Microsoft is trying a million different
things to try and bring Windows into the
modern age and one of those things is
this thing the surface pro X X not not
10 I think it looks like a million bucks
but the really important part of the
surface is the processor it uses a
Qualcomm ARM chip like your phone
instead of an Intel chip like your
computer arm could be the future but the
future ain't cheap this starts at eleven
hundred and forty dollars with a
keyboard and the model I'm testing here
costs just short of eighteen hundred
bucks the future also a fast see we're
not going to get to the future without
some heartbreak so look I mean actually
look at the surface it is beautiful
Microsoft went with an anodized aluminum
in this nearly matte finish which looks
sharp as hell but also yeah it picks up
a ton of fingerprints something awful
but from the back you think this was
just a black surface pro 7 just a little
bit thinner with slightly more rounded
edges but then this screen hits you it's
a 13-inch screen and a body that's
nearly the same size as the surface pro
7 and that's because the bezels are much
smaller here at least on the left and
the right
it's 1920 by 2880 which makes it a 3 by
2 aspect ratio which is the best aspect
ratio yes it is there are two key bar
options and one of them has this little
slot where the new surface slim pen can
hide right here it's really clever it
just kind of sneaks right in it charges
right there and it's held down with
magnets it means you're much less likely
to lose it or forget it in your bag or
whatever but that extra space does seem
to make this keyboard just a little bit
more wobbly than other surface keyboards
and when it's clicked up it's harder to
tap stuff on the taskbar or even to see
it sometimes that's annoying but if you
really want a stylus it's probably all
worth the trade-off now I am NOT a
stylist person but this one seems
alright it could get a little bit tiring
to use for a long time because it's so
thin but it supports all the stylus
stuff that you'd want pressure and angle
and the eraser feature on the other side
let's see what else well the hand goes
to whatever angle you need it to it's
fanless it has two USB ports but not the
Thunderbolt you can replace the SSD if
you can find one in this weird size and
you can put a SIM card in it for LTE
even the power and the volume buttons
are in nicer places I wish there was a
micro SD card slot and I wish there was
a headphone jack but overall this is
actually really close to what my
Platonic ideal surfers Hardware would be
the whole design of the surface pro X
makes the surface pro 7 design look like
it's four years old because it is
literally four years old this however it
looks like the future in fact I'll just
say it this is the best-looking nicest
computer that I have held in at least a
year better than any macbook better than
the iPad pro and way better than any
surface so so far so good right totally
but that heartbreak is still coming and
it's spelled a are M
the surface pro X runs on an ARM
processor instead of an Intel x86
processor it's made by Qualcomm but
Microsoft customized it especially for
graphics performance it's called the sq1
the squat the squat I don't know
whatever
why arm well it's where computers want
to go because arm is developing faster
than Intel these days
it supports LTE directly and it can
usually get better battery life but
there are two problems ARM processors
can't sustain high speeds like Intel
chips can and most Windows apps aren't
optimized for arm let's start with a
performance it's mostly fine no actually
I mean it it's actually better that I
was worrying it would be it's much
faster than other ARM based Windows
computers I had the model with 16 gigs
of RAM and I am regularly running like a
dozen apps and over two dozen tabs
across a couple of different browsers
and nothing is grinding to a halt now if
you end up getting the 8 gig model
you're probably gonna want to chill out
on that just a little bit now you can
see that it's slow but it's way faster
than say I don't know a surface go which
to be fair cost about a third of this
thing there is some weird lags sometimes
but mostly I didn't notice too many
problems when I was doing office stuff
you know Microsoft Office but also
what's your average office drone like me
has to do these days run slack keep an
eye on Twitter when they're bored edit
some spreadsheets grind through email
and so on and so on so that's what's
fine but when it comes to more intense
software like Photoshop you could barely
even call it an option Photoshop
technically runs on this thing but look
at this zoom it's just awful I wouldn't
even call this usable in a pinch and
this is where I wish I could kind of
just stop the video and say that if you
know what you're getting into with this
thing speed wise you could talk yourself
into buying it think of it sort of like
a Chromebook that happens to run office
apps right let's just pretend right for
a minute just pretend with me so let's
talk about apps
so the apps that run best on the sq1 are
the ones that have been compiled to arm
64 that means there are 64-bit and that
they've been designed to run on this
chip those apps are fast and they don't
hurt your battery life much and they are
pretty rare actually a bunch of native
Windows apps do it and there's some
stuff in the Microsoft Store but there's
not a ton more but ARM processors can
run apps that were compiled for 32-bit
x86 Intel chips this is actually most of
what you're gonna run Chrome and Spotify
and even Microsoft's own office apps
like Word and Excel heck the edge
browser beta runs this way I can notice
a small speed difference with these apps
especially in chrome but mostly the
emulation mode here is much better than
I expected
all of which brings us to the real
problem there are a bunch of Windows
apps and especially the newest and most
powerful Windows apps that are 64-bit
but designed to work for x86 and not arm
and they don't run at all I'm talking
about apps like Adobe Lightroom and even
a bunch of Lightroom alternatives that I
want to try but I can't I'm also talking
about games games are a full-on
non-starter I don't mean that they're
slow I mean they literally don't start
you can't install Fortnite you can
install steam but pretty much everything
you download isn't gonna work so here's
a game that I love it's called into the
breach and it's a disaster just what is
happening on the screen here well okay
you can play Angry Birds - whoo see
everybody has that one app that they
need in mines Lightroom and you have to
do a ton of research to figure out if
your app actually works on this computer
there's no list that you can just go
look it up on and help Microsoft's own
online store has a home page that's
filled with apps that don't work on this
computer
Microsoft promised me that they're gonna
fix the filters so that only compatible
apps show up here but come on
[Music]
all right that was a lot of bad news how
about how about some good news again
well the speakers they're really loud
and they're pretty good bluetooth also
seems solid and thank God because
there's no headphone jack here LTE also
works really seamlessly on Windows 10 I
think the battery life is medium it's
not great
other arm laptops promised 20 hours of
battery life but Microsoft only promises
13 hours of typical use that also
includes a bunch of downtime in standby
mode so me I'm getting just over 6 hours
of active use throughout a day and maybe
9 or 10 total if you include all those
standby times that means that I usually
have to plug this in in the mid
afternoon just to feel safe I think the
battery life should be better on this
kind of computer especially at this
price at least the fast charging is
really fast when I was using the surface
Kinect charger and this thing was in
standby I got from 5% to 50% in half an
hour and while I was using it on
charging it also felt pretty fast it
will also charge over USB C but it just
won't be as fast as using the original
charger so at this point you're asking
yourself why wouldn't I just get a
surface pro 7 it has better performance
and all of the apps work and you're not
wrong I think that this hardware and
especially this screen is much nicer but
I don't know that it's nice enough to
justify all those other trade-offs
maybe someday when there are more are
maps but not today I will give Microsoft
some credit for making an arm machine
that's fast enough and that runs real
Windows 10 instead of RT or Windows S or
whatever and again this is one of the
best-looking computers around but the
apps are not ready yet there might be a
bunch of people who won't care if you
just need office and email and Spotify
and Netflix and whatever this thing is
great it's basically the perfect
computer for an executive or a CEO you
know where my CEO jacket here right but
for the rest of us if we're gonna spend
anywhere between 1100 and $2,000 on a
Windows computer then we should expect
it to do more
buying this computer is making a huge
bet that our maps are going to get made
and I think that's just too risky this
Hardware looks great but you don't just
look at computers you need to use them
like I said it's a heartbreaker hey
everybody thank you so much for watching
what do you think are the are maps going
to come to justify this thing let's talk
about that down in the comments also we
have a whole new video series about the
streaming wars hosted by Julie Alexander
great video there's a ton of streaming
war news coming up so you should check
that out