Microsoft Surface Pro Copilot+ PC 13" Snapdragon x Elite/16GB/512GB (Sapphire)

This tablet / laptop works great for a lot of things. I was skeptical at first being that it is an arm based product and historically windows on arm has been a little hit and miss. However after using this table for a bit as my non-gaming daily for over a week or so I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by the performance and reliability for “most” things that I have tried to do with it.I do software development, and for the most part that experience has been fairly painless and performance has been great. However there are some caveats to that. Programs that are not specifically made for arm run in an emulation mode (so x64 apps) and those apps do have some slight performance hits due to this translation layer. But during normal use those issues are mostly not ... MoreThis tablet / laptop works great for a lot of things. I was skeptical at first being that it is an arm based product and historically windows on arm has been a little hit and miss. However after using this table for a bit as my non-gaming daily for over a week or so I have to say I am pleasantly surprised by the performance and reliability for “most” things that I have tried to do with it.I do software development, and for the most part that experience has been fairly painless and performance has been great. However there are some caveats to that. Programs that are not specifically made for arm run in an emulation mode (so x64 apps) and those apps do have some slight performance hits due to this translation layer. But during normal use those issues are mostly not noticeable at least for the applications I have been using. When it comes to down right application failures there have been a few applications that I was unable to install because they don’t offer an arm version and they would not install ( such as ARC browser which I use on Mac and my intel based windows machine) I also had an issue where an application would install fine but I could not activate it for some reason so I was unable to use it. For productivity software however those where the only two real examples of problems I had.I’ve also been really happy with battery life in normal use as I can get a full 12 hour day of work done and still have battery to spare without much of a worry at all. That’s nice compared to some other laptops I’ve tried to use for work in the past that left me scrambling for a place to plug in.Build quality and style wise, I really appreciate the simple clean design just the adjustable kickstand on the back and that blends in when you fold it down. That kickstand is amazing as well allowing me to use more angles than I ever thought I needed for different situations.The copilot+ stuff is cool if you have a use for it. I played around with the image co-creater features for a while and it really helped flesh out an idea I had been working on even though I am an awful artist. It’s nice to be able to prompt the system, start drawing and as you go it slowly improves the generated image. It’s a neat feature if you have a use for it and I’ll probably use it more in the future. The other really cool co-pilot plus feature I was not expecting to like so much was live captions. It was amazing to be able to watch a video in another language that did not have translations available and be able to understand what was going on. It’s surprisingly fast and super useful for some of the work I do. As for it’s accuracy I’m not totally sure on that front but it was close enough for me to get the information I needed without needing to refer to another source or person. As for all the other co-pilot+ features I’ve not had a lot of time to use or play with them so I don’t have much to say on those but overall I have been super happy with the experience and pleasantly surprised.Overall if you’re looking for a super portable and fairly quick computer to do work on this is shaping up to be a great choice overall. I’ve all but replaced my other travel electronics because this takes up less space and does the things I need it to without too much hassle. There is one note for all of this though, do not expect to be able to play games on this laptop/tablet. It’s not intended for that and the driver compatibility with games is very far from good. There are also several games that just won’t run at all because some kernel level anti-cheat systems don’t support ARM. I’m sure that will get better in the future but in reality that’s not what this computer is intended for anyway. I just wanted to make sure I included that in my review just in case someone was looking at it for that reason. The only real reason I was not able to give this a 5 star rating was the few issues I did have with software compatibility. I think after some time that issue will get better though.

This is my third Surface tablet, coming from a Surface 7, so I was anxious to see how much this latest model with the new processor architecture would do. My first impression just on unboxing it was very good, as the color they call “Dune” is a very attractive silvery-gold that really pops and looks quite classy. It uses the same charger as my previous device with its own dedicated port on one side, leaving the two USB-C ports on the other side free for connection to various types of devices. These ports are listed as having charging capability for doing things like topping up your smartphone, earbuds, etc. An external display can also be driven from these versatile connections. When first powering it on, I was also wowed by the OLED screen, which is the best I’ve ... MoreThis is my third Surface tablet, coming from a Surface 7, so I was anxious to see how much this latest model with the new processor architecture would do. My first impression just on unboxing it was very good, as the color they call “Dune” is a very attractive silvery-gold that really pops and looks quite classy. It uses the same charger as my previous device with its own dedicated port on one side, leaving the two USB-C ports on the other side free for connection to various types of devices. These ports are listed as having charging capability for doing things like topping up your smartphone, earbuds, etc. An external display can also be driven from these versatile connections. When first powering it on, I was also wowed by the OLED screen, which is the best I’ve had on a device this size.Similar to most smartphones, Microsoft eases the initial setup of a new device like this by letting you select from the latest configuration backup of one of your other Windows devices, then initializes things to match and installs any apps that you have previously installed from the store. Also, as usual, there is a big initial mandatory software update that delayed my first real hands-on use of the product. From day one, Windows has always run on processors using the Intel x86 architecture, which has undergone massive changes and improvements over the years, but keeps everything compatible from generation to generation. This new line of products, however, runs on the Snapdragon X processor family based on the ARM architecture that is completely different from Intel’s designs. This is what I really wanted to evaluate from the standpoint of speed and compatibility.My first impressions were very good indeed. The tablet boots up so quickly that I can hardly see it doing the logon validation. I use face recognition to sign onto Windows. On my older Surface I see messages such as “Looking for you” as it does its processing before signing me in; on the new one I’m signed in before I can read any intermediate messages. Even though Windows provides some sort of “emulation layer” that allows apps written for the Intel CPUs to work on ARM CPUs, it is also possible (and preferred) to modify and build an ARM-specific version to maximize performance. The Edge browser is one such app, and it really screams. The main thing I noticed is that it launches instantly the way that you expect smartphone apps to do.I haven’t been able to do any meaningful tests on battery life, which is supposed to be a big advantage of the Snapdragon CPU, but I can definitely say that this tablet stays much, much cooler than my older Surfaces did. Less heat has got to mean less battery being chewed up!There have been reports of some Intel-based apps not running correctly if at all on the new architecture, especially some of the more complex, technical apps. One such app that I really wanted to use is a cycling simulator that connects to my indoor biking setup and lets me “ride” roads all over the world while collecting data and providing a realistic video feed of the riding experience, sometimes shared with people around the world. I was therefore very pleased to see that this app is working on the new tablet, although I did send them a suggestion that they should produce a specific ARM version that would further improve its performance. In general, I have not yet tried an app that did not run fine or not perform well on the new Surface.So far I’ve had only limited need for the new CoPilot+ AI features on this device. The specs for the NPU are certainly impressive (40 trillion operations per second!!) and I wanted to give it a try. So I used the smart pen that came with the keyboard to draw a very rough sketch of a bicycle in the Paint app and then played around with CoCreator+ to see what I could do with it. For just a couple minutes of tweaking, the results were impressive, and someone with more artistic talent could undoubtedly refine it much further. I’ve included the beginning and ending graphics with this review.In summary, this is probably the biggest upgrade in the history of the Surface line of products and is well worth considering as a new or replacement tablet. The improved performance potential going forward is huge.

Microsoft - Surface Pro — Copilot+ PC (Edition 11) — 13" — Snapdragon X Plus — 16GB Memory — 512GB SSD – BlackThe Surface Pro I have has the LCD IPS screen (2880 x 1920 resolution) with 266 PPI and not the more expensive OLED screen version. However, the IPS screen is beautiful, in my opinion. It has a good color range with sRGB and Vivid color profiles, and its refresh rate is a dynamic 120 Hz making it very responsive and smooth. Also, it offers HDR support as well for a bright and sharp picture. Altogether, it offers a really good experience watching videos, reading documents and working with various office programs. The screen aspect ratio is 3:2, which offers a better view for documents or browsers.It offers Windows Hello, and I have to say that it is the ... MoreMicrosoft - Surface Pro — Copilot+ PC (Edition 11) — 13" — Snapdragon X Plus — 16GB Memory — 512GB SSD – BlackThe Surface Pro I have has the LCD IPS screen (2880 x 1920 resolution) with 266 PPI and not the more expensive OLED screen version. However, the IPS screen is beautiful, in my opinion. It has a good color range with sRGB and Vivid color profiles, and its refresh rate is a dynamic 120 Hz making it very responsive and smooth. Also, it offers HDR support as well for a bright and sharp picture. Altogether, it offers a really good experience watching videos, reading documents and working with various office programs. The screen aspect ratio is 3:2, which offers a better view for documents or browsers.It offers Windows Hello, and I have to say that it is the quickest at identifying your face than any other computer I’ve used before with Windows Hello – as soon as you see the camera blink to scan your face, it opens the screen instantly.It has two 2-watt speakers directed to the front with Dolby Atmos, and for me, the best sound I’ve heard from a 2-in-1 device, or laptop in my experience. I’m not saying there aren’t some out there with even better sound, but in my experience dealing with various tablets, laptops and 2-in-ones, it’s the best sound I’ve heard. The speakers can reach 82.4 dB without distortion and are more than loud enough to be heard in a noisy environment. But it isn’t just loudness of sound, but very good quality and richness of sound for such a device.Although there aren’t a lot of ports on the Surface Pro, the ones available are powerful. There are 2 USB-C 4 ports (fully as capable as Thunderbolt 4 ports without the Thunderbolt name, which belongs to Intel and not Microsoft). These powerful ports can be used to run Thunderbolt docks or just USB-C 4 docks for as many peripherals as you need. The Surface Pro has a proprietary charging port (65 watts and fast charging), but you can more slowly charge your Surface Pro through the lower USB-C port (lower of the two) on the left side of the device – the charging port is on the right side of the device. If you use your Surface Pro 11 as your desktop, it will power two external monitors as well plus your other devices.Regarding battery life, you can read all sorts of reports on the web about that. Suffice it to say for my part, my first day I turned on my Surface Pro 11 at 5AM with my battery at 100% and when I shut it down at 9:30PM it had 34% left. I was doing updates, allowing OneDrive to copy over everything onto my device and generally doing ordinary office work off and on during that time along with researching with the browser. Admittedly, none of this was a continuous heavy load which would have caused the battery to run down sooner. Doing more regular work during a couple of days, my battery rate looked like this: 8:19AM to 5:04 PM from 100% to 22%, 8:20 AM to 5:54PM 100% to 31%. Obviously, your battery usage will vary, but I believe that the Surface Pro 11 will get you through the normal work or class day without having to recharge assuming you’re running on battery all day. But, if you have to recharge, using the proprietary charger will have you going from about 30% to 100% in about 1.5 hours.My Surface Pro 11 comes with a speedy 512 GB SSD that is easily upgradeable through a nifty plate that comes off the back of the device located under the built-in kickstand that Surface Pro’s have been noted for since the first one. Popping open the plate shows the SSD that can be removed without opening the device further.A review of my Surface Pro 11 wouldn’t be complete without mentioning the Snapdragon X Plus processor. It is the slightly less powerful processor compared to the version offering the Snapdragon X Elite processor. I have to say that others have commented online that in ordinary use, they cannot tell the difference when using the Plus processor. I only mention that here to say that I’ve not used a Surface Pro 11 with the Elite processor, but I think the online comments are correct. If you look at the specs of both processors and watch others use them, you really can’t see a difference other than what may show on some of the bench tests. My experience with the lower priced Plus version is that the device is snappy in every respect. Windows open quickly and the various processes you set in motion do not exhibit slowness of any sort. In real world use I seriously doubt the actual user is going to be aware of the small difference between these two processors.The real point talking about the Snapdragon processors is to say that they are ARM processors and not Intel or AMD processors found on nearly every computer you’ve heard about until this year. Snapdragon ARM chips and their ilk run just as fast or even faster than x86 chips, but they require less energy and produce less heat in use – your phones and tablets generally run on ARM chips. But ARM processors require software written for them and not x86 processors. There is good availability for software to run on the Surface Pro 11 with more coming this year. I use Microsoft’s 365 Office Suite and they all run perfectly. In fact, I run a number of other programs that run properly as well. To do this in the interim requires an emulator (virtual system allowing programs written for Intel and AMD to run on the Surface Pro 11’s ARM Snapdragon chip). Those programs I use that are not written yet for ARM run perfectly fine on Microsoft’s emulator named Prism. In fact, I can’t tell the difference running these non-ARM programs on my Surface Pro 11 with Prism compared to running them on my Intel based laptop. Based on my experience, you’ll probably not find a problem running your usual stuff on the Surface Pro 11. I would also say that if you’re into heavy graphics/video/photo/audio editing or gaming, you need to check with the manufacturers of the special use software you use to see if it is compatible with ARM at this time.Lastly, a few words about AI. The Surface Pro 11 has a NPU (Neural Processing Unit – read, ‘dedicated processor for running AI work’) so it can handle AI programming separately from the work you CPU ordinarily handles. Some of the AI features available on the Surface Pro 11 are:Paint’s Cocreator – you can do a stick drawing or slightly better if you have the talent, include a bit of text input to guide it as to what you’d like, and it will produce a “better” image of what you’re trying to draw. Then you can give it a little more input to have it increase the quality of the picture you’re looking for. Certainly, the product could be used to illustrate an article if needed. Of course, just asking CoPilot (launched from your task bar) for an image based upon your text input will probably get you a better image overall.Photos App – you can do as mentioned above with your photos in the Photos app where you have a little better interface to work with on your photos.Live Captions – if you have any video to play, or you’re receiving live streaming, it will display subtitles of what is being said for you to read if needed, but if you’re not just using any computer running the web app version of CoPilot for the subtitles, the NPU on the Surface Pro 11 will enable translation of about 44 languages into English from any audio you’re receiving from a video on your device you’re watching or that is being streamed live to you through your Surface Pro 11. Sometimes the translation can hitch a bit, but that is expected with any translation software I’ve heard of.Windows Studio Effects – this AI app allows you, during video calls, to adjust your light exposure if you need additional or less light and provide automatic framing (keeping the camera on your face if you’re moving around during the video call) as well. In addition, it will show your eyes in contact with the other party(s) involved in the call even if you’re looking off to the side at notes or a teleprompter! It also offers several degrees of background blur if you don’t want your space to distract from your call or provide too much personal detail around you to others on the video call. This app works quite well in all respects, but at this time many video conferencing apps provide similar tools, so this isn’t just available through CoPilot’s AI.Here’s my bottom-line on all this: The Surface Pro 11 CoPilot + PC is a great & powerful device. The AI capability is disappointing & limited & hamstrung for such an ice-breaking device.