(gentle music)
- The Surface Pro 8 was a reinvention of the Surface line.
It combined the Surface Pro X's groundbreaking design
with Intel's powerful chips.
It was new with an exciting screen,
an exciting design, an exciting camera.
All the big tech buzz words we know
and love on this channel.
The new Surface Pro 9 is not that.
In fact, the most exciting thing
about the Surface Pro 9 is that there are two of them.
Now, for those of you who don't
obsessively track Microsoft's internal component choices,
and by the way, shame on all of you.
This year's Surface Pro shoppers have a choice
of two different models with two different processors.
There's an Intel model,
which has a boring old 12th gen Core i5 or Core i7,
and then instead of a separate Pro X model this year,
there's another Pro 9 with a brand new chip
that Microsoft co-engineered with Qualcomm,
called the SQ3.
The SQ3 is an arm chip based on Snapdragon,
and it's the sort of chip that's designed
to power super thin, super light mobile devices.
This blue one has Intel inside
and the gray one has the SQ3.
Now, you may be looking at these
and thinking to yourself, self, these look identical.
How will I ever determine which one to buy?
Don't worry, I'm here for you
and we are going to get through this together.
(upbeat music)
The case for the Surface Pro 9 with SQ3
is that it's perfect for the mobile Microsoft enthusiast.
I know, I know that's a lot of words
but if that label happens to describe you
the Qualcomm Pro 9 offers a unique package
that you won't find in any other laptop on the market.
You just need to know exactly what you're getting.
First off, the SQ3 model supports full 5G connectivity.
Now, I wasn't actually able to get 5G speeds
in various places around Manhattan
and it's a bit of a challenge to figure out
where exactly millimeter wave is enabled, but on paper
this laptop does support 5G.
Second, this model has chart topping battery life.
I got over 12 hours of straight use out of this device
which is longer than the vast majority
of Windows laptops I've tested this year.
And finally, the 5G Pro 9 has this little thing
inside called the NPU.
NPU stands for Neural Processing Unit
and its job is to handle AI features
so that the processor doesn't have to worry about them.
This powers a whole bunch of, shall we say,
kooky camera features that were very fun to test.
(calming music)
So my favorite feature is called voice focus
and this does exactly what it sounds like it would do.
So Becca is gonna play some really loud
coffee shop noise behind me.
(coffee shop noise)
I'm gonna turn voice focus on.
So this essentially cancels out all the noise around you
except your voice so that if you're on a video call
in a loud setting, people can still hear you.
This is pretty loud coffee shop noise.
So this is doing a pretty good job.
Here, I'll turn it off again.
Pretty cool, right?
So there are a number of camera features
which are theoretically supposed to work on the SQ3,
but they only worked like some of the time.
So you can see there's this portrait blur effect here
which actually did work pretty well.
You can see there's standard blur, there's portrait blur
and that did work
across a number of photo and video applications.
But then you can also see they're supposed to be
an eye contact and auto framing features here
and these only work some
of the time and we couldn't get them to work for this shoot.
So you can see auto framing is supposed to be
like keeping me in the frame as I move around
and eye contact is supposed to make it look
like I'm looking right
at the camera when I look all over the place.
And those, you can see those just aren't working.
So I hope that Microsoft can fix that because
these are legitimately very cool features when they do work.
So portability, long battery life, 5G connectivity,
funky camera.
It's a cool and unique package.
So what's the downside?
Well, it's that Windows on arm kind of sucks.
Windows itself, like the menus and stuff, those run fine
but not every popular application is currently
able to run natively on Qualcomm's processors.
Some of 'em are still running
through an emulation layer.
And emulated apps in my experience, were slow.
Chrome, for example, was not running natively
on the SQ3. Neither was Slack.
And when I typed didn't Chrome on this device
I saw significant lag.
YouTube videos froze.
Slack took forever to switch between channels.
Pen strokes were delayed.
Stuff took a while to open.
It was a bad time.
Your best bet if you're using the SQ3 is to stick
to apps that are running natively on arm
which includes a lot of Microsoft's apps
like Edge, OneNote, Paint Office, those kinds of things.
Those weren't lightning fast on the Pro 9
but they were usable.
Now, some of you already live your life
in Microsoft's ecosystem and some
of you won't mind switching over,
but for many others it's not as easy of a task.
Between the SQ3 and the Intel models
a lot of things are the same.
They have the same 13 inch display
with 120 hertz refresh rate
which was also on the Pro 8.
They used the same attached kickstand
and the same detachable keyboard
which is sturdy and has a really nice click.
And the same stylist, which has great haptic feedback
and lives in a little pocket here.
The only real difference on the outside is
that the Core I7 model has new color options.
So let's talk Intel.
The Core I7 model of the Surface Pro 9
is a bit more fun looking.
You can get it in Forest Green, you can get a dark one
you can get this blue guy we have here
and the SQ3 only comes in boring silver, boo!
But mostly, the Intel model is the boring model.
You know, all that wild
and crazy webcam stuff we just showed you.
Yeah, the Intel Pro doesn't have those.
There's no 5G, there's no NPU.
The battery life is closer to seven, eight hours
with my workload at least.
But in exchange for giving up all that flashy stuff
you get a device that runs Chrome,
you get a device that runs Slack
and that's a really important difference
between these two devices because the case
for the Intel Surface Pro 9 is that it works.
While I was testing this Intel device, I edited,
I video called, I marked up, I spread sheeted
nothing lagged, nothing froze, nothing crashed.
It ran all the apps my heart desired.
We did run some benchmarks and I mean
you all know how numbers work.
Here are the numbers.
The Intel Pro 9 gets much higher numbers
but you don't even need to see the numbers to see how
much faster this Intel model is performing in emulated apps.
Just look at how much longer it takes
for Cinebench to even start on the SQ3 model.
Across the board in various emulated apps,
all kinds of things, from clicking
to typing to booting and quitting are just faster
on the Intel processor.
There was no fan noise or heat either even when
I was using more intense Adobe programs like Lightroom.
And then there are a few other small differences.
The Pro 9 is 0.01 pounds lighter, which you won't notice
and it supports Thunderbolt four,
which the SQ3 doesn't.
And above all, there's the fact that
the Intel model is cheaper.
Okay, it's not cheaper spec for spec.
Technically, the cheapest Core I7 model
is the same price as the equivalent SQ3.
They're both $1599.
But the cheapest SQ3 model is $1299
while the cheapest Core I5 model is $999.
Now the keyboard and pen add $279 to the price.
So if you buy those,
that gets you up to $1300 ish and $1600 ish.
Anyway, the point is
that the Pro 9 is already a pretty expensive device
but you can spend a few hundred dollars less
if you stick with Intel.
Basically the Intel Pro 9 is a laptop.
Okay, it's a laptop with an attached kickstand
where the keyboard pops off and holds a stylist,
but it's a reliable, fast laptop.
And I don't have all that much to say about it.
It's fine.
The Surface Pro 9 with SQ3 has some
really impressive AI features,
and those make it feel like a laptop of the future.
It's a device for enthusiasts who are really
into the surface form factor and who are confident
that they're only going to be using Microsoft's apps.
If you are in that group and you want something to carry
around and video conference with all the time,
this may be the device you've been waiting for.
But if you're anyone else
you probably want the Intel model.
The Intel Pro 9 is, and I know some
of you hate this phrase, an incremental upgrade.
They took the Service Pro 8
and they stuck a new chip in it.
This isn't a machine anyone was excited about.
It's not one that I'd show around at a party
but it's the one that most of you should buy.
It's light, it's portable, it's well built
and it works.
For most people, that's the best kind of computer to buy.
All right, everyone, it's time for the real question.
Which of these background effects is better?
So, we've got standard, portrait,
standard, portrait, standard,
portrait. Hey, Becca.
- Portrait. - Standard.
- Hundred percent portrait. - I like portrait too.