new genre of 2-in-1 devices that honestly,
what it really comes down to is,
are you going to be using it in
all of the different configurations
that that form factor allows,
as a tablet, laying down and using it with the pen,
and as a normal laptop?
If the answer is yes to all of that,
then there isn't a very large 2-in-1 pool to choose from.
And frankly, Microsoft with their focus on refinement
and their new confidence in the way
that this laptop should be used,
kind of sets the gold standard, in my opinion.
So now if you're look at 2-in-1s,
the latest Surface Pro is a more refined
and more functional take.
And frankly, it's probably what the 2-in-1 genre
should actually be.
There guys, a review of the Surface Pro.
Let me know in the comments below
what you guys think of the Surface Pro,
of me doing these reviews,
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