Microsoft Surface Pro 8 review | Laptop Mag
Our Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Pro 8 adds a larger display, a sleek new design, upgraded operation, and a few hundred dollars to its price tag.
For
- Gorgeous display
- Stiff performance
- Dual Thunderbolt 4 ports
- Excellent webcam
- Versatile 2-in-one form gene
Against
- Battery life could exist better
- Keyboard and pen sold separately
- Relatively expensive
Laptop Magazine Verdict
The Microsoft Surface Pro 8 adds a larger display, a sleek new design, upgraded operation, and a few hundred dollars to its price tag.
Pros
- +
Gorgeous display
- +
Stiff performance
- +
Dual Thunderbolt 4 ports
- +
Excellent webcam
- +
Versatile 2-in-1 form factor
Cons
- -
Battery life could exist better
- -
Keyboard and pen sold separately
- -
Relatively expensive
Microsoft's Surface Pro has been a driving strength in the two-in-1 laptop market place for years and the Surface Pro eight represents an evolutionary change for the honey laptop/tablet hybrid.
Without departing drastically from its iconic look, the Pro 8 makes subtle improvements to the Surface Pro every bit a tablet and a laptop. Upgrades include a larger brandish and more than comfortable to apply design, along with a much-needed internal upgrade.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8
Price: $1,099 (starting); $1,879 (as tested)
CPU: Intel Core i7-1185G7
GPU: Intel Iris Xe
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 256GB SSD
Brandish: 13-inch, 120Hz (2880x1920)
Bombardment: 9:07
Size: xi.3 x 8.2 x 0.37 inches
Weight: 1.96 pounds
That includes an 11th Gen Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor and up to 32GB of RAM, components that bring some of the new features of Windows 11 to carry. These upgrades come at a tangible cost, with a starting price of $1,099 without the Type Comprehend or new Slim Pen 2.
The Surface Pro 8 certainly earns a spot among the current all-time ii-in-1 laptops, merely read on to see whether the new hardware justifies the added toll for you.
Microsoft Surface Pro viii price and configuration options
The Microsoft Surface Pro viii starts at $1,099; that model includes an 11th Gen Intel Cadre i5-1135G7 processor, 8GB of RAM, a 128GB SSD, and the new 13-inch PixelSense (2880 x 1920) at 120Hz display.
As always, with the Surface Pro, if y'all want the whole laptop experience, yous demand to spring for the keyboard equally well, which is another $179, bringing that price upwardly to $1,280. Microsoft's new Slim Pen ii is also bachelor in a bundle with the keyboard for $279, meaning the entire Surface Pro viii feel starts at $i,380.
My review unit is a mid-tier option at $1,599 with an upgraded Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor, 16GB of RAM, a 256GB SSD, and the same PixelSense display. My review unit is a dark Graphite color, which is only available on some configurations; the base of operations model and the higher-finish options only come in the traditional Surface Pro Platinum finish.
The Surface Pro 8 tops out at $2,599 for the Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor, 32GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and the PixelSense display. Again, tack on an extra $179 or $279 if you want the keyboard or keyboard and Slim Pen two philharmonic.
Considering the Surface Pro 7 started at $749, in that location volition be sticker shock for some Surface Pro fans. With that said, this is the outset meaning redesign of the Surface Pro since the Surface Pro 3, so read on to run into if Microsoft earned the price bump.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 design
That larger screen necessitates a larger laptop, but not in all directions as Microsoft has blessedly slimmed downwards the bezels on the Pro 8. At 11.3 x 8.2 x 0.37 inches and 1.96 pounds, it is slightly narrower but taller and thicker than the Surface Pro 7 (11.v ten 7.ix 10 0.33, one.74 pounds). The Dell XPS 13 ii-in-1 (11.6 x 7.8 x 0.vi inches, 2.ix pounds) comes in quite a bit thicker and heavier due to its born keyboard, while the slim Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable at (11.two 10 0.8 x .03 inches, 1.7 pounds) is the nearly portable of the pack.
The re-sculpted rounded edges of the Pro 8 make it a more comfortable tablet than its predecessors. The anodized aluminum stop looks like a prop from The Batman in Graphite, offering a slightly different spin on the now all-to-common silver aluminum laptop. The mirrored Microsoft logo centered on the stand in the back gives some added interest to the otherwise stark look.
For those who took a expect at the Surface Laptop Studio, the Surface Pro viii picks upwards some of the Deoxyribonucleic acid from that laptop with a minimal frazzle system wrapping the pinnacle and roughly one-third of the manner down the sides. I'm sure this is a thermal do good, only again, I like the little details that help give it a bit more of a personality. The tablet portion of the laptop is light on buttons with simply a volume rocker on the left and the ability button on the right.
The kickstand is rightly untouched as a technical marvel that doesn't demand any updates even so. However, when you lot pop open the kickstand, you will at present discover a user-replaceable SSD, like what we first saw on the Surface Pro 7+. Whether motivated past a hard bulldoze failure or only a want for more than space on your laptop, it is fantastic to see a laptop this sparse and light offer such a simple SSD upgrade procedure.
Microsoft Surface Pro viii ports
The Surface Pro 8 goes all-in on Thunderbolt 4 ports with a pair on its right side. The Surface Connect port, Microsoft'due south excellent magnetic charging port, is direct below them.
On the left side of the Surface Pro eight, you have a 3.5mm headphone jack, and on the lesser is a Surface Type Cover port.
The loss of the USB Type-A port and, to a lesser degree, the microSD carte slot may be disappointing to some, merely at this stage, Thunderbolt iv is the almost future-proofed option, and getting a pair of them rather than but 1 is icing on the cake.
Regardless of what else y'all might need to connect to your Surface Pro 8, a USB Type-C hub can handle information technology via those Thunderbolt 4 ports.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 brandish
Microsoft'south PixelSense displays in the Surface Pro lineup have been excellent for years and the Pro 8 doesn't break that chain. The new xiii-inch (2,880 x ane,920-pixel) display is brighter and more bright than the Surface Pro vii'southward. and if y'all haven't used a three:ii attribute ratio laptop so you've been missing out.
While it is non ideal for watching videos, three:2 is the superior option for any kind of productivity piece of work. If your optics can handle it at this resolution then you can fit an incredible amount of content on screen.
If yous need to stay portable but get stuff done, it would be difficult to beat the Surface Pro viii from a display standpoint. The biggest knock confronting it in the by was its large bezels. While this updated model isn't challenging the micro bezels of the Dell XPS 13, the Pro 8 has found a comfortable remainder for a device that is, after all, a tablet.
Watching the latest trailer for Matrix Resurrections, the Surface Pro 8 display handles the wildly varied environments effectively, from the dormant fields of battery pods in the dark apocalyptic existent world to the eye-searingly vivid and colorful battle environments of the training program fight sequence. While the display is quite skillful, information technology isn't congenital for content consumption and won't concord upwardly to the all-time in the category in that regard.
Our colorimeter backed this upwards with the Surface Pro eight panel hitting 72% of the DCI-P3 color gamut. That is simply a hair above the XPS xiii 2-in-1 (70%), just backside the ThinkPad X12 Detachable (75%) and the premium laptop average (85%).
Brightness put the brawl back in the Surface Pro 8's court with a peak of 453 nits. The XPS 2-in-1 managed to slightly outclass information technology at 488 nits, but the X12 Detachable (376 nits) and premium laptop average (394 nits) were well backside.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 keyboard and touchpad
While information technology now offers a cozy abode for the Slim Pen ii at the top of the keyboard, the Microsoft Type Comprehend is otherwise unchanged. To be clear, that is as it should be. While it still isn't equally lap-friendly as a traditional clamshell laptop, on a desk, the Surface Pro 8 with the Type Cover is upward in that location with the best of them equally a productivity tool.
The Alcantara fabric surface gives a slightly plush feel to the typing surface, a welcome reprieve from the typical metal or plastic palm wrest. The key spacing is fantastic equally well, helped along this year past the slight increase to the overall size of the Surface Pro 8.
Testing my typing speed, I averaged 88 words per minute with 97% accuracy on the 10fastfingers.com typing test, slightly faster than my 86 wpm average. In that location are limits to what can be achieved in this class factor, simply it is as practiced equally anything I've used in terms of assuasive for speed and accurateness.
The 4 10 2.3-inch surface of the touchpad on the Microsoft Surface Pro viii is slightly taller than it has been in the past and big enough for Windows 10 gestures. At my desk-bound, I ever stick to my mouse anyway, merely when I'thou on the go, I do find myself frequently reaching upwards and using the touch on brandish rather than the touchpad.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 audio
The Surface Pro 8'south 2W stereo speakers with Dolby Atmos are ane of those blueprint feats that accept me wondering what many traditional clamshell laptop manufacturers are doing. It merely obliterates them. Regardless of the engineering science wizardry involved, the speakers in the Pro 8 had no difficulty filling my xviii ten 12-pes listening space and, even at full volume, remained crisp and clear.
I listened to "Nighttime And Twenty-four hour period" by Tony Bennett & Lady Gaga and the peppy vocals and big band behind them weren't as rich as you would go with a good pair of wireless headphones, but information technology wasn't far off, either. I'd happily use this for my background music while working in my home function or watching Netflix or YouTube.
When it comes to audio input, the Surface Pro 8 has y'all covered as well with dual far-field studio mics.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 performance
As I covered in the design section, the Surface Pro 8 bulked upwards a little, and functioning is one area where we see some of that extra muscle. The Intel Core i7-1185G7 processor with 16GB of RAM and a 256TB SSD gives this 2-in-1 a surprising amount of power behind its dial.
With apologies to Edge, I still plough to Google Chrome for my primary browser in testing. I loaded upwardly ii dozen tabs in Chrome, including 3 YouTube videos running at 1080p and two Twitch streams. Not only did information technology handle all of this with ease, but I never one time heard a fan spin up.
While my freehand artistic skills are slimmer than the Slim Pen two, I practice enjoy photography and videography, so I put the Surface Pro 8 through its paces in Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Pro. Obviously, at that place are more robust video and photo editing laptops that will churn through projects much faster, but I was pleasantly surprised past the responsiveness of both apps on the Surface Pro 8.
The results of our benchmarking proved similar. The Surface Pro 8 managed a Geekbench 5.4 overall functioning score of 5,347. That's not enough to outclass the Dell XPS thirteen 2-in-1 (5,571, Core i7-1165G7), but it blew by the ThinkPad X12 Detachable (4,778), the Surface Pro 7+ (4,825, Core i5-1135G7) and the category average (iv,212).
Our Handbrake video transcoding test requires the laptop to convert a 4K video to 1080p resolution and here, the Surface Pro viii shone at 13 minutes and 30 seconds. That's about two and a one-half minutes faster than the XPS thirteen ii-in-1 (15:52) and close to 10 minutes faster than its more tablet-like counterpart, the X12 Detachable (22:54).
The Microsoft Surface Pro 8'southward 256GB SSD didn't agree up quite likewise. It completed our 25GB file transfer examination with a 415 megabyte per second transfer rate. That was behind the XPS 13 2-in-ane (503 MBps) and the category average (604 MBps), simply enough to eclipse the X12 Detachable (408 MBps).
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 bombardment life
The battery life on the Microsoft Surface Pro 8 manages to neither impress nor bitterly disappoint. It called it quits at 9 hours and seven minutes in our battery test which involves continuous web surfing over Wi-Fi at 150 nits of effulgence. That's not terrible considering the form gene, the brandish and operation, but it's non going to have home any awards, either.
That battery test was conducted with the display at its default 60Hz; crank information technology upwardly to its full 120Hz refresh rate and we would expect it to drop by roughly an hour. While the smoother refresh charge per unit is nice, this probably won't be worth it for nearly users.
That score is a solid pace up from the Surface Pro 7 (7:30) but doesn't hold up also against more modern competition like the Lenovo ThinkPad X12 Detachable (11:06) and the Dell XPS xiii 2-in-1 (10:52). Especially for users who push their systems harder, that extra two hours in our test could mean the difference between getting through a full day on a accuse or existence forced to runway down an outlet.
While it isn't entirely responsible, this is, to some degree, the toll you pay for that college resolution (2880 x 1920) PixelSense brandish, which is naturally much more power-hungry than the FHD+ (1920 x 1200/1280) displays of its competitors.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 webcam
The 5MP, 1080p webcam in the Surface Pro 8 is however amongst the best in any laptop or tablet that I've tested. If you are regularly video conferencing or video chatting from abode, an external webcam nevertheless has an edge for their flexibility, just the results from the Surface Pro 8 are on par with all merely the very all-time of them.
Windows Howdy integration is fantastic as well, reliably keeping the Surface Pro 8 secure then instantly logging me in when I power it on without needing to touch a matter. Every laptop should have facial recognition.
The Surface Pro 8 also features a 10MP autofocus camera on the back with either 1080P or 4K video capture available. I wouldn't set out to make a movie with the Surface Pro 8 as my camera, but it is perfect if yous're flipping the video around during a video conference to evidence or demo something.
Microsoft Surface Pro 8 software and warranty
For better and for worse, the Microsoft Surface Pro viii ships with Windows eleven. Read our full review for a more than in-depth look at what to expect from Microsoft's updated operating system. There are a few genuinely nice touches for the Surface Pro 8, just don't set your hopes too high.
On the plus side, while we might be able to quibble virtually whether you consider some of Microsoft's apps to exist bloatware, there is no sign of any other random apps or games stealing your precious SSD space, and that'southward always a joy to come across.
The Surface Pro 8 comes with a one-year express warranty. Y'all tin can see how Microsoft by and large fares on this front end in our Tech Support Showdown and Best and Worst Brands special reports.
Bottom line
The Microsoft Surface Pro viii isn't a quantum leap forrard from its predecessors. Nevertheless, it makes enough crucial upgrades to an already splendid two-in-1 tablet to in one case again put it among the top ii-in-1 laptops.
The added screen size and reduced bezels make for a more modernistic expect, while the rounded edges give it a much more tablet-friendly feel backed upwardly by some of the new software touches in Windows 11. For creatives or prolific notation-takers, the new Slim Pen 2 combined with the Type Cover gives yous a built-in stylus with a tactile feel that makes for an improved inking experience.
A chip more battery life would accept been outstanding and the price jump may be difficult for some to swallow. Yet, taken as a whole, the Surface Pro viii is a solid addition to the Surface lineup and a compelling pick for those looking to upgrade their laptop for the move to Windows 11.
Source: https://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/microsoft-surface-pro-8
Posted by: mcpeekhurse1984.blogspot.com
0 Response to "Microsoft Surface Pro 8 review | Laptop Mag"
Post a Comment