Microsoft Surface Laptop (7th Edition) 13.8-inch Snapdragon x Elite/16GB/512GB SSD Copilot+ PC Laptop - Platinum

Microsoft's new Surface Laptop has the same sleek design that I am familiar with (and like!). It is thin and lightweight and elegant with clear design inspiration from the MacBook Air line of laptops (the Surface laptops are a bit thicker and heavier).Microsoft is proclaiming how impressively the Snapdragon X Elite processor performs (3.42 GHz), and surely it must perform better in some benchmark testing - it should, but for simple daily use by a human I see no clear difference in performance against my old Surface Laptop Go 2 (2.42 GHz with half the RAM). The importance of this chipset is that it allows the laptop to run on-device AI (the Copilot+ of this laptop's extended name).The standout performance improvement here is, without a doubt, the amazing ... MoreMicrosoft's new Surface Laptop has the same sleek design that I am familiar with (and like!). It is thin and lightweight and elegant with clear design inspiration from the MacBook Air line of laptops (the Surface laptops are a bit thicker and heavier).Microsoft is proclaiming how impressively the Snapdragon X Elite processor performs (3.42 GHz), and surely it must perform better in some benchmark testing - it should, but for simple daily use by a human I see no clear difference in performance against my old Surface Laptop Go 2 (2.42 GHz with half the RAM). The importance of this chipset is that it allows the laptop to run on-device AI (the Copilot+ of this laptop's extended name).The standout performance improvement here is, without a doubt, the amazing improvement in battery life! While I am lucky if my older Surface can stay with me for more than a few hours of continuous use, this new 7th Edition Surface truly delivers all-day battery life. Alas, Microsoft is continuing to require a proprietary charger that is awkward to insert and always looks like it is threatening to get caught on something and pull apart. Sigh.The 120Hz display is gorgeous - bright and VERY clear. But it is worth noting that the recommended display resolution of 2304x1536 renders the screen unreadably tiny - so in this resolution there is a recommended scaling (magnification) of 150% which gives some applications a slightly unfamiliar look and feel.Superficially, Microsoft's new Surface Laptop (7th edition) is a stunner with great battery life.But the reason this new laptop can supply amazing battery life is not because of better batteries, but because this laptop uses an ARM-based processor (so, not an x64-based processor). That makes this Surface a very different kind of Windows laptop than most people are used to having.While this laptop reports running Windows 11 Home like my old Surface, it is NOT able to run just any add-on program that you might want to run. I found this out immediately when I attempted to install my antivirus and performance software suite (install would not even initialize on an ARM-based processor - at least not at this writing). Simpler things like my Kindle Reader app installed just fine. I was able to get my Adobe Photoshop Elements 2024 program to work with a crazy workaround that bypassed the initialization screen (thank you to the industrious user who dropped that wisdom on Adobe's site!). In general, program installation was my introduction to the drawbacks of having an ARM-based processor that I would have never considered when shopping for a new (Windows!) laptop. So there is an unexpected trade-off for great battery life that I don't think Microsoft is fully honest about in their hype and advertising for this laptop.Finally, this laptop integrates Microsoft's Copilot+ AI assistant that provides an interactive "chat" environment. The chatty interface is very ChatGBT-y? So, yes, there is a dedicated Copilot+ button on the laptop and it takes you directly to the chatting interface. And AI is all the rage right now, right? But my own experience with Microsoft's AI feels gimmicky and underdeveloped.The Microsoft AI is fully integrated into their Microsoft 360 suite, but I don't have lengthy documents to test this functionality. Surely the integration of this new Microsoft AI product with existing Microsoft products will be amazing?As an AI novice, I love the algorithm's desire to summarize and to provide relevant links. I have queried the algorithm many times now with questions I knew the answers to and was not disappointed, but was also not impressed. Microsoft is surely anticipating my malaise with their AI by presenting a series of gentle introductions to AI queries that summarize elegant AI requests for things that feel foreign to me.One crazy-amazing AI analysis that I received resulted from a personal photograph I submitted in search of a response...a photograph of my very moody porch toad.Ultimately, I like the summarization capabilities of Microsoft's Copilot+ AI, but as someone old enough to read books and query effectively, this summarization capability feels a little bit delicate and incomplete. I can't recommend this laptop based solely on the novelty of AI integration (there's a whole key for that AI!).AI is fun and engaging right now. But the implementation of AI here is not going to be the tie that binds you to the greater AI developments you're seeing out there.Overall, this is a beautiful laptop with incredible graphics. But Microsoft appears to be releasing a new type of chipset that might create significant impediments to unsuspecting users.Please do you due diligence before investing in this laptop based solely on battery life. OK?

This laptop is an absolute joy to use for about every task I’ve thrown at it. It is lightweight, fast, sturdy feeling, has a good keyboard and touchpad, and is quick with everyday tasks that include web browsing, productivity stuff, and photo editing. It’s very good camera and AI features make it a wonderful WFH machine, and the AI features can translate for you as well as run real time filters on your video. Gaming is limited right now, but I’m sure it will improve very soon as more devs port their apps to run ARM native or get ported over from mobile where they are already running on ARM. If you’re considering this laptop, go ahead, it’s a great value!Packaging is wonderful. Everything can be put in the recycling as far as I can tell, even the cord wraps are ... MoreThis laptop is an absolute joy to use for about every task I’ve thrown at it. It is lightweight, fast, sturdy feeling, has a good keyboard and touchpad, and is quick with everyday tasks that include web browsing, productivity stuff, and photo editing. It’s very good camera and AI features make it a wonderful WFH machine, and the AI features can translate for you as well as run real time filters on your video. Gaming is limited right now, but I’m sure it will improve very soon as more devs port their apps to run ARM native or get ported over from mobile where they are already running on ARM. If you’re considering this laptop, go ahead, it’s a great value!Packaging is wonderful. Everything can be put in the recycling as far as I can tell, even the cord wraps are paper. Excellent.The Surface 7’s build feels rock solid, full aluminum chassis, very subtle branding on the lid, not a single RGB decoration to be found. The backlit keyboard is comfortable and easy to type on. The aluminum has a good feel, I prefer the keyboard 100% more than my ***Book Pro. It has two USB-C ports, a USB-A port, and a headphone jack on the left side, while the right side hosts the Surface power adapter port, which can also be used for Microsoft’s proprietary docks and port replicators that will power the laptop and add the ports with just one plug. This machine straddles the past and future by also offering current standard USB-C with PD and DP, so you can use a third-party dock to get the same functionality, super flexible!Wifi 7 is a notable feature to have on your computer going forward, it’s the new standard in Wi-Fi and the Surface’s Wi-Fi/Bluetooth chip works great on Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7 networks. I used Bluetooth for connecting a keyboard, controller and headset and did not have any problems.I think the Copilot+ features that are enabled on these new machines are limited right now just to a few “demonstration” features in Windows. The possibilities are wide open. Hopefully developers going forward can leverage the NPU to do some really cool stuff soon.Even beyond the Copilot+ features and all of the future promise, this is a very well sorted computer. I really enjoy the lack of OEM junk hanging out in every corner of the machine. I can use all the power the computer offers because it does not have to continually run the unstable system resource drains that are on almost every OEM machine. This computer has a big advantage that it does not run the background tasks that OEMs run, so it will almost always be faster than other machines with the same specs.I’ve gotten great battery life on this machine, more than enough for my needs.The Surface Laptop 7 13.8” Copilot+ is arguably the best everyday laptop you can buy right now, and it’s only going to get better. Folks may balk at the price, it’s a good value. Recommended.

I have spent the last week setting up and evaluating this very interesting and unique machine, the ARM based Microsoft Surface CoPilot+. Combining a week’s intensive use with watching many YouTube videos and numerous podcasts and reviews, I can say that this machine seems to boil down to two main considerations. First, it's a new type of Windows machine that runs on an ARM processor, which is a departure from the usual Intel or AMD machines. Second, it has a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) chip for AI tasks.Let me address the AI aspect first.Short version: This AI stuff is pretty cool and having a CoPilot+ laptop with the built-in AI chip will let you do AI things that other computers cannot do.Long version: You can experience AI and play around with ... MoreI have spent the last week setting up and evaluating this very interesting and unique machine, the ARM based Microsoft Surface CoPilot+. Combining a week’s intensive use with watching many YouTube videos and numerous podcasts and reviews, I can say that this machine seems to boil down to two main considerations. First, it's a new type of Windows machine that runs on an ARM processor, which is a departure from the usual Intel or AMD machines. Second, it has a dedicated Neural Processing Unit (NPU) chip for AI tasks.Let me address the AI aspect first.Short version: This AI stuff is pretty cool and having a CoPilot+ laptop with the built-in AI chip will let you do AI things that other computers cannot do.Long version: You can experience AI and play around with creative applications without this specific computer. Before getting this AI laptop, I got a subscription to Microsoft CoPilot PRO, which integrates well with my Office programs, and I've had a lot of fun using Microsoft 'Designer' to create cool graphics for social media and emails and using AI to look at spreadsheets and whip up PowerPoints. What’s new for AI here is this machine is the first to have a built-in Neural Processing Unit (NPU) chip, which is designed to take the load off the main processor when the laptop is running AI processes. At the moment, some of the graphic functions like Designer for graphics and the language translation use the NPU chip to boost processing speed, and there are some video conferencing filters that have been around a while - but more significant is the tremendous potential for apps and ‘small models’ that will use this onboard neural chip to great advantage. Having an on-board Neural Processing Unit (NPU) chip is a new thing and developers are cranking out AI apps and AI program updates on a daily basis. I am looking forward to more and more of these program updates and apps to become available to really help the AI functions of the CoPilot+ show its capabilities. This is about as “future proof” as you can get for the surge in AI capabilities at the moment. Having the built-in Neural Processing Unit (NPU) will help speed up some of the AI process, allow use of AI applications and plug-ins, and provide many AI functions even when the machine is offline.Now, to put the AI aside and evaluate the Surface CoPilot+ as a laptop – Microsoft Surface machines have a reputation for being well engineered and this machine looks good and feels very sturdy in the hand. The edges are nicely chamfered and easy on the hands. This machine is well-built, with a backlit keyboard, solid hinge, and a very nice 120MHz screen. The haptic touchpad is wonderful. My first haptic touchpad, and this is a whole new experience as I really never liked touchpads until this one... very smooth, responsive, adjustable, and clicks anywhere! I can also use an inexpensive capacitive stylus for basic drawing on the screen when using OneNote or playing with the AI graphics. This 15” machine has a micro-SD slot and first thing i did was pop in a 512GB card for game files, software repository, and cloud storage. Long battery life is one of the main benefits of the ARM-based machine—it lasts much longer than my other laptop. My experience is easily 2x to 3x the battery life of my i5 laptop (which just got a brand-new battery). Another very nice feature of this ARM based machine is 'instant on' when you open the lid to resume work – the laptop instantly jumps back to life every time and doesn't drain the battery when asleep. The more I use this laptop the more I appreciate how nice it is to not worry about shutting the lid when I step away for a moment or pack up to go to the next location and know that I can pop the lid and go right back to work without having to wait for the computer to wake up. With the facial recognition enabled (and it works very well) you don’t have to put in a PIN code or password – the laptop recognizes you and is instantly ready to pick up where you left off. Really nice!As for gaming, it has been well established that this isn't a hardcore gaming machine, but don’t sell the ARM laptop short - it can handle many fun and modern games. It runs all the normal programs for office work, school, photo and light video editing without any issues. It's fast, lasts an incredibly long time on battery, and doesn't keep me waiting.In conclusion, if you want a well-built, long-lasting laptop that's quiet, cool in your lap, and on the cutting edge of AI, the Surface CoPilot+ is a great choice.Greetings from Central Georgia and Happy 4th of July!banjo