(upbeat music)
- Microsoft has been selling Surface Pro models
with basically the same design since 2015.
If you put the last four generations of Surface Pro devices
next to each other, they look basically identical.
But other laptops have gotten significantly nicer looking
during that period of time.
And we've been begging Microsoft for years
to make the Surface Pro look like
a modern flagship computer.
And what do you know, Microsoft finally did it.
This is the Surface Pro 8.
So take a look at the Surface Pro 8
and you're not gonna see a lot of the Surface Pro 7.
What it does look like is the Surface Pro X,
the super thin, super light, and just gorgeous device
that Microsoft released in 2019.
The Pro 8 has the same powerful specs as the Pro 7,
but it borrows a number of physical features from the Pro X.
The result is one heck of a nice computer
and one that I'm glad Microsoft has finally made.
So the biggest thing is borrowed is the screen.
The new Surface Pro 8 has a 2880 by 1920 13 inch display,
which means it's almost an inch bigger than the Pro 7.
Microsoft also made the side bezels much thinner.
Now, the Pro 8 is also meant to function as a tablet.
And you still need something to hold onto
when you're using it as a tablet,
so the top and bottom bezels are still somewhat chunky.
But the clever thing about this design
is that the keyboard cover
actually hides the bottom bezel entirely
when you're using the Pro 8 as a laptop,
so it's really the best of both worlds.
The other new thing about this screen
is that it has a 120 Hertz refresh rate,
meaning the screen can show you up to 120 frames per second.
So this is more common on gaming rigs,
so most productivity and business laptops
have 60 Hertz displays.
But even if you're just doing work in Office and Chrome,
it totally makes a difference.
And once you've used 120 Hertz, you won't wanna go back.
The cursor is nicer to look as you drag it
around the screen, there's less lag when you're writing
with the pen, and the scrolling is so much smoother.
Whether you're blazing through a Google Doc
or a very long Verge article,
it just makes the whole windows experience
slightly nicer to look at,
especially if you're using the touch screen.
Now, the downside of 120 Hertz refresh rate
is that it negatively impacts battery life.
So if you wanna save power,
you can also use the Pro 8 at the regular 60 Hertz rate.
So when I was using the Pro 8
for my standard office workload
with the screen at 60 Hertz,
I was seeing close to eight and a half hours to a charge.
Well, I was only getting around seven
with the screen at 120 Hertz.
Windows 11 is supposed to have a feature
called dynamic refresh rate,
which will automatically swap a device
between 120 Hertz and 60 Hertz
depending on the app you're using.
But that's not a feature that the Pro 8
currently supports, and Microsoft hasn't given us
a timeline for if or when we'll see it here.
So, for the foreseeable future,
you need to dig into advanced display settings
to change the screen's refresh rate,
and that's kind of a pain.
Unless you wanna be doing that multiple times a day,
you're gonna be choosing between smooth scrolling
and an extra hour of battery.
So please, Microsoft, please give us
dynamic refresh rate soon.
But the screen isn't the only thing that's new.
So, in addition to the dual far-field studio microphones,
the Pro 8 has a 10 megapixel rear camera
that can also shoot 4K video.
For zoom calls, there's also
a five megapixel front facing camera
which shoots in up to 1080p.
Speaking of Zoom calls,
the two watt speakers sound pretty reasonable.
You can actually hear the bass.
The keyboard cover is made of carbon fiber,
which makes it stiffer and sturdier
than Surface Pro type covers we've seen in the past.
It's not quite the typing experience
you'll get from a full-sized laptop,
but it's certainly the best detachable keyboard
that I've ever used.
The Pro 8 borrows a couple other things from the Pro X.
So there's a removable SSD,
which you can pop out under the kickstand.
There's also a handy place
to put Microsoft Surface Slim Pen 2.
You just pull out the keyboard deck and it lives
and charges in a little slot against the screen.
And there are finally two USB-C Thunderbolt 4 ports
on the Surface Pro, in addition to a headphone jack.
Now, this Slim Pen 2 comes with a built-in haptic motor,
which it uses to make you feel like you're actually writing
on physical paper while you draw or take notes.
Even with the intensity cranked all the way up,
the vibrations were pretty subtle.
I could only feel them if I was paying close attention.
Also, only a few apps currently support
this haptic feedback, so I look forward
to seeing Microsoft expand it.
So our test model has the Intel Core i7 1185G7,
which is one of the most powerful chips
that Intel makes for thin and light laptops.
This chip is in some of the best laptops on the market
from companies like Dell and Lenovo.
And it's probably more power
than the typical Surface Pro user actually needs.
My model also has 16 gigabytes of RAM, and it's fast.
I was regularly running video calls,
over 15 to 16 Chrome tabs, a couple of different apps,
and even some streaming,
it could handle whatever I threw at it
without the tiniest amount of slowdown or heat.
Now, that's about the bare minimum for this processor.
It's a chip meant for powerful portable devices,
so it would be very concerning if things
were like freezing all over the place.
But what's impressive here isn't just the Pro 8's speed,
it's the fact that it's able to maintain that speed
for long periods of time.
So, part of the reason Microsoft put an ARM chip
in the Pro X rather than a big and fancy chip like this
is that the X was so thin and light
that Microsoft couldn't fit a fan inside.
Now, when computers can't cool their processors
with fans, they throttle them.
That is they bump down the chips performance
so it doesn't fry itself,
which translates to your apps slowing down.
But the reason that Surface Pro 8
has such a powerful chip is that it does have a fan.
And that fan did a good job here.
The chassis never got hot even when I was pushing it
through pretty intense loads,
and I was able to do that for hours at a time.
In the past few years, I can't tell you
how many people I've talked to who weren't sure
whether to buy the Pro 7 or the Pro X.
They wanted the Pro 7's powerful processor,
but they hated the way it looks.
And they loved the Pro X's design,
but it wasn't powerful enough
for the things they wanted to do.
And it was hard for me to recommend either device
to those people because they both came
with serious compromises.
The Pro 8 is the computer that those people
have been waiting for.
It combines the Pro X's flagship design
with the Pro 7's flagship hardware.
And for the first time, I think the Surface Pro line
has a real mainstream flagship on its hands.
It's finally Surface Pro that's, well, pro.
With all that said, none of this comes cheap.
So Surface Pro 8 models start at 1,099,
but that's without the keyboard cover,
which of course you're gonna buy.
So the keyboard adds $179 to the price,
meaning you're going to pay
at least 1,279 for the base model.
And then if you want the Slim Pen 2,
that's another $100, bringing that total to 1,379.
And that base model has a Core i5,
just 128 gigabytes of storage, and eight gigabytes of RAM.
But then, many people probably want a bigger SSD
and more memory for the work that they're doing.
So if you want my specked-up test model
alongside the keyboard and stylus,
you'll be paying 1,879.
That's a lot of money for these specs, guys.
And, well, I don't have major problems
with the Surface Pro 8, that price tag does limit
who's gonna be able to buy this.
Sure, it's got one of the most powerful processors
you can find in an ultra portable device,
and it crams it into a beautiful chassis
that's unbelievably thin and light,
but most people will be able to find
just as much power and better battery life
for several hundred dollars cheaper
in a MacBook Pro or a Dell XPS 13.
Again, that doesn't make a Pro 8 a bad device,
but the people that's gonna be the best device for
are gonna be the people who are willing to pay a premium
specifically for the Surface Pro form factor,
that is something as thin and light as a tablet
but with the power of a full-sized computer.
So, in the past, that kind of device
hasn't really existed.
Using a Windows tablet this portable
meant compromising on performance.
But this year, you're not sacrificing that performance,
you're just sacrificing some extra cash.
Hey, guys, if you enjoyed this review,
make sure you go to the verge.com,
where we also have reviews of the Surface Laptop Studio
and the Surface Go 3.
And also make sure you like and subscribe.